The Undertaker's 24 WrestleMania Matches Ranked - From Worst To Best
8. Vs. Ric Flair - WrestleMania X8
Ric Flair in 2002 knew he was incapable of contesting the technical classics of yore, but nonetheless judged his new surroundings perfectly in a wild and bloody ringside brawl, flinging himself over the announce table and battering Undertaker right at the opening bell.
It was a match defined almost exclusively by the shortcuts it took, but Flair as a master psychologist knew how to exploit them to ensure maximum impact. It was far from the smoothest match either had. Flair botched his customary turnbuckle flip, necessitating a replay, but it hardly mattered. The crazed fire he demonstrated throughout more than compensated for it.
Jim Ross acknowledged that Flair was north of fifty and removed from his prime years, but it played into the overarching last stand narrative, one embodied by the crimson mask Flair was, at least for once, justified in using. Flair didn’t bump wildly on the canvas, as he was wont to do in his 1980s pomp, but his jelly-legged selling was so believable that he generated sympathy, anyway - and ‘Taker was so credible in his role as destroyer that the heat was off the charts, regardless.
Capped with a sensational spine-busting Arn Anderson cameo, it was a match neither man could have had earlier in their career, before they learned every last nuance to extract a reaction - and almost the better for it.