For the last time ever.
It’s what we hear every time WWE mentions the match between The Undertaker and Triple H at the Super Show-Down event (5 a.m. Eastern) in Melbourne, Australia on Saturday. But the words likely apply to more than that.
This could be the last time ever we see Undertaker, Kane, Triple H and Shawn Michaels — among the final working remnants of the Attitude Era — participating in an angle together.
Retirement for The Undertaker, 53, has been rumored for years (we thought it happened at last year’s WrestleMania). Kane, 51, is currently the mayor of Knox County in Tennessee. Triple H, 49, may have plenty of in-ring miles left, but Michaels, 53, hasn’t wrestled since Undertaker retired him at WrestleMania 26 in 2010.
It has been rumored, however, that we are heading for a Brothers of Destruction vs. D-Generation X tag match at Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia. WWE even teased the “fantasy match” on social media.
Sure, it’s the WWE and talent seems to come back for one more match all the time. We were told Undertaker defeating Triple H in a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania 28 was the “End of an Era” and here they all are again.
This time, the quartet performing Saturday — Michaels will be in Triple H’s corner and Kane in Undertaker’s — is much closer to the end than ever before. It’s why fans should dial back the ultra-critical filter normally applied to watching wrestling and enjoy the entire feud’s action and promos for what they are — a trip down memory lane.
Consider it like watching an athlete play his final games or the last go-around for your favorite television show. They aren’t as good as they were in their prime or in seasons two and three, but you’ve been with them from the start, appreciate what they have done and need to see how it all ends.
It’s obvious Undertaker has lost more than a step — just watch him pick up Triple H for a Tombstone last week on “Monday Night Raw.” What Michaels has left is still to be seen, but you would have to believe their is some ring rust even for arguably the greatest of all time. Kane hasn’t wrestled since July and Triple H’s last match was in April. The feud likely won’t produce any four-or-five match classics, but that’s OK as long as the story remains compelling.
The angle has already set the stakes for final bragging rights for Saturday, laid the bricks for a potential tag team match and made it believable for Michaels to ask Undertaker to put his career on the line for one final singles match.
If you want more proof we are in for an enjoyable ride, just watch Michaels’ face when he took the chokeslam on Monday’s “Raw.” He even waved off Kane no-showing on the ramp before turning into and selling a punch from the Big Red Machine. There will likely be more of that to come.
It’s why Saturday in Australia is less about the end of Triple H and the Undertaker’s longtime feud than it is the beginning of the potential final chapter of this group of legends’ story together.
