WWE Network

If you watched WWE’s latest effort in Saudi Arabia on Friday, you saw a lot of iffy decisions — Shane McMahon pinning Roman Reigns to win his third straight pay-per-view match, Brock Lesnar announcing a Money in the Bank cash-in just to get his ass kicked and not cash in, and so on — but none as iffy as the main event between wrestling legends Bill Goldberg and The Undertaker.

Given the state of the last few Undertaker matches and the combined 106 years between them, you could’ve been forgiven for going into the match with low expectations. What you got was a bizarrely concerning and dangerous 10 minutes featuring Goldberg busting himself open on the ring post and losing control of his faculties, a brutal Tombstone piledriver that couldn’t have made the situation better, and a botched Jackhammer that accidentally turned into a brainbuster.

WWE Network

After the match, Goldberg — who is physically okay and escaped without any major injuries, thank goodness — took to social media to explain that he knocked himself out on the sprint into the post, and thought he could finish the match when he really, really shouldn’t have.

“Everyone who found ‘pleasure'” is presumably a response to NXT star Matt Riddle, who tweeted and deleted a video calling Goldberg the, “worst wrestler in the business, bro,” and gave a running commentary on the match’s awfulness on Instagram.

By way of an Instagram like — that’s how we do things these days — The Undertaker shared a similar point of view on the match and the careers of himself and Goldberg following the show.

In other words,

K.C. Green / Gunshow

WWE Network

A pre-match headbutt to the dressing room door and a head-first sprint into the ring post turned the main event of WWE’s Super ShowDown in Saudi Arabia into a dangerous mess of bloody scalps, accidental head drops, nearly broken necks. A bout between a 54-year old man and a 52-year old man doesn’t get better when you add concussions, for which wrestling legend Bill Goldberg has already apologized for on social media.

The latest wrinkle in the story is fan footage showing Goldberg being so badly concussed that he’s unable to leave the ring under his own power, and is seen collapsing at ringside. You can see the short video below.

Goldberg has a strange history of concussing himself with door and locker headbutts dating back to his time in WCW, to the point that for most of his run he had a tiny trickle of blood on his forehead whenever you saw him. The most famous incident is probably from an episode of Raw only a few days before the 2017 Royal Rumble, wherein he badly concussed himself during his pre-match ritual, bled on television without provocation, and cut an incoherent promo because, you know, he’d smashed his brains into a door.

WWE Raw

Afterward, he announced on Instagram that he was “putting the pre-match headbutt on the shelf,” with an unfortunate, “for now,” modifier.

“Going out a limb …. but I’m putting the pre match headbutt on the shelf for now… kinda made me a bit loopy out there. #learnfromurmistakes #whosnext #every1isnext #royalrumble”

Let’s hope the pre-match headbutt goes on the shelf forever now, for everybody.

WWE Raw

The WWE Universe expected a few things out of the announced 2-on-1 handicap match between Roman Reigns and the Authority goon squad of Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre, but nobody expected an appearance from the Dead Man.

The last time we saw the legendary Undertaker was at Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia, in a deeply disappointing match with Goldberg that involved accidental blood, door-related concussions, and multiple collapses. Taker’s disappointed face even became a meme …

WWE Network

… but you wouldn’t know any of that happened listening to the Washington Raw crowd lose their minds.

As you can see in the clip below, Undertaker shows up in an unexpected moment late in the match to bail out his former WrestleMania opponent Reigns, dropping Shane McMahon — also a former WrestleMania opponent, albeit one he defeated — with a chokeslam. Taker took out McIntyre with a big boot and beat him down in the corner as well, ultimately sending the heels packing and hitting his signature pose in his moody blues.

Watch:

For all intents and purposes it looks like this will be setting up a match for The Undertaker at Extreme Rules in Philadelphia next month, and having him as 1/4 of a tag match instead of being asked to carry an entire bout himself might be just what the Phenom needs to return to form.

WWE Network

Nearly a month removed from WWE Super Showdown in Jeddah [redacted], most fans’ memories of the show revolve around one moment: wrestling legends Bill Goldberg and The Undertaker taking turns concussing and almost killing each other in a match so bad it caused multiple post-match collapses and necessitated a formal apology.

You can imagine that neither man was happy with the way the match turned out — you wouldn’t have ever called Goldberg a “ring general,” but the guy was never bad at being Goldberg — and now Goldberg’s speaking out about his desire to “erase the feeling” it left him with.

When asked about what he has left to achieve in his Hall of Fame career, Goldberg kept his answer simple and honest.

“The only thing I need to accomplish is to erase the feeling I have from my last performance.”

I can think of at least one other person who’d like to erase the feeling from that performance.

WWE Network

So who knows? Maybe when WWE returns to Green Halls Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November, Goldberg and The Undertaker will give it another shot. It might be worth it, just to see what happens. If you want to be truly nihilistic about it, give them some ladders and make it an iron man match.

But in all seriousness, it’s totally understandable that Goldberg wouldn’t want to end his career with a bloody concussion and history’s worst Jackhammer, so maybe there’s no way to go but up?

WWE Network

this is the entire episode

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: The Undertaker failed to win the WWF Championship from Stone Cold Steve Austin after a nut-punch counter to Current School that somehow made them respect each other. Also, Jeff Jarrett got his hair cut but not really, and the Insane Clown Posse began their run of being cut from WWF television due to 20-year old grudges.

If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes of classic Raw you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. Head back to a time long forgotten when WWE TV was fun to watch, and things happened!

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Saturday Night from September 5, 1998.

Worst: Someone Brought Their Child To A Wrestling Show Dressed Like This

WWE Network

Shout-out to whatever therapist is currently trying to figure out what this 25-year old’s major malfunction is and has no idea there’s footage of it in high definition on WWE Network. I was going to ask who’d buy front row tickets to Raw and spend the whole show holding up their child in a vest and underpants, but it’s probably the same people who cheer when Genar-ation X “brakes” it down.

Out-of-context note about this week’s Raw: If you’re wondering why it’s “Raw Saturday Night” and doesn’t have the same date as the week’s corresponding WCW Monday Nitro, it’s because WWE wasn’t always a global television juggernaut and used to get preempted by dog shows and tennis tournaments. Here’s a sample of what USA Network ran opposite The Ultimate Warrior scaring Hulk Hogan with smoky stinky teleportation.

I bet Sting was a really big fan of Rafter.

Best: Vince McMahon Turns Raw Into The Blue Brand

WWE Network

It turns out that SummerSlam didn’t go the way Vince McMahon had intended, and he’s hatched a “Mackly-avellian” plan for the next pay-per-view, Breakdown. He got the idea from watching Stone Cold Steve Austin on, “the hot, new talk show, that cutting edge talk show, ‘Regis & Kathie Lee,'” which for the record was never “cutting edge” and had been on the air for 10 years. I tried to find footage of the appearance, but it only seems to exist in GIF form now, so enjoy Regis Philbin in a t-shirt you’ll never forget.

