Spinning Piledriver

If nothing else, that guy's going to get really dizzy.

In real life, a piledriver is where a character grabs an upsidedown opponent and slams them into the ground headfirst. Damaging, yes, but not awesome enough.

Enter the SPINNING piledriver. In this move, the attacker grabs the opponent in midair, spins rapidly, and slams them headfirst into the ground. That one word makes one hell of a lot of difference. To be able to do this variation of the move, it generally follows a Launcher Move, but it's not required.

This is a specific type of Meteor Move, but is distinguished in that the attacker is part of the meteor. While spinning. Enough spinning could make very large holes in the ground. Ninjas seem to love this move, where it is often renamed the Izuna Drop.

Compare Hurricane Kick, Roundhouse Kick.

Examples of Spinning Piledriver include:

Anime and Manga

• The Initial Lotus in Naruto, as used by Rock Lee, Might Guy, Kakashi, etc.
• In the One Piece anime, Buggy used this as a finishing move on a Blugori. Because of how his power works, he was on the ground, while spinning the enemy in midair using his detached hands.
• Ash's Charizard's Seismic Toss attack from Pokémon. For some reason whenever Charizard gains momentum before dropping the opponent's Pokemon onto the ground, a globe will always appear.

Live Action TV

• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Megazord does this to the Dragonzord during the fifth part of "Green with Evil".

Professional Wrestling

• Justin Credible's finisher, named "That's Incredible," is a spinning belly-to-belly piledriver. This move is somewhat possible in real life.
  • In fact, starting in the WWE video game, Smack Down vs. Raw 2009, you can CREATE a Spinning Piledriver Finishing Move. It's not nearly as cool as Haggar or Zangief's Jushin Liger-style versions, but it's an actual, honest-to-goodness Spinning Piledriver. Smack Down vs. Raw 2011 probably has the best version yet - thanks to the new Corner Grapple position in Create-A-Finisher, you can make a top rope Spinning Piledriver.

Video Games

• Zangief in Street Fighter 2, who has it as a special throw command. It would later be followed by Mike Haggar from Final Fight. While Mike Haggar used the spinning clothesline first, Zangeif developed the spinning piledriver, which Haggar then copied in Final Fight 2. Both versions are the same - Zangief and Haggar grab their opponents, then jump into the air while spinning (which is physically impossible), and slam them down into the ground. Seth in 4 also has one (copied from Zangief), in a purer form. He sets it up by uppercutting the enemy in the air, and then teleporting into them for the spinning piledriver.
  • The Manual says Haggar and Zangief are Frenemies, constantly trying to one-up their trademark grapples.
• Kraidgief in I Wanna Be the Guy uses Hokuto Shinken Spinning Piledriver as a Finishing Move.
• Leo from Warzard / Red Earth has a spinning piledriver known as Gaia Driver.
• Ryu's Izuna Drop in Ninja Gaiden.
  • As well as the Underworld Drop and the Flower Garland Drop in 2, which can be considered as variants.
• The Spanish ninja Vega in Street Fighter can execute the Izuna Drop after using his special jump move and landing above his opponents' head.
• Guy in Final Fight/Street Fighter.
• Wario uses this move in Wario World.
• Can be done in the Spider-Man 2 video game - taken up to 11 in this case as its entirely possible to grab a mook from street level, swing them up to the top of the nearest skyscraper and do it from there. This includes spinning piledrivering a mook from the top of the empire state building all the way to ground level. The game even keeps track of the max number of rotations performed on the stats screen. .
• Nero in Devil May Cry 4 has an attack with his Devil Bringer that's a Homage to Zangief's Final Atomic Buster. (Both series are made by Capcom.)
• Nagase in King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 copies Hattori Hanzo from Samurai Shodown's version.
• The Shrike Rune user Kasumi in Suikoden uses this.
  • As does Sagiri from Suikoden V, also bearing the Shrike Rune. It seems to be that rune's special ability.
• Hanzo and Galford use the Izuna Drop. Galford's version can be done either while dashing, or by his dog.
• Yoshimitsu has the 'izuna drop' version as a throw from behind in the Tekken games. Armour King's Steiner Screwdriver is a mild (and RL-performable) variant where it starts with a suplex, then rotates the victim while vertical and drops. King gets one as a Finishing Move of a chain throw in Tekken 5.
• In Gundam Vs Gundam NEXT Plus, the ZZ Gundam has the standard Spinning Piledriver as one of its most damaging moves. The ninja-themed Gundam Spiegel gets the classic Izuna Drop, while Gundam Epyon has an Izuna Drop performed while in its flight mode, which is Awesome but Impractical thanks to the long recovery time afterwards.
• Morrigan of Darkstalkers, surprisingly. Odd considering she's a fairly skinny succubus, but there are signs of her strength around. She can even deliver this move to building sized characters in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
  • That jetpack she's wearing probably helps.
  • Same with Demitri, whose command throw is an Izuna Drop.
• In Okami, deflecting some attacks with a reflector equipped as a sub-weapon triggers this. It can be done against wheels and tengu, at the very least.
  • Amaterasu retains this move in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, Arf's Limit Break has her performing this move from the stratosphere.
• Kotaro's third super art in Sengoku Basara 3 is one of these. It's called, you guessed it, 'Izuna Drop'.
• In Dragonball Z Supersonic Warriors, Android 18 has a Team Ultimate when she has 17 and 16 as an assist called "Hell Spiral". 18 and 17 grab both sides of the opponent and do a double spinning piledriver, and then 16 blasts the crap out of the opponent in the resultant crater.
• In Golden Axe - Revenge of Death Adder, This can be performed as a team attack. Simply put, all four players have to attack a stunned enemy at the same time. It's the single most damaging attack in the game and works on everything. The non-spinning version can be done with just two players.