Undertaker

[GSR]

2 minutes ago, BigBadMick said:

How does 2016-20 help or hurt him?

Has only wrestled 12 matches since 2016, one of those was the Royal Rumble.

Not enough output in those five years to make any difference for me.

[El Dragon]

Personally I don’t think anything Taker did really hurt him or help him, just because I’m not gonna view a guy doing one offs as a big plus or minus. If he was around on weekly TV stinking up the joint (The Ric Flair in the mid 2000’s game) it would stick with me more. 
 

Taker is going to be an interesting debate again. I voted for him in 2016 and while I have some regrets on that ballot, Taker appearing on it isn’t one of them overall. Yeah, a lot of his stuff pre 98 or so is awful but I think that’s a Fiend Wyatt thing where there was no making those good, and he had enough good appearances in e 2000-10 era I think he’s viable. Not sure he cracks my list again but I’m considering him.

[strobogo]

Hurts tremendously as he spent the last few years of his career leaving the impression of a pathetic old sad man who doesn't know when to hang it up and being a risk to himself and co-workers. I think The Last Ride also hurts him as it revealed this guy WWE has been building as the greatest and most mythical guy since at least 1996/1997, the most respected guy in the locker room, etc as a wildly insecure sad old man who didn't know when to give it up/knew when to give it up and couldn't because he had nothing else outside of wrestling. He instead spent the last few years of his career being a fat hobbled mess of an old man embarrassing himself and the company as well as being a risk to himself and his co-workers. Not unlike god tier MMA fighters and boxers who spend the last 5-6 years of their career getting knocked out in the first round. 

That PPV tag match with Roman seemed positive in the sense that you didn't come away from it thinking man Taker looks like he might have a heart attack later tonight.

 

In general I think his 90s output is often the worst stuff on a WWE card from 1991-1999, he was trash in 2000 and 2001 particularly when it came to being a complete shithead to all the Alliance guys and going out of his way to make all of them look bad even when others like Rock were selling like death for guys like Rhyno and Austin was putting over RVD. His best run by far is 2002-2003, and then to me the rest of his career is real hit and miss. The more it leaned into dead man gimmickry, the worse it was, but the more it leaned into more wrestling based stuff, the better. He's involved in some of the lowest lows of the past 30 years in WWE. I don't think his highs balance it out, and I do love the 2002-2003 run a lot. For every post 2004 feud with Angle or Batista or HBK, you get feuds with Khali/Kozlov/Mark Henry/possessing Josh Matthews to torment Orton/Mr. Anderson/JBL/Hassan/the Edge feud that seemed to go on 5 years/the second Kane feud/the HHH feud desperately trying to be on the same level as the HBK one, and so on.