10 of History’s Most Bell-Ringing Finishing Moves

In 2019, I read the book Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by retired U.S. Navy SEAL David Goggins. From the moment I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down, and I read the whole book in one long session. Goggins is considered by many to be “the hardest man alive.” He’s the only person in history to complete three of the most demanding military training programs in the world: SEAL training, U.S. Army Ranger School, and U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Controller Training. Goggins is also an ultramarathoner who frequently runs races in excess of 100 miles (162 kilometers).

The chapter of his book that I’ll never forget is Chapter 4: “Taking Souls.” In it, Goggins talks about how the Navy SEAL program broke some of the hardest men alive and made them quit. When a person decided that they couldn’t take any more punishment, they would ring a large brass bell three times to signal their failure and their submission.

This list is all about people, things, and entities that got broken by a devastating finishing move. Every person in David Goggins’ SEAL class wanted to finish the program and earn the honor of becoming a U.S. Navy SEAL, but to do so meant that they had to endure Hell Week—130 hours of pure and living hell—and a majority of them simply didn’t have the will or stamina to do so. Likewise, every person and entity on this list wanted to win or succeed but could not stand up to the overwhelming force designed to take them down. Please sit back and relax as we learn about 10 brutal finishing moves that made the other side ring the brass bell three times.

Related:10 Ways People Reacted When They Thought the World Was Ending

10 Michael “Venom” Page Causes Power Outage in Opponent’s Brain (2016)

Everyone inherently likes the thrill of victory, but some people have a different type of brain wiring that compels them to go to extreme levels of brutality to win a battle. Michael “Venom” Page, otherwise known as MVP, is a textbook example of such a person. He’s a British mixed martial artist (MMA) who later joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), though in 2016 he was competing for Bellator when the famous knockout occurred. He combines a volatile mix of a very unorthodox fighting style and a cocky attitude that some say borders on disrespectful showboating.

MVP is best known for a catastrophic finishing move that he applied to his MMA opponent, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, during their 2016 fight. The knee is one of the most powerful and dangerous weapons on the human body because it is the focal point of the combined forces of some of the body’s largest and strongest muscles. When one strikes an opponent with their knee, the glutes, quadriceps, and core muscles are all engaged to deliver power to the kneecap.

During the 2016 fight, MVP utilized a flying knee to the skull to instantly and completely neutralize Santos. The impact was so forceful that Santos’s skull was severely fractured. To add insult to injury, MVP celebrated by pretending to capture Santos, a nod to the popular game Pokémon GO. Perhaps the most cocky part of the win was that MVP had someone pre-staged to give him the Pokémon GO prop the moment he defeated Santos.^[1]

9 Sugar Ray Robinson’s Famous One-Punch Knockout (1957)

One of the most famous sequences from 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron was the fight between the Hulk and Tony Stark in his Hulkbuster suit. The monumental fight lasted more than four minutes, and one of the most memorable scenes occurred when Stark punched the Hulk rapidly and repeatedly, saying, “Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!” Unfortunately for Stark, the beating only served to enrage the Hulk more. However, in 1957, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson was able to put his formidable opponent to sleep with one incredibly powerful punch.

On May 1, 1957, Robinson, then 35 and considered well past his prime, faced the tough-as-nails middleweight champion Gene Fullmer. Fullmer had taken the title from Robinson just four months earlier and was famous for his granite chin. He was a relentless and fearless brawler who had never been knocked out in his professional career.

For four rounds, Fullmer set a punishing pace. Then, in the fifth round, Robinson unleashed an unexpected finishing move that instantly turned off the lights for Fullmer. Having studied his opponent, Robinson knew that Fullmer tended to drop his guard when he threw a right hand punch. Robinson faked a punch, setting a trap to make Fullmer react and lower his guard. As Fullmer’s hand dropped, Robinson fired a short, perfectly timed left hook that landed flush on Fullmer’s chin.

For the first and only time in his 64-fight career, Fullmer was knocked out. Robinson, who scored over 100 career knockouts, later called it “the most perfect punch of my career.” ^[2]

8 Alligator’s Infamous Death Roll Instantly Ends Its Prey’s Suffering

The alligator’s death roll is one of nature’s most brutal and effective finishing moves. While many predators kill with a single bite or strike, crocodilians like alligators and crocodiles have a different challenge. Their jaws are built for crushing and gripping with immense force, but they lack the teeth and jaw structure needed to chew their food. To overcome this, they developed a rotational finishing move to dismember large prey.

