HBK vs Undertaker (WWF - 10/5/1997)

Second

Love this match. It is still my second favorite HIAC match. It is nuts that they set such a high bar on the first time out with this. It probably wont make my list because I actually don't love that this was where Kane debuted. It is just a "me" thing where this match felt like it needed some closure because it was that good, that big, that personal and Kane sort of derailed it for me - but that is just me.

To me, this is the greatest WWE match of all-time which is pretty impressive considering it was the first time they did this kind of match. Tremendous story of Taker finally being able to get his hands on Michaels and just brutalizing him throughout the entire opening stretch. Michaels is able to use his speed and resiliency to fight Taker off, but only for short bursts. And while the point of the match was to prevent outside interference from DX or Michaels' escaping, the way they circumvented it with the injured cameraman was actually quite brilliant. The ending certainly wasn't clean, but it really worked perfectly.

Possible top 10 contender.

I think Kane's debut adds something more to the match. It's been copied since but wasn't this a really unexpected finish at the time? Can't think of anything like it happening before. Shawn's heel heat came from how he was able to act like such a prick constantly and always managed to escape the consequences, whether it was DX bailing him out or whatever. The cell was supposed to ensure he finally got what was coming to him. The Kane debut inadvertently saved Shawn once again, it's fitting for the story they were telling with him.

This is a lock for my list.

It's funny how we go in cycles with stuff. 15 years ago I probably would've called this the best match in WWE history. 10 years ago it might've been the 20th. Five years ago I might not have even considered it good. I don't know where I would rank it today, but I thought on the whole it was maybe sort of quite possibly magnificent. Or you know, at least pretty fuckin good!

I thought Michaels was maybe the best he's ever been here, certainly as a pinballing bump machine idiot. I know some people find him too much, really in all aspects of wrestling or just life in general, but pinballing bump machine Michaels has always been my favourite Michaels. I think the idea that he was always trying to make opponents look stupid or lesser than him has been a little overblown through the years. There were absolutely times where he was out to do that and if you don't actually LIKE him bumping around then that's another matter entirely, but I think for the most part he did it to make it look like he was getting pummelled. I don't think his philosophy in that respect was much different than a Curt Hennig's. And the story of this thing is about Shawn Michaels getting pummelled. He'd cost Undertaker the WWF title when he tried to take the head off Bret Hart and missed, then he went past the point of no return when he tried to take the head off the Undertaker and didn't miss. At the previous PPV he got kicked up and down the place but in the end he ran away and lived to fight another day. If running away failed he had HHH and Chyna and Rick Rude to watch his back. Undertaker was a semi-lucid cadaver and had no mates at all after Paul Bearer betrayed him and who wants to hang around with a zombie anyway? So Jack Tunney or whoever the hell was running shit at this point threw them in a cage, nowhere to go, one on one, as level a playing field as you could get.

The opening third is about what you expect. Michaels tries to run before they even close the door, realising immediately that he's up shit creek without a paddle or a Chyna, but obviously he gets dragged back in and from that point on he's a dead man walking. This isn't a hate-filled brawl between two guys who despise each other. It's not Duggan v DiBiase. If we're talking cornered rats finally being forced into a fight it's not Tully v Magnum. It's not even a contest really, it's a total destruction by one guy who has all the time in the world to savour it, while the guy being destroyed has no way of horseshitting his way out of it. That cat's used all nine lives.

Look, Undertaker in control is fine. He does stuff. He walks around, works methodical, soaks in the opportunity to batter this deeply unlikeable individual. It's a nice enough Michael Myers performance. Un-killable monster isn't always the most compelling thing in the world because you can't really buy the opponent putting him in any peril, but the early parts were about Michaels getting his rear end handed to him and they accomplished that well. I loved how anything Michaels could muster that might even approach a comeback materialised because he'd just cling to the cage like a limpet. There was one point where Undertaker hoisted him up for a powerbomb outside, Michaels grabbed the cage and started throwing punches while up on Undertaker's shoulders, but then after a few Undertaker just powerbombed him three times into the cage itself. Michaels takes about four flat back bumps off of clotheslines on the floor with ridiculous snap given how little padding those mats actually provide.

