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The 8 Ball: Top 8 Reasons Why Lesnar-Undertaker is a Terrible Idea

July 27, 2015 | Posted by Mike Hammerlock

Top 8 Reasons Why Lesnar-Undertaker is a Terrible Idea

During the past week, the WWE has unveiled a radical plan to reverse its sagging television ratings and combat the general malaise over its product: Undertaker Time! I’m sure there’s some social media metric that shows the WWE led the known universe in OMG tweets last Sunday and Monday. I mean, it’s the Undertaker. He tends to get folks whipped up during his intermittent visits to the WWE stage. My take? How utterly original of them. I’m yawning with excitement. Literally, it’s chasing all the ennui out of my body. And he’s going to face Brock Lesnar … again. Why we haven’t seen anything like this for almost 16 months. Color me intrigued.

All right, sarcasm aside, obviously I’m not on board with the E’s sudden SummerSlam swerve. Time to give the Magic 8-Ball a furious shaking to delve into the particulars of why Lesnar-Undertaker V (VI if you count an MSG house show) may not be best for business in the long run.

8. History Eraser Button

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The Streak was one of the greatest things the WWE ever did. Sure, the first decade of the Streak was forgettable, but it grew into epic proportions during the Orton-Batista-Edge-HBK-HHH-Punk run. As poor a decision as it was to have a part-time attraction in his late 30s break the Streak, the decision got made. We got a moment etched in history and from it Brock Lesnar emerged as a destructive force of nature even more imposing than the Undertaker himself. Lesnar became gorilla superman, an unstoppable mixture of anger and sinew. No one left that match with lingering doubts about who really won or whether the outcome was fair. Lesnar beat Undertaker, period (officially he’s 4-0-1 vs. the Deadman). Now we’re getting a history rewrite. Undertaker just can’t take it anymore. What happens if Taker wins? Lesnar is the guy who kinda beat the Streak and kinda isn’t? What happens if Lesnar wins? Is Undertaker going to let that rest in peace? So much of pro wrestling is overworked and needlessly convoluted. The Streak was an unambiguous straight line. Now they’re scribbling all over it.

7. Logic Schmogic

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You might recall that Undertaker called Brock out for their fateful WrestleMania XXX encounter. Why? No one knows. The casus belli for that match was murky at best. His plan backfired. Supposedly he’s angry because Brock (or more accurately Paul Heyman and everyone else on the planet) talked too much about breaking the Streak. Yeah, because NOBODY ever mentioned the Streak during the 23 years it was alive and well. Taker really should have changed his name to Understreaker somewhere along the way. If Taker doesn’t like someone making too big a deal out of the streak, he only has himself to blame. Plus, shouldn’t it count as a sign of honor that Lesnar lists breaking the Streak at the top of his resume? Brock’s done other things – beat the Rock for his first WWE title, won the UFC Heavyweight Championship, obliterated John Cena. How dare he flatter the Undertaker! The nerve of him! Honestly, how is Taker supposed to sit at home and suffer through his continued relevance despite his quasi-retired status?

And why did Undertaker attack Brock when he did? If he truly wanted revenge on Lesnar, it would have made more sense to let him win the WWE title and then take that from him. Brock supposedly is a championship-driven fellow. The biggest prize in the industry would have upped the stakes, forcing Brock to put what he cares about most on the line. This may count as the dopiest plan ever. Technically Undertaker had to plan being at Battleground, right? He had to book a flight to St. Louis and get himself over to the Scottrade Center. I guess thinking through the entire plan was beyond his supernatural powers.

6. Where’s the Champion?

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I don’t mind that the WWE Championship isn’t going to be the main event at SummerSlam. Nothing wrong with some card variety. However, the booking literally turned the WWE title into an afterthought. Taker didn’t bother to wait for Lesnar to win the title. More than that, the second Taker showed up, Brock apparently forgot all about the title belt that supposedly was his obsession. The WWE’s biggest prize got chucked to the side, Seth Rollins along with it. Weren’t they supposed to be telling story about how the Authority wanted Rollins to step up and prove himself? It’s one thing to have a personal feud take precedence over the WWE Championship. It’s another to have a personal feud forcibly push the WWE Championship to the side. Not for nothing, Rollins only recently established his legitimacy with a brutal victory at Money in the Bank against Dean Ambrose. For the WWE to turn around and immediately put him back in short pants is stupid booking. Now John Cena is running him down as a bogus, inferior champion. Apparently the man who runs the place feels the need to ditch his secondary title and restore the luster to the company’s top title. That’s the story we’re being told, and it’s not a good one.

