With Survivor Series 2015 marking 25 years of the Undertaker, what better time is there to look back on some of the greatest and most memorable rivalries in the Dead Man’s WWE career? Join Matthew Roberts as he takes the third and final look at the opponents that played their part in making The Undertaker’s career so legendary.
RANDY ORTON
It might, post Brock Lesnar, be a moot point to look back at any other particular moment and say that it should have been the night that The Streak ended. I wouldn’t look back at the WrestleMania match between Taker and Randy Orton from a 2015 standpoint and say that should be the case, but at the time in was pretty livid that it didn’t!
Orton had been on his “Legend Killing” spree and seeking to go where no wrestler had been before he challenged the Dead Man for WrestleMania. History will show he didn’t get the win, but he came awfully close in an epic match.
Orton didn’t want to leave it there though. Later than year he cost Taker a Number One Contenders match against JBL and then went on to defeat him in another good match at SummerSlam. From there the mind games intensified ahead of a handicap Casket match (where Randy’s dad Bob joined in the fun), where Randy even “retired” only to swerve us all and again attack Taker. The Orton’s took the match and then set fire to the casket, leaving us without our man until Survivor Series.
Orton had just defeated Shawn Michaels to win his elimination match for Team Smackdown when those infamous gongs kicked in and a group of hooded men pushed a casket to ringside. A lightning bolt and a flaming casket later and Taker had returned. However when a druid distracted the dead man and allowed Orton to hit the RKO, it was revealed that the man under the hood was none other than Bob! This led to the denouement of the feud in a Hell in a Cell match where Taker went through both Orton’s to seal the win and leave the victor. An intense and epic feud that ebbed and flowed.
SHAWN MICHAELS
It seems strange now that this was a match that the WWE and Vince McMahon seemingly had misgivings about being presented. Michaels has hinted they felt he was too small, and with an incompatible style presumably, to believably go up against The Undertaker. How wrong they were.
If it was just the 1997/8 run alone this would be one of the most memorable feuds on the list. After his special guest referee shenanigans in the Taker/Bret Hart SummerSlam 1997 match had cost Taker his WWF Title the two had a crazy and wild brawl at In Your House: Ground Zero that in some ways could hardly be called a “wrestling match”. But for once the chaos and lack of a resolution had a purpose. The next month the WWF introduced Hell In A Cell, now one of the company’s most famous gimmick matches and, for my money at least, gave us what is still the greatest Cell match in history. (Blasphemous, given the Mankind match? That was THE jaw dropping moment in WWF History, arguably, but as a match it couldn’t hold a candle to this). It really was something else, quite even before Kane had made his debut appearance.
From there the two would meet in the casket match at Royal Rumble 1998 that would give Shawn the back injury that would seemingly derail his career for ever. It was four years before HBK would return to action on WWF screens and it would be nine years on from Rumble ’98 before the two would meaningfully clash as they were the last two men in the Rumble in 2007 and had perhaps the greatest closing segment in Rumble history. Undertaker won and the two would go on to be on opposites sides of a short tag team rivalry with their respective WrestleMania opponents Batista and John Cena before following up their ending of the 2007 Rumble with being the first two in the 2008 version. What are the chances hey?
Every fan should know what comes next. The two met at WrestleMania 25 in one of the greatest matches ever. Period. A year later, Shawn Michaels would demand one last chance at ending The Streak and was willing to put his own career on the line to get the opportunity to do so. At WrestleMania 26 the two put on another all-time classic. Whether or not it was better than the first match is almost a negligible point. There’s very little in it and I wouldn’t criticise either choice. That the two could do it all over again and offer up such a compelling, but completely different, match to what had stole the show a year earlier just says it all.
In some ways it’s sad that management seemingly didn’t see the potential in a feud between these two earlier. In some ways it’s even sadder that Michaels’ injury in 1998 deprived us of more moments between the two. But ultimately who couldn’t say that it turned out for the best. Those two WM matches stand up with anything ever produced in a wrestling ring.
STEVE AUSTIN
The two first met in a somewhat throwaway Raw match in June 1996 and would finally clash for the last time almost six years later in a #1 Contenders match refereed by Ric Flair. In between those two matches they met dozens of times but their most famous run around the sun was in 1998 when the two headlined a MEGA successful SummerSlam in one of the WWE’s most well crafted storylines ever.
At first it was all about respect, in a manner of speaking. Taker felt his status as “top dog” was threatened and the challenged Austin for his title at SummerSlam, with the ever memorable AC-DC Highway to Hell providing the musical backdrop to one of the WWE’s finest ever promo videos. After that titanic battle came the news that Taker was in cahoots with Kane and Mr McMahon to get the World title off Austin. Taker and Austin clashed in a Buried Alive match on late 1998 before, at the height of the Ministry of Darkness period in 1999 the two swapped the World Title, in amongst Taker trying to crucify Austin and Austin coming to the aid of his old adversary Mr McMahon when the dead man tried to sacrifice Stephanie, before finally ending this period of their war in a First Blood match at Fully Loaded 1999.
