In most pro wrestling matches, the clothesline is a strictly transitional move, not the climax of the fight. You stick out your arm and run at someone, and that person falls down. It’s not that serious. But the big Texan John Bradshaw Layfield’s Clothesline From Hell was a different story. As with fellow Texan Stan Hansen, Bradshaw’s lariat looked like it took people’s heads off. Opponents sold that move like it was an apocalyptic event, and commentator Jim Ross made a meal out of the phrase “Clothesline From Hell.” Bradshaw himself went through lots of incarnations — wrestling cowboy to occult henchman to beer-swilling brawler to evil cowboy-hat tycoon — but he never lost the Clothesline From Hell. Now, there’s a new Jobber song named after that move.
