Mortal Kombat is a fighting video game series built around timed one-on-one matches using kicks, punches and character-specific special moves, but what turned it into internet fodder is the finisher system. When an opponent's health hits zero, the announcer barks "Finish Him" and the winner has a few seconds to input a hidden button combo for a fatality, a gruesome cinematic kill like a spinal rip or a decapitation3. Later games layered on animalities, brutalities, hara-kiris and even a friendship where fighters give each other cakes instead of killing3.

By 2012 the roster had grown to 64 characters, including Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Liu Kang, Kitana, Shao Kahn and even crossover fighters from DC Comics3. Two of them carry most of the meme weight online. Scorpion's spear-throw taunt "Get Over Here!" is quoted constantly in gaming blogs and YouTube compilations, and the yellow-ninja-vs-blue-ninja rivalry with Sub-Zero became the visual shorthand for the whole franchise, notably in the snowy forest trailer NetherRealm used to reveal Mortal Kombat X in 20141.

As a meme, Mortal Kombat is typically invoked in two ways. The first is the "Finish Him" template, where users pair the announcer's shouted line with any lopsided beatdown, a sports blowout, a debate clip or a cat pouncing on another cat, then imply the follow-up fatality. The second is the Scorpion "Get Over Here!" spear yank, which often gets edited into videos where someone is dramatically pulled toward the camera. Fatality parodies commonly cut in the original 16-bit blood spray or the "FATALITY" text over an unrelated knockout.