The Contentious Ten 03.01.10: Undertaker's Streak Matches

Posted by Aaron Hubbard on 03.01.2010

From his personal war with Kane at Wrestlemania XIV to stealing the show with Batista at Wrestlemania XXIII, from putting Orton in his place at Wrestlemania XXI to crushing the dreams of Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XXV, these are the matches that make The Undertaker's Wrestlemania Undefeated Streak the stuff of legend.

Not a lot of comments worth mentioning this week, as most of them were either affirmation of what I said, or a misunderstanding of what a disappointing match is. It is a match where you expected something special, either a quality main event, an all time classic, or a spectacle, and it just failed to deliver. However, here's a few that peaked my interest.

How thick are some of the commenters - it's not worst, it's most disappointing. Big difference!!!

I actually think Lesnar v Angle might deserve to go on there. Those two had phenomenal matches, but WM 19 was not their night, although there were obviously circumstances around that.

Although Hubbard was only 13 at the time, so he won't really understand.

Posted By: Guest#1447

Well, I actually thought Wrestlemania 19 was their best match, but to each his own. HOWEVER, this does rank as one of my personally most disappointing matches. At the time, I was part of the Rose Hill Middle School Wrestling Team (GO ROCKETS!), and well, REAL wrestlers don't exactly care for pro wrestlers. I was hoping that Angle, the Olympic Gold Medalist, and Lesnar, the two-time NCAA champion, would have a mat-wrestling clinic that evoked the amatuer style, so that I could shove it in their faces. Instead, they had a very WWE-ish pro wrestling match with some suplexes thrown in. It's a great pro wrestling match, but it's one of those things that just made it clear how different the two worlds are.

So yeah, I actually had more investment in that match because I was a middle-school amatuer wrestler. I didn't think it really deserved to be on the list, I just had more personal investment in it.

Most disappointing?
Money in the Bank, all of them.

Posted By: Shelton Benjamin Fan

I feel your pain. Maybe this year, since the whole thing seems to be losing it's purpose.

I think you would enjoy matches better if you lost the elitist smark attitude towards wrestling. Forget the psychologies, the work rate, the whtever that makes a match good even if 2 vanilla midgets go at it..
Just enjoy it unadulterated entertainment. Loosen up a little.

Posted By: smarky mark

No amount of mark-washing could make me enjoy a Sid match. No amount of loosening up could fix the fact that Orton vs. Triple H was one of the worst booked matches in Wrestlemania history. And by the way, I DID enjoy that match and have it sitting at ***1/2. I am probably the biggest mark on this site (Double checks: Nope, Wilcox is still writing for the music session).

I enjoy pro-wrestling and have very few biases. I don't like when wrestlers who have two minutes worth of work in them get twenty minutes. I don't like watching Luchadors throw meaningless flips, dives and armdrags out only to win on some random roll-up. And I don't like watching blood feuds settled with "wrestling". Oh, and I don't like inane storylines that make zero sense and insult my intelligence. That's about it. Other than that, if it's wrestling, I enjoy it.

Remember, you're talking to a guy who almost died laughing watching the Jerry Springer segment. I'm loose enough.

hogan/warrior II-halloween havoc
hogan/sting-starcade
HHH vs scott steiner-royal rumble
hogan vs flair-for the very first time

Posted By: rey

None of those matches happened at Wrestlemania, and thus would have a very difficult time being on the Most Disappointing Wrestlemania Matches.

Orton vs HHH last year wasn't too bad of a match. It's just people want 5 star classics every second of every show, and that just wasn't going to happen.

Posted By: Miz says Really?

I can't think of anyone who expects or wants a show where the matches are consistently higher than ***. Honestly, all a show would have to do to get a perfect ten from me is have a ***** match, two **** matches, two ***1/2 matches, and no crap. Just the thought of watching three hours of ***** matches is exhausting.

HOWEVER, we do have the right to expect a ****+ match in the main event of the biggest show of the year. And Triple H vs. Orton was slow, uninspired, poorly booked, the wrong man went over, and there was nothing at all special or Wrestlemania worthy about the match. Unacceptable for a Wrestlemania Main Event. If it had happened at Judgment Day, people wouldn't have cared as much.



No honorable mentions this week, because let's face it, the rest of the matches pretty much all suck.

