Video: Contender Series fight ends with tombstone piledriver

Well that was interesting.

The worlds of MMA and pro wrestling will forever be intertwined. Both attractions were developed by the ancients, transformed by carneys and culminated in mainstream mega-industries.

We’ve seen lots of wrestlers and fighters switch between the ring and cage, including former UFC champions Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. And many current UFC stars have expressed their fondness for the WWE and hopes that they might finish their athletic careers there some day.

Among the wrestling fans currently competing in the UFC is middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. For the walkout for his last bout, ‘The Last Stylebender’ emulated WWE Hall of Famer The Undertaker.

Both Adesanya and the Undertaker might get a kick out of what happened on the Contender Series last night. On that show one fighter was able to finish their bout with a move that looked very similar to the Undertaker’s famous finishing move — the tombstone piledriver.

Check it out.

The clip shows Darrius Flowers trapped in a reverse triangle attempt from Armian Gogoladze. To escape the hold Flowers stands and then falls to his knees, dropping Gogoladze on his head. Gogoladze then signals to the referee to end the fight, revealing an injured shoulder resulting from the impact.

Officially the win goes down as a TKO slam, but it’s more fun to call it a tombstone. The win earned Flowers, along with all the other fighters who scored finishes on the card, a UFC contract.

Piledriver like manoeuvres, where someone’s head and neck are deliberately spiked into the ground, are usually illegal in MMA. However, that action is permissible when defending a submission.

This isn’t the first time a pro wrestling move has popped up in the MMA cage. Who can forget that, back in 2017, a fighter finished his opponent with a Boston Crab.