Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': Hall of Pain Edition

The Build

The streak is off to a quiet understated start.

We talked last week how WWE storytelling in February and March tends to marginalize tag team stories and add in as many plot wrinkles as possible to justify a multi-team spectacular on the Grandest Stage of 'Em All.

Another area where this haphazard storytelling rears its head is with the Wrestlemania opponent(s) of one Mark Callaway; while some matches have long, meaningful, and intriguing builds (and followups), a lot of them simply boiled down to "I want to beat the Undertaker's streak," especially once people realized Booger Red had a Wrestlemania streak and began capitalizing it in their marketing.

This match falls into the latter category, with Undertaker first being the victim of an irate Henry failing to capture the World Heavyweight Championship from Kurt Angle, and Henry then shifting his focus to becoming the ONE in 13-1.

Ten years after the Atlanta games, one man is still on top and the other is still bending steel, although in a slightly different way than he did in those games.

Henry had challenged fellow 1996 Olympian Angle at the Royal Rumble for Angle's Big Gold Belt and lost after Angle nailed Henry with a chair during a ref bump before a well-timed rollup for the three. Undertaker would challenge the reigning Smackdown champ Angle to a match, which ended in a disqualification when Henry interfered to prevent Undertaker from winning with the Tombstone Piledriver.

The rest of the build involved Henry putting Taker through the announce table with a World's Strongest Splash, Undertaker attacking Henry and his manager, Daivari, on Saturday Night's Main Event on, in, and around a casket, and numerous Henry allusions to "The Streak," which had just become storyline fodder the previous year with "The Legend Killer" Randy Orton referring to it in the build to his own Wrestlemania loss to The Phenom.

This story also, later, gives us the debut of The Great Khali and the origins of the Punjabi Prison Match, so...thanks?

It was, essentially, what would become the usual Victim of the Year story; Undertaker would have far better programs entering Mania, but this one would join the likes of Bray Wyatt, Shane McMahon, CM Punk, and Roman Reigns as the "we need Undertaker to do something; who's available this year?" segments on pre-Wrestlemania television (although at least one of those matches would deliver mightily once the show came around).