100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 49 - The Dudley Boyz vs. The Undertaker

Concrete Crypt Match - Great American Bash 2004

Oct 14, 2023

A bad gimmick match that features the probable death of an on-screen talent? Check. A perennial midcarder thrust into a main event title match? Check. A bunch of bad newcomers wrestling washed up talent in the midcard? Check. No, this is not the 2000 Great American Bash. Possibly in a tribute to late-era WCW, WWE brought back the Great American Bash pay-per-view and tried its hardest to revive the spirit of deathbed WCW.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, a sneak peek into how I put these lists together. I always try to set myself a middle point. In this case, the bar that separates mere bad wrestling like we’ve seen so far, from the horrific, insulting, irredeemably stupid wrestling that we have to come. I quickly settled on this as my ideal middle match.

Consider this the Dalton Scale of the worst WWE matches ever.

This most bizarre feud started after Paul Heyman berated the Dudley Boyz for losing their edge (he’s about 3 years late on that assessment). The Dudley Boyz kidnapped Paul Bearer, giving Heyman control of the Undertaker’s urn and ergo Undertaker himself. Supernatural yadda yadda yadda. In the words of Paul Heyman, he says that together with the Dudley Boyz, he and the Undertaker could rule WWE. Providing Undertaker - as Heyman says - does the right thing.

What’s the right thing? Well that was pushed as the major selling point of the PPV - what truly was the right thing. It was never explicitly stated on television, even though most kind of assumed what it was. As always, particular emphasis on the ranking system is given to matches with a significant amount of hype. To give an idea of how much weight WWE put into this match, this got the major TV time and is the main event of a show which features a WWE Title change in a heated blood feud. The consequence if Undertaker doesn’t do the right thing is the sort of stipulation that could only truly exist in the world of wrestling. If Undertaker does not do the right thing tonight, Paul Bearer, currently trapped in plexiglass, will be buried in cement.

Michael Cole says that “Paul Bearer’s fate is in Paul Heyman’s hands”, before correcting himself and saying “actually it will be the Undertaker who controls the fate of Paul Bearer tonight”. That is problematic, Cole. That is victim blaming.

Heyman demonstrates what will become of Paul Bearer if Undertaker does not do the right thing. He pulls the lever on the cement truck by the stage, and encases “Paul Bearer” up to his shins in cement. I guess that’s the equivalent of cutting off his victim’s finger and sending it to Undertaker before demanding the ransom. Bubba Ray Dudley gets on the mic and says that all Undertaker has to do is prove his loyalty and lay down.

Undertaker of course, won’t do it despite teasing otherwise, and this handicap match is underway. Did I mention that the Dudley Boyz are your current WWE Tag Team Champions? Even outside of all the nonsense around it, the match is terrible. Despite being a handicap match, nobody for one second bought the Dudleyz as a threat to Undertaker. This was an elongated charade because everyone knew the outcome would be Undertaker beating them, so everything felt like a waiting game until we see what happens to Paul Bearer. Nothing the Dudleyz did ever gave the audience any reason to believe they stood a chance, despite being the Tag Team Champions. I think the wrestlers involved saw this as a nothing match and more of an angle, and wrestled accordingly.

At one point Heyman gets fed up of watching the Dudleyz getting squashed. Undertaker goes for Old School, and Heyman finally uncovers the counter to a seldom countered move - just obnoxiously shout down a microphone and commit attempted murder. I mean, the more sensible counter to that move is just - you know - take a step backwards, but what do I know? Heyman repeatedly shouts “Bad dog! Bad dog! Bad dog!” and he decides to run with these dog training metaphors throughout. Heyman warns Undertaker not to test him again, and then the match just … continues.

All the while Paul Bearer is literally about to be murdered and is currently neck deep in what is a highly corrosive and toxic mixture. I know, I’m looking for logic in places where it does not exist. I wonder how this was to watch from the live crowd. The Paul Bearer in the arena is a stunt double - as you’ll notice by the fact they never show him up close with anyone else in shot. All the shots with Paul Bearer screaming at Heyman were pre-recorded - which also led to a rare WWE production gaff as the conclusion of the story was leaked prior to the show starting. The clear stunt double, and the lightning bolt added for TV viewers only must have made this an even more odd experience to the live audience.

Bubba calls off the latest murder attempt, saying that the Dudleyz can beat him alone. This is, of course, not true. Towards the end of the match, Heyman holds up the urn which the commentators are quick to remind us would have control over the Undertaker and allows the Dudleyz to take a temporary control on the match. He then stops holding up the urn and Undertaker immediately goes back on offence, hits the tombstone and wins. I know I’m beating a dead horse pointing out the fallacies of these gimmicks, but if the urn has magical powers that can suppress the Undertaker, then why would the villain of our story not just use that to ensure his guys win?

Eventually Undertaker - who I’ve already documented is a pretty terrible friend and brother - remembers he has spooky powers. He shoots a bolt of lightning at Heyman to stop him finally submerging Paul Bearer after the match. What a good person that Undertaker is. He only waited until his buddy was up to his chin in cement, mind you, but it’s the thought that counts. Frankly this just makes me more mad at this match. Undertaker could have ended this straight away with his magic powers, but instead he showed no urgency and subjected us to this boredom.

To top it all off, after the match Undertaker decides to bury Paul Bearer anyway. It’s justified as him getting rid of the last of conscience and weakness, but to the sane viewer he just comes across as a murderer. And this again just makes me hate this dumb fiasco even more annoying because he could have just done this from the start and spared us. WWE received some real life complaints by people dumb enough to believe this was an actual murder. It got to the point where they had to hastily comment that Paul Bearer was not dead and just suffered from a collapsed lung. Oh, okay then.

This is a classic Ruthless Aggression era storyline. While WWE were benefiting from a new focus on some new stars and an emphasis on in-ring wrestling, they still tried desperately to cling on to ideas that worked in the past. Notably, shock value and gimmicks. The early parts of the Deadman gimmick in 2004 were rough because it felt like a gimmick from a bygone era. Disassociating him with Paul Bearer and the urn was probably the best thing they could have done as it allowed them to shed the burden of the urn lore. Undertaker continued to thrive in WWE because his character evolved past this gimmick. The Dudleyz, meanwhile, didn’t adapt. They remained the same now-tired gimmick they always were, and found themselves disposable to WWE in the year that followed. It wasn’t until Bubba Ray reinvented himself years later in TNA that they’d stop being a stale act.

As for Paul Bearer, don’t worry about him. Rumours of his demise were greatly exaggerated, and WWE would bring him back years later just to kill him off again.