What if the Undertaker's streak didn't happen
The Streak was the biggest and most famous accomplishment in WWE history when it was still intact. For twenty-one WrestleManias, the Undertaker arrived, challenged a big opponent, and left victorious. No other accomplishment in wrestling comes close to the magnitude of this one, not even Andre the Giant’s 15-year undefeated streak.
The Streak became the Undertaker’s defining career feature. More than anything else, his name became synonymous with WrestleMania. Even if his matches might not have been the best on the card, him showing up was still a major reason why more people tuned in to see WrestleMania than any other WWE PPV in the calendar year.
But what if the Streak never happened? Where would the Undertaker’s career have gone if he never became undefeated at WrestleMania? We seek to find that out today.
The Streak wasn’t planned from the very beginning; it initially came about due to happenstance. The Undertaker was booked prominently at WrestleMania during all of those early shows because his character was incredibly popular. But in some cases, he only won because of backstage politics playing a role.
Nowhere was this more important than at WrestleMania XII, when the Undertaker took on Diesel, a.k.a. Kevin Nash. Nash was on his way out of WWE at the time, so it made sense for the departing wrestler to make the one staying to look as strong as possible. This is a major reason why ‘Taker won at WrestleMania XII.
Now imagine if Diesel had stated in WWE, and defeated the Undertaker at WrestleMania instead.
#1 He would’ve retired MUCH sooner
Let’s be honest; the ONLY reasons the Undertaker has kept coming back for all of these years was because there was lots of money to be made and because he was loyal to Vince McMahon. But the only reason that there was lots of money to be made in the first place was because fans wondered every year if the Undertaker’s streak would be broken that year.
And each time it wasn’t, anticipation grew for the next year’s event, to see if someone would finally end it. That wouldn’t have happened if the Streak never developed. The Streak wasn’t even referenced by ‘Taker himself until WrestleMania X8, when he defeated Ric Flair, and it didn’t become a key element of Undertaker’s ‘Mania storyline until three years after that.
If The Streak wasn’t so important of a thing, the Undertaker wouldn’t have still been wrestling into his fifties. The most likely situation: he would’ve retired by around 2010. He had serious hip and shoulder problems well throughout the 2000s. Thus, if ‘Taker didn’t have a reason to keep coming back every year for WrestleMania, then he would’ve hung up his boots a long time ago.