Anyway, the problem is that Undertaker sent Kane to the back during the SummerSlam match like a “damned fool” and showed Austin respect afterward, causing Austin to go on Live! and say Undertaker earned HIS respect. The first part of Vince’s plan, apparently, is to make sure Kane and Undertaker don’t turn into handshaking indie workers by — and I’m not joking here — calling Kane, “retarded,” and saying they’ve turned into, “two putrid pussies.” The crowd is like OH SHIT BOY YOU’RE GONNA DIE FOR THAT, and Jim Ross’ call of, “WHAT in the HELL is he saying?” is masterful.

This succeeds in bringing out Kane and Undertaker in a power-walk to chase him into the crowd, and causes them to keep returning and actively ruining every segment of the show to prove they aren’t — again, Vince’s words, not mine — retarded pussies. And I do mean every segment.

Kane And Undertaker’s Bogus Journey

WWE Network

Up first, Kane and Undertaker return to destroy everyone involved in a Ken Shamrock and Steve Blackman vs. Disciples of Apocalypse match, which is otherwise only notable for Paul Ellering wearing an airbrushed shirt that says THE WEB RULES Y2K on the front and THE NET RULES Y2K on the back. Precious Paul really had a Repo Man understanding of the Internet.

DOA quickly bails thanks to their Biker Sense warning them of Undertaker’s presence, and Taker incapacitates Blackman with a Goldbergian knee-bar, called, “that UFC-like submission hold,” by JR. Welcome to your eternal, strip-mall dojo understanding of MMA holds, Undertaker! This definitely “strikes TERRA” in the hearts of the roster, disproving an earlier point from McMahon.

WWE Network

They’re so into wrecking the entire show that they even do run-ins over top of other people’s run-ins. For example, Val Venis vs. Vader is about to end with Bradshaw showing up to throw hands with Big Bull, but says nuts to that and bails when Kane and Undertaker wander back out. I’d like to believe Kane showed up to murder Val Venis for the lazy, “I’m like the family dog … I’m loyal, obedient, and COME ON COMMAND,” sub-Joel Gertner pre-match speech. We didn’t even find out who Val was unsanitarily dry-humping in the toilets before the match! I bet it was JBL’s wife!

I hope you’re into reading the same paragraph about how Kane and Undertaker showed up and beat everyone up because Vince called them retarded, because you’re gonna read it like six more times.

WWE Network

me every time the President is in the news

Don’t think it’s just the matches, either. This week’s Tiger Ali Singh Hates You Stupid Americans segment involves him offering to pay someone money to “tongue kiss” his man-servant Babu for five seconds. Only, get this, Babu has been eating sardines! Vince McMahon 100% masturbated to this, possibly live, in case you’re wondering.

The woman Tiger Ali picks out of the crowd is one of the most beautiful American women he’s ever seen, and she’s only wearing slightly more clothes than the Stone Cold Steve Austin baby, so he ups the prize money from $500 to $600. Because he’s the Million Rupee Man, he gets distracted in the middle of counting out the seconds and makes her French him forever, because jokes.

WWE Network

Anyway, Kane and Undertaker show up and kill them.

WWE Network

Thankfully, the very real wrestling fan who was not brought in from the local strip club without even being asked to change clothes to do humiliating PG-13 sex stuff on a wrestling show escapes the ring without a chokeslam.

WWE Network

Up next is a Headbangers vs. Southern Justice match that actually goes to a finish interrupted, because even Kane and the Undertaker aren’t interested in having to watch 10 seconds of it while they walk from the stage to the ring. Instead, they go backstage with Kane’s Mankind-murdering sledgehammer and try to find Vince McMahon, who they believe will be hanging out in an office marked “Mr. McMahon” while two 7-foot tall supernatural monsters hunt him down.

Finding only an empty office, they decide to wander back out to the ring and ruin a D’Lo Brown vs. X-Pac match. Luckily for them, Jeff Jarrett and his absolutely not shaved head have already interfered and chased Pac off, leaving D’Lo a’lone.

WWE Network

There’s actually a pretty great character bit here buried under the attacks that’ll become later, with The Rock showing up to put himself between D’Lo and his attackers, but D’Lo running away instead of helping Rock fight them. Rock is very close to figuring out that he’s outgrown the Nation of Domination and doesn’t need low-level running buddies to do his dirty work anymore, because the ladder match at SummerSlam made him a star in people’s eyes. Enough of a star, in fact, that he can turn face heading into Survivor Series ’98.

And by, “turn face,” I of course mean, “convince us that he’s turning face so we treat him like he’s Stone Cold Steve Austin and cheer for him to defeat Vince McMahon’s mackly-vellian planning in the Deadly Game tournament only to be extremely, hilariously disappointed at the end.” But we’ll get to that soon enough.

In other Nation news, the only match featuring important people that doesn’t get interrupted on the entire show is a New Age Outlaws vs. Mark Henry and The Rock tag team match, which ends when Chyna bumrushes Mark Henry and punches him to death for trying to kiss her before SummerSlam. It ends in a disqualification and the great visual of Billy Gunn and Road Dogg having to hold her back, suggesting again that The Rock should probably up the quality of henchmen he hangs out with.

WWE Network

Marc Mero and Edge continue their grudge from SummerSlam in a one-on-one match that ends quickly when Gangrel attacks Edge. Gangrel and Edge have a lot of interpersonal Interview with the Vampire Kirsten Dunst shit to work out that they aren’t ready to talk about yet, but again, we’ll get to that.

As Mero’s leaving, he’s — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — attacked by Kane and the Undertaker. The announce team gets real up in arms about Kane and Undertaker possibly attacking Jacqueline next, apparently having never watched her time as Kevin Sullivan’s Girlfriend From The Neighborhood or that unforgettable (read: completely forgettable) Disco Inferno feud in WCW.

WWE Network

Realizing that wandering out to the ring to beat up people like Marc Mero probably isn’t going to lure Vince McMahon out of hiding, Kane and Undertaker spend the next 15 minutes or so walking around backstage, hurling random production people into the Raw chain-link fence and abandoned branded barrels art design. They manage to miss out on:

• An Al Snow sit-down interview with Jim Ross where he bickers with a mannequin head for five minutes that tries to be the Mankind sit-down, but doesn’t work because it’s Al Snow and not Mick Foley
• The Oddities pinning The Legion of Doom because Drunk Hawk won’t stop picking fights with the Insane Clown Posse, which is an unbelievable and depressing combination of words and results
• Too Much defeating Los Boricuas, featuring La Boricua Jesus wearing some of the most unflattering ring gear you’ll ever see. He’s wearing cargo pants and a weird singlet top that was CLEARLY not made for him, as it’s got a deep plunging front so his boobs constantly fall out and a DIY racerback. Did he lose his luggage, and Golga was the only guy backstage with another singlet lying around?

