Biazzaroworld #1 - The Undertaker

[tiger_rick]

Like several other people in the "Against the grain" thread, I have a love/hate reationship with The Undertaker. So I thought I'd start a thread and perhaps a series of them because there are plenty of divisive characters in wrestling who you love sometimes and hate like a Canadian crowd at others. 

With Taker, I actually thie part is easiest. Firstly, the big red elephant in the room, he's a right-wing numpty. In many ways, I wish he'd protected his character forever because then I wouldn't have had to know. I had soured on him long before that all became obvious. His lockerroom leader shit always came across as pathetic. His shitting up of the Invasion angle was classless. His whole "Booger Red" run was terrible. For someone with these exacting standards that he was always keen to hammer others for, he was a willing participant in some of the worst angles and matches in wrestling history, right up until that vegetitive state stuff with Kane that was some of their worst stuff ever. His constant diminishing returns were already sad when I was still an occassional viewer pre-Covid. 

Despite all that, I loved Taker at one point. There's never been a time when he was my favourite but, like the WWF, he was always my number 2 or 3 babyface and I'd generally be into his work, even when he was fighting the most lumbering heels ever.

The real good:

His debut at Survivor Series '90 is still brilliant. I must have seen it a hundred times. He's an instant hit with everyone and you can see why. 

The title win at Survivor Series '91 is a great moment. I dunno when I first saw that, I suspect I rented the tape from the video shop. But I loved him like a babyface by then already. Around that same time, I saw Battle Royal at the Albert Hall and his entrance on that show has always stuck with me.

The face turn. I definitely saw the actual turn, whcih is brilliant, years later, so he was just a face by mid-1992 and I loved that we could cheer him. I just wish there was some reward for it over the next three years. Even though I liked him through the feuds with Kamala, Gonzalez, Mabel, Bundy, etc, there was only really the Yoko feud that offered some proper hope that he'd win the belt and that was squashed pretty comprehensively by 47 heels and some dastardly smoke. RIP Marty.

1996 Taker is great. Mick Foley gets a lot of credit for it, and he deserves it but the Diesel feud and match are brilliant too. Paul Bearer's heel-turn was pretty devastating to me as a teenager which emphasises how much I still liked the big man.

I really liked him in 1997 too. If we graphed out my love for Taker, this would be the peak. Him actually going for titles, being part of incredible business like the final four and the cage match before Mania and being somewhat relatable on interviews like the final 4 was good stuff and then he'd start the best storyline of his career and have the second best match in company history with Shawn at Badd Blood.  The whole Kane angle into and throughout 1998 and then the transition to him and Austin for SummerSlam is so good too.

I'm skipping to 2000 next, because his 1999 was dogshit. He was clever enough to go away for a bit though and I was hyped as fuck for his return. Biker or no biker, that's one of my favourite re-debuts ever. Felt like there were loads in this era, because most of the guys had necks made of weetabix but this might be my favourite. The momentum didn't last long but there were still some highlights like him getting knocked out of the Rumble by Maven and that great match with Lesnar in the cage.

I'm not sure there's much more I love. He went on to have some decent matches but not much that I really liked. That closing stretch of Royal Rumble with HBK was probably the only thing. That was great. Was it 2007? 

I haven't included the breaking of the streak because I wasn't really that in at that point and didn't even see the show for years. Can understand if it's big in other people's fandom, hopefully they'll discuss it.

Let's talk about the good and bad of the Undertaker!

[SuperBacon]

I really, really don't like him as a wrestler but acknowledge that the character, especially the start, was superb, and then all the initial stuff with Kane was great, as was the feud with Mankind. For me though, he just became stale so quickly.

I wasn't watching at the time so I've seen very little of the biker bollocks which always seemed excruciating, even as a wrestling fan!

His matches with Bret Hart at One Night Only and Summerslam 97 are absolutely brilliant as well, but we all know why that is don't we?

[gmoney]

I think my opinion of him as a wrestler and character is fairly typical. I was fascinated by him as a kid from 90 - 93. The walking on the ropes, landing on his feet when being clotheslined out of the ring, the eyes rolling back are mint and skill. I got less and less interested as I got older and most of that stuff is hard to sit through now, particularly all the matches against big lugs. I stopped watching from mid 95 - late 98 so I missed all the Mankind stuff which revitalised him, catching up as a teen I thought it was pretty cool. Nowadays I think the matches are better, but the promos stink. He was lucky to have Paul Bearer with him who is a magnetic promo. Bearer carries the entire Kane feud promo wise as well. Hated biker Taker at the time, still do now. The blend of the two characters was better and he was ale to be carried to some excellent matches by Angle, HBK and to a lesser extent Edge. I enjoyed his Wrestlemania epics, even the ones with Hunter, but I've got no inclination to revisit them. 

As a person he seems like a massive, massive cunt. 

[The King of Old School]

6 minutes ago, gmoney said:

 As a person he seems like a massive, massive cunt. 

Also has the most boring podcast in the entire world.