A Piledriver is a
wrestling driver move in which the wrestler grabs his opponent, turns him upside-down, and drops into a sitting or kneeling position, driving the opponent's head into the mat.
The most common piledrivers are the
basic belly-to-back, or
Texas piledriver, and the belly-to-belly tombstone piledriver popularized by The Undertaker, but many more intricate variants are in use.
Piledrivers are generally considered to be one of the more dangerous maneuvers in
wrestling because of the impact on the head and compression of the neck; if even slightly botched, the move can cause serious injury, even paralysis. A standard kayfabe piledriver properly done has the head barely touching the ground, if at all.
A standard piledriver is banned in World
Wrestling Entertainment, although they are still used on rare occasions. It is also considered an automatic disqualification in pro
wrestling matches held in Memphis,
Tennessee, as the move is banned in that city. (Jerry Lawler, a wrestler and promoter in that city, uses a piledriver as one of his finishing moves.) In some promotions in the United Kingdom, the move can result in not only a disqualification, but a fine. In Mexico, the piledriver (called a Martinete) is an automatic disqualification. A Martinete generally refers to the tombstone piledriver and/or its variations, but it is also used for other variations.
