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Csonka Reviews Undertaker’s WrestleMania Matches (Part 1: WM 7-13)

March 2, 2017 | Posted by Larry Csonka
The Undertaker Image Credit: WWE

Welcome one and all, it’s column time with Larry. Today I am starting my special countdown to WrestleMania series. This year it’s a four-column series, looking at the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows in WrestleMania history. Today I start my look at The Undertaker at WrestleMania; I will give thoughts and ratings for every match he had at the big show, and at the end rank them from worst to best. Taker had some truly horrible Mania matches, but his top five Mania matches are some of the very best. Sit back and enjoy, and as always feel free to share your opinions on the matches…

WrestleMania VII – The Undertaker vs. Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka [*]: Undertaker’s Mania debut was effective for what it was, a squash match against someone with a name from the previous era. Say what you will about Snuka, but he still had some star power, it may not have been a lot, but he was still the Superfly to legions of fans. So he still had enough equity with the fans, was till in pretty good shape and was used as the sacrificial lamb to put over Undertaker on the biggest show of the year and it meant something. It was exactly what it needed to be, short, Snuka got a bit of fight in but Undertaker dispatched him with relative ease.

WrestleMania VIII – The Undertaker vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts [*]: The next outing for the Undertaker at WrestleMania was similar to the first, but this time his opponent was protected more. The goal was still to put Undertaker over an established name in a dominant fashion. Undertaker did get to no sell two DDTs, shake off all of Jake’s attacks and then plant him with a tombstone on the floor, which led to the pinfall victory. Jake was still Jake enough that the crowd was into him, the DDT was still over and a big deal so Undertaker surviving two of them was huge and added to the mystique of the character.

WrestleMania IX – The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez [DUD]: Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez was a Vince McMahon wet dream, two giants going face to face in what he felt was a spectacle. Now I fully get the idea behind this, the gimmick here was that Gonzalez was not only bigger than Taker, but was the one man not afraid of him. This was filled with bad strikes, Gonzalez low blowing Taker, Gonzalez’s horrendous selling of Taker’s strikes, Taker making a comeback and then the DQ finish with the chloroform-soaked rag to complete one of the worst matches in Mania history. There were no positives to this, it was bad then and doesn’t age well at all. The best part of this was Undertaker carrying a vulture to the ring; that about sums this one up.

WrestleMania XI – The Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy [½*]: Much like the Gonzalez match, this is about Taker overcoming another monster, and this time a former Mania main eventer in King Kong Bundy. This was part of the angle where Taker was working his way through Dibiase’s corporation after they stole his urn. The match is filled with Taker surviving Bundy’s offense, overcoming DiBiase’s distractions and shenanigans where Kama stole the urn once again, because he needed some new bling. Seriously, he melted it down to make a big old chain. This was a page out of the build a Hogan playbook, with Taker playing Hogan and Dibiase’s corporation playing the Heenan family. Taker finally hits the clothesline to pick up win #4.

WrestleMania XII – The Undertaker vs. Diesel [***¼]: This may surprise a lot of people, but I am a big fan of this match. In some ways it’s not the typical style of match I like, and we all know Nash was never a “work rate” guy. Also, this is the heyday of “Dead man/no sell a ton” Taker. Yet with all of that against it; at least in my mind, I really dug the match. They started out with some brawling, which you would imagine as Diesel kept trying to prove that he wasn’t afraid of Taker. They had some brawling on the floor; Taker even busts out a high cross body block. It got a little slow in the middle, but for a big man match I found it acceptable. I loved the part where it totally looked as if Diesel had Taker’s number. The multiple Jack Knife powerbombs were awesome, and then they did the whole “Undertaker is already dead bitches, this only makes him mad” deal and he makes the big comeback. Taker about breaks Diesel’s neck with the tombstone and that is all she wrote. This match also gives us the “double big boot spot,” which big guys that use the big boot use that spot still today. This was, for me, Taker’s first “good” Mania match.

WrestleMania XIII – No Disqualification Match for the WWE Championship The Undertaker vs. Sycho Sid [DUD]: Shawn Michaels takes the title at Mania 12, the boyhood dream came true and it appeared that a new face of the WWF was crowned. We then get a lot of action around the title, Shawn loses it to Sid at Survivor Series and then wins it back at the Royal Rumble; unfortunately he loses his smile and has to vacate the belt. This leads to a four-way between Bret, Austin, Sid and Taker where Bret wins the title, but then loses it the next night to Sid. We’re in 1997 now, the Monday Night War is a very real thing and the industry is changing; the TV product is evolving into war, more title changes are happening with both companies trying to throw a knockout punch to the competition. Nitro was in control of the ratings, the WWF would draw a crowd of over 18,000 to this event, but do an extremely poor buyrate. WrestleMania 13 saw one of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time take place, unfortunately we’re here to talk about Undertaker vs. Sid. This… this was not good in any way. I like Undertaker, hell I really like Undertaker vs. Diesel; but this was not that match in any way, shape or form. It’s long, way too long as it goes close to 22-minutes. The match is filled with Shawn Michaels entertaining himself on commentary, and long rest holds that are only there to kill time. The match has no flow, they wander around aimlessly, they do rest holds and they don’t do anything resembling an entertaining wrestling match, and it sure the hell wasn’t a match worthy of a Mania main event. Bret gets involved multiple times, Taker hits the tombstone and finally ends my pain. This is one of the worst Mania main event of all time. My interest in the WWE product wasn’t very high at all at this time, outside of Bret and Austin, a lot of the product didn’t appeal to me and this main event added to my overall displeasure of the company, this match seriously gets worse every time I watch it.

– And this is where we stand at 6-0…

* WrestleMania XIII – No Disqualification Match for the WWE Championship The Undertaker vs. Sycho Sid [DUD]
* WrestleMania IX – The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez [DUD]
* WrestleMania XI – The Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy [½*]
* WrestleMania VII – The Undertaker vs. Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka [*]
* WrestleMania VIII – The Undertaker vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts [*]
* WrestleMania XII – The Undertaker vs. Diesel [***¼]

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.

Here is the remaining schedule of columns…
* Csonka Reviews Taker’s Mania Matches (Part 2: WM 14-20) – March 9th
* Csonka Reviews Taker’s Mania Matches (Part 3: WM 21-26) – March 12th
* Csonka Reviews Taker’s Mania Matches (Part 4: WM 27-32) – March 16th

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“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”