Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker (Backlash 2002)

[Guest HTQ]

Steve Austin v The Undertaker from Backlash 2002

 

This one starts off strangely, at least for these two, with an attempt at actual wrestling. Not sure why they do this, especially when the ‘wrestling’ consists of Undertaker constantly applying a side headlock, and Austin using a hip toss, an armdrag, and then going to a Fujiwara armbar. It doesn’t lead to anything at all, so I can only surmise they did this just to show that they could. It was a nice idea in theory, but it would have been better had it actually built to something. As it is, all it really did was kill time, and these two had plenty to kill seeing as this thing went 27 minutes. Other than some ‘wrestling’, the match consisted of some pretty basic brawling around ringside, which was executed at very slow place, obviously to kill time, and it didn’t have a lot fire behind it, which is surprising considering that this match was build as being for the number one contendership to the Undisputed Championship. Around the half way mark, Scott Hall and X-Pac wander to ringside to watch the match. This leads to, well, nothing at all. They don’t attack anyone, they don’t shout at anyone; they don’t even have a go at Ric Flair, who is the guest referee for the match. Quite what the point was of having them there isn’t obvious, so I can only surmise that it was done to kill time during the match and fill up some of the 27 minutes.

 

Nothing really exciting or interesting happens until the final few minutes, when Austin accidentally whips Undertaker into Flair, who for some reason sells the bump like a normal referee, and drops like a stone. This isn’t really logical at all, because Flair is a wrestler, and should be hardier than a normal referee, but instead acts like he got hit with a sledgehammer. Austin hits a Stunner, but Flair is too groggy and only gets a close two count. Somewhere in here, Flair gets bumped again, and again he sells it like a normal referee, and a chair comes into play. Eventually, Austin has hold of it and charges into the corner where Undertaker is, only for Undertaker to kick the chair into Austin’s face, resulting in Austin falling to the mat. Undertaker makes the cover, and Flair, after looking to make sure Austin’s foot was on the ropes, which was a miscue on his part, counts the fall, as Undertaker pulls Austin’s foot off the ropes before Flair can officially see it.

 

Flair walks off at this point, not happy at having counted the pin on Austin, leaving Austin and Undertaker in the ring. Undertaker mock Austin for losing, by making belt motions around his waist, and Austin responds by giving Undertaker a Stunner, so Austin can pose and have his music play.

 

This match was ungodly dull and boring. Absolutely nothing of note or interest happened until the finishing sequence started to get set up. The only interesting thing to really happen during the match was Flair making the mistake of quite clearly seeing Austin’s foot on the ropes before making the three count, as the storyline was meant to be that he didn’t see the foot on the ropes, and had to have it pointed out to him in the back by Coach. Apart from that one instance, there is nothing in this match that is memorable or interesting in any way, and you’re left wondering two things:

 

Why was this match given so much time when it would have best been served cut in half ?

Why both men tried to wrestle, when it’s neither their forte, nor what makes for a good match between them ?

 

For the first question, I can only assume they got given so much time due to their seniority, even though it made for a pretty bad match. As for the second question, I would put that down to both men wanting to prove a point, that being that they can wrestle, which is pure ego, because the crowd didn’t want to see them wrestle, and didn’t care if they could; they wanted to see a brawl. Sadly, they didn’t get what they wanted, and instead of what probably would have been an intense 15 minute slugfest, we got 27 minutes of sloppy wrestling, bad brawling, and a botched finish that was so screwed up, I don’t think Ross or Lawler even attempted to rescue it, as they simply acted as if Flair hadn’t seen the foot on the ropes, even though it was obvious he did.

 

If you want a star rating, I’d go with *, but that might be too generous.