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So in the first part of the series of pro wrestling moves that work in MMA, we covered the bulldog. After watching the Sarah Kaufman-Roxanne Modafferi fight this past weekend on the Strikeforce Challengers 9 card it naturally led into the next move; the powerbomb. From wikipedia:

A powerbomb is a move in which an opponent is lifted up into the air and then slammed down back-first to the mat. The standard powerbomb sees the opponent placed in a standing headscissors position (bent forward with their head placed between the wrestler's thighs), lifted up on the wrestler's shoulders, and slammed back-first down to the mat.

If you've ever watched any wrestling then you know what this is. It's a perfect move in so many ways because it has all the criteria to get over. It looks great, it's rather easy to do when your opponent isn't sandbagging you and it can legitimately cause some serious damage. In fact, there have been many instances of this. Big Van Vader injured Cactus Jack with it while in WCW and he also broke Joe Thurman's back.

Of course, as with almost all moves in pro wrestling there are many variations of it. Because of how good it looks a lot of top guys used it as a finisher. The previously mentioned Vader, Sid Vicious, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Undertaker and Batista all used it in some form or another as their finishing move. Hell, with Batista wanting to come over to MMA and possibly getting to fight for Strikeforce we might get to see him finish an MMA fight with it. Yeah, I doubt it too.

Of course, in a mixed martial arts fight a guy will never just be "dazed" enough to let you powerbomb his ass. It's typically used as a line of defense against a submission attempt. In the video below you'll see one of the most famous slams in MMA history. Rampage Jackson was taking on Ricardo Arona at Pride Critical Countdown 2004. As Rampage is in Arona's guard, Ricardo is moving his legs to get into position for a triangle choke. Rampage brings his free arm around and clasps his hands together and the rest is history:

As you can see it is just a devastating move. The power of the slam drove the back of Arona's head into the mat and knocked him out, although he would later claim that he was knocked out by the ensuing headbutt. This is probably the most famous powerbomb KO in MMA history but definitely not the most recent. I mentioned previously the inspiration for this post was the slam that Sarah Kaufman delivered to Roxanne Modafferi. Video below and the slam comes at around the 23 second mark.

It's really amazing that she could get her up like that considering the positioning of Modafferi. With Rampage, Arona was tightly wrapped around him. All he had to do was put his hands together and generate the power and Arona was just along for the ride. In the case of Kaufman, you can see that Roxanne is working on the arm and trying to get her leg over. She also tries to get underneath the left leg of Kaufman. This is important because that, along with her right leg being so high, put her out of position to try and stand up instead of letting Sarah pick her up. So instead she lifts her head up and pulls guard. That just assisted Kaufman in finishing the slam and the fight. Truly a thing of beauty.