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Kane and Undertaker resume their ruination of an entire Raw in time for the Scorpio vs. Jeff Jarrett main event, which also ends in random disqualification when X-Pac interferes and chases Jarrett away. From the way this episode’s booked, you’d think Vince McMahon had randomly declared matches need to end in disqualification with someone being chased away, leaving their opponent alone, so they don’t have to run wrestling during commercials.

Scorpio is left alone, and Mr. McMahon finally re-materializes just in time to get his jollies watching the Brothers of Destruction kill Scorp with an Indytaker.

WWE Network

Vince has succeeded in turning Kane and The Undertaker into mindless, unstoppable beasts again, and they’re playing right into his hands. They notice that he’s standing pretty close to them when they’re done putting Scorpio in a grave, so they chase him away again to end the show.

And that is literally the entire episode.

Next Week:

WWE Network

The U.S. Open on the USA Network (and Raw Saturday Night) continue as Kane and The Undertaker finally take a goddamn chill pill, full matches from SummerSlam are shown to fill time, and Genar-ation X brakes it down against Kaientai of all people in the main event. Are … are you guys making me want to see what Warrior’s doing on Nitro?

WWE

There was a brief moment there when it seemed like the Undertaker, often considered the quintessential loyal WWE lifer, might be done with the company. After initial reports that he was going to perform at WrestleMania 35, he not only vanished from discussions of that show, all mention of WWE vanished from his social media accounts, and he advertised that he was open for bookings. He was even scheduled to appear at Starrcast II, the wrestling podcast convention held in conjunction with AEW’s first show, Double Or Nothing. Then, all at once, something changed. He pulled out of Starrcast, and while he still didn’t appear at WrestleMania, he returned on Raw the next night. He continued to appear at WWE’s Saudi Arabia shows, and more recently made another surprise return to WWE TV to set up a tag match with Roman Reigns for Extreme Rules.

So what changed Taker’s mind? According to Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Vince McMahon made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. While no specific numbers have come out, the contract was reportedly for a ridiculous amount of money, and lasts for so many years that it basically locks down the Dead Man for the rest of his life. It specifically keeps him from taking non-WWE bookings, including ones like Starrcast that he had already agreed to before he signed. So now it seems that Taker really is a WWE lifer, in a very real sense.

WWE Network

At this Sunday’s SummerSlam, Bill Goldberg will get his chance to “erase the feeling” of the match against The Undertaker back at June’s Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia that left him with a concussion and an apology.

It also left him with more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes!

Per the WON, Goldberg was paid the full price of his one-year contract downside from his WWE run in 2003 to 2004, which adds up to “well over” $1 million. Not a bad pull for roughly eight minutes of work, even if it included him nearly spearing his own brains out, taking a gross-looking Tombstone Piledriver, and almost dropping the 54-year old Undertaker directly on his dome.

They make sure to note that this is less than what Goldberg was making at his peak in WCW, which landed at about $3 million a year. Good to know that even a Saudi Arabian prince fantasy booking his own WrestleMania doesn’t have the spending power of peak-era World Championship Wrestling.

It looks like Goldberg will be sticking around in WWE, by the way, although at a much lower rate. The current rumor is that new executive director Paul Heyman wants to use him “like Bruno Sammartino” at the end of his career, working a couple of grudge matches a year. We’ll go ahead and get a .txt file ready to keep track of who’s next.

WWE Network

Wrestling legend Bill Goldberg might’ve successfully “erased the feeling” of his Super Showdown match with The Undertaker in Saudi Arabia by running through Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam, but one question remains: what exactly went wrong?

You could say a pre-match concussion is to blame, or the heat in Saudi Arabia, or WWE asking two part-timers in their 50s to go 10 minutes in the main event, but Goldberg gave his own answer in an interview with Booker T on The Hall Of Fame podcast. In summary: it was a, “perfect storm of crappiness.”

“I had the perfect storm of crappiness because, for me, people don’t know all the things that go into everything. At 52, going against The Undertaker and being Bill Goldberg in the short period of time that I had, I can either do one or two things – I can get in really good shape or I can try to get as big as humanly possible so I don’t look like an old Bill Goldberg against The Undertaker. So, it’s a compromise; it’s always a compromise. This last time, though I didn’t need the cardio, man, I didn’t concentrate on getting big at all for the 4 weeks that I had. I just tried to get in shape. I didn’t try to add a pound. I tried to lose weight this time. Every situation is different. It’s like trapping for a different team. I liken everything to football because I’m a meathead and was born into a football helmet.”

Busting himself open on the post for real obviously didn’t help.

WWE Network

“But the ring post thing, hey man, that’s a spot that a couple of the bookers came up to me and said, well, we called it. We knew you were going to do that because 50% of the time I have done that spot I have not had good results. Because here’s the deal, I don’t profess to be an entertainer on the level of Ric Flair that can go out and make people laugh. I mean, I can, but it’s not my way of doing things. My way of making people’s jaws drop is blurring the line of reality and fiction so everything I do has to be – it’s like the kick I took from Dolph Ziggler. The first kick that I took felt really good because I had to react to it because it was planted on me. It was perfect. That is the way I work, man, I am a reactionary guy. If I am going to be a Defensive Lineman that was an All-American, if I’m going to be a guy who played a couple of years in the NFL, if I am going to be a guy that was known to be a thrasher, I’m not going to run into a turnbuckle and miss it and act like it killed me. I can’t do that, so I have to make it look as close as killing me as possible, and sometimes, unfortunately, the circumstances are such that I go a little overboard. And when you accelerate at an age, your body can’t take that overboard as it used to.

“I can’t bounce back from it like I used to, and then the perfect storm of the heat, and the perfect storm of The Undertaker not having the timing and not going at the same time at one point or something. Hey, at the end of the day, there’s never been a freaking dude in the middle of the ring that I couldn’t pick up, period. It was an unfortunate deal that I shouldn’t have gone as hard as I went. And then there were a couple of people saying that the referee should have called it. Well, guess what? The referee asked me 15 times how I felt and you know what I told him? Fifteen different answers. I felt different every single time that he asked me.”

So there you have it. Goldberg made sure to note that he’s not done in the ring, even though he’d be, “content if [he] never stepped foot in the ring again,” so we’ll see how often he pops up in 2020.

(transcription h/t to Wrestling Inc.)

Here’s some wrestling news sure to polarize your Facebook wall: The Undertaker and Hulk Hogan are featured in local ads for WWE’s next Crown Jewel event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, scheduled for October 31.