X
Undertaker vs. Jake "The Snake" Roberts
Wrestlemania VIII, 2-0


While I certainly view The Streak as something important to wrestling and worth highlighting, the truth of the matter is that Undertaker has only had eight good matches at Wrestlemania, and most of them have been fairly recent. Of course, when you have to face duds like King Kong Bundy, Psycho Sid, and The Giant Gonzales, that's understandable. So basically, I had to pick the best of the other nine and put them here in the first two slots. This was Undertaker's first real challenge and Jake Roberts' last hurrah as a major star. The match wasn't particular amazing, as the Phenom's offense was anything but phenomenal at this point in time. The most significant parts of the match is Taker doing the Zombie Sit-Up after a DDT, and hitting a Tombstone on the floor, a spot which I'm surprised he hasn't used much since then (this year would be a great year to bust it out).

Perhaps more importantly, this was Undertaker's first major match as a babyface after over a year of playing the unfeeling, unstoppable monster heel. Taker was over with the audience from day one, but this was the point where they really embraced him. He went from being a scary guy with a cool gimmick to arguably the top draw in the company within a few years time. Almost since this point, the big selling points for fans has been the champion and Undertaker. You can trace that all back here to this very important match.

IX
Undertaker vs. Kane
Wrestlemania XX, 12-0


If there was ever more of a foregone conclusion than Undertaker beating Kane at Wrestlemania XX, I've yet to see it. Oh, and this match is pretty freaking bad, outside of Kane countering Old School with a Chokeslam in a cool spot. Really, the whole thing didn't even need to be an official match, as Undertaker could have just returned and beat Kane down, hit the Tombstone and left and the crowd would have gone nuts for it. And that's kind of why the quality of the match and obviousness of the result don't really matter all that much. It's Undertaker coming back as the Deadman, with the smoke, the music, the druids, the trenchcoat, Paul Bearer, the whole nine, in Madison Square Garden, hitting all his big spots and getting his revenge on Kane at the twentieth Wrestlemania. Things truly all began again here for Taker and the match makes the list for pure sentimental value.

In case you've ever wondered what goes through my head in a typical day, I compared this match and the Undertaker's entrance to Darth Vader's first breath in Revenge of the Sith to my friend Kenneth Uphoff. Sure, pretty much everything surrounding it sucks, but it's the freaking Undertaker/Darth Vader. This then lead to a question of who would win in a fight between the two, and we decided that Vader, being a lovesick podracer at heart, would flee in terror and ask Shawn Michaels if he was an angel. This led to a bizarre conversation in my head between Vader and Kane at a "Burn Victims Anonymous" meeting, that went something like this:

Kane: So, why are you here?
Darth: My best friend cut off three of my limbs and left me to burn alive on a gigantic volcanic planet. Then I became an asthmatic who wears a bucket on my head who can't use the Force as well as I could.
Kane: That's rough man.
Darth: So, what about you?
Kane: My brother set my house on fire, burning my parents alive and I spent the next twenty years of my life wearing a mask because a fat mortician told me I had burned my face to a crisp. But I also took time to kill a cheerleader in my wild college party days because I couldn't drive stick shift. Then I boned her.
Darth: Hah, I boned Natalie Portman.
Kane: You got me beat then.
Darth: I miss Padme.
Kane: I miss Katie Vick.
Darth: You're the only one.

VIII
Undertaker vs. Ric Flair
Wrestlemania X-8, 10-0


All due respect to the rest of the match, and I will give it, but my favorite part of that match happens at about 1:40 in that video when Taker rams Flair into the apron and the lead pipe ROLLS across almost to the other side of the ring and Taker and Flair just STOP what they are doing and watch it roll away. Priceless stuff that always leaves me in stitches. The whole match is great sports entertainment, with the Demon of Death Valley and the Dirtiest Player in the Game wildly brawling with each other. There were a ton of mark-out moments in this match, from Ric Flair bleeding like a stuck pig, to Taker doing the Zombie Sit-Up out of the Figure-Four, to Arn Anderson showing up to drill Undertaker with his signature spinebuster, and finally Undertaker hitting the Tombstone Piledriver to put Flair down, the whole match was just good old fashioned entertainment and one of the highlights of a rather boring Wrestlemania.

