100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 31 - Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker
Buried Alive Match - Rock Bottom 1998
What do you get when you have two people with historically awful chemistry with one another, add in one of wrestling’s stupidest stipulations, two men going into the match with legitimate injuries, and an all time bad finish, all the while suffering from early Michael Cole commentary?
You get the number 31 entry to this list.
The 1998 WWE main event scene is fondly remembered for its colourful characters and was truly the driving force in the rising popularity of the company. The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin feud feels like it’s looked upon with rose-tinted glasses. In truth it was bizarre at best and outright horrible at worst. From the conflicted booking that led to the weird Summerslam match, to the horrendous Kane versus Undertaker match at Judgment Day, 1998 was a weird year for these two that would only get weirder as it wore on. This is, after all, the feud that featured Undertaker trying to embalm Stone Cold in a funeral home. If that wasn’t bad enough, a few weeks later he’d be trying to crucify Austin in one of the more famous Raw segments of the Attitude Era. Undertaker had already turned heel, and was now well on his way to starting the Ministry of Darkness.
Despite the fact that this show, which is named after the current WWE Champion, has a Championship match between The Rock and Mankind - it is this match that main events the show. The winner of this match gets entered into the 1999 Royal Rumble, which immediately gives away the winner. This match would be the second buried alive match in the company’s history, and shockingly the first of its kind to make this list (though we have seen a casket match already). Michael Cole circa 1998 would be high up on my list of least favourite commentators ever. His voice is so grating and he comes out with the most redundant and lame lines. In this match, he repeats many many times about the 2 tonnes of dirt at the gravesite. Which of course, sets up the expectation that whoever loses this match is going to be buried under all that dirt. Perhaps more bizarrely is his instance in telling us that the tombstone weighs 3000 pounds. It’s like WWE production were amazed at how heavy this giant lump of stone is, and wanted to make sure we all knew about it.
To make matters worse, Undertaker enters this match with a foot injury, while Austin is dealing with a stomach bug. In reality, this was a match doomed from the start.
If you love matches with copious amounts of walking, this is the match for you. The match is energetic for all of about 30 seconds at the very start. Somewhere near the beginning of the match, Austin hurts his shoulder and that seems to derail the match to the point where there’s no return. What follows is 20 minutes of some of the most mundane, lifeless brawling you’re ever likely to see.
If there is one damning indictment to this match, it’s that the fans start the match red hot as you’d expect for 1998 Austin. However it doesn’t take long for the crowd to die a horrible death. Bearing in mind, this crowd was white hot for an Al Snow match about an hour earlier, and here they are sat on their hands while Austin and Undertaker meandered around ringside. Cole, the wonderful commentator that he is, alludes to the silence of the crowd by claiming “they don’t know how to react to this match”. At one point they do spring back to life while the two are at the gravesite, as a fan manages to hit Undertaker with his drink.
There’s more walking, and stalling. Walking. Sometimes they punch each other. Other times they roll about the dirt a little bit. Cole takes his time to talk about how barbaric and horrific the match is, while they gingerly take a wander around ringside. Not only are they just walking around, but they’re not even brawling near the actual gravesite half the time. At one point, Cole mentions that Undertaker is ready to end the match, as he rolls Austin into the ring. What? At this point you really feel every second of this 21 minute match.
The ending of this match is legitimately all-time bad. It’s certainly as stupid an ending as we’ve seen to date. Austin hits a stunner and rolls Undertaker into the grave. Austin drops a wheelbarrow full of dirt onto Undertaker, however the commentators are quick to note that the Undertaker needs to be completely buried alive in all the dirt for the match to end. Austin decides to take a detour and disappears from the screen. In the meantime, Undertaker manages to get himself out the grave. An explosion from the grave follows, and it’s Kane out to take out the Undertaker. They briefly brawl, followed by Kane hitting Undertaker with a tombstone. Kane rolls Undertaker into the grave.
Ignore for a second the problematic nature of having a 2-on-1 to defeat the heel Undertaker.
Austin finally returns with a digger. What follows is some of the most awkward minutes in the history of wrestling. It’s like a comedian's joke that falls flat and goes on too long. Or the end of a Christmas dinner where your racist uncle has had too much to drink and you just want to go home. The digger tries to drag dirt into the ditch but cannot operate the mechanics of the machine, and can’t even get close to the dirt. The closest thing I can compare it to is one of those robot fail videos.
Eventually the digger manages to scrape a miniscule amount out dirt into the grave. Austin, realising the stupidity of this debacle and grabs himself a shovel to help the poor digger driver out. All the while, this goes on for several minutes that feels like an eternity. Undertaker is presumably just dead in the grave. Austin gets bored of waiting for the finish, so grabs himself a cooler full of beer. He quite literally hands a beer to Earl Hebner who decides that is enough to call for the bell and hand Austin the victory.
I would argue that this goes against the rules of the match - the commentators were adamant they had to be buried in the 2 tonnes of dirt. However, I will forgive it because it ended this mess quicker. And now you know why, when they did another buried alive match at Survivor Series 2003, the digger was full of dirt ahead of time.
What a complete and utter disaster this was. A myriad of reasons going into the match why it would be a failure, and then the match managed to drop deeper beneath those lowly expectations. Not only was it your typical Austin and Undertaker slow brawl, but the injuries of both men inhibited any sort of urgency the two could have had. The stipulation meant that the majority of the match was walking around the ringside area. And to top it off, a finish so mind numbingly stupid in practice, that was fucked up and managed to be even worse than it sounded.
Up Next - Big Show goes to sleep mid-match, lucky him.
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