Neither man is a stranger to WWE’s Saudi Arabian efforts. Hogan used the 2018 edition of the event to ease back into the WWE Universe after being fired and briefly erased from company history after his racist audio scandal. Undertaker is a recurring main-eventer for the shows, wrestling D-Generation X in 2018 in a match that saw Triple H get injured, and having a match with Bill Godlberg at Super Showdown that was so bad it injured both men and necessitated an apology.

You can watch the local ad below.

No word yet on what either man will do at the show, as WWE won’t start building the card or announcing matches until after Hell in a Cell on October 6. Undertaker will presumably be main-eventing again, but hopefully not against Hogan, who has declared that he couldn’t physically wrestle again even if he wanted to. Although Hogan and Ric Flair are both guest starring on Monday’s “season premiere” of Monday Night Raw, so maybe the Saudi Prince has requested 66-year old Hulk Hogan vs. 70-year old Ric Flair. It’d make a 54-year old Undertaker seem like Humberto Carrillo.

It’s been a vocal weeks for critic of wrestling legend Bill Goldberg, be it his backstage encounter with Matt Riddle airing on WWE Network or Bret Hart’s comments on how he doesn’t belong in the WWE Hall of Fame.

In an interview with Metro before Friday night’s edition of Smackdown on Fox, Goldberg revealed that his biggest critic is actually himself.

In the interview, Goldberg explained how “going through the motions” in his “make-up” match with Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam helped him with his self-confidence, and got him back into the right frame of mind in the ring.

“I think for me, what the Ziggler match did, was reaffirm my own self-confidence, not for anyone else. But I just needed to go out there and go through the motions, and know, man, just ’cause you stumble once, [it] doesn’t define you.

“Unfortunately I was defining myself by whether it be a move or a night or a match. The fact of the matter is, I’m extremely hyper-critical of myself and that’s what’s made me the person that I am … It’s a blessing and it’s a curse. I’m never happy, but I’m always striving to be better than anybody else… [The Ziggler match] helped me out a lot, it really did.”

Maybe he’ll feel even better after his steakhouse-centric rematch with Ziggler comes together.

He also continued to explain what went wrong in his “perfect storm of crappiness” against The Undertaker in Saudi Arabia, in case you aren’t aware of how hard it is to pick up a 6-foot-10 quinquagenarian when you’ve headbutted a locker room door so hard it severely concussed you.

“It was very important to nobody but me, OK? People were very critical of me, and I’ll be honest, I never really respond to it – I do care what people think. But when I know the whole deal and everything, it’s like, come on guys. Give me a break – I knocked myself out, dude. Now let me see you walk down the street – let alone pick up a 320lbs dude – when you’re knocked out.”

With a podcast and a talk show on the USA Network, Stone Cold Steve Austin does a lot of interviews these days. He’ll soon do even more on WWE Network, with a new show called, ‘Stone Cold Steve Austin: The Broken Skull Sessions.’ The first episode will be with The Undertaker.

WrestleVotes broke this news yesterday and Variety published the official WWE scoop today. ‘The Broken Skull Sessions’ will be a monthly interview series on the Network, “with the first episode set to air on Nov. 24 at approximately 10:30 p.m. ET after the annual WWE pay-per-view Survivor Series.” If the episodes air exactly one month apart, that means the second one should air on Christmas Eve.

The last program Austin hosted on the WWE Network as the live ‘Stone Cold Podcast‘ back in 2016, which produced some memorable interviews with people like Paige, Dean Ambrose, and Paul Heyman. Austin told Variety that ‘The Broken Skull Sessions’ will have a different feel. Instead, “I think this is going to be a little more relaxed and laid back.”

In the social media age, fans are much more likely to see The Undertaker out of character than they have in the past, but he still very rarely does shoot interviews, so his interview with Austin is sure to contain some revelations and maybe make some people feel like part of their childhood has died. Back when he was going to appear at Starrcast, before he re-signed with WWE for a long time, it looked like he was going to have a podcast with Conrad Thompson, so he’s clearly more comfortable with putting kayfabe aside these days, so there might be many more to come.

Sting never wrestled the Undertaker, and it still kind of bugs him (and lots of fans too). Sting spent the prime of his career in WCW, and later went to TNA. Taker, on the other hand, did spend a short time in WCW as Mean Mark Callous early in his career, but he didn’t become a star until he debuted in WWF as the Undertaker in 1990, and from then on he never left the company.

Sting finally arrived in WWE as a legend in time for Wrestlemania 31 in 2015, where he faced Triple H. That fall, he was injured in a match with Seth Rollins at Night of Champions, and retired from the ring with the Undertaker Dream Match unrealized.

In a new interview with Sports Illustrated, Sting makes it clear that he’d probably come out of retirement if a WrestleMania match against Taker was on the table:

If there was a ’Taker situation at WrestleMania, I would listen to that phone call. I could get in condition and I could pull it off.

He doesn’t really expect it to happen, though, because the time has probably passed.

I think my career is done. I still think about the ‘Taker situation every year, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I think we all get pretty tired of seeing Legends matches these days, but Sting/Taker is one that I’d have a hard time objecting to at this point. The Undertaker seems determined to keep working as long as he can anyway, so he might as well have a match people have been wanting for decades. On the other hand, Sting has every right to a long comfortable retirement with no more strain on his body, so it’s not such a sad thing if he gets that.

Sting is keeping up with the business in 2019, however, and singles out praise for Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch:

Becky’s taken the women beyond where they’ve ever been. To see her headlining WrestleMania, and the reactions that she and some of the other women are getting, it’s incredible.

You can read the whole interview at Sports Illustrated.

It looks like the rumors on when The Undertaker would return to WWE and who he’ll be stepping into the ring with this April at WrestleMania 36 in Tampa were all true.

The Undertaker made his return at the end of the Tuwaiq Mountain Trophy Gauntlet Match for the prestigious Tuwaiq Mountain trophy® in the opening match of Thursday’s Super Showdown event in Saudi Arabia. The final two men in the match were supposed to be AJ Styles and Rey Mysterio, but cameras caught Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson taking out Rey backstage. Styles, who claims to be the best WWE Superstar from any era and that he could beat anyone from any era, demanded a count-out victory if his opponent couldn’t make it to the ring before the end of a 10-count. Instead of a forfeit win, Styles got footage of some easily recognizable feet standing by a defeated O.C., and we all knew what was about to go down.

The Deadman came to the ring in an absolute embarrassment of laser lights and, with only one chokeslam and without even removing his hat or jacket, pinned Styles to win the prestigious trophy (which had never been won before and only exists for this show).