5. Kids Love Watching Old Men Fight

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Undertaker turned 50 earlier this year. Whenever he reappears you can read plenty of comments about how fans feel like they’re kids again when they hear the gong for his entrance. I appreciate that. Yet I wasn’t a kid when Taker first showed up, so I thought he was a talented guy with a goofy gimmick, not an emissary of darkness. Actually what I really thought was, “Hey, that’s the Punisher!” How much childlike wonder you’ve got for the Undertaker is a function of your current age. It probably peaks among thirtysomethings. Yet what if you are an actual kid right now? is the Undertaker your icon or is he some old dude who was your dad’s icon? Once upon a time Baron Von Raschke was an iconic figure for the youth of America. Every kid I knew was looking for a flimsy excuse to slap a claw hold on his friends. A decade later Von Raschke was a geezer with abnormally large ears. Now Undertaker is the geezer with abnormally large ears (seriously, his ears are enormous). If Vince is trying to hook a new generation, I’d suggest Undertaker isn’t the man to do it. Small sample size alert, but I’ve got a teenage son who loves pro wrestling. He’s gotten bored by the WWE and largely walked away from it. Undertaker won’t be dragging him back into the fold.

4. Desperation Ploy

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Above all else, Lesnar-Undertaker is a transparent attempt to boost sagging television ratings and prevent WWE Network subscriber cancellations. In the short-term it might work. I’m sure there’s a fair number of lapsed fans who might tune in for an Undertaker nostalgia tour. Thing is, Taker isn’t sticking around and neither are those fans. This is the sort of desperate move you make when you’ve run out of new ideas. It’s like when Spinal Tap decided it was time to resurrect its Stonehenge set. Apparently Vince McMahon is now as confused as Nigel Tufnel. It’s such an obvious cry for attention, I have trouble treating it as anything more than that. Think about how this feud emerged. There was no beef between them and suddenly they’re at each other’s throats. We went from zero kelvin to hotter than the surface of the sun in the blink of an eye. A week ago this didn’t exist and no one was clamoring for it. Vince McMahon pulled this out of his ass. Put it this way: Lesnar-Undertaker is the crap and we’re the wall. Vince is hoping it sticks.

3. Self-Inflicted Wounds

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To those who question what else the WWE could do right now to stage a SummerSlam-worthy main event, fair point. Nothing jumps out as an obvious winner. But whose fault is that? The WWE is sitting on a ridiculously talented roster and it kneecaps almost everyone who seems to be in danger of getting over in a big way. Seth Rollins grabbed worldwide attention at WrestleMania. Since then they took away his finisher and he’s been made to play chickenshit. What if Rusev had rolled through John Cena and was now an unstoppable force instead of Lana’s creepy ex-boyfriend? What if Bray Wyatt had beaten Undertaker? What if Dean Ambrose had won the IC title at WrestleMania and he was the guy with the open challenge gimmick? What if Dolph Ziggler had been building steadily on the momentum he had coming out of Survivor Series and was now on the brink of winning the WWE title? Better options don’t exist because the WWE undermines its own roster. There’s no reason we couldn’t be looking at a CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy or Daniel Bryan vs. John Cena type of main event, but Vince McMahon painted himself into a corner. Lesnar-Undertaker is the lazy man’s fix for the WWE’s consistently poor creative direction.

2. Roster Burial

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And because this is such a glaring desperation ploy with the built in excuse that no one on the regular roster is worthy of this slot, it effectively sends the message that the product the WWE gives us every week is shit. I mean, anyone who’s been watching it for the past year-plus knows it’s mostly shit, but at least we could operate under the assumption the WWE disagreed with us on that point. Nope, the E apparently has become self-aware of its own shittiness. It needs a new circus to distract us from its regular circus. Why not just put up billboards that pronounce the guys on your roster aren’t that good? For those who listened to the complaints of CM Punk, this is what irked him. There’s no reward in the WWE for busting your tail 24/7/365. Undertaker spent decades chewing through the regular roster only to lose the Streak to a part-timer. Now Brock Lesnar chews through the regular roster and the only guy who can challenge him 1v1 in the ring is the Undertaker. Time to stop calling the full-time wrestlers in the company WWE superstars and address them as WWE cannon fodder.

1. It Will Suck Again

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I doubt anyone who saw it has forgotten just how awful the Lesnar-Undertaker match at WM30 was. Seriously, worst match of the night. The divas invitational at least deserved some credit for being over quickly. Brock and Taker dragged on 25 sleep-inducing minutes until we got to the shock ending. The shock actually may have been all the greater because it seemed impossible the Streak would be allowed to end on such a forgettable contest. Supposedly Undertaker got injured and that took the whole match downhill. Yet was he injured when he faced Bray Wyatt at WM31? Because he was no great shakes there either. Brock wrestles more as a spectacle than anything else. He dominates and his opponents attempt to survive his onslaught. Surely they’ll try to stage a hoss match with these two where they trade big impact moves, putting them on more even footing. Yet I doubt it will translate into an entertaining affair. We’ve seen this movie and it’s somewhat less than a clash of the titans. If it goes down that road again – or, God Forbid, if Sting interjects himself to muck up the finish – the WWE risks alienating even more fans. This match is getting hyped to astronomical proportions and it’s a good bet to disappoint in the ring. What do you do after you throw your Hail Mary and it doesn’t even reach the end zone?

I take requests.. The purpose of this column is to look forward. What could be? What should be? What is and what should never be? What would make more sense? 411 has plenty of columns that count down and rank things that happened in the past. This is not one of those columns. The Magic 8-Ball is here to gaze into the future. If there’s someone or something you think should be given the 8-Ball treatment, mention it in the comments section. I might pick it up for future weeks.