Undertaker-Overrated

[relentless1]

I don't agree with this view. "Benoit may have been the real technical wizard". So 10 German suplexes a match makes you a technical wizard does it?
Benoit was just as guilty as having an every match routine as anyone.
Bret Hart's matches were structured, I'll give you that - structured on a foundation of cow shit that is. His matches were so slow that it looked like they were wrestling on cow shit and he always looked clumsy because there was always something going wrong with most of his moves. He couldn't dictate in the ring either, he was always getting pushed around whenever he had to wrestle anyone bigger than him.

Pretty much every match wrestled these days is better than a Bret Hart match.

lol, so who in your opinion is a technical master? just curious on how you could shit on a great like Bret hart with a straight face

 

[peter_midnight]

I don't agree with this view. "Benoit may have been the real technical wizard". So 10 German suplexes a match makes you a technical wizard does it?
Benoit was just as guilty as having an every match routine as anyone.
Bret Hart's matches were structured, I'll give you that - structured on a foundation of cow shit that is. His matches were so slow that it looked like they were wrestling on cow shit and he always looked clumsy because there was always something going wrong with most of his moves. He couldn't dictate in the ring either, he was always getting pushed around whenever he had to wrestle anyone bigger than him.

Pretty much every match wrestled these days is better than a Bret Hart match.

LOL, you've got to be kidding me. Bret Hart was all about doing things that made sense. He wouldn't throw himself onto a guy lying on a table, he made sure that someone made him crash through a table. Everything he did was to ensure that the audience didn't ask, why would you do that? Now granted, I'm sure if you go through all of his matches, you might be able to find some holes in his wrestling logic, but it would be hard to find that's for sure.

His matches started slow because for him, why would you do big stuff right away when you need to wear guys down in order for bigger moves to make sense. I agree that Bret is his own biggest fan, but you'd be hard to find someone make a better case based on logic alone.

The other thing Bret would do is get the most out of his moves. When you watch a Bret Hart match, almost nothing is wasted. That's what makes his matches great. There's no wasted motion and everything (or at least most of it) has a reason behind it. Headlocks are done at the outset because they are basic to wrestling. In real life, a headlock done correctly could be all it would take to stop an attacker in their tracks. The same could be said about a front face lock. He goes for pins because he's trying to win or see where his opponent is at. He does holds because he's trying to soften people up. In his early heel days he would walk out of the ring because he was frustrated that the babyface had the advantage over him. These are all little things, but they try to make you as a fan believe that these guys are competing versus performing. Nuances are what make a match great and Bret Hart was a master at nuances. Ric Flair was actually good at some of this stuff too, but later in his career he just used them too liberally and it became obvious that he was doing them out of routine.

Matches these days make very little sense. The moves look like they were obviously worked on or "practiced" beforehand and that's what is lost about the art of wrestling. I've called Shawn Michaels overrated, but one thing about his slow selling that I'll give him credit for is that he is at least trying to make it look like shit hurts and isn't easy to bounce back from. Modern wrestlers should go back and watch the selling of previous generations.

 

[Vader]

I don't think the Taker is overrated. Aside from the novelty of the streak, the WWE has never made the attempt to lump him in with the face of the company type guys. You won't see Taker mentioned in the same breath as your Austins, Hogans, Cenas or Harts.

In what way was Andre better than the Taker? Andre may have been a bigger draw during a largely kayfabe era, but there's no comparison in wrestling ability between the two. Taker is very agile for a guy that size.

As a poster said earlier, Taker started out as a novelty gimmick, but he was able to stay fluid and evolve throughout the entire time. Not many characters can keep their gimmick fresh and evolve it with the changes of the company. It's a testament to his ability when he can go from a cartoonish gimmick to a satanist.

There were also several years that WWF was short on good talent when Bret and Taker were really all the WWF had because guys like Michaels, Razor, and Diesel hadn't come up into their own yet. Even later when they had left, there was still a time when Taker and Hart were the biggest draws with Michaels out and before Austins push. Taker was a key element during the Attitude era as well during the Ministry of Darkness days.

 

[whoopin' ass]

I don't know if I would say overrated as much as held to a different standard. He could work, did a lot of things a guy his size shouldn't have been able to so I can't say things were handed to him. But he had more elaborate entrances than most, etc so it made him seem more important than others and made him stand out more. If it was just him walking to the ring like everyone else, would he have seemed to special? And he was protected. Yeah, he lost to some stupid people but he also won against top guys a lot. And most of those loses were made to look like flukes - he was rarely pinned clean. And as much as people complain about Hogan, Taker did a lot of the same things he did. It has been years since Taker worked a full schedule yet he still gets a prime spot on Mania every year. I don't know - for me I can't say overrated but I will say that people do ignore a lot of things when it comes to him and build his reputation a little more than it deserves.

 

[stonecoldownsyou]

Undertaker have sucked a long time.

Only got rated becuase of the streak.

Nothing more about that.