Go ahead and officially pencil in “Undertaker vs. AJ Styles” on your 14-match WrestleMania cards.

Despite [gestures wildly] everything that is happening in the world nowadays, WWE is committed to having WrestleMania this year. Despite having to relocate into an empty Performance Center. Despite having to pre-tape all the matches. Despite one of their biggest stars pulling out of his match due to being immunocompromised and replaced. The show must go on, baby!

As such, matches continue to get announced and stipulations continue to be added, as we saw on Monday when AJ Styles informed the Undertaker that their upcoming WrestleMania 36 match would be a “boneyard match.” This left just about everyone watching at home asking the same thing: Just what in the hell is a boneyard match?

Thankfully, Styles cleared it up during a livestream on his Mixer channel (via Fightful):

“What the heck is a Boneyard match? Even I was wondering what a Boneyard match is. Under the circumstances, I think there’s a reason it’s called a Boneyard match. We didn’t want to say cemetery, graveyard. Let’s tread delicately on this. Everything that’s going on, it sucks. What is the match? It’s a combination of things you thought it was, most likely. It’s going to be different. I don’t want to give anything away. I want you guys to enjoy this. Because of the circumstances, I’m so glad that my opponent is The Undertaker, because it’s an opportunity to have a different match. I don’t want to have it in an empty arena. You guys are the life blood of what we do. We react to you. It’s all about you. I wouldn’t be anything without you, but we know how to react based on how you react. All this stuff matters. I feel for the guys who have had to have those matches.”

So there you have it: Expect to see AJ Styles and the Undertaker (and probably Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, and maybe even Michelle McCool) going toe-to-toe in a cemetery next weekend. Presumably, this is one of the cinematic gimmick matches WWE is filming for this year’s Mania.

Early reports promised that WWE was filming “cinematic” gimmick matches for WrestleMania, and the “Boneyard Match” between AJ Styles and The Undertaker on night one could certainly be described as cinematic.

After a couple of low effort altercations with The Undertaker at Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia and Elimination Chamber, Styles challenged Taker to fight him in the “boneyard,” because you can’t say “graveyard” or “cemetery” during a global pandemic. That took the form of a short film with AJ Styles (arriving in style in a casket, from the back of a hearse) taking on The Undertaker (arriving on a motorcycle, sadly to Metallica instead of Limp Bizkit) battling to bury each other in what we assume is the backyard of the House of Horrors.

Highlights from the match included The O.C. commanding a group of hooded figures from a backlit graveyard cabin, Styles charging into Undertaker to knock him through the wall of shed, and a seemingly dead Undertaker teleporting out of a grave plot to prevent himself from being buried by heavy machinery. Actual machinery, not the tag team. Ultimately, as you do, Undertaker chokeslammed Styles off the roof of a building and booted him into his grave, but only after a lengthy bout of convincing him he’d fought valiantly enough to escape burial.

The match ended with a personalized tombstone, AJ Styles’ hand sticking out of the ground, and Undertaker riding off into the sunset — moonset? — with plumes of fire in the background. We’re not sure this is what every wrestling match should look like, but it’s definitely what every Undertaker match should look like.

AJ Styles was 42 years old. He is mourned by Wendy.

The Undertaker has long been one of the most protected characters in pro wrestling history, not just from a booking standpoint but from a kayfabe standpoint. For years, Mark Calaway has avoided doing interviews either in or out of character, though in recent years, he has allowed more cracks in the Undertaker’s facade to develop.

In preparation for the Undertaker: The Last Ride, a five-episode WWE Network docuseries, the first episode of which premieres this Sunday after Money In The Bank, Calaway spoke candidly with ESPN about a variety of topics, most notably being his extreme disappointment toward his WrestleMania 33 main event with Roman Reigns — a match he not only lost, but after which he also signaled his retirement (a decision he later walked back). Calaway watched the match back for the first time during the filming of The Last Ride, an experience he did not enjoy:

“That was one of those times it was tough having the cameras there. That was the first time that I watched that match back. I was so disgusted with it that I didn’t want to watch it back.”

Calaway goes onto admit the match was a disappointment and that he let down Reigns:

“[Watching that match], I’m battling with it. I was so disappointed for Roman. Even after Brock Lesnar beat the streak, for guys coming up to have a match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania — especially where Roman was at — it was important for his career. Especially because he was going over. For me, in that role, I wanted to do the very best that I could do for Roman. I think the world of him. You want to be able to do the best you can for him, and you know you have no business being in the ring.

“Yes, I could have mailed it in. Protected myself. Only done a couple of things that I knew that I could do. But that’s just not the way I work. And it wouldn’t have been fair to him. So I just tried to do the best I could. The harder I tried, the more I did — at least in my perception — it was not a good night. It was really disappointing. Watching it back finally, and watching it back in front of a film crew, it was like … I didn’t have to say much. You could just tell from the expression on my face that I wasn’t really pleased with it.”

We haven’t seen the Undertaker on WWE programming since his Boneyard Match with AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36, largely praised by wrestling fans and journalists all over the world. Will we see him at WrestleMania 37? Only one man knows the answer, and we’ll find out when he wants to tell us.

With all sports (and sports-entertainment) leagues currently hurting for new content to keep audiences engaged, networks are pulling out the big guns: Multi-part documentaries of some of their most iconic athletes. And what The Last Dance is to the NBA, Undertaker: The Last Ride is is to the WWE Universe. This five-part docuseries, whose first episode aired yesterday and will continue to air exclusively on the WWE Network every Sunday for the next four weeks, follows the journey of the Undertaker from the days before his WrestleMania 33 match in 2017 until, presumably, present day.

We at With Spandex will be watching along with the rest of you every Sunday and distilling each episode down in our new recap, Ride Or Die. Here’s what we learned from episode one of The Last Ride.

The Undertaker Is Getting Old

Filming for The Last Ride‘s first episode, The Greatest Fear, started three days before WrestleMania 33, at the personal request of Mark Calaway. The entire undercurrent of this episode is that ostensibly, this is the end for the Undertaker, and that Roman Reigns will be the one to retire him. Calaway is caught on camera joking around with Jim Cornette and Jimmy Hart about being pro wrestling’s version of Santa Claus (because he only comes around once a year), as well as ribbing fellow legends such as Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels at that year’s Hall Of Fame ceremony, before later opening up about the stark reality of his current situation:

“The Streak is what made it okay for me to only work once a year, because I had to defend the Streak. It takes its toll. I had a five-year stretch where my schedule would be, I would prepare for Mania, I would have my Mania match, then I would have some kind of surgery to repair whatever had been bothering me going into that match, then go straight from rehab right into training to be ready to go for Mania again.”

He goes on to admit it’s a huge challenge to only work once a year (a sentiment later reinforced by Triple H) and that he simply can’t work a full schedule anymore.

