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

My Rating

This one is definitely a tale of two matches.

There's the early sequences, where Henry controls and tries to wear down his opponent, that seem to drag on endlessly. Those sequences tell the familiar "big man vs. smaller underdog" story that is really out of place here. Undertaker was the "little guy" in much of his mid-to-late 90s feuds, and those are forgotten for a reason. Much of the first eight minutes of this contest feels like a rehash of Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy or Undertaker vs. King Mabel: punches, headbutts, chokes, and very little to really cheer for.

Then there's the final two minutes or so, the sequence which includes the Last Ride, the plancha, and the Tombstone. Those are the two minutes that really live up to a Wrestlemania billing, much of which I watched with my mouth agape (this Wrestlemania occurred during my final semester of college when I considered myself alternately either too cool or too busy to watch wrestling, so this was my first exposure to this match). That's the stretch of this match where the men in the ring were able to be the talented storytellers and oversized powerhouses they should have been for the match's duration.

Clashes between super heavyweights can still be eye-popping and entertaining if the company is willing.

In recent years, big man vs. big man matches have shifted away from the plodding affairs of the 1980s and 1990s and into a far more exciting, spectacle-driven style; contests today featuring giants and super heavyweights far more resemble the closing minutes of this match than its opening. Things like Henry's championship feud with The Big Show and Braun Strowman's clashes with Show and Henry pack action, excitement, and brutality into their matches which make battles between giants must-see (as opposed to must-avoid, like contests such as Mabel vs. Yokozuna).

As early as the following year, WWE would already allow a Clash of the Titans to become a spectacle of brutality when Undertaker and Batista would have a fantastic hoss fight of their own, so WWE had the tools already to kick this one into gear. They simply seemed unwilling to let these men lose until the finishing sequence in Chicago.

We need EXPONENTIALLY more of this, and less of the punch-punch-choke-punch-headbutt stuff.

Those last two minutes are really fun but can't totally redeem the whole contest; it's strange that Henry is still billed as The World's Strongest Man but is unable to display his brute strength with any lifting offence against a man he could easily overhead press. Undertaker gets all of the strongman glory with his powerbomb and finisher, but Henry does very little here that's unique or fitting with his character and his billing as a punishing powerlifter.

In our first entry, we looked at an Undertaker match where the entirety of the contest is enjoyable until its final, plodding sequence, but this one is the exact opposite. The casket match sags and suffers under the considerable weight that it's unable to use to its fullest potential until those eye-popping final sights. They're good, but Henry should have had more opportunity to shine here, so we'll go 5/10 for, so far, the only casket match in Wrestlemania history.

Meltzer Says

Dave is significantly less excited about this Wrestlemania than Brendan Dassey was, and gives this match only a star and a half.

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