The Phenom is slated to face Shane McMahon in less than a week at Wrestlemania 32. In his long and illustrious career, The Deadman has squared off against and overcome the biggest and the best in the business.
He is one of the greatest wrestlers in WWE history and has been in the most brutal of matches and has often overcome several disadvantages to beat his opponents. They don’t call him The Phenom for nothing.
However, The Undertaker too has not won all of his matches fairly.
Here are five times he didn’t win cleanly.
Hulk Hogan at Judgement Day, 2002.
Sounds like a once in a lifetime dream match doesn’t it? About 14,500 fans converged at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, Tennessee expecting to see two stars collide.
Undertaker entered first followed by Hogan. As soon as the latter slid into the ring, The Deadman started hitting him with Hogan’s red and yellow leather belt, note that the bell hadn’t rung yet. Hogan got up, showing that the hits had not effect on him and reciprocated The Deadman’s actions, the bell rung after Hogan tossed the belt out of the ring.
This match didn’t produce the expected effect though. That, Hogan was far from his best and Undertaker wasn’t that great either. It was stupefying enough that Triple H dropped the title to Hulk Hogan right after winning it from Jericho at Wrestlemania 18.
Lack of any real action, poor selling on the part of both wrestlers and most notably the poorly executed chokeslam to Hogan made this match really painful to watch, especially considering what fans were expecting, given the promos and the legacy of the two wrestlers.
Right after executing his Atomic Leg Drop, Hogan looked over to the ramp expecting to see Vince McMahon come out and then again a few seconds later. Both these times, he didn’t.
Undertaker DDT’d Hogan and went out to get a chair whilst Vince was entering. While the referee was “distracted,” Hogan Big Booted the chair onto Undertaker’s face and then took care of the boss.
By that time, The Deadman got to his feet and struck Hogan with the chair while the referee was a just a few feet in front of them and tossed it away; a Chokeslam was all that was needed to pin Hulk Hogan.
J.R. even said “he got rid of the smoking gun”
vs Brock Lesnar, Summerslam, 2015
This has to be one of the most infamous victories of The Phenom. There weren’t too many complaints as far as the action was concerned. The counters and manoeuvers were a spectacle to watch, like where the Undertaker went Old School but picked him up for an F5 and the Undertaker again countered this with an unsuccessful attempt at a chokeslam.
Towards the end, Brock Lesnar had The Deadman trapped in a Kimura Lock and the Undertaker tapped out, and the bell was rung. The problem was, the referee didn’t see it. In the midst of all this, Undertaker trapped Brock Lesnar in his Hell’s Gate submission hold. Brock Lesnar flipped him off and passed out. Undertaker won, but Paul Heyman went on to proclaim that Brock Lesnar was the real winner.
Giant Gonzalez – WrestleMania 9
This match could not have gone worse. Even the Undertaker wouldn’t be proud of this match. The only thing worse than this match was perhaps Giant Gonzalez’s outfit. To make it worse, this match was held in broad daylight.
I really don’t need to explain why it’s not a very good idea to have The Undertaker wrestle in broad daylight. Also, to put it subtly, Giant Gonzalez was a poor ring worker. Yes, that was as subtle as I could get.
The match ended in a disqualification after Giant Gonzalez used a chloroform-soaked piece of cloth to knock The Undertaker out.
The only saving grace of this match was The Undertaker’s entrance and the commentary.
Stone Cold Steve Austin (with Ric Flair as the special guest referee) – Backlash, 2002
The two were huge rivals during the late 90’s and early 2000’s and have faced each other quite a few times. But this match stands out amongst all those encounters. Plus, Stone Cold left the WWE not long after Backlash 2002.
When you pit one of the biggest icons of the Attitude Era against a legend and to top it all, you send in the Nature Boy to referee the match, what could go wrong? Well, Austin would have an interesting answer for that question.Again, not the greatest of the two wrestler’s matches. Nothing out of the ordinary here, manoeuvers from the arsenals here. Lots of stalling and sluggish moves. The crowd was excited, until a few minutes into the match and it was evident. X-Pac and Scott Hall walked out one point, you’d think they were there to do something, but they were just talking to each other.
Also, someone should have given Ric Flair a lesson in refereeing before that match as he failed to count them out while they were out of the ring for several minutes, and because of the way the match ended.
Steve Austin attempted to hit The Undertaker with a steel chair but The Deadman kicked it onto his face, making him fall flat on his back. Note that they were near the turnbuckles when it happened, and Austin fell near the ropes.
Undertaker proceeded to pin him and Stone Cold immediately put his foot on the rope. Flair probably didn’t see this and counted to three, handing the Deadman a dirty victory. After the match, Jonathan Coachman confronted the Nature Boy and showed him the replay. “Oh sh*t” was his reply before he walked away.
Psycho Sid, WrestleMania 13.
WrestleMania 13’s main event saw The Dead Man go head to head with the deranged Psycho Sid for the WWE Championship. This was his first ever bout for the title at WrestleMania.
Not too much to complain about in this match, the presence and actions of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart made it even better. One of the best moments was when Psycho Sid countered The Undertaker’s Tombstone Piledriver into one of his own and proceeded to pin him only to see him kick out.
A chair shot to the back of Psycho Sid by Bret Hart didn’t stop him. But he kept interfering and eventually, The Deadman was able to perform the Tombstone Piledriver on him and pin him, giving him his second WWE title reign.