The Undertaker Is Well-Respected

No big surprise here, right? The Last Ride pulls out the big guns in its first episode with a slew of legendary talking heads, all talking about how important Mark Calaway is to the wrestling business and how much respect they hold for the big man. We hear platitudes from legit WWE Hall Of Famers Mick Foley, Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Batista, Edge, Steve Austin, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Mark Henry, Scott Hall, JBL and Jim Ross, plus surefire Hall Of Famers such as Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt and the Big Show (and also three-years-ago Chris Jericho, billed as “former WWE Superstar”). Plus Vince McMahon himself shows up — he doesn’t do that for very many of these WWE Network documentary pieces, so you know this one’s important.

The Undertaker’s Confidence Was Shattered Because Of WrestleMania XXX

Taker says his back-to-back WrestleMania matches with Shawn Michaels were challenging, and his match with Triple H at WrestleMania 27 was “brutal,” resulting in him spending two full days in a hotel room afterward just to recover, before eventually having hip surgery. That surgery rolled back his odometer a bit, though, as he says his next two Mania matches, against Triple H and CM Punk respectively, were “pretty good,” but when it comes to his WrestleMania 30 match against Brock Lesnar, that’s where everything gets tough.

This is without a doubt the most intense part of The Last Ride‘s first episode, as we find out more about Taker’s concussion he suffered mid-match and how it was much more severe than anyone had known until now:

“I’m not sure when I got concussed. I don’t know how that match happened. I have no recollection of any of that. My last memory of that day was at about I’d say 3:30 in the afternoon.”

WWE trainer Larry Heck confirms the story of Vince McMahon following the ambulance to the hospital, adding that Brock Lesnar was also with Vince. And even as Taker tried to tell people he was okay, Michelle McCool reveals otherwise:

“He was trying to cheat in the hospital. Nurses would come and go, ‘What’s your name?’ And he would ask me, ‘What’s my name again?’ He was so severely concussed he didn’t know his name, he didn’t know where we were, he didn’t know why we were in New Orleans. He didn’t know his name until 4 a.m.”

Calaway thinks it was a combination of age and ring rust that caught up with him in that Mania match. “One concussion and one match destroyed my confidence,” he comments, echoing a remark made by Steve Austin earlier in the episode: “Ring rust and timing is real. The nervous system, the nerves play into all that.”

Fast-forward to 2015, and WrestleMania 31. Taker’s opponent, Bray Wyatt, says he had no idea the Dead Man was lacking confidence, but it was apparent to Triple H, who approached him backstage and gave him a quick, profane motivational speech: “Show them who the fuck you are. Fuck last year. Kill this thing.”

After the match, Taker is shown joking with Vince about knowing his name, a big change from the aftermath of WrestleMania XXX. His restored confidence led to a more active schedule in the ensuing year, working an additional six matches in 2015, including two more with Lesnar.

The Undertaker Was Not Ready For WrestleMania 33

The final portion of The Last Ride‘s first episode focuses on the day of WrestleMania 33, which is clearly being framed as his final WWE match. You have some perfunctory remarks from Roman Reigns talking about how honored he is to be his dance partner, but more importantly, you have Taker himself reflecting on his own legacy, and his value to WWE.

“If I’m on the card, there’s some young guy that may not be on that card. It’s my duty to make sure it’s worth putting me on the card. No one would probably say anything to my face if I stunk it up, but i would know. That’s one of my biggest fears, is becoming a parody of myself. It would kill me to know that some dad who watched me when he was young has to turn to his son and go ‘yeah he’s moving kinda slow now but you should’ve seen him 10, 15 years ago.”

Fine speech. But the problem is, everyone else around Taker seemed to know he wasn’t in peak shape for this one. Just moments after calling him “the greatest performer that’s ever been in the history of this business,” JBL shoots from the hip and says, “I’d never seen him in worse physical shape than he was before WrestleMania.”

Edge compares Taker ca. 2016 to Brett Favre playing for the Vikings, noting that there will be always be flashes of greatness, but it doesn’t matter how spotty their performance is or what anyone else says, because due to their pedigree, “they have cart blanche to say when it’s time.”

As Taker approaches Camping World Stadium, he remarks, “They say fighters can grow old in one fight. Hopefully this isn’t that fight.” (Little does he know…)

Some of the most fun stuff happens as the cameras follow Taker around the stadium before the show. You get to see a visibly nervous Kofi Kingston shake Taker’s hand (but not before quickly wiping it on his pants), an embrace between the Dead Man and Lesnar (a beautiful acknowledgement of the war they put each other through) as well as the Dead Man and Goldberg (foreshadowing their disastrous match two years later) and the ever-observant Chris Jericho, who quickly puts two and two together when seeing a camera crew following Calaway around, realizing this is the end of his career.

We later see Calaway limping into a trainer’s room, getting a cortisone injection in his knee to “take the edge off it.” This might be the most human we’ve ever seen the Undertaker, emphasized by his remarks:

“The business comes first, first and foremost. Our job is to go out and be first-class professional entertainers and give our fans what they paid their hard-earned money to see.”

Unfortunately, we all know what happens next: A main event match against Roman Reigns that was passable at best, resulting in the Undertaker “going out on [his] shield” before quickly scrambling to his feet and putting his entrance gear back on, just so he can take it off in a dramatic fashion and leave it in the center of the ring.

Afterward, Taker is met by a similarly fatigued Triple H below the entrance ramp, who embraces him and congratulates him on a “hell of a run.” A little bit later, after he gets the excess fluid in his knee drained, Calaway remarks, “I’m pretty content riding off into the sunset. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

This could have been a standalone episode — and maybe had the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia never came calling, it might have been — but instead, we get four more. And given the iffiness of some of Taker’s post-retirement matches, it looks like The Last Ride is about to pick a whole lot of scabs in the coming weeks.

With all sports (and sports-entertainment) leagues currently hurting for new content to keep audiences engaged, networks are pulling out the big guns: Multi-part documentaries of some of their most iconic athletes. And what The Last Dance is to the NBA, Undertaker: The Last Ride is is to the WWE Universe. This five-part docuseries, whose first episode aired yesterday and will continue to air exclusively on the WWE Network every Sunday for the next four weeks, follows the journey of the Undertaker from the days before his WrestleMania 33 match in 2017 until, presumably, present day.

We at With Spandex will be watching along with the rest of you every Sunday and distilling each episode down in our new recap, Ride Or Die. Here’s what we learned from episode two of The Last Ride.

Previously on The Last Ride: We learned that the Undertaker remembers nothing about WrestleMania 30, was a shell of himself mentally going into WrestleMania 31 and came into WrestleMania 33 completely out of shape. (He also said nothing about WrestleMania 32 whatsoever, which is maybe for the best.)

