Gleed’s Blog: Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon? Let’s see how it plays out

By Haydn Gleed

Let me set the scene of my Monday night for you. I had just driven five hours from my family home to where I live for my job, I was shattered after a long weekend away and was just about to jump into bed when I realized that Monday Night Raw was about to start. I switched on the show just as Vince did his, I just pooped my pants walk towards the ring and started to talk about the award he was giving out. Once he announced Stephanie as the winner, my brain and body started looking forward to the acceptance speech, not for the entertainment but as an aid to get me to sleep. All of a sudden, Shane McMahon’s music hit and for the first in a very long time I literally sat up straight in my bed and went “whoa” at something that genuinely shocked me from WWE.

I’m very much in the fellow staff member Will Pruett’s camp of being a bit of a Shane O Mac fan having always thought he was the cool member of the McMahon family, the man who was part of this powerful heritage, but was a little bit different. He was the cool guy, the hip McMahon and combined with his occasional high spot and wrestling feud followed by a match, he was entertaining to me. As he came out and after my initial amazement, I started to fear we may see the fourth member of the McMahon wrestling dynasty in Linda McMahon and that we were heading for a re-enactment of the horrible WrestleMania 16 main event.

However, my fears were put to rest when it became clear that this was a battle for power that might herald the end of the terrible “Authority Era” that has held back the WWE for so long. Towards the end of the long, but riveting segment, Vince started to wind up for the big announcement that would rock the wrestling world. This was the moment that would prove that Vince is a wrestling genius, and he wasn’t lying during the recent conference call that WrestleMania would be awesome…….and then he announced Shane against Undertaker.

Meh.

Don’t get me wrong, the match will be a spectacle, and will be well thought out and I’m sure rehearsed to some degree, but I have two major issues. Firstly, I still remember one of Shane’s last high profile feuds which was against Kane. For those who don’t remember this or didn’t follow wrestling back then, when I say the feud involved a homicide attempt with a crushed limo, car jump leads on testicles, and all this followed by a casual meal together. I am not joking. Secondly, Shane McMahon wasn’t a wrestler in his twenties or thirties. Sure, he would have good matches, but most fans at the time would follow that assessment by saying for a non-wrestler. The truth of the matter was his matches were decent, but he was carried by his opponents and got by on performing huge spots. In retrospect, these high spots set the bar far too high for the day in day out full time wrestlers to top, but that’s another topic for another day.

Simply put, I don’t want to see a 50 year-old man (51 by WrestleMania 32), whose body is battered and beaten to the point he has to train for months to work one night, try to carry a 46 year-old family man who not only hasn’t stepped in the ring in years, and was never a full time guy to begin with. To be quite frank, I’ll be watching this match terrified for the safety of The Undertaker when Shane is on offense and if Shane does a huge high spot designed to be memorable, I’ll be terrified that something will go wrong.

Added to this are the logical questions that people are asking. Is WWE positioning The Undertaker as the heel on all of this? If so, are they out of their minds considering the location of this years WrestleMania? Why would Shane agree to wrestle for control of the company when according to the disjointed explanation given on Raw he already does have control of the company? What does he gain from doing this? Is he really that dumb to put everything on the line with nothing to gain from it?

All these are valid questions, but in this circumstance I’m willing to give WWE the benefit of the doubt before moaning too much about this. After all, we haven’t heard The Undertaker’s point of view on this. Logically speaking, Vince didn’t know Shane was going to appear, and he made the announcement while still in the ring, so he couldn’t have checked on The Undertaker and his thoughts on the matter. Although it’s quite clear that WWE is scrambling to make WrestleMania feel like WrestleMania, evidenced by the fact they brought up sagging ratings and injuries as part of the storyline, I’m hoping that because this is a McMahon angle, it will be well thought out and a nice bow will be wrapped around it. After all, there are six weeks to go until WrestleMania, so there is time to fill the lorry shaped holes in the storyline.

I also can’t shake this feeling that this match won’t actually happen. I can’t shake this feeling that if WWE were waiting to see the health status of John Cena that this would be a good way to cover for that. After all, they could come up with a storyline that The Undertaker refuses to face Shane McMahon out of respect or something along those lines and they can slot Cena in if he’s healthy as a replacement with Shane in his corner. After all, WWE needed to advertise that Undertaker is definitely going to be there, so this way they get to do that, while at the same time hoping that the mutant monster of recovery powers somehow works his magic.

Whatever happens in the next six weeks, I give WWE massive credit for shaking things up. They have something that got people talking the next day mostly in a positive light. There are faults and fears associated with the angle and the match (if it happens) and despite what I wrote above, there is a part of me that will be excited for the spectacle even if I’m hiding behind my fingers when I watch any big spots. WWE needs to follow up and answer the questions that the fans are asking or take us on a journey that will end with the Undertaker against someone at WrestleMania 32.

Agree or disagree? As always, feel free to get in touch via twitter @haydngleed or via email haydn.gleed@gmail.com