Ranking All Of The Undertaker’s WrestleMania Matches

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8. Triple H – WrestleMania X-Seven

On September 23, 1997, The Undertaker, in the midst of a feud with Shawn Michaels in the aftermath of an errant chair shot that cost The Deadman the WWF Championship at SummerSlam, took on Michael’s cohort, Triple H, in a quick, two minute singles match on an episode of RAW. And believe it or not, over the course of the next three and a half years, despite both men being at or near the main event scene, the two had not squared off again in a pay per view singles match. The duo decided to change that as they embarked on a personal, violent feud in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania X-Seven. “The Game”, frustrated over not getting a title shot at Mania, got the next best thing in Taker on this night in Houston.

For all of Taker’s Mania matches, this may have been the best brawl. It was booked as a straight up singles match, but about halfway through the encounter, the referee went down, and then stayed down after Taker dropped an elbow on the back of his head. This allowed the two superstars to venture outside the ring and eventually into an elevated production area. And in the spot of the night, Hunter took a massive bump through a table from off of the structure that thrilled the near 70,000 in attendance. And of course, no massive Triple H match would be complete with his trusty sledge-hammmer which he used to bust Taker open once back inside the ring.

The only fault to be found here was the ending. It was far too obvious as to what was going to happen when Triple H was pounding on Taker’s head in the corner in a perfect position for The Last Ride, which is exactly what happened. For a guy dubbed “The Cerebral Assassin”, it was a bit silly for him to fall susceptible to that mistake.

But that aside, this was terrific match that pre-main evented the one of the greatest WWE shows of all time. But believe it or not, Taker and Triple H would do it better at Mania two more times. But we’ll get to that.