90.
Triple H vs. The Undertaker
Super Show-Down 2018
Addiction can come in many forms. It stems from seeking a high that you previously experienced. I bring this up because if you’ve ever listened to anything the Undertaker has had to say since retirement, you know that the last few years of his career are him chasing that last great match. After the CM Punk match in 2013, Undertaker’s match quality plummeted as father time finally caught up with him. Time and time again he would return, have a stinker, and try and try again. Even the tagline for the match has loose addiction connotations:
The Last Time Ever.
Yes, six years after their previous last time End of An Era match we have the actual Last Time Ever match between Triple H and Undertaker. This is definitely the last time they’d feed this addiction of this particular feud. Just one more hit. Until next month anyway. After failing to meet his own lofty expectations with matches against Roman Reigns, and Shane McMahon, Undertaker looked to recapture the magic he once had with Triple H. Despite my own feelings about their Wrestlemania 28 match, there is no doubt that the men involved are immeasurably proud of that accomplishment, and the majority of fans acknowledge it as one of the greatest moments in Wrestlemania history.
A part of me sympathises with them on a personal level. Particularly with Undertaker, wrestling has, at the time of this match had been in wrestling for over 30 years. As a wrestler, he aged remarkably well, enjoying his peak years well into his 40s. For someone like that, who is clearly passionate for the business, to be faced with his own mortality and a sudden decline must be difficult to handle. Similarly with Triple H, who has also declined, albeit not as sharply as Undertaker.
The story going into this match is that Triple H and Shawn Michaels are upset about losing to Undertaker over the course of four Wrestlemanias. They then decided to make the feud personal by saying that the four matches between 2009 and 2012 led to the Undertaker eventually losing the Streak and becoming the shell of a man we see these days. It sounds like a decent premise for a feud, but the problem was how contrived it was put together. For starters, they didn’t start feuding then announce this match as a consequence. Rather the match was announced at the time that the PPV as a whole was, and then the storyline came afterward. Instead of being an organic storyline, this is nothing more than nostalgia bait for a time when these two were competent wrestlers, and had a storyline that had the fans invested. This was a sequel nobody asked for, for a movie with actors that are washed up and phoning it in for an easy payday. This is the Hocus Pocus 2 of wrestling.
Even going as far back as Wrestlemania 28, these men were on the tail end of their career. Shawn Michaels was retired, Triple H and Undertaker were once-a-year wrestlers, and Kane - well Kane was still around. Now it’s 6 years later, Undertaker and Triple H are still once-a-year wrestlers but each are noticeably slower and their match quality fell off a cliff. Shawn Michaels was retired but now bald (more on this later). Kane (more on this dude later) is essentially retired, now a mayor.
Had this match been a short house-show style 12 minute match nobody would have negatively cared one bit about this match. It would have been fun, inoffensive nostalgia bait that left the fans happy. I would liken it to the ultimate nostalgia bait match, Stone Cold vs Kevin Owens from Wrestlemania 38. That match was 12 minutes long, well paced, hit their spots, and sent the fans home happy. If this match was in that vein, it wouldn’t even be considered for this list.
Instead, these guys just couldn’t help themselves. They were chasing the dragon of that 2012 match and story. They had to make it epic. They had to try and make it a poignant, deep storyline. They had to bring back Shawn Michaels for his hammy over-acting. They had to go for 30 minutes. They even brought Kane in to try and one-up the epic. Undertaker was chasing that one last classic epic, and Triple H was more than willing to go along.
The Australian crowd, as you’d expect, are extremely enthusiastic for this with “This is Awesome” and “You Still Got It” chants throughout. And to start with, what we have is a meandering but ultimately inoffensive encounter. It’s clear that both still have some juice, and the first few minutes were reasonably enjoyable. Unfortunately, the match keeps going, and as they do they start slowing down. They’re out of position for spots; the timing is all off; they can’t lift each other over (one very noticeable botch comes when both are in the crowd and Undertaker can’t manage a back body drop). As the match goes on, it’s just sad to watch them deteriorate before our eyes. The crowd dies a horrible death as the match progresses - some are still willing to try and get some chants going, but they lost all enthusiasm in the second half of the match.
Since it’s topical to these wrestlers, I’ll take an aside to talk about the funniest Undertaker trope in his twilight wrestling years. Since Wrestlemania 27 he always teases the dive to the outside, only for him to be cut off. Which, given how he nearly killed himself on that Wrestlemania 27 dive, I don’t blame him one bit for not doing it again.
My review makes this sound incredibly negative about Undertaker and Triple H. But they arguably weren’t the biggest frauds in this match. That award goes to Kane. Kane gets the easiest payday of his life. A free holiday to Australia to stand around in his mask doing absolutely nothing, probably thinking of mayor stuff. Undertaker might as well have brought Bam Neely to be his backup for all the good Kane did. Let’s compare Kane to what Shawn Michaels was doing on the outside. Shawn was causing distractions, chaos, setting up tables, throwing Undertaker into the ring post, handing Triple H weapons. HBK essentially made this a handicap match at times. What does Kane do to respond? Anything between nothing and slowly chasing Shawn Michaels around. One hilarious moment comes as Michaels sets up a table on the outside. Kane, looking to protect his brother, awkwardly chases Michaels and Triple H around the table before retreating. Speaking of said table, Kane takes a Sweet Chin Music and then a very weak elbow drop through the table. That puts Kane out of commission for a good 15 minutes of this match. In the only moment he does anything, he pulls the referee out of the ring to deny a pinfall, before Grandpa Joe’ing his way back into his comatose state for the rest of the match.
If you know anything about me, it’s that I was never particularly fond of the Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania 28 - but not through any fault of Triple H or Undertaker themselves. That match is brought down immeasurably by the C tier horror movie acting of Shawn Michaels. I bring this up, not to once again regurgitate my hatred of that match, but because this match, once again, has Shawn Michaels’ over-acting concerned face after they start hitting finishers on one another.
Now time to talk about the most memorable moment of this match, and the only thing anyone talked about afterwards. Shawn had been wearing his cowboy hat all match. Even when taking a bump, the cowboy hat stayed on, desperately clinging on for dear life. That is until near the end, when Undertaker tosses HBK over the top rope, and the cowboy hat decides it has seen enough and flies away, revealing for the first time the horror. Millions of people see their childhood fly away with that cowboy hat, as the world is introduced to bald Shawn Michaels. Poor guy was desperate to keep that hidden.
The match concludes with a lot of shenanigans, an awkwardly pieced finishing sequence, a standoff between a guy with a steel chair and a guy with a sledgehammer, and ultimately Undertaker loses because he brought the worst bodyguard in the world while Triple H had the smart idea to bring the best wrestler in the match to back him up. In the end this match could have been a lot higher, had it not been overshadowed the following month.
Up next - We’ve seen a match in Japan, one in Australia. Now time for the lowest hanging fruit as we head to our first (and surely not last) match from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
No comments:
Post a Comment