Piledriver (professional wrestling)

Notable wrestlers who have regularly used a piledriver during their career include Jerry Lawler, Bret Hart, Harley Race, Paul Orndorff, Abismo Negro, The Undertaker, Kane, The Brain Busters, Buddy Rogers, Minoru Suzuki, Karl Gotch, Danny Davis, and Kazuchika Okada.

The piledriver is generally considered a dangerous maneuver in wrestling because of the potential impact on the head and compression of the neck.

If done in this manner, the wrestler receiving the move will land with little or no contact made with the mat, and thus not run the risk of injury.

In a match between Owen Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hart was to perform a reverse piledriver on Austin, who later said that he was not sure if the move was a good idea to perform, as he was unsure if his head could properly be protected.

The physical demands of Austin's standing as one of the top stars in the WWF did not allow much downtime for him to rest and take care of the injury, and as his career progressed, the damage got worse.

By 2002, Austin's doctors told him that he risked permanent disability if he did not retire, and he finally did so in April 2003.

[6] The piledriver was officially banned in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as the WWE) in 2000, unless the wrestler has special permission to use the move.

[5] In a discussion in 2007, Stephanie McMahon said that only two wrestlers were allowed to use the move, "two of the stronger guys", Undertaker and Kane.

It is also considered an automatic disqualification in professional wrestling matches held in Tennessee, as the move is banned in that state.

The move is executed from an Argentine backbreaker rack (face up, with the neck and one leg cradled) position.

He also has a cutthroat version (draping one of the opponent's arm across their neck, similarly to the setup of a Cobra Clutch) called Psycho Driver III.

The user then shifts their weight to suddenly roll backward until they are prone, pulling the opponent behind them so that their neck hits the ground in a fluid motion.

An aerial version of this technique was innovated by Manami Toyota as the Victory Star Drop.

The wrestler then drops to a seated position, driving the head and upper back of the opponent into the ground.

The user of this move first starts by putting the opponent into a pumphandle position, then lifting them into the air perpendicular to the ground and upside down, rotating them so that their back is against the chest.

The user then proceeds to fall to a seated position, while dropping the opponent onto their head, neck, and/or shoulders.

The namesake of the move is a tribute to Mitsuharu Misawa, as it's a hybrid of a Tiger Driver and the Tiger Driver '91 (Misawa's innovated and seldom used big match finisher; a double underhook into a kneeling-release neck-first powerbomb).

The Tiger Driver '98 was used by ROH legend Jay Briscoe as the Jay-Driller, and is used by IMPACT wrestler Josh Alexander as the C4 Spike, and Eddie Edwards as one of his signature moves.

[12] The move was invented by Megumi Kudo, dubbing it the Kudome Valentine, and is used by various wrestlers such as Homicide, Cheerleader Melissa, Shane Helms, Ryusuke Taguchi and Cody Rhodes.

It was banned by WWE in April 2003, except for in cases in which the wrestler received special permission to use the move.

A double underhook variation exists in which the arms of a bent over opponent are placed in a butterfly prior to performing the flip.

There is a diving variation from the second rope, Adam Cole uses this move calling it the Panama Sunrise.

According to Petey Williams, the move was suggested to him in 2003 while travelling to an IWA Mid-South show along with Chris Sabin and Truth Martini.

[15] Also known as a stump piledriver and Cactus Driver (after Cactus Jack, one of Mick Foley's alter egos), this is a variation of piledriver where, instead of wrapping their arms around the opponent's waist, a wrestler grabs onto the back of the waistband of an opponent's tights to lift them upside down before dropping into a sitting position.

Havok of Impact Wrestling uses this move which was later dubbed the Sick Driver when portraying her Jessicka character.

Other famous practitioners include Dynamite Kid, Satoru Sayama, Don Muraco, Matt Riddle (during his independent circuit wrestling), Owen Hart, and Kazuchika Okada.

Masakatsu Funaki uses a variation of the move, known as the Hybrid Blaster, where he places one of the opponent's arms in a hammerlock before delivering the piledriver.

Kris Statlander, Kota Ibushi, Konosuke Takeshita, "Hangman" Adam Page, Mariah May and Xia Brookside also use a cradle variant.

The wrestler then jumps up and falls down to a sitting position, driving the opponent down to the mat neck and shoulder first.

Naomichi Marufuji invented a fisherman suplex variation called Pole Shift.