The match bears significance in that Flair cited the match as one that helped him regain his confidence in the ring, which would lead to him producing more classics with Triple H, Randy Orton, Edge and Shawn Michaels in later years. Undertaker got his tenth Wrestlemania victory, and it was after this match that the winning streak became THE STREAK. One of Taker's best efforts on the big stage and proof that Taker should get to pick his 'Mania opponent every year. Hogan vs. Rock gets most of the Dream Match Hype on this show, and deservedly so, but this was also a great battle of legends.

VII
Undertaker vs. Diesel
Wrestlemania XII, 5-0


I think the coolest part of this match was that it was the first, and to my knowledge only, major one on one match between Nash and Taker. Thanks to Taker being out with an injury for most of 1994 and then both guys playing on the face side of things in 1995, this fairly obvious money match was saved and when it happened, it was a big deal. Diesel had held the WWF Championship for a year, and Undertaker was, well, The Undertaker. Diesel showed no fear, and was actually very confidant going into the match. Both men were so powerful and so dominant that the audience would have bought either man winning, and were it not for Nash heading to WCW, I believe he would have beaten Undertaker to get a major push into his program with Shawn Michaels. We can speculate, but my point is that this match was a fairly big deal.

This match always seems to be polarizing amongst fans. Some people love it, some people hate it, and I guess it comes down to personal taste, and some folks just don't like power matches. I happen to like almost any style of wrestling as long as it's done well, and I think this is one of the better power matches in 'Mania history, with tons of effort from Taker and creative spots thrown in, character psychology and booking that makes it clear Diesel could have beaten Undertaker if he took the match more seriously. I also think it works well going on just before Bret-Michaels, where you were going to see everything BUT power offense, and helps makes Mania XII one of the better editions of the yearly extravaganza.

VI
Undertaker vs. Randy Orton
Wrestlemania 21, 13-0




Up until this point, Undertaker's matches at Wrestlemania had simply been grudge matches against guys he had personal issues with. However, now that Undertaker was back under the legendary Deadman persona and had a stellar 12-0 win loss record, simply facing Undertaker and getting a chance to end the streak became something important. Two matches have epitomized this search for the Unholy Grail of the WWE, a win over the Phenom at Wrestlemania, but this one is the one most purely built on someone facing Undertaker, not for a personal grudge and not to defend a title, but to end The Streak. Naturally, it was The Legend Killer Randy Orton, who seven months prior had defeated Chris Benoit to become the youngest World Champion in WWE history. After a failed babyface turn, Orton was back to his brash, arrogant and glory hungry persona that fans loved to hate.

The match was part of a stacked Wrestlemania 21, and was a very good match for both men, Orton's best in-ring performance at The Big Dance and one of 'Taker's best. This was one of those rare matches in The Streak where there was about a 50-50 chance that Undertaker could actually lose. Orton was pretty much handpicked to be the future of the company, and made his name off of beating legends, and he was white-hot at this point. A victory over Undertaker would have put him over the top. There was even a bit of karma with this being 'Taker's unlucky thirteenth 'Mania match. When Orton countered the Chokeslam into the RKO, people believed that Undertaker had fallen, but it was not to be. In the end, Orton's arrogance got the best of him, and he attempted the Tombstone Piledriver only for Taker to reverse it and go 13-0.

V
Undertaker vs. Triple H
Wrestlemania X-SEVEN, 9-0


I love the premise for this match. Triple H beats Stone Cold Steve Austin at No Way Out, and then says he's defeated all of our heroes and pretty much declares himself the greatest thing ever. Then Undertaker comes out and points out that he hadn't beaten Undertaker. Voila, huge Wrestlemania match made. These guys had a great brawl that the crowd was very into. 'Taker has gone on record saying that this match was special to him because he hadn't exactly "felt it" in the ring in a while, and this match brought those feelings back. They pretty much followed the Ric Flair-Sting formula where the unstoppable babyface beats the crap out of the conniving heel for the whole match, but the heel is tough and resourceful and manages to get ahead of him at times. There was also the benefit of doubt, as many believed that Undertaker's career would be winding down, while Triple H was the top heel in the company. Taker also brought back the Tombstone after not using it since returning, and got a big pop out of it before finishing the match with The Last Ride.

