12. The Dead Man Protects His Own - The Undertaker Returns Raw 1000
By summer 2012, the WWE fanbase was used to only hearing from the Undertaker sometime after the Royal Rumble through till his match at Wrestlemania, which had become the de facto main event at the companys biggest show of the year. That was the deal: the Dead Man had moved from full time to part time, to special event status, and wed all accepted that by now. At Monday Night RAWs 1000th episode though, we hoped things might be a little different. By the final half hour, wed seen Legend after Legend come through the curtain for their obligatory grace note, and our main event was John Cena versus CM Punk in a return to the classic Superman vs. Batman style showdown that everyone remembered from the second Summer Of Punk the year before. And then Kane showed up for a lame duck showing against Jinder Mahal, of all people, and those of us that considered ourselves smart thought two things: wow, theyve left no time at all for that main event, its a guaranteed screwed-up finish; and, this has to be it, right? Sure enough, as a succession of the rosters lowest echelon wrestlers menaced their way towards the ring to carve a name for themselves by taking out the masked veteran, the bell tolled, the Dead Man turned up to make them all famous and the previously disinterested crowd erupted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StOIV45UdSI All the bigger a pop for not being a telegraphed, drawn out return with druids, flaming torches and Gregorian chants and so much bigger than that poorly judged, massively overrated return as the American Badass at Judgement Day 2000: where he had a barely audible entrance video before his actual entrance, the production crew couldnt figure out where the camera were supposed to be pointing, he was too out-of-shape (due to a torn pectoral muscle a few months earlier) to move fast enough to be exciting, and the entire thing took place during the screwed-up finish to a main event match everyone was already going mental over.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
