The Undertaker vs. Triple H

 

The Winner: The Undertaker

Background Noise

This match took place on April 1^st 2001. Wrestlemania 17

The backstory to this match, was, if I am remembering correctly, Triple H said he had beaten everyone in the WWF that there was to beat. Undertaker disagreed and said that Triple H never beat him. This would be the first WrestleMania in which The Undertaker competed under his biker persona. Triple H was accompanied to the ring by a live Motorhead performance of his theme. Lemmy got a lot of the words wrong.

This match took place in Houston, Texas. Which is Undertaker’s hometown. Thus the crowd was firmly behind him. I remember watching this match live (not in person, but on PPV). This would be The Undertaker’s first WrestleMania match in about 9 years in which he wasn’t giving up some size to the opponent.

The Bell

The brawl started before the bell rang. They began fighting outside the ring. Undertaker tosses Triple H through the Spanish Announce Table. Jim Ross points out that Triple H destroyed The Undertaker’s motorcycle a few days earlier. The bell finally rings when they get back into the ring. Undertaker shows a lot of intensity with his attacks, selling the fact that he would be pissed about his motorcycle. Taker hits a powerslam and then goes for an elbow drop and misses (something that has happened in EVERY match so far, it’s a reoccurring thing that I never noticed from his matches). Despite the opening, Triple H really can’t maintain much offense for very long. He gets hit with a running clothesline. Taker wrenches the left arm hard and then calls for Old School, which the crowd explodes for (this WrestleMania had a tremendous crowd). Triple H blocks the Old School and tosses Taker off the top rope. He follows with a neckbreaker. He continues work on the neck for a few minutes. He does repeated cover attempts (much like Sid did at WrestleMania 13) but does not follow up on his attack enough, rather focusing on harassing the referee. This gives The Undertaker an opening for some punches. Triple H fells him though with a knee to the face. Triple H then goes outside the ring and grabs a sledge hammer. Before he can use it, the referee grabs it from him and throws it back outside. Triple H nearly hits a Pedigree with the ref’s back turned but Undertaker blocks and inadvertently throws Triple H into the referee. He hits a chokeslam and goes for a pin. The referee counts to two before Triple H kicks out. Undertaker then does the completely logical thing and attacks the referee, I don’t understand why he would risk the match for such a small issue as a kickout. As the referee remained unconscious, Triple H and The Undertaker fought into the crowd.

They end up on a camera tower. Triple H manages to grab a chair and he works over The Undertaker’s body with it. Specifically the head and knees. Undertaker responds by chokeslamming Triple H off of the camera tower. Undertaker then dove off of the tower and dropped an elbow onto Triple H. Now word of the condition of the referee but I assume he is still out cold, because if he were in any condition to do his job, he would probably wonder where these guys were.

The match makes its way back towards the ring with brawling. When it finally re-enters the ring, The Undertaker grabs the sledgehammer and signals he wants to end Triple H with it. He lifts it up overhead but is met with a foot to the genitals. Triple H grabs the hammer but before he can use it, is kicked in the face. They trade punches for a few minutes until Triple H attempts a tombstone, Undertaker reverses and hits one of his own. He goes for a pin but the ref is still out, so no count. Undertaker signals for his Last Ride powerbomb (which he started using when he adopted the biker persona) Triple H though, grabs the sledgehammer mid move and hits Undertaker in the head with it. In what I believe to this point to be the closest to the end of the streak, Triple H gets a two count from it. Triple H tries to work further on Undertaker’s head and mounts him in the corner, Undertaker reverses this into The Last Ride and does hit it this time and it is enough to continue the streak.

The Verdict

There were a few things in this match that I did not like, for one, The Undertaker’s attack on the ref in the match, sure it lead to great crowd brawling but it didn’t make sense to me that the babyface would be the one to attack the referee and especially over something so ridiculous as not getting 3 on a chokeslam. I liked Triple H’s blocking of the Last Ride with the sledgehammer but I think the finish coming so soon after that was kind of a downer.