After his victory over Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 32, many speculated that we could have witnessed The Deadman’s final match at the grandest stage of them all this year. He was initially pulled from his upcoming events in the UK, announced as back on for at least a few dates, then removed again.
Many thought that he was done after WrestleMania 28, and even more thought his loss to Brock Lesnar at 30 would be his last match. Yet, the 51-year-old has soldiered on. Even so, Taker’s career is certainly coming to an end sometime in the near future.
Having a great final match is something that is important when you’ve reached the legendary status that The Undertaker has, so let’s speculate on a few different ways that the former WWE Champion could go out on a high note when he does finally decide to hang up his boots.
6. Getting his win back against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania
Brock Lesnar ending The Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans is, for my money, the most shocking moment in WrestleMania history. While we all knew that the streak would eventually come to an end, it seemed next to impossible that after a relatively weak build up, Brock Lesnar stood any chance of being the guy who ended it.
Yet, it happened, and as a result, Lesnar’s WWE character has catapulted to near legendary status. In his next match after beating Taker, Lesnar did the even more unthinkable and basically squashed John Cena at SummerSlam 2014 to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
Since then, The Deadman has faced off twice against Lesnar to try and get revenge. At SummerSlam of last year, Undertaker won, but on a technicality after the ref didn’t see him tap out. At Hell in a Cell, Brock Lesnar beat The Undertaker again, this time inside the structure that The American Badass helped make famous.
Lesnar is at the point now where losing a match at WrestleMania to The Undertaker wouldn’t do any severe damage to his character, and should the two feud one last time at next year’s event in Orlando, it would be a fitting end to Taker’s career if he finally got to settle the score with The Beast Incarnate three years later.
5. One last WWE World Heavyweight Championship reign
The Undertaker has been a world champion in WWE on seven different occasions, holding the WWE title four times and the World Heavyweight Championship three times. However, Taker hasn’t held WWE gold since he was the world champ back in 2010.
Brock Lesnar, The Rock, and Triple H have both had world title runs in recent years despite being part-time performers, so why not give The Deadman one last run with the strap heading into next year’s WrestleMania? Just imagine the crowd reaction if it was The Undertaker who ended Roman Reigns’ championship run at this year’s SummerSlam?
Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather see an up-and-comer like Kevin Owens, AJ Styles or Seth Rollins be the champ heading into WrestleMania season, but being more realistic, the norm in the last few years has been to have a part-timer head into March with the belt (Randy Orton in 2014 being the exception), and if that’s the direction they want to keep going in, The Undertaker is the best option.
If booked correctly, an Undertaker championship reign heading into WrestleMania could serve two purposes. One, it would be a fitting cap off to his legendary career to allow him one final title reign, and two, it would ideally help a younger star get a monumental win, ending Taker’s career and winning his championship in the same night.
4. An extended Brothers of Destruction run
In November of last year, The Brothers of Destruction reunited to take down the Wyatt Family, some 14 years after they first teamed together to win tag team gold.
While the booking of the whole feud was certainly questionable, it was undoubtedly cool to see Undertaker and Kane back together again.
We all would love it if The Undertaker could stick around for more than a few matches a year, but at his age, that’s going to be pretty tough to do, no matter how great of shape he keeps himself in. However, one way that you might be able to get a two or three-consecutive month stretch out of Undertaker is if he was in a tag team, and there’s no better partner for him than his storyline brother, Kane.
Having The BOD mix it up with teams like The New Day, Enzo and Cass, The Bullet Club, The Usos, and their old rivals The Dudley Boyz would be weird, but pretty exciting. It would allow a whole new crop of WWE superstars to have a chance to wrestle The Undertaker before he retires, and it would further revitalize the suddenly very deep WWE tag team scene. To make it even better, if you wanted to put a new team over without damaging Taker’s reputation, you have Kane there to do the job.
Before 2015, the last time Undertaker and Kane teamed up was with Daniel Bryan against The Shield in 2013, and although The Shield had beaten Team Hell No in the past, their win was instantly more impressive once Undertaker was added to the mix. If Undertaker was willing, a similar thing could happen this year with a Brothers of Destruction run that would be a nice way for Taker to finish up his storied career.
3. Managing/leading a new faction
Over the course of his quarter-century career, The Undertaker has largely been a solo act. Taker has been in a few tag teams here and there and of course was a leading member of the Ministry of Darkness and later the Corporate Ministry in the late ’90s, but other than that, Taker has mostly been on his own or with his manager, Paul Bearer.
But with his career coming to an end soon, there’s no better time for The Deadman to get back into the faction game than now. Imagine if Undertaker, feeling used by Vince McMahon at WrestleMania, took it upon himself to form a group that took down The Authority? Or what if Taker brought back the Ministry of Darkness and turned heel?
Ideally, The Undertaker would be the “final boss” of whatever team he leads, letting his teammates work TV and the house show circuits and preserving his body for the big pay-per-view matches. Seeing Undertaker leading a group would be an unexpected way for him to end his career, but it could be a lot of fun if done correctly.
2. A program with an emerging superstar
Although we were all happy to see Shane McMahon back in the mix at WrestleMania this year, some saw using Undertaker’s match on Shane O’ Mac as a missed opportunity.
Because of the rash of injuries this WrestleMania season, many thought the company would be forced to elevate a young talent like Kevin Owens into the coveted spot with Taker. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and while the Shane McMahon match will be remembered because of Shane’s crazy spot, one has to wonder what it would have meant for a guy like Owens to have that opportunity.
If Undertaker is around next year, though, the company could still use him to help catapult an emerging star into true main event status. Owens, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, Finn Balor, and Samoa Joe are all options for that spot, and it would be great to see any of them get the opportunity to face The Deadman in a main event level match at WrestleMania.
The company sort of did this with Taker at WrestleMania 31 when he faced Bray Wyatt, but unfortunately that didn’t result in Wyatt moving up the card, largely because he didn’t go over. If WWE goes in this direction next year, it’s imperative that they pull the trigger and give whoever they choose the win, as just having the match is not enough to truly make them a star.
1. Feuding with John Cena
Back in 2003, John Cena wrestled The Undertaker on the Vengeance pay-per-view. Despite being arguably the two top stars in the company over the last 13 years, they haven’t faced each other in an important match since.
It’s almost unbelievable that we’ve gone all this time without WWE putting together a Cena vs. The Undertaker program, but if the rumors were to be believed, that was the plan heading into this year’s WrestleMania before Cena got hurt and was forced to miss the event.
A Cena-Undertaker match might not be the first choice for us internet fans, but it’s undoubtedly the biggest match the company has left for Taker, and would be a worthy main event to next year’s show. Cena has had somewhat of a career resurgence in the past few years, putting up countless great matches and even staying away from the main event scene for a time. Taker, on the other hand, hasn’t had a bad match since WrestleMania 30 and has proven he can still go.
Would the last 15 minutes of this match just be 100 finisher kickouts? Probably. But if Undertaker is going to go out, there are a lot worse ways than facing the biggest star in the company at the biggest show of the year.