They also clashed over the world title in 1997 and would have a number of title matches with each other in 2001, but most fondly remembered will be the clashes in 1998/99. They certainly were something else.
TRIPLE H
As far as the WWE were concerned, you were supposed to forget that these two had clashed at WrestleMania 17 by the time they went at it a decade later. It mattered not that the bout was the best the Taker had had at Mania by a country mile up to that point nor that it took place on a card that many still regard as the WWE’s finest hour. Of course they’d had a dozen or so TV encounters even prior to that, albeit mostly in tag team matches. They’d even met at King of The Ring 2000 as Taker, Kane & The Rock defeated Triple H, Vince and Shane in a WWF World Title match where H’s title was on the line.
It would be two years later at the same event when the two would have their highest profile non-Mania match, when Taker retained his Undisputed World Title against Trips and for all intents and purposes that would be it as singles opponents (although there was the Two Man Power Trip era where HHH teamed up with Austin to battle Undertaker and Kane). Sure there were a couple of throwaway Raw and Smackdown singles matches and a few more higher profile tag or Elimination Chamber opposition in the years to come but it would be 2011 before the two would clash again on the BIG stage.
Triple H, much like his best friend Shawn Michaels, would become obsessed with being the one to end the Streak. Given HHH’s backstage power, many could believe that he could even be the one to do it. The drama was ramped up for their WrestleMania 27 match and although it was Undertaker who emerged victorious, it was HHH who was able to walk away under his own two feet. It was Taker who had to be carried away, a point that Triple H would hammer home twelve months later when he made the challenge again.
The ante was raised by holding the match in the confines of Hell In A Cell and adding Shawn Michaels as the special guest referee. With his impartiality open to question many again believed that HHH might just become the one to end the Undertaker’s Streak but despite a titanic tussle (and some Sweet Chin Music from Michaels), Taker was able to dig deep and pull out the win. The three men involved in the match embracing at the end of the match is a moment that fans will always remember, and one that arguably would have been the perfect ending for The Undertaker. That wasn’t to be, of course, but the memories of their three WrestleMania matches remains vivid.
YOKOZUNA
In 1993 the Undertaker “formula” was becoming ingrained inot his character. A big, scary monster would run roughshod over the WWF and there was only one man who could possibly stop him. Well, only one Dead man.
With Yokozuna holding the World Title in 1993 it was therefore inevitable that the Undertaker would be sent in his direction. The two first met on opposite sides of a 1993 classic Survivor Series match. Classic in the sense of the elimination rules, not necessarily the action. After Tatanka had been put out of action by the nefarious FOreiogn Fanatics, Taker answered the call from Lex Luger and The Steiners and joined their forces. At that match, Taker would battle with the giant Sumo wrestler to a double count out, most notably showing no ill effects from having his skull smashed into the steel ring steps.
From there the two were signed to meet at the Royal Rumble in a Casket match. Taker constructed another giant coffin and many would have assumed that it would be Yokozuna getting locked into it. That proved to be far from the case as half the heel roster (including a random appearance by Genichiro Tenryu) interfered, a stolen Urn emitted bellowing green smoke and Undertaker was placed in the coffin and the lid was slammed shut. Moments later the “spirit” of the Undertaker ascended to heaven and the Dead Man was, well, dead.
In reality of course it was a storyline excuse for a holiday/rest. When ‘Taker returned his time was taken up with Ted DiBiase’s evil Undertaker (which is a rivalry best left to a “most bizarre” list) but that was such a blow out that the Good Taker vanquished him in rapid order and set his sights on Yokozuna once more. The two signed for another Casket Match at the 1994 Survivor Series, but this time there was a plan to combat half the roster running in…Chuck Norris as ringside enforcer. Naturally Undertaker prevailed and that was pretty much it.
No one will pretend this was a feud packed with great matches, but it did cement the Undertaker template and featured a lot of little things (Taker being killed off, for one) that would be reinvented further down the line in other Taker feuds.
BONUS – PAUL BEARER
Obviously the two never really met “in the ring” but a piece of this nature would not be complete without a dedicated mention of Paul Bearer.
After six years by the side of the Dead Man, Bearer would betray his charge and align himself with Mankind at SummerSlam 1996 and was locked high in a cage during their match at Survivor Series that year. He would also look to guide the career of Vader in an attempt to bury the Dead Man. Bearer was the man responsible for revealing to the world that The Undertaker had a brother and when Kane arrived in the WWF it was Bearer who was able to goad Taker into fighting his brother.
The two would find themselves on the same side in 1999 as part of the Ministry of Darkness and Bearer would return in 2004 to the Dead Man’s side although that would end with Bearer being buried in a glass box full of cement courtesy of the Undertaker. He would return for one last time in 2010, betraying Taker in favour of Kane in a a Hell in a Cell match.
Rest In Peace.