After Rewatching the Taker-Lesnar Match again...
 

It's much clearer what a tough match that was for them both. Undertaker literally can not stand after the first 3 minutes and they had to keep going for another 20. You can see now looking back on it and Taker had no idea where they are half the time and Brock keeps waiting for Taker to get up. Kudos to Taker for getting through it best he could and to Lesnar for carrying the whole match. It's crazy how you only realise these things when you rewatch them with the full story behind it.

Any links to mania matches?

Yea it seemed both were off a bit. They just didn't have good chemistry. That last F5 was so close to being botched, but props to Lesnar for keeping his balance. That long a match of course he's tired.

My eyes are hurting from all the eye-rolling I do when people try to suggest Undertaker losing wasn't planned.

Wasn't the general consensus before the match that Brock's style was too stiff for Undertaker in his later years?

Meh?

So essentially didn't Brock prove everyone who thought that correct by concussing the Undertaker in 3 minutes, thus causing the match to be terrible and not worthy of 'ending the streak'?

I liked it okay.

"Terrible" is probably a poor choice of word...no match at WMXXX was terrible

"Not up to the quality Taker's matches traditionally are at WrestleMania" is really what I meant.

I feel like his matches were getting worse after HBK. Still good, but he never came close to the HBK retirement match again.

Rewatching now and trying to figure out when Undertaker got his concussion. Thought maybe it was the suplex, but Undertaker seconds later does some impressive shit.

Honestly, it's a really good match, and the story is simply that Undertaker couldn't do it again. The idea that he didn't know where he was 3 minutes in is absurd. Undertaker was selling the beating with all his heart.

Kind of think the concussion is a storyline...

Did anyone get proof that it's not?

the concussion was real. Brock did a low single leg on the outside. Taker took a bad bump on the concrete...he was woosey after that. But he got through the match. I just don't think that only one person deserved to get a rub that amazing.

It could be stated that Heyman gets a bit of that rub too...

I am shooting from the hip here, but why would we assume that a concussion is something that switches on like it's a game? The impact can start brain swelling which will increase it's effect over time.

I kinda like what DTTS said, about the quality of the match kinda representing that Undertaker "couldn't do it again". Maybe it's not the five-star classic we all wanted, but then that's the proof that it's time for 'Taker to hang 'em up.

regardless of the reason, it still wasn't a very good match. watched it twice now and definitely won't go out of my way to watch it again like other streak matches. that's fine, but kind of disappointing.

Yeah, the way Taker kept looking up the ramp to see if Brock had made his way to the back yet, and then immediately sitting up in the ring once Brock and Heyman were out of sight, that's normally what you do when it's a botched finish and you weren't supposed to lose.

It was not up to normal Undertaker Wrestlemania standards by any means, whether that was due to an injury or not is irrelevant. Honestly the crowd at no point was into the match, probably because they all assumed like I did that if they weren't going to give it to Punk, then why would they give it to Brock? Especially with the news of Sting coming in, it just didn't make much sense to me that Brock would win.

I don't know, honestly. I'm just going off of other sports and how they deal with concussions. I've seen players after taking a pretty bad hit on the ground unable to move, in a state of total confusion and that was seconds after taking the hit.

How long does it take after the initial concussion to start swelling?

It look an awful lot like acting to me, more so than what I would expect from someone actually injured. Not saying that I 100% don't buy that the guy could and would continue the match after receiving a concussion, but I dunno enough one way or the other.

I would also guess that there's not really such a thing as "a concussion" as you'll never get two impacts the same, hitting and affecting the same areas of the brain and the effects can vary.

Still, dire match.

Wasn't great, probably wasn't even good. The match never really seemed to take-off, and the transition from the "feel out" process to "finishers galore" was pretty abrupt and rough. At least we know why now, with Taker being seriously hurt.

As the match was going on, I realized that it just wasn't clicking, and in combination with a lot of fresh talent tearing it up on the card, I said to myself "it's time."

I definitely thought the Streak would continue and Taker would perform next year, but based on the current roster filling up the Mania card very well with Taker, I feel that these guys (Wyatt, Cesaro, Shield, Bryan) should be selling Mania 31 themselves (with Cena obviously), and the attraction of the Streak is no longer needed by next April.

WWE has always been filled with great wrestlers, but this is the first year in a long time where the roster is filled with potential stars that should be ready to take the company. In my opinion, the timing of the Streak ending was spot on.

As unfortunate as it was that Taker was injured, it seemed fitting that he lost the Streak in the same match where he probably realized that he couldn't (health wise) and shouldn't (with the young stars) continue on.

With that, Taker had an incredible run with the Streak and drew tons of money and created a lot of moments, including the ending to Sunday's match. I'll miss it, but it was time to end it.

I enjoyed it upon watching a second time.

Somebody post the match

network.wwe.com

Can you lend us 20p for the WWE Network pal

Live in a real country, you piece of socialist scum.

Why? Other than watching the match itself, what proof is there to support this supposed MOUNTAIN of "evidence" that there's no way 'Taker could have won? I might sound crazy to some and I may well be in the minority here, but there's no way I'm convinced that he couldn't have hit the Tombstone or gotten Brock locked in to Hell's Gate and moved to 22-0.

Of course he 'could'. No one is saying he can't. People are saying that maybe it was time he chose not to. Not just for health and safety, but because he didn't want to tarnish his legacy by holding on when it's time to let go. Maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to be ridiculed like Hogan and Flair and others who simply can't move on, no matter how crap they've become.

We may not like that Lesnar got the rub, but it is what is. There were better choices, there were worse choices. I find Lesnar to be a decent pick though; as strong as The Undertaker has been built up over his amazing career and especially in regards to the streak, it makes sense to pick someone who has also been built as a monster to go over him. Makes it more believable, in a way, I guess. Lesnar is one of very few people that could have been picked to win without making Taker look horrible, one of the few that you can actually see beating him when you think about it.

Maybe that's why it was booked the way it was. If Taker didn't agree to it, it wouldn't have happened.

This is all that needs to be said. Other than injury possibly affecting the course of the match itself, nothing happened that he didn't want to happen. His streak, his career, his legacy, his choice.

When was the last time Undertaker actually nailed Oldschool?

I don't remember him hitting it with Punk.

Old school is very difficult to nail, unlike yer mother who is easy and thus gets nailed frequently.

OH!

I wish that were the case. I'd rather my mother be a whore than dead.

wouldn't it be worse when she eventually became a dead whore, though?

I never said anything about "mountains of evidence"... the story of the match was simply that Undertaker is getting old and "past it", whilst Brock Lesnar is a fucking killing machine that will beat the shit out of anyone.

Stop being such a mark.

CM Punk gave me a mountain of evidence. We snorted it off my coffee table.

I thought Punk was a PEPSI guy...:shifty:

You didn't even mention Lesnar in your previous post. All you basically said was "'Taker looked sloppy, time for him to retire."

And also, if Lesnar's really such a "killing machine", why did he only sign a part-time contract a few years back? Sure seems like fans have for the most part conveniently forgotten how after he didn't get to play in the NFL, he had a pretty lengthy stretch in UFC/MMA, which if not for that fact we msy have NEVER seen Lesnar v. 'Taker, @ WM.

He was being the opposite of a mark.