One of the more intriguing things about this match is how opposite things were back then. Triple H was a great wrestler, an internet darling who was having great matches with everyone, wrestling all different styles and rarely having a predictable match. People were calling him the next Ric Flair and he was the 2000 Wrestler of the Year. Undertaker was considered past his prime, no longer relevant, and lacking in passion. In 2010, 'Taker can always be counted on for a good match against a variety of opponents and is generally considered one of the all-time greats, and Triple H is considered a guy who never goes out of his comfort zone and is generally despised. My what a difference a decade makes.

IV
Undertaker vs. Edge
Wrestlemania XXIV, World Heavyweight Championship, 16-0


I have a love-hate relationship with this match. Edge's choices in moves, like the neckbreaker on the ropes that looks awful and his grapevine that attacks the legs when he was focusing on Taker's back just irked me. Also, some spots like Undertaker's knee in the corner that sends him flying to the floor for no real reason, and the dive that was pretty much cliched at this point, also bothered me. Oh, and the commentary from Michael Cole and Jonathan Coachman makes me want to learn Spanish. Overall, I was underwhelmed with most of the early going of the match. Also, as awesome as Edge is, there really wasn't any doubt going into the match who was going to win, unlike Batista, Orton or even Taker's most recent mania outing. However, they did a great job of making you forget about that down the awesome finishing stretch.

Amazingly, the main event of Wrestlemania XXIV featured actual WRESTLING psychology; the story of the match was based on counters. Edge had perhaps the most unusual reaction to facing Undertaker of anyone; unlike Kane or Mark Henry, who showed no fear, Edge clearly was intimidated by the Undertaker. Unlike Orton and Diesel, who were confidant to the point of arrogance, Edge showed great respect for 'Taker's toughness and power; he was going to out-think and out-wrestle the Deadman. It was a bizarre mixture of desperation and determination, as Edge busted out all the stops, but still believed he could win. He was rarely frustrated. When Undertaker tried his signature offense like the Chokeslam, Last Ride and Tombstone, Edge had well-thought out counters for them. Remarkably, he also had the toughness to take those moves and survive, although the Tombstone was through rather exceptional circumstances. He also used a camera, which told the story of the match and was a call back to when Edge cost Taker a shot at the World Title months prior, and had his cronies Ryder and Hawkins come in, but that was only after his great counter game. In the end, the match ended, ironically enough, with a counter from the Undertaker as he took Edge's Spear and turned it into the Gogoplata for what was definitely an unexpected but very satisfying ending.

III
Undertaker vs. Kane
Wrestlemania XIV, 7-0


If there was ever a match in The Streak when Undertaker should have lost, it was this one. Kane was a monster heel and the whole match was about how he was just as powerful as The Undertaker and maybe more. Kane dominated the match and unlike other matches where an opponent like Bret Hart would spend twenty minutes working on his leg and it would barely phase him, Taker was exhausted by the end of this match. Kane also had the psychological edge as the brother who Undertaker had burned as a child, now getting his revenge. Even with Undertaker's grandiose entrance, Kane was in 'Taker's head, more than anyone. Not even Mankind and his mind games had the mental and emotional effect on The Phenom that Kane had. Even with all of the supernatural fluff, this was basic wrestling storytelling. The unstoppable monster runs into an even greater monster, someone from his past. After years of terrorizing and dominating the competition, he is afraid and he is dominated.

The match doesn't have a lot of crazy, insane, complicated moves. The offense is simple, but it's the context they are used in that make them special. Undertaker left the no-selling zombie in the locker room this night, as he sells every blow, every move and every hold that Kane does; the look of exhaustion is entirely convincing, but it's even more amazing because of 'Taker's character. Kane has turned the monster into a man. And a desperate man; Taker spends considerable time covering his face up to protect himself from Kane's punches, something that he had never done before and has rarely done since. He leaps on top of Kane's shoulders and unleashes a flurry of punches and dives out onto him to get an advantage, and both times the risks don't pay off, as Kane drops him to the mat with an electric chair drop and Taker crashes and burns on the announce table. Kane did not win, but the reason was logical; he was more concerned about hurting his opponent than beating him, as shown when he hits a chokeslam, and instead of covering him tries to choke the life out of him with a sleeper hold. In the end, it takes THREE Tombstones from the Deadman to win, and Taker even forgoes his usual cover for a traditional cover on the last one, and still barely gets the three. I still say that Kane should have won, but this was certainly the best possible way of that not happening. GREAT storytelling in this one.

