It's rare to see something wholly new in professional wrestling. In the early 2000s, the top American promotions consolidating within WWE created a burgeoning landscape of indies. With continued influence from Japan and Mexico, workers on the American independent wrestling scene pushed the boundaries to achieve things once deemed humanly impossible.

After wrestlers like Hayabusa and 2 Cold Scorpio established high-flying maneuvers like the 450 Splash (OK fine, technically Scott Steiner invented it) and the Phoenix Splash, independent workers continued to dream up even more outlandish aerial feats. 

Enter: the Double Moonsault. That is: a double backflip — nearly two full rotations in the air, ending in a splash.

I've long been fascinated with this move, due in some part to the fact that I came of age as a wrestling fan amid the 2000s-era indies. We're always seeing variations on maneuvers and new contexts for existing moves, but witnessing a transition from a far-fetched idea into reality has always given the Double Moonsault a sort of mystical quality. The high level of risk, the fact that so few people performed the move, and its rarity in modern wrestling only bolsters this feeling. It kind of came and went.

I spoke with some high flyers in the wrestling world who broke into the business around this time and eventually hit Double Moons of their own. It's a fairly small club.

We agreed that the first documented instance of the maneuver in wrestling occurred on Nov. 1, 2003. At Ring of Honor's Elizabeth, New Jersey event with the extremely normal name of "Main Event Spectacles," Jack Evans debuted by scaling the cage and flipping for two full rotations before landing on many men below.

"Jack Evans is a fucking psychopath for even entertaining the thought of doing it to the outside like that," Andrew Everett explains. "Jack is one of one. He's probably up there among the most athletic, body-control wrestlers I've ever seen." Years later, Everett would join the club with one of the cleanest Double Moonsaults in the sport. He's also one of the few who dared to attempt it from the top rope into the ring.

Michigan-based retired wrestler Flip Kendrick cited Jack's initial leap from the cage as an inspiration to pursue wrestling. "Jack Evans is the first person that I saw do it. I trained in gymnastics in high school — I didn't have high-level gymnastics training, but when I saw Jack Evans doing that Double Moonsault, I wanted to get into wrestling as well. Flipping kind of came simultaneously, as opposed to someone who started doing gymnastics when they were young and later chose to pursue wrestling."

Though Jack pioneered the maneuver, I'm not sure I'd describe his execution of the move as graceful. Still, like in any artform, it requires someone to take a risk and make that first try, even if it's a bit awkward. After all, the move simply didn't exist until 2003. And yet, here we were — what was once an idea was now occurring before our very eyes on VHS and DVD. Evans continued to make subsequent attempts with varying levels of success. 

About two years later, ROH booked Jack in another Scramble Cage match, where he once again climbed to the top of the structure to hit a Double Moonsault. This time, there were fewer people waiting below. Though Abyss saved Jack's life here, I'm pretty sure you can still hear his head clonk off the ground on impact:

Jack didn't need a cage to try for the Double Moonsault, either. At least, I think he was going for it here, at ROH's The Future is Now in June 2005. Miraculously, he didn't break his ankles on the guard rails, and it's completely baffling that he'd attempt the move with such a small landing area.

He may have also attempted it here in February 2006. Tough to say. 

Jack continued to put his body on the line with various high-flying feats for years, but I'm unsure if he attempted a Double Moonsault again after this period. Fortunately, a new crop of wrestlers took his inspiration and began performing the move. Chief among them was the current AEW National Champion, Ricochet.

Though Jack Evans seems to have pioneered the Double Moonsault, Ricochet elevated the maneuver by hitting it consistently and with precision. Even in his younger days with a head full of hair and a smaller frame, the sheer height he achieved allowed you to enjoy watching without having to worry about it going wrong. Check out how long he's in the air for this thing:

And to be fair, it did go wrong a few times for Ricochet as people failed to catch him, but never in a way that created any injuries or long-term damage. As Ricochet's status continued to grow in the independent wrestling world, he brought the move around the world to stunned audiences, especially in Dragongate.

