WrestleMania Reflections: WrestleMania XXX (Pt. 2) (Patreon)

WrestleMania XXX (Pt. 2)

Mercedes-Benz Superdome

New Orleans, Louisiana

Attendance: 59,500

The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar

By: Bruce Mitchell

The Undertaker defending his WrestleMania Unbeaten Streak against Brock Lesnar, the second main event at WrestleMania XXX, was a historic match in any number of ways.

(We covered the other WM XXX main event, Randy Orton vs Batista vs Daniel Bryan in the previous column.)

The Undertaker (Mark Calaway) was the most effective gimmick performer in professional wrestling history. Gimmick performers had been important facets of the professional wrestling market going back at least as afar as Whiskers Savage in the 1930s. “World Heavyweight Champion” is, in the end, a gimmick, work or shoot, and The Undertaker certainly folded that into his, as well.

The Undertaker was an historic anomaly among major-league main-event wrestlers for reasons that go beyond his effectiveness. The Undertaker’s Unbeaten Streak at WrestleMania was the only storyline statistic of its inflationary time that had weight and real marketing power among wrestling fans.

It says something about the previous most valuable storyline statistic that Triple H, who had carefully built his case to have himself seen as the Greatest Wrestler of All Time (great champions Harley Race and Ric Flair, understanding the money in staying associated with major league wrestling companies, both publicly declared several times that Triple H was the best wrestler either had ever seen). Flair’s “16 time World Heavyweight Champion” career record, encompassing NWA, WCW, and WWE World Heavyweight Championships, is if anything a conservative estimate, but WWF set the bar there.

Triple H, whose careful politicizing on behalf of his own career over the overall good of the company (rooted in the insecurity of marrying into the McMahon family) is one of his hallmarks, seemed to be certain to break that record. So was John Cena, the top WWE draw of his era. Now both wrestlers and the company seemed to have lost interest in doing so, given the inflated number of wrestlers and championships now involved.

Triple H seems to have recognized the record has lost much of its meaning, while John Cena and WWE seem to have lost interest in each other.

That current WWE world title inflation, one company with three world championships (with one inflated to “Universal”, even though as Kerry Von Erich once pointed out, “There is only one world,” has meant that wrestlers now constantly talk on the air about waiting their turn for one of these things.

In this odd age where the money isn’t in the fans but in the platforms, Vince McMahon directs WWE Creative to book for the entertainment of Vince McMahon, not viewers. This is why, and it’s just one example, WWE Creative scripts Drew McIntyre and WWE champion Bobby Lashley to make their case to McMahon on-air why each is a better employee than the other:

• career longevity
• come to work early
• leave work late
• effort
• put in extra work

They’re not telling fans why their WrestleMania main event opponent ain’t The Baddest Man on The Planet, they’re telling Mr. McMahon why he won’t win Employee of the Month.

So, for the last several years of The Undertaker’s career, his Unbeaten Streak at WrestleMania was the most important, most marketable storyline statistic in all of professional wrestling. Every wrestling fan knew about the Streak, the way that every sports fan for years knew about Babe Ruth hitting 714 home runs to set the most famous record in all of sports.

Vince McMahon for years wanted to set up Hulk Hogan as the “Babe Ruth” of WWE, the legend of all legends, but for any numbers of reasons including Hogan wanting to be  booked as Babe Ruth in his prime well past his own, it never happened. It was Undertaker and his streak who became the Babe Ruth Home Run record of WWE.

Undertaker was also an anomaly among the great stars in pro wrestling history in that it was the Undertaker gimmick that got over first, years before he became a great wrestler in the ring. No one else ever did that, not Lou Thesz, or Dick The Bruiser, or Fritz Von Erich, or Stan The Lariat Hansen, or Dusty Rhodes.

The movie-monster ‘Taker gimmickry meant he was probably, but not necessarily going to, win his matches at the biggest show of the year early in his career. It was several years into his WM tenure that anyone realized he hadn’t been beaten there (there were a couple of non-finishes mixed in.)

An important facet of the Streak, of course, was that the The Undertaker worked more WrestleManias than any other wrestler.

‘Taker was different in yet another way. WWE as a company became ambivalent over their wrestlers successes in mainstream entertainment and taught their fans that the like of The Rock and Dave Bautista were part-timers who weren’t loyal to the brand even when they returned, instead of mainstream stars who proved that WWE was cool all along.

I mean, The Rock left to become the biggest movie star in the world, while all Triple H could get was a role in one of the Blade movies and even that was well before the rest of the Marvel Universe took over. Triple H not so subtly auditioned for the role of The Mighty Thor with his WrestleMania entrances all those years, but no dice.

WWE had invested so much in some of these people, and yet they left before WWE could get everything they could have on their investment. That’s not right!

Triple H and John Cena were loyal. The Rock and Dave Bautista were just part-timers.

