Thank You Taker

[HumanChessgame]

6 hours ago, Charlie M. said:

I need to go back and watch One Night Only '97 against Bret. I think it might still hold up as Taker's best pure wrestling match.

I don't remember if I've seen this one or not, but his Rumble match against Bret in 1996 was incredibly good.  It was pretty much a clinic of how to run a small, technical mat wrestler against a much larger and stronger opponent.

[SirSmUgly]

This might be unpopular, but for me, it's the American Bad Ass era. He hit his peak work as a big man which always comes late and just a couple years before the body starts to break down. 

He had a top-three triple threat match in my eyes during that run (Angle/Rock/'Taker) that I think there is a good argument for it being his best match. 

[Jiji]

I haven't seen that triple threat since it happened. I loved that match so much watching it on PPV with friends. I'm just trying to jog it back through my mind... Wasn't there a whole lot of 1v1 scenarios where the third man chills on the outside? 

[Brian Fowler]

I haven't seen that match since it happened, but it was one of two Taker matches I was ever in the building for. It was awesome live if nothing else.

[Swift]

I'm going to go back to his initial incarnation as my favourite. As a kid, I believed all this stuff. Yes, the guy really was a dead man controlled by an urn. Yes, his skin must've felt cold to the touch. Yes Gorilla, I can almost smell the formaldehyde from here (no idea what formaldehyde smelt like). And most of all, him stuffing guys into body bags was the scariest shit imaginable.

[MisterPhil21]

8 hours ago, Gonzo said:

Not sure why I didn't think of this when I did my initial post, but Taker did have a memorable moment at one of the few WWF/E events I've attended live.

My wife and I made the drive to Atlanta for the Royal Rumble in 2002. The big story was the return of HHH, not surprisingly, but Taker got into the Rumble fairly early on. He looked like he was rolling. . .until freaking Maven drop kicked him from behind and sent him out. The entire arena was like, "Are you shitting me?"

Taker proceeded to get his hands on Maven and beat the shit out of that young man all over the Phillips Arena, all the way back to the concession stands. We got to see it on the big screens that were in the arena, and I was paying pretty much zero attention to the match at that point.

The most amazing part of all that was when he threw maven into the concession area and stopped to eat popcorn. Five stars

[HumanChessgame]

I remember on a weekday night they had some WWF special on fox or another network channel that ended with this promo.  One of the many reasons Taker was one of my childhood favorites

 

[J.T.]

Let us relive the days of UT in his youthful prime and enjoy the Mean Mark Callous assbeatings.

Holy shit!  That standing dropkick @ 0:24 is fucking sick!

One of the best parts of this match is Paul E screaming "I WANT HIM HURT~!!" at ringside.

Teddy Long's coat is magnificent!

 

[J.T.]

Paul E's promo at the beginning of this clip is fucking magic!

[J.T.]

Remember when Mark had an amazing vertical leap?  Me, too.

I never really liked the Heart Punch being used as a set-up maneuver to a finisher. 

It is perfectly fine here as a flash finish even though the basic concept of the move is 1) lame and 2) kayfabe illegal since it involves using a closed fist.

[odessasteps]

I really like the callous v pillman clash match. 

[Wyld Samurai]

No love for the Undertaker & Big Show Motorcycle hell ride?

[J.T.]

23 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I really like the callous v pillman clash match. 

Arguably Pillman's best face-in peril work.

I love the way the match was set up.  Weeks and weeks of building the deadly Heart Punch / Tightrope Flying Elbow finish and they put Mark over by desperation and chicanery so that Pillman stays strong and makes it seem like he could've actually pulled off a win.

Brian also bumps like an absolute freak.

Agile Mark Callous in WCW makes me realize how much I miss early athletic UT going batshit and doing crazy ass suicidos to the outside of the ring.

[caley]

I think my favourite Undertaker period was the three month period of Summerslam-Ground Zero-Badd Blood.  You had the solid Hart-Undertaker match, the absolutely insane beating of HBK at GZ where he just destroys Michaels all over ringside and the set, then the first HIAC match where it was one of the first moments where I thought a guy had "ditched the script" as it were and was truly trying to destroy his opponent and it's such a perfectly put together match with Michaels attacking the cameraman (which played off of Michaels' reputation for unprofesionalism) and opening the door so that they could brawl outside and the Kane debut was so well-done that it didn't even feel like a rip-off to get the non-finish.

[Go2Sleep]

21 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said:

No love for the Undertaker & Big Show Motorcycle hell ride?

I was gonna say just that. That stint in 99 between the Ministry and his return as the American Bad Ass was some of his best character work. Don't forget him telling Jericho that he had more shower time than Jericho had ring time, and threatening to stab Jerry Lawler in the face.