The technique is a gruesome display of overwhelming power. An alligator will ambush its prey, often pulling it into the water, and lock it in its powerful jaws. From there, it begins to spin its entire body rapidly and relentlessly. This “death roll” generates enormous torsional force, using the water’s resistance to twist and tear the prey apart into smaller, manageable pieces that the alligator can then swallow whole.

For any animal caught in this grip, the fight is over. There is no counter, no escape, and no defense against the sheer, overwhelming physics of the roll. It is a primal example of a finishing move that leaves the opponent broken and beaten, forced to ring the bell.^[3]

7 The USS Enterprise Sends a Romulan Ship on a One-Way Journey into a Black Hole (2258)

I tried to keep as many items on this list as real-life as possible, but I had to include this one as a lifelong Star Trek fan. In my opinion, it’s one of the best movie finishing moves ever witnessed. In 2009, producer and director J.J. Abrams was coming off the massive success of the movie Cloverfield, which he produced. Star Trek, on the other hand, was on the ropes. Four years earlier, in 2005, Star Trek: Enterprise had been canceled, and for the first time in 18 years, there were no Star Trek television shows in production.

Abrams had a grand vision for the new Star Trek: the USS Enterprise would be much bigger, much faster, and much more powerful than all previous iterations. The powerful new reimagining of the starship Enterprise was put to the ultimate test against the Narada, a massive, technologically advanced Romulan mining vessel from the future. The Narada wielded its own finishing move called Red Matter, a substance capable of creating black holes, which it had already used to destroy the planet Vulcan, the homeworld of the Enterprise‘s chief science officer, Spock.

In the film’s climax, Spock, flying a small Vulcan ship armed with Red Matter, crashed directly into the Narada. The collision unleashed the Red Matter, which imploded into a black hole singularity and began to consume the enemy ship from within.

With the Narada crippled and being torn apart by the black hole, Captain Kirk offered to rescue the Romulan crew. Their captain, Nero, proudly refused the offer. In response, Captain Kirk gave the finishing move order to his bridge staff: the USS Enterprise would seal the fate of the doomed vessel with a barrage of phasers and photon torpedoes. The Narada fought fiercely but was ultimately torn apart and consumed by the black hole it had intended to use to destroy Earth.^[4]

6 Golden Eagle Tenderizes a Goat’s Meat with a Brutal Drop (2008)

Eagles are some of nature’s most cold-blooded predators, willing to go to extreme lengths to capture a meal. Their vision is about four to eight times more powerful than that of the average human: 20/5 compared to a human’s 20/20 vision. This means that an eagle can see at 20 feet (6.1 meters) what a human sees at 5 feet (1.5 meters). Their vision is so powerful that they can spot prey the size of a rabbit from two or more miles (3.2 kilometers) away.

The golden eagle, one of the largest and most powerful eagles, hunts large, sure-footed prey such as mountain goats and ibex using a brutal, strategic finishing move. When they encounter prey too large to lift (prey much over 4.4 pounds [2 kilograms] is a struggle), they don’t try to carry it. Instead, they make gravity their ally. The eagle’s massive talons strike, knock, or even drag the victim off a precarious cliff edge.

The resulting fall is typically fatal, as the prey is smashed against the valley floor below. The golden eagle then casually swoops in to retrieve its meal. The natural battle between predator and prey never ends, and the eagle’s cliffside drop is one of nature’s most effective finishing techniques.^[5]

5 Chicago Bears Quarterback Justin Fields Gets His Bell Rung (2021)

Quarterback Justin Fields was considered one of the most promising high school quarterbacks in the United States when he graduated in the class of 2018. He was drafted in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears. On August 21, 2021, during a preseason game—the Bears versus the Buffalo Bills—Fields experienced a “Welcome to the NFL” moment he’ll never forget.

In the fourth quarter, Bills linebacker Andre Smith wasn’t blocked by any of the Bears defenders. He sprinted toward an unaware Fields, whose attention was focused elsewhere. Smith violently collided with Fields, delivering a nasty, illegal helmet-to-helmet hit. The explosive impact sent Fields’ helmet flying off his head, resulting in a personal foul penalty for roughing the passer and an automatic first down for the Bears.

