Last Ride Chapter 1

On the first night of WrestleMania 36, the Undertaker main evented what could prove to be his final WrestleMania against AJ Styles. Their boneyard match was highly-touted after the fact, but a complete mystery going in. Its  build that left many confused beforehand and revolved around AJ bringing up Mark Calaways's broken down body, marriage to Michelle McCool, and gave people a look behind the curtain at his life in a way that WWE's own documentaries never did - until now.

WWE has hyped up "The Last Ride of the Undertaker" since the beginning of the year, and now chapter one of the docu-series has been told. It focuses on his WrestleMania 33 match with Roman Reigns that closed out the show and left many feeling conflicted. On one hand, the match showed that Taker was willing to do all his body could to deliver a main event match and you could see his passion in the work. On the other, you could see that his body just couldn't do what he wanted it to anymore. At 52 years of age and three years past what some would have wanted as his final match at WrestleMania 30, he seemed like a shot fighter.

Chapter one shows him moving around a great deal and none of it is positive. Those who saw Chick Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz III in 2018 will vividly recall Chuck's hips being gone and him having no movement speed. While the Undertaker on-stage didn't quite move that badly, Mark Calaway the man was struggling with half-steps and had a gait that showed his hips were shot. During a scene in the trainer's room, he gets what is presumed to be a cortisone shot to help his joints out and it seemingly helps. He's able to move them pretty well after that point, but his evasive answer to the doctor's next question tells the true story.

He's asked if his hip's good and he looks away and offers a non-committal "yeah" in such a way that you know he's lying to himself. In this instance, it would prove to be his downfall. Right after being shown leaving the room, his knees are shown moving better - but he still can't move his hip. Dress rehearsal is shown and he's still slow and then in the match itself, he struggles. It's a match that as we see in the closing moments via a preview of the next show, that Taker can't stand to rewatch. In trying to prove a point to himself, he fell and old adage of pride coming before a fall rang true.

Throughout chapter one, we see bits and pieces of what led to the match itself. Not so much the on-air build - but the reason that Mark Calaway kept going after WrestleMania 30. He had no memory of that match and as of the time he was recorded for the content here, still didn't. He didn't want to go out like that and didn't have any confidence in himself - but couldn't let a match he couldn't remember be his last. He went out for WrestleMania 31 against Bray Wyatt and regained his confidence - and with good reason.

Beyond his own battle with father time, Bray Wyatt injured his ankle earlier in the day - and that's something they didn't touch on in the doc, but should have. It makes the match they managed to have that much better because you know each man is doing all they physically can to have a good match, and they did. He stated that his late 2015 series with Brock was another part of his redemption, but it came with the expected cost of more wear and tear. His Summerslam 2015 and Hell in a Cell 2015 matches are briefly shown, but upon a rewatch, it's clear that he was feeling a bit better in them than he had since at least the CM Punk match in 2013.

One constant throughout the doc is how much everyone in the company respects Mark Calaway the man and the work he has put into making The Undertaker an iconic part of WWE. Mick Foley talks about Taker being banged up in the late '90s and going into their legendary Hell in a Cell match with a broken foot and while Foley was worse for wear than Taker after the match, Taker was in rougher shape going in. Vince, Shawn Michaels, and HHH all pay homage to Calaway as do younger stars like The Miz and non-performer employees are shown greeting him with reverence before WM 33.

Chapter one of the docu-series lays the foundation for the rest of the story. It introduces the cast of characters that have helped mold him into who he is now, like his wife Michelle and has him talk about what drives him. It concludes with grisly footage of a hip resurfacing operation done to help his mobility at some point after WM 33 - and that fits in with another tale told throughout the chapter that after a big match, he'd take time off and have whatever operations were needed to keep him going. The first outing for The Last Ride was compelling from start to finish and is something that everyone should check out. It's brutally honest in ways that WWE's documentaries rarely are.

AEW Dynamite 6-24-20

COVID has struck WWE with multiple cases, while AEW took Mox and QT off this show as a precautionary measure alongside all of QT's trainees. Okay. Kip Sabian reading a book upside-down is great. Luchasaurus faces Wardlow in a lumberjack match, with their history being showcased. BIG HOSS CHARGE to start! Series of round kicks to the chest of Wardlow while JR says all the lumberjacks had to have Dinty Moore beef stew and Tony says he loves that stuff. It's a solid value for the money! Teep sends Wardlow in the corner, but Wardlow gets 2 off a superplex.

Luchasaurus hits a sorta-C4 for 2. Wardlow tosses Jungle Boy around before Marko just runs around. Cutler gets thrown into the pile by grabbing Wardlow and then Marko gets tossed too. TAIL WHIP HITS AND SENDS WARDLOW DOWN TO THE PILE! STANDING SSP BY LUCHASAURUS ON THE PILE because why the hell not. Wardlow kicks him in the balls and the F10 hits and ends it. MJF and Luchasaurus beat up the Jurassic Express. Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus will face MJF and Wardlow at Fyter Fest.

Taz highlight video showcases Cage. SCU faces FTR and that should be a match of the night. We\ll see some of the Hager-Cody press conference, which somehow they have no footage of beforehand and Britt passes a message along to Tony about needing a clinical diagnosis for Luchasurus and his green tongue. Shida's out for a match but bee-lines to Penelope Ford. Ford slaps her and Shida goes to cane here before the ref stops that before Shida wins quickly and they brawl some more. This was so great because Shida looks strong - didn't job off a distraction, beat the shit out of her and then Ford slugs Starks accidentally.

