The Undertaker has been synonymous with his finisher, The Tombstone Piledriver, throughout his legendary WWE career. In a new interview with FOX Sports‘ Ryan Satin this week he was asked about the origins of the move, as well as what he believed was his most memorable time hitting the iconic move. “The Deadman” explained that the move’s name was a collaborative effort between a group of people backstage when he was first developing the character, with the idea that dropping a heavy tombstone on top of a grave was a similar visual to what he was doing to his opponent.
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As for his most memorable Tombstone — “I’m going to say Mark Henry. Because just of his sheer size, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it or not. My number one goal, always, is to protect my opponent. I think the world of Mark and I knew at that particular time I was strong and healthy, but he was a really big dude when I tombstoned him. I was so proud of myself that I had him, I tombstoned him, I didn’t hurt him and we had a fairly decent match along with it.”
Undertaker and Henry worked numerous times together throughout the 2000s with their most famous match coming at WrestleMania 22 when “The Deadman” kept his streak alive by beating “The World’s Strongest Man” in a Casket Match. For as devastating as The Tombstone looked, wrestlers rarely suffered injuries while taking the move. However, as Undertaker recalled in a 2020 interview with ESPN, Hulk Hogan claimed he was hurt by the move at Survivor Series 1991 when Undertaker beat him for the WWF Championship. However, Taker eventually watched the tape back and saw that Hogan’s head was nowhere near the mat when he landed.
“Finally I got to San Antonio and I was like, ‘Terry, I watched it back, your head never hit.’ He’s like, ‘Well, brother, what it was was you had me so tight, that when we came down, I had nowhere to move, and that’s what jammed my neck because I couldn’t move at all.’ It was too tight. At that point, I was like, OK. Then I knew. I was like, OK, I kinda realized, I know what you’re all about, and that’s all I needed,” he said.