II
Undertaker vs. Batista
Wrestlemania 23, World Heavyweight Championship, 15-0


Generally speaking, I'm not a Batista fan. I do think he's an underrated power wrestler, when he wants to be. I just think he's lazy. However, after this, you can never say I've never given him his due. This is one of my favorite Wrestlemania matches, easily my favorite Batista match and one of my favorite Undertaker matches as well. Both men busted their rear ends to steal the show at Wrestlemania 23, and I think they did. I know I'd rather watch this than Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena from the same show any day. Unlike a lot of people, I did not have low expectations; I had a feeling this would be special and it was. I was mega-hyped for it and the match delivered. I watched it at a party and with the exception of one guy, everybody was cheering the Undertaker, so I was literally hanging on every move. I've never enjoyed watching a wrestling match more than watching this one on Pay-Per-View.

Part of me wondered if I had rose-colored glasses and if the atmosphere at my house was what I truly enjoyed. However, the match holds up well on DVD and proved worthy of my admiration. At around fourteen minutes, the match flies by. More importantly, there is a big fight atmosphere and they gave us a fight. There was no posturing, no feeling out process, no rest holds. Batista speared Undertaker and took the fight to him the whole time. From his flying shoulder tackle off of the top to his belly-to-belly suplex to his falling powerslam through the table, Batista was going all out to win this. And Undertaker responded in kind, hitting all of his best moves and even busting out the no-hands plancha in a beautiful dive. When Batista hit the Batista Bomb, I was convinced the streak was over, and when Undertaker hit the Tombstone, I half expected him to kick-out. That's the sign of a match built up right and executed correctly. This was exactly what it should have been, and I have no problem putting this at the #2 spot.

I
Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels
Wrestlemania XXV, 17-0


"You must accept suffering and redeem yourself by it; that is what you must do." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime & Punishment

Let me preface this by saying that this is not the greatest match ever, and if I wanted to, I could nitpick and talk about all of the problems that riddle this match. But this is not the place and I don't want to do it. Instead, I will simply say that this is one of the best matches in Wrestlemania history, and Undertaker's best Wrestlemania match by a long shot. Undertaker certainly gave a great performance in this match, he was on point with the counters to the Tombstone and gave the prettiest Last Ride and Chokeslam I've ever seen him deliver. He showed more emotion in this than he usually does, which showed just how much Michaels had gotten into his head. He also deserves a TON of credit for performing at the level he did after nearly killing himself with the missed dive.

However, the match is really about Shawn Michaels, both in the in-ring work and the story as a whole. Shawn had just had a roller-coaster year in 2008 where nothing seemed to go right for him. First, Ric Flair asked him to be his Wrestlemania opponent in a match where Shawn winning meant the end of Flair's career (I know, just go with me for now) and then he had to pull the trigger because that's what Ric wanted. Then he spent two months having to deal with a vengeful Batista, who punished him for doing the right thing. Then he had to deal with Chris Jericho, who injured his eye, punched his wife, beat him to a pulp, nearly cost him his sanity and his soul, and still came out of it a World Champion. Then it was revealed that he was bankrupt and he became JBL's employee. Shawn was a broken man heading into 2009, and even called a match with John Cena on RAW "his Wrestlemania". Keep in mind, that's coming from MR. Wrestlemania.

Then, Undertaker comes in and says "Sometimes it's Hell trying to get to Heaven." It was like a lightening bolt struck Shawn and he remembered who he was. He defied JBL and won back his freedom. But he still needed redemption, and there was only one way to do it. World Titles wouldn't suffice. Stealing the show wouldn't cut it. He had to do something that had never been done; beat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. He went off the deep in with his mind games, showing no fear in face to face confrontations, superkicking him at every turn, and even bringing in his religious beliefs. So the stage was set for an epic battle, and they delivered. Undertaker won and went 17-0 after an awesome thirty-minute battle that proved worthy of the hype.

*****

I'm short on time, so let me say that next week is The Top Ten Greatest Wrestlemania Moments.