Before part-timers became a WWE shibboleth, though, The Undertaker was given long stretches of time off to rest his both gimmick and his body. He was even allowed to rest the gimmick itself for a few years, riding not the lighting, but his American Badass motorcycle before returning to his casket.

McMahon and Calaway realized that as effective as The Undertaker’ iconic music and entrance were, it became common-place when it was seen on-the-air every week.

At the same time, and this was at least twenty years ago, Mark Calaway’s body needed rest and rehabilitation if he were to continue in the ring. He was incorporating mixed-martial arts holds into his wrestling and older Clint Eastwood-style spare, every-little-movement counts into his acting.

Will anybody ever get more out of simply taking his hat off than The Undertaker?

Undertaker usually needed a year to get ready for his match at WrestleMania, but that break, the opportunity to get in months of preparation, the WrestleMania Unbeaten streak, and his now-traditional theme music/entrance ritual made him a Special Attraction at  WrestleMania every year.

Amazingly, this was the point in his career where he wrestled in three straight five-star matches. He had two against Shawn Michaels - one of those Michael’s true retirement match - and one against Triple H. They were the three best matches in WrestleMania history.

He was the only major league athlete who was in his athletic prime at the end of his career.

Then there was Brock Lesnar, who had once been one of the most galling examples of a wasted investment WWE ever had. All that valuable TV time and effort, only to have the investment quit before WWE could get anywhere near their expected return. WWE even unsuccessfully sued Lesnar to keep him from being able to make living after his left the company.

Lesnar returned years later, but by then things were much different for any number of reasons. Already sporting a NCAA Heavyweight Championship as an amateur, with immediate evidence-of-the-eyes credibility, Brock Lesnar was now UFC Heavyweight Champion, one of the biggest stars in all of sports. He was The Baddest Man on The Planet, looked it too, the most effective money-draws in all of combat sports.

Lesnar had married Sable, also one of the biggest WWE draws of her time. She too had left on terrible terms only to return years later. With her marriage to Lesnar, though, she left both the WWE and the spotlight entirely.

Lesnar was different than anyone else in WWE. He didn’t care for being famous very much, outside of negotiating leverage. He didn’t grow up dreaming of walking the aisle at WrestleMania and he didn’t care one way or the other what Vince McMahon thought of him, and for good reason.

Most importantly, he knew his value. If Vince McMahon and WWE, or Dana White and UFC, or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or anyone else wanted to meet his terms, he’d work for them. If not, he’d go hunting.

On his return to WWE, he enlisted one of his few friends in professional wrestling, Paul Heyman, to talk and book for him. Vince McMahon went along with that demand too, even though he and his family despised Heyman.

Heyman’s partnership with Brock Lesnar became, on and off the air, the highest profile and most successful time of his long career.

Brock Lesnar even competed in UFC and WWE at virtually the same time. I’m not a gambler, but I know a sure thing when I see it, so I lost money betting against him once because of it.

Brock Lesnar was the most expensive and valuable talent WWE had. Lesnar, the modern personification of the legendary Johnny Valentine’s proclamation “I can’t make them believe that wrestling is real, but I can make them believe I’m real,” would have main-evented in any era in professional wrestling history.

Noted before, The Undertaker was fascinated with UFC and expanded his in-ring work by incorporating mixed-martial holds. He and Lesnar had even tried unsuccessfully at an UFC event to set-up their own UFC fight.

Every year, The Undertaker would look spent after his WrestleMania. Every year, months later, Vince McMahon would call, looking for one more WM match. The Undertaker may have been Vince McMahon’s greatest character, he was certainly his greatest locker room leader, but McMahon wanted to get every drop of his investment out of him too, just like he did out of every wrestler he ever employed. The question became, could Mark Calaway live up to his own WrestleMania standard one more time?

At Wrestlemania XXX the answer was no.

Tied into that was the question of whether The Undertaker’s WrestleMania Unbeaten Streak should ever end, and if so, to who? If he stayed unbeaten, and I still think he should have, the streak would have remained an important part of the aura of Vince McMahon greatest creation, professional wrestling’s Super Bowl. Someone beating him would ruin one legend, and damage another.

Taker had always wanted to work these WrestleMania matches with his peers, not with new acts he knew less about.

Lesnar was already the most valuable act, win or lose, in professional wrestling. He brought a Big Event aura, a feeling of Oh Hell, Here We Go, to any appearance. He had some misses -  Dean Ambrose, Saudi Arabia, whatever the hell that was with Randy Orton - but if anything he was underrated in the ring.

Undertaker’s WrestleMania Unbeaten Streak was broken this night by Brock Lesnar, who hit  ‘Taker with three straight F-5s and then pinned him in an anti-climatic, shocking-in-the-wrong-way bummer of a finish. Lesnar didn’t need it, and it’s a less important part of his legend than you’d think.

Mark Calaway had to be hospitalized after the match, and Vince McMahon left the event entirely to ride with him in the ambulance there.