When Michaels actually manages that comeback he does it again by using the cell, and this was a great comeback. It was a slower burn, not a case of one move connecting and there's your momentum shift. That would've been preposterous unless you figure Undertaker could somehow punch himself out. First it was Michaels ducking a clothesline and Undertaker hitting the cage, then he shoved Undertaker off the apron back into it, and finally he hit a tope that squashed him against it. After he's taken over Michaels sticks to using the cell, climbing up the side and jumping off with stomps and an elbow drop, then there's the piledriver on the steps that's an amazing spot. The sound off the thing was disgusting and it might be the best piledriver to ever happen in WWE. They also play off some HISTORY~ when Michaels brings in the chair and wellies Undertaker in the back with it.

I thought the way they opened the cage was great. I mean you absolutely unequivocally ten hunner thousand percent buy Shawn Michaels being unprofessional enough to legit kick fuck out of a cameraman for just getting in his road. Undertaker sitting up after the superkick is one of those things that might irritate some folk, but I'm one of those people who thinks the Ultimate Warrior kicking out of five Macho Man elbow drops is the greatest spot in the history of our great sport so I don't have any real problem with it. Michaels' "okay enough of this carry on" reaction was perfection and I fully bought him running for the hills.

Everything after that is about as good as it gets. They'd teased Michaels getting lawn darted into the cell earlier only for him to slip out the back of it, so them going back to it outside and him playing human javelin twice was a great payoff. The slingshot is something Michaels always made look good considering it's kind of stupid as a concept, and this one looked like he got shot out of a cannon face-first into the cage. The bladejob off of that is epic and disgusting and then you've got him trying to climb the cell to get away, only for Undertaker to be one of those undead who isn't completely mindless and scales the thing with the HASTE of a man half his size. The gorilla press slam up top is an amazing spot, one that's even crazier in hindsight considering we know what happened to Foley a few months later. I also forgot about Michaels trying to hit another piledriver as soon as Undertaker got up there, which of course was reversed. Michaels stumbling around, bloody and confused like that Mr Krabs meme, looking for salvation thirty feet in the air, might be the best work of his career. Then there's the table bump, which is still incredible even if it isn't the wildest table bump to have happened in an Undertaker hell in a cell match. I loved the little touch of Undertaker stomping on one hand, Michaels feebly clinging on with the other, then that one is stomped on and you're like holy shit he might actually die here, Lawler shouting "INCOMIIIIING" as Michaels plummets to earth. Michaels also gest chucked across the other table while he's tangled in cables and cords and bits of blood-stained paper are strewn everywhere, then he gets slammed on the first table's debris. Just a maniacal bump orgy from Michaels. They even hit a top rope chokeslam back in the ring, and then the chair shot might be the nastiest in recorded history, the perfect exclamation on this particular revenge tour. Shawn leaving literal puddles of blood on the mat is a phenomenal visual, the cell door is locked again, Undertaker is satisfied with what he's done. This puppy's all but over.

The Kane debut is honest to god one of the most vivid memories of my childhood. I remember my friend and I back then wondering if this Kane person that Paul Bearer kept going on about was actually real. We spent one afternoon looking through the covers of old WWF video tapes and we convinced ourselves that Kane was actually the original Undertaker, the one with the big purple patches under his eyes, and that the current one appeared much later. Thankfully neither my friend nor I spend our days raving on twitter about Damar Hamlin's body double, but at the time we suspected something fishy. In the end we were both wrong. I watched this PPV the night after it aired, sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the living room so I could watch it on the big TV, and my jaw was on the floor when this giant in red and black came out to the eerie music, Paul Bearer beaming with satisfaction. Kane was real and he was here for the Undertaker. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days and it's still probably the best thing Kane was ever involved in.

As a finish I think it's pretty much perfect. Michaels didn't win the thing, he only survived it long enough for the Undertaker's past to come back and haunt him. He might've crawled over for the cover but he doesn't have a clue what happened in the end and he was out like a light when Hebner counter to three. There's a close up of him after the bell, lying with one hand across the Undertaker's chest, blood pouring out his head as another puddle of it forms on the mat. He's literally dragged out the ring and up the aisle and Chyna has to raise his arm in victory while Helmsley does the suck it chop across Shawn's crotch and not for a second does it look like Michaels knows what's going on. I guess some cats have more than nine lives.