Ultimately, after signing with WWE, he hit arguably the highest-profile Double Moonsault in wrestling history at NXT's Takeover: War Games. Slightly older at this point, and after putting on significantly more muscle, he hit a clean Doubler off the cage, rather than the top rope. Apologies for the gigantic, intrusive, tacky ad for a defunct service that covers this clip in a way that only WWE could deliver:

Ricochet recently appeared on the Chris Van Vliet podcast, where he was asked about the Double Moonsault from War Games. Van Vliet asks, "Will you ever do the Double Moonsault again?" 

"I mean, probably not. I'm not 26 anymore, I'm 36. [...] I'd have to practice it. When you've had 20 minutes in a match, you're standing on the rope, and you're gasping for air, it's a lot different."

Flip Kendrick shared a similar sentiment about employing the move during a match rather than in training. "I had never done it off the top rope into the ring in a match. I mean, in training, yeah." 

I'm also curious about wrestlers who have tried the move in training, but never in a real-world scenario. Nearly 14 years ago, Will Ospreay uploaded footage of a Double Moonsault he hit during practice to his personal YouTube account. The description reads:

To the best of my knowledge and research, however, Will never attempted or hit one in a match proper. Sorry, Will — I know people rag on you for Doing Too Much, but you're gonna have to do a Little Bit More if you want to make it into the club.

Flip Kendrick sought to put his own spin on the maneuver, rather than emulate Ricochet. "My attempt to do it differently," he explains, "was to stick the landing on my feet on the outside so I could celebrate. Nobody had done that." 

In 2009, Kendrick crossed paths with Ricochet in a three-way match for Insanity Pro Wrestling, along with Carter Gray — another member of the Double Moonsault club.

“The scene was so seemingly small back then, so it was easy to know who was pushing the boundaries and when. Double Moonsaults were only attempted by four or five guys at that point, and that night for IPW, three of them were in the same match,” Carter tells me. “I wanted to hear the absurdity of the statement from a vet who says, ‘Hey, good shit out there, but there were probably too many Double Moonsaults.’”

Of course, all three of them hit their Double Moonsault in the match. They didn't all go off without a hitch, however:

"I hurt myself twice doing it," Kendrick remembers. "In the three-way [...] I went straight up and down as opposed to going out, slammed my face on the apron, and cut my eyebrow open."The spectre of the move going catastrophically wrong still loomed large, but without having seen it go harrowingly awry, a truly traumatic outcome remained almost theoretical at the time. Jack Evans had some close calls, and Ricochet managed to find the floor a few times, but so far, so good. 

Still, what of their opponents? The people who, in certain situations, lie flat on their backs awaiting another human to cascade down upon them from such a great height?

"National Pro Wrestling Day — that got me the most attention," Andrew Everett explains. Wrestling as Chiva Kid at the time, he wore a mask with mesh screens over his eyes. "That mask in particular cut off a lot of my peripheral vision. I'd hit the Double Moonsault three or four times on smaller shows perfectly, but [...] that second rotation, you kind of lose where you are a little bit. I couldn't really see that rotation, and I clipped [Trevor’s] jaw with my knee, and I broke his jaw."

"After Trevor, I never hit it on anyone again, and that was my personal preference. It messed me up for a bit. I had no problem still hitting the move and landing on the mat. I could still hit it cleanly with them rolling away. Several wrestlers asked me to land on them with it, but I didn't want to feel like that again. I don't want to hurt anyone." 

Years later, following an ACL reconstruction, Andrew also crossed paths with Ricochet in PWG at the Reseda National Guard Armory. The two had a compelling match in which Everett fought to prove himself as the top high flyer in the game. Nearing the end of the bout, he heads to the top rope for the Double Moonsault. With a repaired ACL, he takes flight for the two rotations, made even more impressive by the inclusion of a knee brace.

"Looking back on it, it was the last time I did it in a match. And it's crazy to think that I did it with the knee brace on, because that thing is heavy and restrictive. Am I the only person to ever do a Double Moonsault with the Stone Cold knee brace on? Maybe."

Even the best wrestlers in the world had trouble landing it. At night one of PWG's All Star Weekend V in 2007, El Generico defended the promotion's World Championship against Pac, who many regard as the greatest high flyer in modern wrestling. They truly try every idea they have, and 99% of them actually work. Pac's Double Moonsault attempt, however, does not.

