The best of The Undertaker

[rollthedice]

I preferred biker Taker as I was never into the hokeyness of the deadman. Hated the deadman return in 04, i cant remember what ppv it is from that year but i remember him having a belt buckle that said EVIL. It was just so tacky.

As Rick said, his work with HBK is his best and the first ever HIAC match is still the best in my opinion, although Mania 28 with HHH is up there. 

[CavemanLynn]

Having never seen a show, I still entered a WWF Magazine writein competition to win a purple glove Undie Hasbro. Just an incredible monster look.

First got into him proper during the Ministry of Darkness stuff (dark! Goth! Brooding! Edgy! Lol) and remember yelling holy shit in front of my parents in his First Blood match with Austin when he turned round and revealed Austin had split him open because the Undertaker WASN'T HUMAN.

Loved all the hokey stuff back then, but Biker Taker's return blew it out of the water. Kicking X Pac full in the face, slinging DX around and then looking HBK in the eyes as he Tombstoned his bestie, all after rocking up on the biggest bike I'd ever seen with nu metal blaring (yeah, it was cool once).

His return to the Dead Man and run with Edge was great. I'd started to drift by then, and the HBK feud garnered great matches but I never had the connection with either to get fully into it.

As he wound down, I actually liked the buzzcutted shooter look, because it leant into his age but kept him looking mean. But the last few years have tarnished that, taking a massive step back seemingly in denial about his fading abilities, greying and fading hairline. Such a shame, as the post-Brock ramp send off wouldve been such a perfect ending. 

[The Gaffer]

18 hours ago, Cannibal Man said:

Ministry Undertaker is 100% everything I need and want from wrestling. I know he was on his arse and his hip or ankle were giving him shit to the point where in most of 98 and 99 he was walking like a scarecrow come to life, but the departure from everything that had come before it, that sort of cartoon (no bad thing) sci fi evil-but-good-but-maybe-not type thing with the purple and grey, the big hat, funeral march and a guy with a pun for a name as his manager to going outright fucking evil cunt fully in jet black Spawn clobber kidnapping people, trying to drain them of their blood, hanging cunts from cages and that theme going from Era I Mortiis to full on funeral doom. Absolutely loved it.

A man after my own heart. It's a wildly unpopular view, but I also love anything to do with the Ministry. Seeing that big, dopey gang leer down the ramp like some proper Saturday morning telly baddies was as good as Raw got, for me, as a kid. I vividly remember getting a tape of WrestleMania XV when I was 10 and having the build up vignette to that crap Hell in a Cell with Bossman creep me out. I was in this weird halfway point with kayfabe where I knew wrestling was a work but with...space in it for actual intent? Kind of like the guys were contracted performers who used the medium to actually try and accomplish certain nasty business sometimes with people they didn't like. And for at least a few weeks I totally bought that Undertaker had lost the plot, taken his own gimmick too seriously, and started a bid to manipulate the McMahons into offering up control of the company to him. He was a proper bad bastard. 

I was a dumb 10 year old, granted.

That was as cool as wrestling ever got for me, though. Even the fact that his back-up were such a bunch of lowly goons added to it. I thought The Crow and Antichrist Superstar were the coolest things in the world, back then, so the Ministry was my obvious wrestling analogue for it. 

2004-2014 is my least favourite era, in retrospect. Which is odd, because you've got those big, huge matches. But you've also got an extraordinary amount of time - especially in the first half of those years - with fuck all character development. I specifically remember the WrestleMania 24 main event with Edge for the fact that he wore a new coat, because it was the first tweak to his character in god knows how long. The returning deadman character was possibly the most camp of them all with the stoic, spooky stuff. Loads of supernatural stuff going on, but without the schlock presentation of the 90s. It looked proper out of place, at times, when he was still semi regular on smackers. 

The Johnny Cash overhaul improved things, slightly, but they also brought into light how crap a promo he can be when given the time to talk. And whilst retrospectively dissing the series of 'Mania matches he had is utterly brazen, the whole way they're WWE's 'official' best matches ever grates slightly. The reflective space since still has them way under the first HIAC, Trips/Cactus etc for me. 

[RedRooster]

I started watching wrestling in 2002 so funnily enough my nostalgia is for biker ‘Taker.

While many people spent his biker run hoping to see him return to being the deadman, I spent much of his deadman run hoping to see a return of the biker. 

[King Pitcos]

The first time I cried at wrestling was when he beat Hogan for the title at Survivor Series. The injustice of it all, and the death of Hulkamania. I loved when he stopped Jake hitting Liz. Undertaker was never my favourite wrestler, but some of the spooky stuff intrigued me, like the floating up to the sky after the Yokozuna match. 

In 98-99, he was my least favourite of all the main guys, except for Austin because I hated The Plan. But with Austin I was a hater, with Undertaker I just found him a bit dull and plodding. I didn't miss him when he left. And I much preferred American Bad Ass to the previous incarnations. 2002 had some cracking stuff - the ladder match with Jeff Hardy, the feud with Kurt Angle, the cell match with Brock, and a couple of great weeks battering Matt Hardy V1.

