I feel like I’ve been doing this a lot lately, but confession time: I’ve never seen this match.
I’ve heard about it.
Oh boy have I heard about it. It’s been called one of the worst matches ever, one of the worst matches The Undertaker has ever been involved in, which is something I personally find nearly impossible to believe. I mean, seriously…go back and look at Taker’s famous streak at WrestleMania and you will see a LOT of atrocious matches.
Right off the top of my head, I remember this:
God bless Giant Gonzalez’s giant soul, but that there was one of the dirt worst things I’ve ever seen in my whole life.
I mean, seriously, what on earth is GG (as he was known to his close personal friends, such as myself) doing there?
Yeah, I know I posted that image twice. I had to look at it again just to try to wrap my brain around it.
It’s like the man with the airbrushed anus wants to play pattycake with the Undertaker.
So yeah, I don’t care how bad this thing is, it cannot be worse than that.
I think.
A tiny bit of backstory here, as best I can recall it. This encounter took place during the infamous InVasion angle, a storyline that I hated so much that when I wrote the induction, I couldn’t even bring myself to do screen grabs. No, I just started pecking away and let the venom flow, unencumbered by anything that may distract me from my vitriol. Because that was the ultimate dream come true for not only myself, but countless other wrestling fans: the WWF and WCW finally going at it tooth and nail in the ring.
Which of course led to Stephanie McMahon being the mastermind behind ECW.
No, RD, no…breathe in, breathe out, that’s not what we’re here to discuss today. We’re here to discuss Kronik (members of said ‘Alliance’) versus the Brothers of Destruction, Kane and the Undertaker.
A match of legendarily awful proportions.
Was it that bad?
Was it THAT bad?
One way to find out!
So Steven Richards comes out and…no.
I can’t do this.
See, because Stevie Richards was probably my favorite ECW performer EVAH.
I mean, the Headbangers ball cut off shirts?
Francine and fluff?
The Blue World Order and all that jazz?
Dude was all kinds of incredible.
So it saddens me to no end that most people know him best as the leader of Right To Censor, a horrifically horrible stable in the WWF.
Oh, and that’s why he hates the Undertaker;because he caused them to disband.
That should make him a hero.
But it doesn’t, because it led Richards to bringing in Brian Adams and Bryan Clark, aka KroniK (properly spelled with the capital K!), to come into the WWF and knock over Undertaker’s motorcycle.
Which in turn, led to this match, a match in which you will presumambly hate The Undertaker too.
And Kane.
And Kronik.
And the cameraman who filmed it.
And the cable company that made you pay to see it.
Oh, and if you think you possibly CAN’T hate the Undertaker (and all those stupid matches earlier in his career aside, I can’t really either), I give you the image to the left.
That would be Taker during his “American Badass” biker gimmick stage, shucking and jiving waiting to do an interview.
Look at him.
No, wait.
LISTEN to him.
Did anyone seriously think this was a good idea?
Right.
So yeah, Kronik.
They were a top tandem for WCW in their dying days, who some folks thought were cool because they had all kinds of goofy pot references in their act.
The duo was comprised of Brian Adams, aka That Dude with the Killer Dusty Bleach Blonde Mullet Who Wore Bright Orange and Purple Outfits and Squeezed People’s Heads to Win.
That was a bit lengthy, so the WWF just called him Crush.
I should also note that he had a UK only track on that horrible WrestleMania CD back in the early 90’s which I will torture you with here.
Hmmm…in this song he clearly states that you should stay away from drugs. Seems a bit hypocritical in hindsight to be in a tag team where the finisher was dubbed “High Times”.
His partner would be Bryan Clark, aka Adam Bomb.
To quote Rainer Wolfcastle: “Me eyes! The goggles do nothing!”
They do look cool though.
Nice tongue, too.
The Brothers of Destruction are here as your WCW tag team champions.
Even though I have VIDEO EVIDENCE of this happening, I swear I look at the image to the right and think, “That has to be something from WCW vs. nWo World Tour on the N64, where some kid had waaaay too much time on his hands in create-a-character mode.”
So the bell rings, the match starts, and Taker and Kane spend the first couple of minutes just beating the crap out of Adams and Clark.
It’s not good by any means, but it’s no worse than 500 other matches I’ve seen with these guys in my life.
Except that Stevie Richards is at ringside, with his hair dyed pitch black.
I was about to say he looks like The Fonz (and it would have truly ruled had he told Undertaker to sit on it), but then I realized that he more closely resembles…
Lazy Town’s ROBBIE ROTTEN!
If Molly Holly shows up with pink hair singing about Sportacus, this will be the greatest induction ever.
Sadly she doesn’t.
Sigh.
No, instead we get some fairly bad (yet not atrocious!) brawling that has JR and Paul Heyman so enthralled they begin discussing the merits of baseball caps versus cowboy hats.
This enthralling discussion is followed up by Clark giving Kane a butt cheek to the face.
Not sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but it looked quite…well…of questionable sexual nature.
Clark then whips Kane into the ropes and throws a clothesline that would have gone over the head of Andre the Giant on stilts. He follows that up by throwing his hands up in the air, to which Kane responds with something kinda sorta resembling a first week of training school back breaker…
…and then whatever this is supposed to be.
Taker then puts Clark in a goofy arm bar dealie, so Adams comes in and kicks the mat somewhere in their vague vacinity.
Ok, this thing didn’t start off too bad, but it’s definitely starting to fall apart.
Especially after this.
I know everyone blamed Clark & Adams for this debacle, but Undertaker’s punch wasn’t within 2 feet of Adam’s head there.
And look at this knee!
Here, though, I am pretty sure it’s all on Adams.
Can’t imagine Taker would tell him, “Ok, now just walk past the ring post. Make sure you don’t run into it, that might hurt!”
Should note that while all this is happening, Paul E. is comparing KroniK to the Andersons.
Yep, I’m sure Gene and Ole did a lot of TRIPLE CLOTHESLINES (HUH?!!) in their day!
Finally, thankfully, an Undertaker chokeslam ends it.
Well, yeah, I guess that was pretty bad.
Still…
I’ve seen worse.