Smith was later fined $5,806 by the NFL for the play. Although Fields was fine and kept a level head, the incident was widely cited as his brutal introduction to the NFL. Fields realized he needed to get rid of the ball faster in the face of a blitz. Though Andre Smith later apologized for the hit on social media, Fields clearly received an important message: the National Football League is on a different level of brutality than high school or college football.^[6]

4 Rat Snatches Bat Out of Thin Air Before Finishing the Job (2020–Present)

Compared to humans, rats have extremely poor vision: they’re very nearsighted and have poor depth perception. However, they’re extremely sensitive to motion, and they often use their whiskers to sense the movement of prey. Researchers first observed this new hunting behavior in brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) in northern Germany between 2020 and 2024, with findings published in 2025.

The rats accomplished the amazing feat of snatching bats out of the air in total darkness. Scientists believe the rats rely on their sensitive whiskers to detect changes in air currents caused by the bats’ flapping wings, making up for their relative lack of sight. Captured bats—often taken from platforms near cave entrances—were eaten immediately or hoarded for later.

Nature is amazing in that new finishing moves evolve as predators adapt to changing food sources. This surprising behavior shows that a rat’s superior sense of motion and touch can overcome a bat’s ability to fly…for now.^[7]

3 Tiny French Nuclear Submarine Scores a Kill of a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier (2015)

In the art of naval warfare, a kill during wargames is still a kill because a real enemy could’ve successfully executed a similar strategy. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a massive 90,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, learned this lesson when it was hypothetically sunk by the French nuclear attack submarine Saphir in 2015.

The incident occurred during a joint exercise off the coast of Florida involving the U.S. Carrier Strike Group 12 (CSG-12), which included the $4.5 billion Theodore Roosevelt. The adversary wasn’t a modern foe; it was the Saphir, a tiny, older Rubis-class nuclear attack submarine—one of the world’s smallest SSNs. Its mission was to penetrate the Roosevelt’s massive layered defenses, which included multiple escort ships and a U.S. nuclear submarine.

Through stealth and expert maneuvering, the French submarine successfully evaded every anti-submarine warfare (ASW) measure. It slipped past the entire screen undetected, attained a simulated firing solution, and was credited with sinking the Theodore Roosevelt and four escort ships.

The humiliating result was a major wake-up call, revealing a critical vulnerability in U.S. Navy ASW capabilities. The French Navy’s blog post announcing the simulated victory was quickly removed from the Internet, but the message endures: in the silent game of the deep, small warriors can defeat giants.^[8]

2 Army Ants Neutralize and Eat Any Foe (2012)

Whoever came up with the name “army ants” must have observed these natural warriors carefully before choosing an appropriate title. The term doesn’t apply to one species: there are more than 200 species that share the army ant characteristics—fierce warriors that move and attack as a coordinated unit. When they collectively decide to attack prey, it’s typically lights out for the unlucky victim.

When army ants choose their target, they first overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Then they use their large, scissor-like mandibles to slice the prey apart while simultaneously deploying defensive chemicals that help break down soft tissues. The finishing move of the army ant is not a single strike but an overwhelming, relentless assault that neutralizes the prey instantly. Almost completely blind, they detect prey by movement. Once something is detected, the entire colony mobilizes.

A 2012 National Geographic video vividly demonstrates the capability of army ants to disable and consume their prey. If you see an angry unit of army ants approaching, you’d better rapidly accelerate in the opposite direction.^[9]

1 One-Punch Knockout Sends Boxer Maurice Harris to an Astral Plane (1999)

When a boxer gets hit so hard that he immediately enters a blissful state of transcendental meditation, it might be time to reconsider career options. On November 6, 1999, heavyweight Maurice Harris was devastated by a powerful left hook that likely left him unsure where he was, what he was doing, or even what his name was. Harris was a formidable opponent, but the third round quickly became his final stand against the overwhelming force that was Derrick “Smoke” Jefferson, a contender who brought legitimate concussive power into the ring every time he stepped through the ropes.

Like an apex predator, Jefferson sensed weakness in his opponent. Harris was wobbling and hurt. It was time to finish him, and Jefferson was determined to turn off the lights. The most effective weapon is one that instantaneously incapacitates the enemy combatant, and Jefferson’s left hand left no doubt of Harris’ submission. There was no need for the referee to count; the fight was over.

As Harris crashed to the canvas in a frightening heap, his face appeared serene, as though he had entered a happy place, completely unaware of the world around him. The punch sent Harris’ mouthguard flying violently—a physical representation of his complete surrender to the unyielding laws of physics. The brutal knockout is widely considered one of the greatest in boxing history.^[10]