25 years of The Undertaker

[air_raid]

It's Shawn's face. The shock, the anger at himself, the horrible realization of what he has to do, then walking away disgusted with himself. Plus the fact he's looking Bret right in the face as he counts.

 

Oh, how I wish 1998 could have been about intertwining stories between Bret, Shawn, Undertaker and red hot main event babyface Steve Austin. Not that what happened week to week wasn't great, but Bret leaving and Shawn getting hurt left a lot unfinished, I felt at the time. There's a parallel universe where Undertaker gets revenge on Shawn and Austin finally gets a clean win over the Hitman - probably for the belt - at WrestleMania XIV. Possibly saving us 17 years of Kane, too.

[digitalversicolor]

The match he had with HBK at IYH: Ground Zero was superb as well, how it's breaks out into a brawl ten minutes before the match actually starts is class. And when HBK stumbles up to the front door of the IYH set banging on it trying to get in, that's a great touch.

[Michael_3165]

It's amazing to think that after all these years Taker can STILL put out a great match. The fact that his first three or so years were slow and plodding did help him (in believe) in the longer term. Had he been bumping around like Michaels his career would have been considerably shorter. 

 

He has outlasted every major star of the era which is a massive achievement by itself. Hart, Michaels, Rock, Hogan, Flair, Austin, Foley... only Taker remains. When I think back to the first episode of RAW and remember he is the only active wrestler left from that show i have an appreciation for how hard he has worked over the years. 

 

I think he has another few years left in him but the increase in matches over the last year or so suggests maybe he is looking to retire and wants to get as many good matches out as possible before he does so.