Since we were talking about them last night and LilOlMe requested a review...
WWF Championship
Bret Hart (c) vs. The Undertaker - ***
Royal Rumble 1996
So I've seen this match two times prior and my rating has went down on every watch now.
This is just a very odd match. On one hand, some people might highly appreciate the work that Bret puts on Undertaker's leg and might enjoy the slower pace, but in this case I'm not one of those people. I'm always one to enjoy a good bit of limbwork and psychology during a match, but honestly this got pretty boring at times. Bret taking off Taker's protective mask thing was pretty cool I guess. I felt like they went unnecessarily long just for the hell of it though because the PPV went WAY short of the full 3 hours. It's essentially a 28 minute No DQ match with an ass ton of legwork that doesn't play into anything because of an eventual dq finish. Quite the strange way to build to a Wrestlemania match between Taker & Diesel considering it ruined what was about to be a pretty cool finish, but whatever. Does anyone know if Taker ever got a rematch and if it was any good if he did?
+++++++++++++++++++++++
WWF Championship Match w/ Special Referee Shawn Michaels
The Undertaker (c) vs. Bret Hart - *** 1/4 - *** 1/2 (can't decide)
Summerslam 1997
Hmmm. I don't know if I've ever seen this match in full, so we'll just call this my first viewing. This one was incredibly similar to their Rumble match, in fact a couple of the sequences were exactly the same. I think this was probably more exciting due to to Shawn being the guest ref and Bret being full on heel. I think Bret did pretty well throughout the whole match at working heel and doing everything he could to win. Unfortunately there was more damn legwork that went on forever and ever and wasn't that exciting. I was a little bothered by Taker's selling, especially when he was in the Sharpshooter. He just layed there motionless, no reaction to anything. My two favorite parts of this match that
weren't the finish was the time where Bret was trying to run the ropes and Taker just reached across and grabbed him by the throat while he was running at full speed along with the superplex spot. In this case I actually liked how shaky Taker appeared when climbing the ropes, then Bret kicked the top ropes to make him collapse. I loved how much of a struggle it was to actually hit that superplex after Taker had already fallen off the top rope on the first try. It was odd that the chokeslam over the ropes didn't get a bigger reaction. I liked the last few minutes of this quite a bit and thought the finish was pulled off extremely well. Shawn's reaction was fantastic. I'd like to rate it a little higher but once again it's 28 fucking minutes and half of that isn't all that exciting. The appearances from Bearer, Pillman, & Owen really didn't add much of anything outside of Shawn missing the count after the chokeslam, but the beginning and end are both excellent though.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
WWF Championship
Bret Hart (c) vs. The Undertaker - *** 1/4
WWF One Night Only
What the hell is up with these guys going 28 minutes every match? Weird. I'm not gonna lie, this is was pretty tough to sit through. After watching both of their other LONG ass matches back-to-back, I was
hoping they'd switch up the way this one was worked. Unfortunately for me, they didn't. It was the same legwork, same pacing, same story, same sequences, SAME SAME SAME. hahaha. Really though, I wanted to fast forward everytime I saw Bret go for the leg because I was so tired of it. This match probably has the best crowd, so that's a positive. There was one sequence that I really liked where Taker tried to drop the leg but Bret caught him and reversed into the sharpshooter, then Taker powered out of it. That was really where I thought the match peaked, then they just kept going until we got a really shitty finish. If I hadn't watched the other two before this, I
may have enjoyed this a little more, but I still would've known it's pretty much the same damn match as the other ones. All in all a pretty overrated series if I'm being honest. My favorite match of the three would probably be Summerslam but that's not really saying that I love it. As it stands, their Madison Square Garden match in '92 from the Dungeon Collection set is still their best encounter by a long shot. That one's a real gem and doesn't have any fucking legwork. :lol