End the Streak

20 & 0
Photo courtesy: WWE

By Chad Smart
@chadsmart & @my12cents on Twitter

I’ll admit I’m not a fan of The Undertaker coming back for matches at Wrestlemania. Ever since “the streak” became a focal point of Wrestlemania, only the match against Randy Orton had me thinking Undertaker was going to lose. Now Taker takes most of the year off, comes back for the match at Wrestlemania, performs his signature moves, rolls his eyes back in his head while sticking out his tongue while the video screen updates with the new number in the win column. YAWN. 

When the rumors starting floating around saying CM Punk would be Undertaker’s opponent at Wrestlemania 29, I questioned what WWE hoped to accomplish with the match. Had CM Punk not lost the WWE Title to The Rock, I could understand a Streak vs. Longest Title Reign in 25 years build up, even though we’d already seen Taker win the World Title at Wrestlemanias 23 and 24.  Still, there would be something on the line in the match. After Punk lost two pay per view matches to The Rock and a match to John Cena on Raw, I felt putting him into another no-win match wasn’t the most sensible decision to make. Not to mention the manner in which WWE initially set up the match. It all seemed like “we don’t really have anything else for these guys to do so lets put them into a match against each other.”  Then something happened.

Punk mocks Taker
Photo courtesy: WWE

The death of Paul Bearer, while saddening and unfortunate, may have been the best thing to happen for the Punk/Taker match.  The death gave Punk ammunition to use during promos and helped humanize Undertaker. While I still feel Undertaker should have retired after Wrestlemania 28 since 20-0 was a good round number to end the streak, I am now of the opinion the streak should end this year.

While Paul Bearer hasn’t been in Undertaker’s corner at Wrestlemania since Wrestlemania XX, the fact he can’t be in the corner this year could be used to make Undertaker appear weaker than normal. Since it’s a pretty safe bet John Cena will avenge his loss to The Rock from last year and, even with the retirement stipulation, Triple H will most likely avenge his loss, having Taker fail to make CM Punk pay for his disrespecting Paul Bearer, would make Wrestlemania a tad bit more interesting. 

CM Punk doesn’t need to be the person to end the streak, yet it would give him something to brag about whenever he needs to get the crowd riled up. As much as I don’t think the streak should be broken, if there were any time to break it, that time would be now. I don’t know how many more matches Undertaker has left in him. I do know I’m tired of the streak and the sporadic appearances of the Undertaker. If CM Punk were to beat the Undertaker, I would imagine the crowd would go crazy and WWE would get one of the most vocal reactions from an audience that for all likely purposes could be in a frozen silence if the weather doesn’t get better in the next two weeks. Plus, Twitter and Tout would be burning up with reactions from fans at home.

The Undertaker’s matches at Wrestlemania have become stale. It’s time to shake it up and the best way to do that is to end the streak. I’m either crazy or a jaded fan but that’s how I see it. I know I’ll be sitting in the stands chanting, END..THE..STREAK (clap clap clap).  Who is with me?