I wasn't a big fan of him returning as the Deadman in 2004, and have found his character pretty shitty since then. He mostly looks like an old tranny, he does the stupid magic tricks, and his promos are dire. He's a weird amalgamation of classic cartoon wrestler gimmick, MMA hardcase, and grizzled veteran. That period in 2005 when he was magically stalking Randy Orton is some of the worst WrestleCrap I've seen - mind, I was still in the "stop insulting my intelligence, Vince, go and teach John Cena some new workrates" phase a bit at that point. But Taker has had some of my favourite matches ever over the last twelve years. 2007 was when I turned the corner as a fan, as Cena was doing great stuff on Raw, and it was similar with Undertaker on SmackDown. His feuds with Batista and Edge produced some fantastic results, and his storyline with Shawn Michaels is one of the best ever for a longtime fan.

It was surreal at WrestleMania 33, thinking I'd just seen him retire. He should have. Love him for all the years he's put in as a top star, but find him a bit embarrassing now from an all-round performance perspective as well as a character one.

[Devon Malcolm]

Biker Taker >>>>>>>>>>>>> All other Takers.

[Daaaaaad!]

I’ll offer a slightly altered take; since his loss at ‘Mania 30, I’d argue there was still one excellent angle left in him, and that revealed itself at SummerSlam 2015. I remember the rumours flying that it was going to be him and Brock at the show, and I was thinking “oh ffs what’s the point?”, especially after the Bray Wyatt feud where he didn’t actually participate.

But that awesome Raw where he kidnapped Heyman from the ring only to end up in a note perfect pull apart with Lesnar - a difficult thing to make exciting considering how much they lean on that particular set piece for Brock’s feuds - was so elevated and so exciting that it took me back to what Undertaker can actually be. Brock yelling “I WILL KILL YOU!” only for ‘Taker to shout “YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO!” in response gave the whole thing a level of hype in one moment that most feuds don’t manage over weeks.

(Might help that I knew I was going to Brooklyn, mind)

[MEGABUCKS]

Original Undertaker from 1990 was the best. At the time i was a little scared of him which made it so awesome. 2nd best version is the ministry days and that has alot to do with it being a brilliant time being a fan watching WWF. Then I liked the American Bad Ass character. Never really enjoyed him from 2004 onwards even though hes my favourite.

[JakeRobertsParoleOfficer]

Still think him versus  sting even now would have enough nostalgia interest. 

It'd be all smoke and  mirrors but the vignettes could be great, and the match with the entrances etc could be just a highlight 7-8 minute reel of their usual spots. 

It wouldn't be what it could have been in 02, 06 or even 10 but it'd still be a spectacle 

[air_raid]

Undertaker's a guy that's been in some superb stuff but he's never been one of my favourites.

I never got used to cheering for him as a kid because he seemed to never lose so there was no investment in the outcome and by the time they started having him lose occasionally on PPV I wasn't that interested because I was too used to his matches being dull.

I was pleased with his 97 run because it felt right that a character that had been pushed as such a difficult guy to beat should actually get to be champion, and he started having more competitive and thus more enjoyable matches but I was still elated when his title reign was excellently executed by my hero at SummerSlam.

Basically everything from the Kane feud until he went part time was such a wild inconsistency of whether he was involved in the top story or not, whether his part in that story was decent or boring, whether he was having great matches or plodders with total dross... he's just always been a bit "there" for me, even though at his best uses he's been in some brilliant stories and matches, there's not much of it I regularly go back and watch again compared to how often I watch Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Bret, Shawn, Rock, Austin, Triple H, Eddy, Benoit, Jericho, Angle, Cena, Edge or others. Apart from Badd Blood obviously, and the Rumble-Mania stuff from 2010.

The Rey match incidentally I dont think gets talked about enough, they had me going for a little bit.

[King Pitcos]

3 hours ago, JakeRobertsParoleOfficer said:

Still think him versus  sting even now would have enough nostalgia interest. 

It'd be all smoke and  mirrors but the vignettes could be great, and the match with the entrances etc could be just a highlight 7-8 minute reel of their usual spots. 

It wouldn't be what it could have been in 02, 06 or even 10 but it'd still be a spectacle 

I don't think they could take each other's moves at this point, and could barely perform their own.

Let's just accept that they were both the best goth of the Monday Night Wars, and there's no issue for them to settle then.

[hallicks]

2 hours ago, King Pitcos said:

I don't think they could take each other's moves at this point, and could barely perform their own. 

Next Saudi show, Taker vs Sting. Neither of them can take a bump, so they just stalk around the ring for a few minutes, before helping each other through the ropes then riding up the ramp together on Taker's bike. Vince is waiting at the top with two oversize cheques for $10m each while Limp Bizkit plays Rollin to end the show. 

[Jazzy G]

Gutted that I never got to see him against Sting as I would have totally lost my shit over that. To me because I never got to watch any Hulkamania Hogan Undertaker IS WWE/F. He was ever present and always seemed larger than life. There was great presence to him. I loved ministry Taker because that music was the bomb and he looked like a proper evil bastard, but Biker Taker will always be best Taker for the ridiculous faces he pulled and because it felt so much more natural. Plus that You're Gonna Pay music was dreadful. I was genuinely upset when he didn't do the biker thing against Cena, and moreso when I heard Vince doesn't like the gimmick. You know. 

[Supremo]

There's a handful of those natural pairings where both guys were active at the same time on the WWE roster, yet never had the logical match. Taker and Sting, Austin and Hogan and Eddie Guerrero and HBK are the three that immediately spring to mind.

[Bohan]

On 3/2/2019 at 9:55 AM, CavemanLynn said:

Having never seen a show, I still entered a WWF Magazine writein competition to win a purple glove Undie Hasbro. Just an incredible monster look.

Hasbro never ever released a purple gloved Undertaker figure.