The most impressive thing about Taker is how he evolved through every era he worked in and was always one of the best guys on the roster each time. The gimmick had no business surviving the Rock-N-Wrestling era from whence it came, but it not only survived, it thrived for 27 years. He was a prominent figure in the new generation, the attitude era, the brand split era (carrying Smackdown for long stretches), and even into the reality era. The subtle changes he'd make to his character and moveset throughout the years were amazing. So many guys from the first half of his career were being presented as relics while he still fit in as a weekly regular. Yeah it was kinda sad that he stuck around for a while after his body gave out, but fuck it, he earned it. One of the best careers in the history of professional wrestling.

[PetrolCB]

32 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said:

No love for the Undertaker & Big Show Motorcycle hell ride?

 

[Curt McGirt]

This is still burned into my memory years and years (and many many braincells) later. The other one is one of the Jake segments where I think he stabbed him? I dunno, it's been too long and it was like watching something psychedelic when you didn't know what that was. 

And then there's this. 

Just too good.

"CLIMB THE LADDER, KID! MAKE YOURSELF FAMOUS!"

[BurningBeard]

I think he was at his most selfish in the ring when he was doing the Big Evil thing but that's definitely my most favourite period. One of those strange times when, even when he was doing the most heel shit possible like bloodying David Flair and AA fans still wouldn't necessarily boo him. Of course, everyone was constantly braying for him to return to the Deadman gimmick at every moment, and that worked great to go along with his reduced schedule, and the way they got him back to the gimmick was great from Survivor Series to WMXX, but I still preferred him on the bike and with the lead pipe just being a vicious brawler.

Bret Hart paid great tribute on his instagram:

"WWE's all time greatest war horse" sums it up.

[BurningBeard]

4 hours ago, Cameron Swift said:

I'm going to go back to his initial incarnation as my favourite. As a kid, I believed all this stuff. Yes, the guy really was a dead man controlled by an urn. Yes, his skin must've felt cold to the touch. Yes Gorilla, I can almost smell the formaldehyde from here (no idea what formaldehyde smelt like). And most of all, him stuffing guys into body bags was the scariest shit imaginable.

I forgot until I saw a clip recently that they used to put jobbers in bodybags, fantastic stuff. I always remember Gorilla saying "For whom the bell tolls" when Taker would come out too.

Fun story - my grandad made me a casket out of an old margarine tub for my WWF hasbros (meaning he painted it black with RIP and a cross written in silver and tape-hinged the lid). I think he was a secret Taker mark and always got a kick out of Paul Bearer's schtick

[J.T.]

Certainly there must have been some quality tweets from Glen Jacobs by now concerning the retirement of his half brother.

[Web Conn]

The CM Punk SmackDown 2009 feud was really good 

 

[Marty Sugar]

@OSJ and his original post ring true: THIS GIMMICK SHOULD NEVER HAVE WORKED. Of all the gimmicks at the time where every wrestler had to have a part-time job outside the ring, how did "guy who digs graves and somehow is also dead himself and he wears goofy purple gloves and a Quaker hat and has a fat Gomez Adams looking manager with an urn howling like a moron and one day he will ride a motorcycle and later become a shootfighter maybe" become one of the all-time greatest gimmicks in the business?

Anyone else would've shit the bed so bad with this gimmick. Anyone that's ever attempted to copy even a fraction of this gimmick has shit the bed with it.

[OSJ]

@Marty Sugar: Testify, my brother... Really, this gimmick came from an era where we were treated to wrestling plumbers, racecar drivers, uncontrollable potential cannibals from Uganda, and other assorted nonsensical shit that was targeted to braindead eight-year olds. Big Mark (who in his prime was as fucking agile as Don Jardine, basically moving like a guy a hundred pounds lighter), took this silly gimmick and made it work. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work a great match when part of your gimmick is no selling the offense of your opponent? You have to convey that you're in actual danger by facial expression alone. Just doing that makes Taker one of the best workers ever. Think about all the matches he had where he no-sold the shit out of everything and still made his opponent look strong, that's not a great worker, that's a fucking artist.

[BurningBeard]

He preceded all those gimmicks by a good couple of years. Which makes me wonder how many wrestlers thought "Well if Mark can make a mortician gimmick work, I can make my racecar driver gimmick work..."

I guess its a case of presentation, craftmanship and the office fully getting fully behind a gimmick more than anything.

[Technico Support]

I'm really glad @Curt McGirt remembered that Jeff Hardy match.  Holy shit was that incredible.  Hardy wasn't a top guy yet and wow did Taker make it believable that a career tag match guy was going to win to world title.