The Undertaker vs Triple H (WWF, 4-1-2001)

WWF WrestleMania X-Seven, Houston, TX

A request! I’ve really not done many matches from 2001 and I’ve done none from WrestleMania X-Seven, owing to the fact I probably watched this show six or seven times back then, which I mean as a legit six or seven times for a 4-hour show, which is a lot, especially considering much of it isn’t any good. Sometimes people will say about a show, “I must have watched that show 50 times!” but either they didn’t or that’s weird.

This match came about because HHH wanted into the main event, having beaten everyone there was to beat, including headliners Rock and Austin, but Undertaker was all, HEY Y’AWL AINT NE’ER BEAT ME HYUK HYUK, and they got into some shit and Kane was gonna murder Stephanie until William Regal gave Undertaker a match with HHH at Mania.

So here we are. Motörhead are here to play HHH to the ring, and they play the song OK but Lemmy doesn’t really know the words spot-on, which matters much less than getting the song itself down pat to play live, which they do fine.

The brawl starts quick at ringside. This is the first-ever PPV singles match between these two. Undertaker is 8-0 at WrestleMania!

Into the ring so the match can start proper, and it’s more brawling. Jim Ross and Paul Heyman are on commentary, the best WrestleMania commentary team since the days of Gorilla Monsoon. HHH gets up HIGH on a back body drop. Taker in early control, hitting a Davey Boy Smith style powerslam, on the shoulder but no running first.

Undertaker loudly calls out for OLD SCHOOL but spends too much time trying to impress his motorcycle buddies in Houston, so Hunter yanks him down to the mat and slows the pace down, taking control and at one point flirting with a DQ. Eventually he heads outside and finds That Damn Sledgehammer, which would DEFINITELY be a DQ but this is the World Wide Wrestling Federation, where all sorts of things can happen™!

Referee Mike Chioda disarms HHH, who gets mad and turns his back. When Undertaker spins him around, HHH ducks a shot and goes for the Pedigree, but (eventually) Undertaker catapults him into the corner, where Chioda has stood for too long talking to, I dunno, the timekeeper or whomstever, and Chioda gets squooshed.

Taker hits a chokeslam and Chioda is there to count quickly enough, really, but it only gets two. Undertaker beats Chioda up. Fight goes back out to the floor and HHH is backdropped into a nice empty spot in the front row of the future WWE Universe. Now they’re fighting up into the audience at the WWF show, which is what we used to call “The WWE Universe” before we got 20 years of WWE being the only real game in town, creating a legion of weirdo fans who call wrestlers “Superstars” and get mad if anyone else even tries having a wrestling promotion.

Love a good, careful fight in The Technical Area. Undertaker gets the better of it until HHH gets a chair and hits Taker over the back, then head, then a series of shots to the ass and then head. Undertaker does not have a degradation kink though so he responds to the butt spanking by throwing HHH off the technical area tower. “Was he chokeslammed to HELL or WHAT?” Jim Ross wonders. “Where in Thee HELL is The Game?” Oh, there he is. On the floor.

Undertaker comes off the hard cam tower with an elbow drop and now they’re both down on the crash pad and Undertaker chases EMTs away to punch HHH in the head a bunch.

In time they head back to ringside, with HHH thrown over the barricade. After all this time, Mike Chioda remains knocked out in the ring. The performance of a lifetime. Undertaker retrieves the sledgehammer and The Game begs off, but when Undertaker dramatically goes to swing it, HHH kicks him in the nuts. HHH charges with the hammer and Undertaker gets a boot up.

Now they’re back to simply slugging it out, right hands and typical WWF punch-kick shit. Taker counters HHH’s tombstone attempt and hits his own, and this would probably be it but Mike Chioda has been knocked out for 10 minutes because of an elbow.

Chioda begins to stir, and Taker gets HHH up for the Last Ride, but Hunter grabbed the hammer on the way up and nails Taker with it, getting a two count from a slightly revived Chioda. HHH unloads a 10-punch in the corner, but he’s caught there — Last Ride, that’s it, Undertaker goes to 9-0 at WrestleMania.

This isn’t a GREAT!! match but it is kind of charmingly simple for a big time WrestleMania match compared to today’s million near falls standard. The over the top theatrics were saved largely on this show for the Rock-Austin main event and the Vince-Shane match on the undercard. The main event gets it because it’s the main event, Vince-Shane because they desperately needed it. Taker and HHH instead go out and work hard in a pretty bare bones brawl with a big moment on the camera tower.

Rating: 3.5/5