Thank you to Rob Naylor for remembering this one and sending it my way. And no, I'm not going to mention anything about gravity remembering Pac here. I'm not doing that, and you're not currently reading that. He was a few inches away from catastrophic injury but managed to continue rotating to walk away unscathed.

In the early 2010s, Charade broke onto the scene as an exciting new high flyer out of AR Fox's and Mr. Hughes' WWA4 school. He later appeared in Chikara as Shynron/Shenron. 

On September 3, 2012, Charade made his Beyond Wrestling debut at their Beyond Armory Amore event against Black Baron as part of a 13-match card, because of course it was. During the match, Charade attempted a Double Moonsault, and it finally went horrifyingly wrong. He under-rotates, landing full force on his face under the weight of his body. I'm going to link to it rather than embed the video, because it's truly, truly horrific. Watch at your own discretion.

Charade fractured his skull in the process. The footage went viral in whatever way things went viral in 2012, appearing on World Star, TruTV, and Tosh.O. Aside from the horror of Charade's body twisting with immense force at such an unfortunate angle, the energy of the room shifting from excitement to silent shock really makes it so striking. Most people who experience this type of traumatic event may not even survive or walk again.

Charade, however, was wrestling again after just six months. He shared his perspective on the event in a 2013 YouTube video titled "Charade's Double Moonsault Epiphany," stating:"Six months later, I was back in the ring again. Six months later, I had more stories, more things to share with the world. Almost losing your life is a very humbling experience. You start looking at life a little differently, living life a little differently, soaking things in more. Everything could have ended right there, so I'm going to do my best to make sure that I impact the world like I want to."

Charade's injury may have a chilling effect on the business, as both fans and workers were now faced with the reality of the risk associated with the move.

Andrew Everett remembers from this time, "It's Mania weekend in New Jersey [...] My first match as Andrew Everett, first match without a mask. I was a young, dumb kid. There was a wrestler on the Shimmer show after ours that I was talking to at the time. I'm asking myself 'Oh, what would impress a girl? I know she's going to be getting here at some point.' So it's time to do the Double Moonsault, I get set and give a quick look at the crowd. I look over, and… she hasn't arrived yet. The person I do see is Charade at the gimmick table, wearing a neck brace. Oh my God. The move that I'm about to do, he almost killed himself doing it."

Charade now wrestles as Aerial Van Go and continues to perform the Double Moonsault, though it appears he now dives to the floor with it. Still, I can't help but wonder where this move disappeared to. It's genuinely surprising that young wrestlers looking to make a name for themselves haven't attempted it in recent years.

"I think the young guys these days, in some ways, are smarter now and they know how to get just as big of a reaction without endangering themselves quite so significantly," Everett tells me. "It's their thought processes, though. I would have never been smart enough to even think of trying some of the stuff they're doing. Komander, the stuff he comes up with — that's what I'm impressed with. I would have never in a million years thought of it."

Though I wasn't looking to document every single instance of a Double Moonsault for this piece, I think it's only fair to create a list of those who have hit the move during an actual match. If you know of someone else, please contact me, and I will gladly update the story. 

And now, just for housekeeping purposes, I wanted to include some other Double Moonsaults I encountered while working on this piece. A big thanks to the YouTuber channel "ShootingStardust630," who hasn't uploaded anything in years, for preserving some of the wildest high-flying moves in wrestling history, many of them crispy as hell in glorious 240p.

A video on this channel shows backyard wrestlers JDK and Chris Chaos landing a few Double Moons, along with a credit to "ReezyProductions." Ruzty, an Australian backyarder, also appears to have hit a few Doublers as early as 2006. It feels right to make a separate category for the backyard, though, separate from indies. 

The channel also shows independent wrestler Anthrax (also known as Paulie Denali) getting some real distance on a Double Moonsault in the Northern California-based Total Wrestling Federation back in 2010.

A list of people who have attempted and landed a Double Moonsault in a professional wrestling match:

Jack Evans
Ricochet
Pac
Andrew Everett
Flip Kendrick
Carter Gray
Aerial Van Go
Pac
Paulie Denali (!)

Matt Whittle is a freelance editor and writer who has covered subjects such as education, healthcare, and wine. He also records music under the name Seagulls.