The Shining Wizard is a professional wrestling move used by Japanese professional wrestler Keiji Mutoh of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, who is better known to North American fans as The Great Muta. The Shining Wizard is a knee to the head and is generally used as a finisher by Mutoh. In the last year or so, however, indy wrestlers in the US have begun using the move as well, and even The Hurricane of WWE uses it, where it is generally called by WWE announcers as the "Japanese Shining Wizard". Mutoh created the move and started using it in the year 2000.

The actual move is very simple. The victim is down on one knee. Mutoh runs at the victim, and uses one leg to vault off of the victim's knee. Mutoh then rams his other knee into the victim's face. It can either look extremely silly or extremely brutal, depending on the execution.

In terms of ring psychology, the Shining Wizard is a surprisingly fragile move. The setup position (the victim being on one knee) is not really that difficult to get someone into, and the move can look underwhelming at times. As a result, the booking must be done so as to protect it as a finisher. The psychology is usually built around Mutoh working to get his opponent into position by working over a leg, making it difficult to stand. Additionally, Mutoh must daze his opponent to an extent, as the Shining Wizard can be countered much in the way of the Roaring Elbow, lariat, or jumping high kick, by absorbing the force of the blow with the forearms. It is used much like other striking finishers in that it is not uncommon for Mutoh to use it multiple times in a match in different situations. Due to the amount of protection this move needs in booking to make sure the fans buy it as a finisher, nobody but a big name like Keiji Mutoh could really consider using it seriously. In the US, it's used generally by cruiserweight wrestlers, who have little influence over booking, and so it's really not used very well at all. It's not treated as a credible finisher, and they don't use any real psychology in building up to it.

Amongst North American fans of puroresu, the Shining Wizard has attained a near-mythic status if only because of the bizarrely grandiose name it sports. I'd like to be able to explain its name, but unfortunately I don't speak or read Japanese and I'm not sure I'd find out the origin if I did. Like the Miracle Ecstacy, I think that this one is most likely chalked up to the Japanese fascination with putting two vaguely related English words together.

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