100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 37 - Kane vs. The Undertaker
WWE Championship - In Your House: Judgment Day 1998
At almost every point in WWE history, the company has centred its storylines and main events around one person. This isn’t unique to WWE, it’s a writing style that is present in almost every television show you’re ever likely to watch. While fans bemoan the likes of John Cena, Roman Reigns (and to a lesser extent Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan) being pushed down our throats, that sort of negative backlash never applied to Stone Cold Steve Austin. A part of that is because, as well as being a pretty awesome wrestler and character, Austin's run at the top was significantly shorter than Cena, Reigns or Hogan. However make no mistake, Austin was pushed just as heavily and as forcefully as any of those three throughout 1998 and 1999.
Perhaps no match in that time period exemplifies this more than Judgment Day 1998. At Breakdown the previous month, Kane and Undertaker simultaneously pinned Stone Cold causing the championship to be vacated. In what would be one of many, many “Austin could be fired” storylines the company would run in this era, Austin was made the guest referee by Vince McMahon - who stated Austin would be fired if a new WWE Champion was not crowned.
These sorts of matches have always frustrated me. The ones where you’ve supposedly got your main championship on the line, but the most important figure is someone outside the match. It’s a trap that many wrestling companies have fallen into in the past, WWE included. The inevitable bullshit finish hangs over the match and ensures that nobody will care about anything that happens until the shenanigans start. Some, but very few, matches can overcome that through sheer willpower but it immediately puts the workers in the match at a massive disadvantage.
At Wrestlemania 14 earlier in the year, Kane and Undertaker had a fun match that is fondly remembered by many fans, myself included. It’s comfortably the best match they had together, and one of the highlights of Kane’s career. They were the centrepieces of their feud, one that had been building for months and months leading to a massive payoff in the second biggest match of the night. Now six months down the line, they are the least important people in their own match. Any eagerness the fans had to see the two wrestle was long since evaporated. It also doesn’t help that both had fallen victims to WWE’s Attitude Era booking. Undertaker especially was in an uncomfortable limbo he’d been in since the summer of 1998 where they’d teased him as a heel for so long but failed to truly follow through with it. Kane also lacked that aura of mystery, invincibility, and intimidation he had around Wrestlemania time. While still popular, he’d lost almost every big match he’d been in at this point.
I mentioned that through sheer willpower, motivated wrestlers can overcome bad booking. However, what we get here is a tedious, uninspired match by two wrestlers that seem to care about as much about the match as the fans in attendance. Very rarely will you see a less enthusiastic match from two competitors as this one. It certainly feels like two men who know that nobody cares about what they have to offer so they deliver the most phoned in performance of their careers.
Ask yourself, what sort of match would suit Kane and Undertaker? If you answered a 17 minute match filled with holds and mind numbingly tedious limb work, then you would be absolutely right. Yes, two men who at one point had arguably the hottest and most intense feud in wrestling just a few months prior were now relegated to trading boring holds to pad out an impossibly long match length. Undertaker spends much of this match working over Kane’s leg - mostly through a monotonous leg lock that feels like an eternity. Of course this makes even less sense when you consider that Kane is built as an unstoppable monster known for being impervious to pain. Nothing quite feels like everyone is just wasting your time as when Kane goes through minutes of dull leg work, only to show absolutely no ill effects throughout the rest of the match. Think of the most boring main event you’ve ever seen in your life and this is right up there. In my notes for this process, my one note for this match is “as boring as Triple H vs Randy Orton, but on a smaller scale”. Which I suppose is the only thing saving this from being even higher. But when you consider that I ranked this higher than, say, Kozlov vs Triple H, that gives you an indication of how little I think of the work (if you can call it that) involved in this match.
When the fans realise that nobody in the match has any interest in producing a compelling match, they start to turn on it. At a time when WWE, particularly in the main event scene, could do no wrong it is bizarre to see a pay-per-view main event that the fans openly reject. And with good reason too. With every minute the fans get more impatient waiting for the inevitable bullshit finish. There’s only so long the match could ride off the coattails of Austin’s popularity before the fans realised “hang on, there’s two big guys sat in a leg lock and they’ve not done anything for the past 10 minutes”.
But surely at least Austin is entertaining in his role as special referee, right? Well, not really. There’s a couple of funny moments where he decides to fuck with both men by counting fast and slow at random times, but outside of that Austin looks disinterested and bored. At times I could swear he looks embarrassed to be there. Not that I blame him in the slightest, but if the idea was for Austin to carry the intrigue in this match then he failed.
Of course this bullshit does arrive. Kane and Undertaker get fed up with Austin's antics so the pair decide to take him out. Paul Bearer - who at this time was still aligned with Kane - turns on the younger brother in a swerve that only makes sense in the deranged mind of Vince Russo. This would be the catalyst that finally kicks the Ministry of Darkness into gear. Not that you would know it from this match because the turn by Bearer is brushed over in a matter of seconds and the attention quickly returns to Stone Cold. Austin gets back up and, instead of counting Undertaker’s pin, decides to stun Undertaker instead. This allows Austin to count both Undertaker and Kane down, declaring himself the winner in the process.
This would lead to Austin being fired by Vince McMahon for not crowning a new champion as per the stipulation. This would last about as long as you would expect it to - leading to the iconic segment where Austin threatened Vince with a gun to get his job back. The only saving grace to this match is that it set up the Deadly Games tournament at Survivor Series - which would end up being Vince Russo’s magnum opus. Austin, like all fired WWE main eventers, would be back challenging for the title in a matter of months, while Kane and Undertaker would continue to feud as part of the Corporation and Ministry of Darkness respectively.
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