DraxisBlog, WrestleBlog
The 3 Count Heard Around the World
It’s been a week since Wrestlemania XXX and the buzz is just starting to die down about the epic loss the Undertaker suffered at the hands of one prepubescent pterodactyl named Brock Lesnar (and yes I will keep calling him that until puberty catches up to him and his voice finally drops into his adult octaves). As I am sure everyone has heard by now, even if they aren’t wrestling followers, the Undertakers legendary 21-0 streak at Wrestlemania was finally broken. We call this post the 3 Count Heard Around the World because that is exactly what it was. It was the most unbelievable win ever in wrestling history. This is the only time I can think of where an entire sold out stadium was caught with all of their jaws dropping in disbelief and in stunned silence at once!
The interesting thing is and which first made me want to write a blog about a match that has saddened me and so many others in the WWE Universe is the fact that even officials seemed to be shocked by this loss. If you take a look at most matches in the WWE an official will count 1, 2, 3 and most of the time before he can even signal for the bell it has already rung. On this night of surprises you had the three count and then nothing. For a good minute and a half no one but Paul Heyman moved. There was no bell signaling the end of the match as everyone sat stunned making us at home wonder if the match was truly over or if Heyman was just insane as he stormed the ring shouting in surprise “You did it! You did it!” While I have always said Heyman is a great actor for pulling off one of the most hated manager roles so very well I honestly don’t think he is a good enough actor for this expression below.
So the question becomes did they not tell Heyman what the outcome would be of the match? Did they let it be a surprise to everyone on the roster? Or was there some sort of mistake here? If you look at some of the things that have happened since Wrestlemania then some of the conspiracy theories start to sound plausible. You see the WWE has confirmed that the Undertaker suffered a concussion during his match with Brock Lesnar. So why does this mean that some conspiracy might be right? There have been plenty of reputable sources in the media saying that it was a great match for Taker to go out on and that no one was a better choice than Lesnar, but are they right or just saying things to try to calm the fans? I have been an Undertaker fan for as long as he has been in the WWE and I have to say in my opinion the match that we got at WM30 was not up to the normal Undertaker matches even now that he has slowed down some.
I will admit that the past year or so Undertaker has been looking a bit stiff in the ring. But then you have to look at this as Undertaker has been kicking ass in Wrestling for well over 20 years. He did do stuff in wrestling before he came to the WWE and became Taker. So while I hate to say it Taker is getting old. To watch the undertaker now is hard when you have watched him since he came to the WWE. He has slowed, rarely does he do the deadman situp – not because he doesn’t want to be faster or do that move, but because he most likely can’t now. But to be honest the match that we saw at WM30 was NOT nearly up to snuff, to put it bluntly the match was crap. I don’t see how people can say the match was great when someone as legendary as Undertaker spent 80% of it if not more fighting a defensive fight from his back on the mat. Yes Undertaker made a few good moves but how many of them were planned and how many were Instinct?
Another thing that comes to mind is how people can say that Brock Lesnar is the perfect choice to be the one to end the streak (that is if this was even planned). Yes I will admit Lesnar is a bad ass and has done things a lot of people wouldn’t have credited him for. I was impressed when I heard about what he did in the UFC however does that make him deserving of a push in the WWE? You see there are Lesnar fans out there and a lot of it is due to the fact that he has been kept as an Attraction (this is touched upon in an upcoming blog). Brock has come back to supposedly get the WWE Championship belt however all he has done since coming back is come to Lead-up shows and then the Pay-Per-Views they were leading up to. This does not a champion make! A part time guy that only comes in for Pay-Per-Views will sell PPV seats but will NOT pack your every RAW and SmackDown Arena’s. I certainly wouldn’t be going to a weekly show to see Lesnar because I know that he won’t be there. There are much better people to give the “Break the Streak” bump to. People that wrestle for every show. People who are younger but seem just as powerful. People who are more popular! For instance if the Streak must end why not push Roman Reigns? He has huge star potential, he has the physicality and if you had it as a fair match without the rest of the Shield to back him then it could be pulled off in a great way and maybe even set him up for some singles championship runs.
While I have seen many news and media people saying how great a match this was and how this was the best for business and such I have to say at least Jon Stewart seems to agree with me!
So I mentioned that a lot of whispers have been going around the net lately. OK so who am I kidding whenever there is a conspiracy theory out there it’s not whispered anymore it’s yelled in bold underlined and all caps letters for everyone to see. But what were some of these theories?
The first one I heard was in direct relation to the concussion news. There are two variations of this theory. The first one states that Undertaker got the concussion very early on in the match (which does seem plausible) and that this caused Taker to miss kicking out in a place where he was supposed to. You know one of those close calls where the Ref’s hand is 9/10ths of the way to hitting that last smack on the match and then OOOOO shoulder gets lifted! However this time shoulder didn’t get lifted and the Ref needing to see the movement to trigger his pause had no choice but to hit that third count. The variation of this is that Brock Lesnar, realizing how hurt the Undertaker was, actually kicked out where he wasn’t supposed to and then with Taker already reeling from the concussion, wasn’t able to think on his feet fast enough to counteract Brock’s mistake/purposeful rearrangement of the script. It seems that even the Iron Sheik agrees with this second variation on this theory according to TMZ.
Another theory is similar to that second one about Brock changing things. It takes no notice of Undertaker’s injured state but says that Brock went off script and changed everything and thus will be fired. Well he may have changed things we may never know but it doesn’t seem as though he will be fired for it because the next night on RAW Heyman was in a fine mod spouting off all his crap about how great Brock is. So with Heyman hyping Brock I don’t see that they would just let him go. However .milk it for all it’s worth sure- that seems to be what they are doing.
It has also been said that this is how Taker wanted to go out. I honestly can not support this theory. They say that Taker would have wanted someone like Lesnar to be the one to take him out. To quote the Miz; Really? Really? REALLY? Come on people, the Undertaker is one of the most respected names in the WWE. Whenever you see interviews you almost always see that EVERYONE has a backstage story about Taker and how he helped them with this that and the other. Taker is a teacher it seems and inspiration backstage to just about everyone. So seeing this about Taker, I can’t imagine him wasting the bump that would come from breaking the streak on a part time wrestler like Brock Lesnar.
I have also read that some people this think was a match and result that was supposed to take place in 2010 when Lesnar was at the height of his time in the UFC but that Dana White wouldn’t let it happen. Somehow I doubt this one as well. The matches with Triple H were great and I can’t see them not wanting to do those after Taker took out Shawn Michaels.
I’m sure there are a lot more theories out there but these seem to be the main ones. In my mind though I will be leaving out the WMXXX match and to me the streak will always live at 21-0 and be unbroken to me. Below I created a little gallery to highlight the Undertakers Wrestlemania Streak.