The Undertaker Hated His Retirement Match

Episode two of The Last Ride has its flaws (like Undertaker’s extremely questionable wardrobe choices — yeesh), but it’s nothing if not honest, especially when the episode begins with Taker dogging on what was ostensibly supposed to be his retirement match. Eight months after getting beaten by Roman Reigns, Taker sits on his couch, watching blown spot after blown spot, admitting he dropped the ball:

“I feel bad for Roman. That bothers me. It’s like I didn’t even know where I was supposed to be. I haven’t spoken to him about it… I did the best that I could do for him, the problem was my physical conditioning. my body was at the limit of what I could take.”

Vince McMahon goes onto echo Taker’s sentiments, saying, “He wasn’t there and he knew in his heart he wasn’t there.”

So, of course, this means Taker wants a second crack at a goodbye match, commenting, “I feel like I need some redemption for that performance, so here we are.”

Michelle McCool, the secret MVP of the series thus far who went on the record saying she was hoping Mania 33 was really the end, wearily echoes her husband’s sentiment: “Here we are.”

The Undertaker Had Hip Surgery Following WrestleMania 33

Just a few weeks after getting pinned in Orlando, Mark Calaway has his right hip replaced, after having already had his left hip replaced a number of years ago. His time in the hospital provides the first real laugh-out-loud moment of The Last Ride, when a nurse asks him if he’s ever had any surgeries and Calaway chuckles and deadpans, “Yeah, I’ve had a few,” before listing off his myriad procedures (among them, blown out eyesockets, torn rotator cuff, biceps repair, knee scoping and broken fingers).

The next laugh-out-loud moment comes immediately thereafter, when Calaway is wheeled into the OR where the doctors are literally playing his theme song. Not exactly the kind of thing you’d want to hear on an operating table! But the surgery goes as planned, and Calaway is back on his feet by the next morning — though apparently he caught some guff from McMahon, who told him he walked out the same day of his 2013 hip surgery. (Once a genetic jackhammer, always a genetic jackhammer, I suppose.)

McCool once again steals the show here, as Calaway says, “I’ve changed, I’ve changed” in regards to wanting to return to the ring, to which she immediately fires back, “Since yesterday?” She knows what’s coming, whether or not he realizes it.

The Undertaker And Vince McMahon Have An Incredibly Tight Bond

As much as Calaway loves his wife (and her ability to throw a football), there’s no question the deepest love in his life is the love he has for Vince McMahon, a feeling which appears to be evenly reciprocated — even though Calaway says he can’t ever predict how his converstions with Vince will go. “I gave up on strategizing meetings with Vince a long time ago,” he remarks as he heads to a meeting at WWE’s corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, on a Saturday in August, 2017. (Who conducts business on a Saturday? Vince.)

We learn that Taker’s love for Vince is so deep that he named his son Gunner Vincent, and McCool says of the pair, “They would literally take a bullet for each other,” a sentiment reiterated by Taker himself later. When McMahon is asked what Taker means to him, he responds, “Mark Calaway is the most loyal performer I have ever dealt with,” before breaking down into tears when pressed as to what he means to him personally.

It makes sense, though: The Undertaker never left. Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Randy Savage and countless others switched sides in the Monday Night War (and beyond, with TNA, AEW and elsewhere). Even talent in good standing like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart eventually retired from in-ring competition. Hell, even Vince’s own son Shane left WWE in the mid-2000s — but Taker always stayed. How many people can you say you’ve been loyal to for 30 years?

The Undertaker Called His Shot For WrestleMania 34 Two Years In Advance

In a neat little bit of foreshadowing, we catch up with Taker backstage at the 2018 Royal Rumble (in which Michelle McCool was competing), and he hypes up AJ Styles, sayin he wishes he could’ve worked with before retiring. Barely two years later, we get this dream pairing in a Boneyard Match at WrestleMania 34. Ask and ye shall receive, Taker!

WrestleMania 34 Was Ultimately Unfulfilling For The Undertaker

The final chunk of this installment of The Last Ride deals with Calaway getting himself ready to make a comeback/final(?) match against John Cena at WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans, inside the same arena where his streak (and his confidence) was shattered four years prior. We get some pretty impressive training montages, with Taker running the ropes and taking clotheslines and arm drags like he was 19 years old, with the help of recently released WWE Superstar Primo, of all people (mirroring fellow released talent Dash Wilder who was enlisted to get Edge back in ring shape for WrestleMania 36).

Now nearly a year removed from his match with Reigns, Calaway continues to be honest about himself and his performance:

“I was slow, I was old, I was overweight… I shouldn’t have been in the ring last year. Simple as that. It won’t happen again, you can bet that.”

As Mania 34 approaches, a slimmed-down, in-shape Taker speaks again of his legacy, mirroring remarks from the buildup to Mania 33, even going so far as to say, “There’s a good chance tomorrow’s the last time I make that walk and an important part of my life stops.” (Suuuure it does, Mark.)

His return match against John Cena is 1/10th as long as his main event with Reigns from the year prior, going a meager 2:45 — but in that time, Taker, to his credit, looked great. But despite the positive reception from the audience and those backstage, you can tell Taker isn’t happy, remarking that he prepared for a much longer match.

“Mission accomplished from what we set out to do. I had a lot more in the tank tonight. At the end of the day that’s what I wanted. Hopefully people are gonna wonder tonight, ‘Wow, what’s he gonna do next?'”

If you guessed, “Cash a check from a bloodthirsty Saudi Arabian prince,” congratulations, you win.

Next week on The Last Ride: We take a look at the disastrous Crown Jewel match between the Brothers of Destruction and D-Generation X. Hold onto your butts.

With all sports (and sports-entertainment) leagues currently hurting for new content to keep audiences engaged, networks are pulling out the big guns: Multi-part documentaries of some of their most iconic athletes. And what The Last Dance is to the NBA, Undertaker: The Last Ride is is to the WWE Universe. This five-part docuseries, airing exclusively on the WWE Network every Sunday through mid-June, follows the journey of the Undertaker from the days before his WrestleMania 33 match in 2017 until, presumably, present day.

We at With Spandex will be watching along with the rest of you every Sunday and distilling each episode down in our new recap, Ride Or Die. Here’s what we learned from episode three of The Last Ride.

Previously on The Last Ride: We learned that the Undertaker hated his retirement match against Roman Reigns, he had hip surgery to try and recover, and Primo Colon — Primo Colon! — was an essential part of his comeback.

