Review for WWE: Undertaker - The Complete WrestleMania Collection

The Undertaker has been one of the few constants of the WWE, his Streak was one of the most impressive, rivalling only Goldberg in terms of stats that people actually cared about. Having now retired we can finally say that Undertaker’s Wrestlemania Record sits at 25-2 which is still very impressive. Granted, when he lost to Lesnar we all thought he would retire and maybe that would have made the loss even more devastating and even Taker himself has said it would have made more sense to have lost it to Roman Reigns, his only other loss.

All Twenty-Seven matches are included here and I would be lying if I said that they were all Five Star Classics. Far from it. Of the Twenty-Seven matches only Eleven could be considered Good-Great with Fifteen of them being in the barely watchable or just plain awful category. This is odd in a way as there is literally not a great match in the Streak until he faces Triple H at Wrestlemania X7 (this is match NINE?!?) However, my issue with looking at Undertaker’s matches is that 99% of what makes it amazing is the presentation. I will be the last person who will say Wrestlemania 13 against Sycho Sid is a great match, but the ending with Taker in the ring bathed in purple light is spine-tingling. Same with his match against Kane at Wrestlemania 14 and 20. Not the best technically bell to bell, but the entrances and exits are fantastic.

That being said, I was never a fan of The Streak as it became almost a given that Taker would win and so I stopped caring. Very few matches looked like they might result in a loss and those that he should have to give people that instant elevation (Orton, Edge, Punk) are good matches but would have been much better with a loss. When he did finally lose to Lesnar the main issue is that he was the wrong person and by that point we had all assumed Taker would have retired with the Streak intact.

The following matches feel like playing damage control and the match against John Cena was a waste of a magic moment that could have been the best match of his career. As for the Boneyard match? It was a nice film… just not a great match and definitely not how he should have ended his career.

I feel like I am cursed (or blessed) with reviewing an Undertaker Wrestlemania set every five-ten years and at least I know that with him now retiring this would be the last one with new matches. However, this set (which really should be the definitive version) should have been piled with extras, and all the bells and whistles and instead apart from a few of the matches which have the beforehand promos, all it consists of is the matches and that’s it. Surely, The Undertaker or those involved in these matches would want to discuss the match and what an impact it may or may have not had on their career. I have seen enough videos with people talking about certain matches and it would have been nice to have felt this was more than just the few extra matches missing from the previously released sets.

Undertaker The Complete WrestleMania Collection is hopefully the last time I have to review these matches in this way and I do hope that if another set is ever released that there are more extras or reasoning for it. If you want a complete collection of his matches from Wrestlemania then this is definitely the best one to get, but if you have any of the others released the final few matches are not worth buying a new set for.