The tarantula Rope Backbreaker is a spectacular women’s wrestling submission hold made popular by TNA’s Tara (WWE’s Victoria) who used the hold often on her opponents. The Tarantula rope backbreaker is a relatively complicated hold, and there’s one major problem with it: is uses the ring ropes. While it is supposed to be a submission maneuver, it can’t really be used for an actual submission in a women’s pro wrestling match, because the victim cannot submit while she’s in the ropes (or she can, but it won’t count).

Anyway, the tarantula rope backbreaker’s spectacular nature makes up for this tiny slip-up.

The attacker starts out by sitting on the top turnbuckle. As the would-be victim charges her, she picks her legs up then gets it around the victim’s arms/upper body. She then turns onto the top rope so her stomach’s on it and turns the victim with her too, so that the victim is now facing the inside of the ring. The attacker then dives (slips) over the top rope while maintaining her scissors and grabs hold of the victim’s legs at the ankles, effectively getting her up off the ground and suspending her in the ropes. The victim can then pull her opponent all the way through, so her lover back is bent over the top ring rope.

Possible escape: as most of the really complicated women’s pro wrestling holds, the Tarantula Rope backbreaker requires cooperation from the victim, and quite a lot of it actually. If she so chooses, the victim can pretty much disrupt the hold any time she wants to, the way she wants to.

Rating: while extremely spectacular (and as such, a very useful component of the women’s pro wrestling holds and moves arsenal) the tarantula rope backbreaker is not really an efficient hold, for the above named reasons. The hold is mostly used to weaken the victim’s back before an actual submission hold is applied.