Tiffany MC takes a look at legendary WrestleMania run of The Undertaker in part 5 of her series on The Streak!

The years of 2001-02 were years of wild change for the Undertaker, WWF, and the wrestling world. After taking several months off due to injury, the Undertaker returned to WWF in the spring of 2000 as the American Badass. Gone were the days of supernatural powers, gongs, and looking like something out of the Old West or a horror movie. Undertaker was now the meanest biker in the bar and he quickly re-established himself as the big dog in the yard, taking on all comers.

As we enter into 2001, there were a lot of changes happening in wrestling. In March of 2001, WCW, long-time rival of WWF suddenly went out of business, leaving the WWF as the only major wrestling promotion in the United States and the fallout of that bankruptcy would shape and haunt the wrestling world for more than a decade.

In these years, the Undertaker would become the Big Dog and would run his yard with an iron fist, becoming the pillar and cornerstone of WWF/E. He would also prove that he didn’t need the supernatural gimmick to stay over with the fans, as his star only grew brighter without them.

WrestleMania X-7 – Playing the Game Part 1

This rivalry, which would become a career definer for both men, started in early 2001. Triple H, Vince McMahon’s erstwhile son-in-law had come to the ring and bragged about defeating everyone that the fans loved. However, Taker had come out and reminded the Game that he’d never been able to defeat the Deadman.

The feud had gotten ugly pretty quickly and culminated with Undertaker finding a way around a restraining order put out against him by Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, bu having Kane, who was not bound by said restraining order, kidnap Stephanie and threatened to have Kane hurl Stephanie off the top of the parking garage unless he got Triple H at WrestleMania, an offer Commissioner William Regal couldn’t refuse. Triple H retaliated by trashing Taker’s prize motorcycle.

Triple H is sung to the ring by Motorhead. He gets a good pop despite being the heel in this. As the hometown hero, Taker’s pop in Houston was even more thunderous than normal. JR mentions the 8-0 winning streak, but it is still not a huge deal and Heyman let’s it pass without comment.

Taker dominates the first part of the match, but Trips turns it around by dodging a guillotine leg drop.  The match quickly gets ugly and Mike Chioda is taken out, which means it’s anything goes for Taker and Trips, who take the match out into the crowd and the A/V area. It looked to be all over by the shouting when Taker chokeslammed Trips off the area they were fighting in, and if they had been in a Falls Count Anywhere, it would’ve been, but they needed to settle this in the ring, which bought Trips enough time to recover and keep this match going.

Taker nearly got Trips with Trips’ sledgehammer, but a boot in the nuts stopped that, but it wasn’t enough to stop Taker. Even a sledgehammer to the back of the head didn’t do it, much to Trips’ frustration. It would take a Last Ride and a Tombstone but the Undertaker was 9-0

Highlight: Motorhead. Taker hitting the Tombstone just for the heck of it.

Rating: 7/10 Of the three matches these two would have at WrestleMania, this one had the weakest story, but the match was incredible.

WrestleMania X-8 – To Be The Man

This is one of the dream matches Undertaker would have in his WrestleMania career. Ric Flair had returned to the WWF after an absence of almost ten years as the co-owner of WWF following the destruction of the WCW/ECW alliance. After interference from Flair caused the then heel Undertaker to lose a match against the Rock at No Way Out, an enraged Undertaker went after Ric Flair with all the malice you’d expect from him. He attacked Arn Anderson, Flair’s long-time friend and attacked Flair’s oldest son, David, while the young man was training to wrestle.

Taker comes out on his ride, and gets a thunderous pop despite being a nasty heel in 2002. The Streak is mentioned again, but only in passing. Flair gets a huge ovation like always. This is a No DQ match which suits both men and guarantees shenanigans.

This match was much better than I expected it to be. I never saw Flair in his prime and his later years in WWE weren’t great, but he showed that he was brawler as well as a finesse guy. That said, it was a typical Flair match, but he and Taker tore it down.

Taker dominated much of the match, even pulling a bloodied Flair out of pinning combinations several times, but his arrogance bit him in the ass when Flair moved out of the way of the leg drop. The second brawl of the match broke out when a bloodied Flair started pulling out the weapons to wear Taker’s ass out. When Taker looked to end things with a chokeslam, Flair pulled out his dirtiest trick and kicked Taker in the nuts before slapping on the Figure-Four, but Taker realized that at 6’10”, he could easily get out of the hold by choking Flair out and that’s when the gloves came off.

Getting frustrated, Taker took out Charles ‘Little Naitch’ Robinson and all hell broke loose because Arn Anderson came out and hit his patented spinebuster on Taker and Robinson tried to hit a fast count in revenge for the unwarranted attack, but Taker was able to hold on and got some revenge on Anderson, though he was careful about it, in respect of Anderson’s injured neck, which gave Flair time to wail on Taker with a chair.

Unfortunately for Flair and Anderson, all their teamwork couldn’t stop the Undertaker, who sealed his tenth WrestleMania victory and celebrated by knocking out Little Naitch.

Highlight: Double A hitting his patented spinebuster on Taker. Charles Robinson trying to get a fast count in retaliation for Taker attacking him.

Rating: 8/10. This was a better match than I’ve come to expect out of Ric Flair, even with all the usual Flair spots.