[1996-03-31-WWF-Wrestlemania XII] Diesel vs The Undertaker

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This was pretty good, better than I remembered for sure, but it's just the last few minutes.

[PeteF3]

Last few minutes of some not-bad action. Though I'm really growing tired of WWF heels hitting their finisher and then walking around posing instead of going for the pin. Diesel should know better, considering Sid was victimized by doing the same thing to him. Diesel had already given notice and was decisively beaten here--kudos to Nash for doing business.

[soup23]

Agree that Diesel being cool kind of works for his character but damn does he look like an idiot posing around for a minute plus besides taking the pin.

[tim]

Not bad, nothing approaching good from what we see. Diesel wasting time before the pins just looks stupid.

[cactus]

I'm not entirely sure why I loved this so much when I first saw this, but I think it might have something to do with me finding finishers being kicked out of the ultimate sign of a good match when I was young in my fandom. This is a solid enough outing by both men, with Diesel being much easier to digest when he's working as smug and arrogant heel. The Undertaker shows that he's actually able to sell and moves around a lot faster than what we are used to pre-1996. Big Sexy does the honours for 'Taker after two of his Jackknife Powerbombs aren't able to get the job done. 
★★½

[DMJ]

On 10/17/2017 at 5:46 PM, tim said:

Not bad, nothing approaching good from what we see. Diesel wasting time before the pins just looks stupid.

 

On 2/20/2015 at 3:35 PM, soup23 said:

Agree that Diesel being cool kind of works for his character but damn does he look like an idiot posing around for a minute plus besides taking the pin.

In my blog review (Kwang The Blog), I noted the same thing and why it bothers me even more with Diesel/Nash than other heels.

As a face, Nash was cool and cocky, but he was also quite often presented as being smart, or at least smarter, than monsters from the past. Even compared to fellow "monster" babyfaces like Hogan and Warrior, Nash wasn't this over-the-top id-gone-wild who was so emotionally-charged that he'd get lost in the heat of battle (see Hogan at WrestleMania IV for a great example). Diesel was well-established as not just being a 7-foot brawler, but also of having learned a few things in his matches with Bret Hart and his love/hate relationship with HBK. By this point, Diesel was Diesel in name only as he was 99% transformed into the Kevin Nash character in WCW (note, even in his pre-match interview, he basically spoils the finish of the main event by challenging Shawn for the Championship and not "the winner").

And because Nash was no idiot, him not taking the win and then celebrating comes off as not just stupid, but not in line with his character. For Sid or Kama or whoever, sure, because they're dolts...but for Nash, it just doesn't quite work. 

What I would've liked to have seen is for Nash to only hit one Jacknife and then maybe go after Bearer or the urn instead of just gloating. 

[Calvin]

Up to this point in his career, this is Taker's best WM match. It helps that Diesel is a more capable worker than Taker's previous big men foes, and there are some great character flourishes here as Diesel fully leans into his natural, charismatic arrogance.

**3/4