[1995-12-17-WWF-In Your House V] The Undertaker vs King Mabel (Casket Match)

[cactus]

Yeah, you know this isn't going to be good. I don't think Undertaker had a single decent Casket match during this era, and when you are working with an opponent like King Mabel, there isn't much hope that this will be any better. Undertaker isn't even able to hit hardly any of his signature spots bar a weak looking chokeslam. We don't even see an Old School. Thankfully, this is relatively short, and Undertaker gets a huge crowd reaction, despite only working dross matches and programs for the majority of his face run.

¼ ★

 

[Superstar Sleeze]

Undertaker vs King Mabel - WWF IYH 5 12/17/95 Casket Match

The swan song of King Mabel, following his Dad formula after feeding Mabel to Diesel, Vince got the last bit of juice out of Mabel jobbing him here in a mercifully short casket match. Story is threefold I believe: 1. Mabel defeated Undertaker at King of the Ring en route to becoming King of the Ring (so Undertaker needs his win back). 2. Mabel crushed Taker’s face with a behemoth leg drop in the Fall of ‘95 and Taker is wearing a pretty sick looking mask. I believe this is called his Phantom of the Opera period I have never seen it just read about it so cool to see. 3. Most importantly in the eyes of Vince & Taker, Mabel or more specifically Mo has the remnants of the Urn that being the Gold Chain, Kama had melted into. This is Mabel’s penultimate match of this run before returning as Viscera. He jobbed to Diesel in 8 seconds on the January 1st RAW. Mabel was already working Puerto Rico clearly he knew it was over.

I am going to be generous and call this match good. Taker is naturally over. He gets his pops and Rest in Peace chants. They don’t waste any time and at 6 minutes they keep it moving. Mabel just has not charisma. His size is impressive because not only is he heavy, he is very tall too. He just doesn’t hit his spots or bumps in an interesting way. Taker nominally starts off fighting through some Mabel offense. Mabel hits a weak Black Hole Slam to take over. He misses a middle rope splash. Weeble wooble. Mo interferes. Mabel hits a great belly 2 belly, leg drop and splash. That was some good shit. Weirdly enough, Mo hauls Takes out of the Ring and is the one to put him one the casket. Who cares about Mo? The heels dawdle. Taker makes his big comeback. Takes Mabel off his feet. Chokeslam…the one at KOTR looked better, the big boot to Mabels back and the tumble into the casket looked good. Taker needs to chokeslam Mo and dump him into the casket. Taker pauses and climbs and retrieves the remnants of the Urn you can’t help but laugh. That sends MOM packing. Taker signals he wants the Belt and let me tell you after the shit burger of ‘95, he deserves it. The big man high spots were fun and they kept it moving. I still think Mabel sucks. ***