Monday, April 07, 2014

Undertaker 21-1 at WrestleMania. Has WWE dumped the attitude fans forever?

I used to be a huge WWE fan from the "Attitude Era". The era ruled by Steve Austin, The Rock, De-Generation X, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Edge and Christian, Hardy Boys and the legendary Undertaker. The glass breaking, the entrance music of D-X, the epic matches involving the names mentioned above, not to mention the adrenaline rush when the lights go off and we hear the gong to denote the entrance of Undertaker. Most of the names mentioned above have gone on to different careers like Movies and managing WWE. One man still remains. To be fair, he is a part time wrestler now with maximum focus on his family life. He, however, is a regular during the WrestleMania season. He comes, he challenges / is challenged for a WrestleMania match. Till date, Undertaker has reigned supreme. Till date, that is.

On 6th April 2014, Undertaker lost his match against Brock Lesnar thereby finally losing the streak. The streak now stands 21-1.


Argument supporting Undertaker to continue his streak till 2015 - All good things must come to an end. And if you are a WWE fan, you know deep down that the streak will end one day. The streak is the biggest asset available with WWE to enhance the career of a bright young prospect. Imagine a young potential talent (like Daniel Bryan / Bray Wyatt) challenging the Undertaker at WrestleMania and actually defeating him! It will also signify passing of the proverbial baton from the retiring Undertaker to the newest superstar who will rule WWE in the years to come. All this makes a lot of sense. What doesn't is the fact that a “Brock Lesnar” defeating Undertaker. Lesnar (much like John Cena) have nothing left to prove and achieve in the business of wrestling. They have seen it and done it all. Defeating the Undertaker will actually have a negative impact on Lesnar. If at all anything, it will make the fans hate Lesnar more. And Lesnar will hardly care either – he is anyways on a part-time contract (with fixed number of appearances). I won't even be surprised if he decides to leave the WWE this year. 

Argument supporting Undertaker's loss - The only way everything will make sense is when Lesnar decides to continue with the WWE for the foreseeable future (read: 2-3 years of regular appearances). This seems unlikely given Lesnar's reluctance to commit for long-term. Also, Undertaker isn't becoming any young (he’s already 49 now). His priorities have changed over the years. He is now more of a family guy. He had to retire someday. The streak had to be broken someday. This may even be Undertaker's way of leaving the WWE for good and Lesnar just happened to be the "lucky" guy.

With the streak gone, I am left with no other event to look forward to, with respect to WWE. Undertaker was the only one left who belonged to be Attitude era. Not that the last strand has been broken, I get a feeling that WWE is finally moving away from Attitude Era on to the PG era, or as Triple H puts it - the "Reality Era". If the WWE has moved on, it's an indication that I need to move on as well. After all, there's no attitude left to look forward to. For me, this is one of the biggest mistake WWE creative team / top leadership has done. They have just missed a huge opportunity to make a monster out of a Bryan / Wyatt. Unless, of course,  Undertaker wanted this to happen.

Never thought I will say this - "The Streak - Rest In Peace!"

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