The Undertaker Was Disappointed In His WrestleMania 34 Match

Have you guys noticed a pattern developing yet? Mark Calaway, the man, cannot let the Undertaker, the character, ride off into the sunset because there is always something wrong with his latest match. Maybe he was out of shape. Maybe he found a brown M&M in a bowl of green M&Ms backstage. Or, in the case of his WrestleMania 34 match against John Cena, he didn’t feel like he got enough time:

“Professionally it was fine, personally it left me a little empty… I was prepared to do a 30-minute match. If it had happened with Cena, there’s probably a good chance I could’ve walked away and been okay. It was a three-minute match, whaddya gonna do?”

At least we got to find out that Calaway’s daughter’s favorite wrestler is John Cena, and she was upset her dad “crushed” him. That’s good shit, pal.

The WWE Propaganda Machine Finally Rears Its Ugly Head

It was only a matter of time before The Last Ride got to Saudi Arabia, and like all things Saudi Arabia, it is handled with kid gloves topped with oven mitts covered in bubble wrap. Everybody knows the No. 1 reason why WWE runs these shows is an exorbitant amount of money. Nothing any talent says about it being an “honor to be invited” will ever ring true. They’re paydays, folks. Just own it.

It’s even funnier watching Taker, a guy who is so clearly pro-‘Merica, trying to diplomatically talk about the cultural benefits of going to Saudi Arabia, as if this isn’t what comes up when you Google Nine Line Apparel, the clothing line he so proudly has been dousing himself in:

“IT’S MUCH MORE THAN GETTING DRESSED EVERYDAY, IT’S ABOUT BEING PROUD OF WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU WEAR, AND HOW YOU WALK THROUGH LIFE. WE ARE RELENTLESSLY PATRIOTIC. WE HOLD NO PUNCHES, WE DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR OUR LOVE OF COUNTRY, WE ARE AMERICA’S NEXT GREATEST GENERATION.”

Buzz, your girlfriend: Woof.

The Undertaker Isn’t Exactly Friends With Triple H And Shawn Michaels

A huge chunk of chapter three is spent discussing WrestleManias 25 through 28, in which the Undertaker faced Shawn Michaels twice and then Triple H twice, with all three men discussing just how proud they were of these contests. But the episode also makes a point to show that while Taker is friendly with both of these men, they’re not exactly his friends. “We don’t have a day-to-day buddy-buddy hangout,” says Triple H, immediately after mentioning Taker stood up in his wedding. “Do we call each other every day and see how our lives are going? No,” responds Taker, because he probably thinks TRUE PATRIOTS DON’T HAVE FRIENDS, THEY HAVE BROTHERS or something probably equally as silly.

There’s something distinctly beautiful and kind of depressing watching these three legit legends talk about this business, knowing their hyper-masculinity (at least on Triple H and Taker’s part, not so much Shawn Michaels’ anymore) prevents them from being normal people with normal emotions. Everything has to be the most serious thing ever or inane locker room bullshitting (see how mad Taker gets when he gets beaten by WWE trainer Larry Heck at gin). There’s no middle ground for regular, normal friendships. It’s sad, really. I hope Michelle McCool encourages Mark Calaway to see a therapist after all of this is said and done.

Right! So. Taker/Shawn 1. Both men describe the match as “magic,” with Triple H saying, “It was the greatest thing I had ever seen,” and Steve Austin calling it “storytelling at its finest.” They follow it up at Mania 26 with another classic that put Michaels out to pasture — at least until Saudi Arabia came knocking.

“Everybody is amazed that I’ve stayed retired,” says Michaels in a talking-head interview clearly filmed before Crown Jewel 2018. “I’m so envious of Shawn because he was able to walk away from it,” Taker remarks. Of course, blood money pulls all three men plus [checks notes] Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, who at one point used to wrestle as [checks notes again] Kane, back together for a so-so main event in Australia and a colossal disaster of a main event in Riyadh.

Everybody Hated The Crown Jewel Main Event

While The Last Ride makes no mention of it, Crown Jewel 2018 was especially contentious due to the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi by the Saudi Arabian government weeks beforehand, with calls for the cancellation of the event falling upon Vince McMahon’s deaf ears. Maybe that added more than its fair share of bad juju to the evening, because good lord, this match sucked so hard, even in “highlights” form.

At least everyone involved knew it was terrible too:

TRIPLE H: “It couldn’t have gone any worse.”
THE UNDERTAKER: “It was a total trainwreck, it was a disaster.”
SHAWN MICHAELS: “It totally blew.”

For an episode that was largely uncontroversial, compared to the first two, it was nice to see at least some honesty shine through in The Last Ride‘s final minutes. And as always, we can count on Michelle McCool to spit truth:

“It’s a vicious cycle of I know he’s not going to be happy with his performance so he has to redeem himself… Especially after 30 years you want to leave on something that just felt right. [WrestleMania 34] could’ve been it. But he wasn’t ready.”

So now we all have to wait until the Undertaker is ready. Ironic, since the the Grim Reaper usually doesn’t wait for anyone.

Also, This Happened

Next week on The Last Ride: Nothing! Apparently, the next episode won’t air until June 14, and it will focus around a performance the Undertaker describes as “catastrophic” – his match with Goldberg. You won’t wanna miss this one.

As Mark Calaway continues his ongoing media tour in support of the WWE Network docuseries Undertaker: The Last Ride, we keep getting new nuggets of information and lore about one of the most mysterious and protected characters the pro wrestling business has ever seen. We learned he was “disappointed” in his WrestleMania 33 main event with Roman Reigns and that he doesn’t think he could pull off the “mystique” of the Undertaker character in present-day WWE anymore. But this latest tidbit of information, coming from the Bill Simmons Podcast (via Wrestling Inc.), fleshes out even more details around his disastrous WrestleMania 30 match against Brock Lesnar, which had already been covered in episode one of The Last Ride — but now we know Calaway’s concussion was even more severe than the docuseries let on.

“No one even knew [I was concussed]. Brock got hyper nervous about it but you could tell, maybe for the casual fan you couldn’t tell but anyone who follows our business could tell. My memory of that day stops at about 3:30 in the afternoon, that’s the last memory I have. My wife had come backstage as she normally does before I start going through my process, I had told her what was going to happen and calmed her down and that was it. I have no recollection of the match, it was 4 in the morning before I even knew what my name was.

“I basically stayed in my room in the dark for 2 weeks. I’ve been concussed before, but never to that level. I’ve never had the lingering headache and sensitivity to the light, that had never happened to that extreme before. It was strange. Not being able to remember, I had been concussed a few times and been able to finish the match and know when it happened but not that time.”

Amnesia, light sensitivity and lingering headaches are all signs of a grade 3 (severe) concussion and Post-Concussion Syndrome, so it sounds like Taker was really knocked for a loop during the match that ended the Streak. Thankfully, it appears he’s been able to fully recover.

Episode four of Undertaker: The Last Ride premieres Sunday, June 14 on WWE Network.