God bless whoever this AEW girl is, but she's terrible at speaking on TV. LIZ HUNTER QUESTION leads to Double A cutting a promo. Another PWI question with Matt Brock and Cody says Ricky Starks had $3 to his name before he gave him a shot. I hope Kaye Fabian gets a few questions in. Hager shows up and his wife tosses water in Cody's face while Hager spills his on the steps. What an asshole - that's clearly a slip and fall hazard!

Brodie works over Sonny before Colt gets 2 off a splash. Discus elbow to Colt by Sonny leads to a victory roll by Colt for 2. Sonny dives on the Dark Order guys, who take the bullet for Colt. Brodie "catches" Joey off the tope and tosses him into the barricade and discus lariats him down. Colt wins thanks to Brodie to muddy the waters for Colt more. This is solid storytelling. LANCE ARCHER MASSACRES THE BABYFACES! CHAIR TOSS TO LANCE BY JOEY, but Lance boots him.

Spears is shown winning on Dark with a loaded punch - good, gets that over on Dynamite without using Dynamite airtime. Britt tells Tony that FTR can GTFO if they don't say hi to her. I wish FTR had a quick stopover in the NWA for a match with the RNRs before coming to AEW - just so that could happen historically. Oh well. Wheeler snap ranas CD before Dax snap suplexes Kaz onto CD. Slingshot suplex by Dax onto CD leads to 4 fingers going up and getting 2. Cash does a shitty job reversing a cradle and Dax fixes it for 2.

Cash eats a few double teams and a Kaz killswitch gets 2. Veg o matic hits Kaz for 2. Powerplex is setup but Kaz crotches Cash and CD cradles Dax for 2. Blue thunder/neckbreaker combo gets 2 as does an Angel's Wings due to a save. Goodnight express hits and ends it. This had elements of a great match dialed down to a good match. Dax calls out the tag scene before Butcher and the Blade hop in the truck and challenge FTR and the Bucks to an eight man tag with Butcher and the Blade and the Lucha Bros! Lucha Bros spike FTR and the Bucks save.

We get a tag title match hype vid for Fyter Fest and Excalibur talks about seeing when Trent and Chuck first met. Omega and Page talk about their GREATEST TAG MATCH IN HISTORY without thinking - ditto becoming champs out of nowhere. "WE'LL SEE YOU TWO WIERDOS AT FTYER FEST!" Cage and Mox is hyped up with Mox saying he'd like Cage if he hadn't put him through a windshield. Cage starts off with a giant hoisting flapjack and curls the jobber before fallaway slamming him and massacring him. Taz calls out Mox knowing he's not here due to COVID. Taz tells him to knock off the bullshit excuses and he'll take the title at Fyter Fest.

Brodie cuts a weird, creepy promo with Colt shirtless calling out SCU for Fyter Fest. Night 1 has MJF and Wardlow against the Jurassic Express. Private Party faces PNP, Shida faces Ford, Cody faces Hager, and Page/Omega face the Best Friends.  Loaded lineup - better than most WWE PPVs. Night 2 has Archer vs. Janela, Nyla faces someone, SCU faces the Dark Order of Colt, Stu, and Brodie, Jericho vs. Cassidy, 8-man tag, and Mox vs. Cage. Britt calls out Swole and says she was in the dumpster for 9 and a half to 10 hours but SWOLE'S THE BIGGEST PIECE OF TRASH! Swole hops up and throws trash on her! REBA TRIES TO BLOW SWOLE AWAY WITH A LEAFBLOWER. Okay, this is the best act ever.

Santana's out to face BROKEN Matt Hardy. They uh...brawl...do some stuff in the corner...look I love Matt, but singles ain't his forte in 2020. Santana does a weird flip out of the side effect to hit a uranage for 2. Matt does his Boogie Woogie special with the billion buckle shots to fill time with no bumps before a bulldog gets 2. Running landslide from Santana hits for 2. END! Twist ends it and the madball slugs him - so why bother giving Matt the win here? Private Party makes a save and Ex says it took them a while because the locker rooms are at TIAA Field.

Cassidy comes out and Jericho compared Orange to the chicken who crossed the road. Jericho applauds OC for getting over on his own. Jericho tells him that if he goes for that shin kick bullshit, he'll knock his teeth down his throat. He'll need to pull a man-sized miracle out of his pockets to beat him. OC hits the shin kicks and pockets up! OC and Jericho fight around the crowd. JIB TO THE FACE OF OC! He gets sliced and and they fight on a box and OC Superman punches Jericho off the box through a table!

WWE BackLash 2020 - THE GREATEST WRESTLING MATCH EVER!

Got home just in time for the opener - missed the pre-show. Edge vs. Orton is compared to HHH-Taker, Savage-Steamboat, Hogan-Andre. Oh boy. Triple threat women's tag is up. Sasha and Bayley are now the Golden Role Models. Just rolls off the tongue and Bayley is interviewed during Sasha's entrance. Lots of 2 count cradles. Bayley gets a victory roll for 2. Alexa runs wild with Thesz presses with some punches. Peyton just smashed her head into Bayley's knee off an inside-out crossbody on the pile. Yikes. Inveted Magic Killer by the IIconics leads to a "double dropkick" by Bliss Cross, with Lexi's dropkick missing. Twisted Bliss, but Sasha cradles her to win.

Braun is shown arriving in his Buick Grand National earlier. Jeff Hardy-Sheamus recap. YES! A long recap of this! And wow does this not work out well given that Jeff Hardy is a terrible actor and a bad promo. This isn't made any better by both Cole and Corey burying Jeff for being an addict, but saying he's working on it. Jeff with the greying beard really does look his age now. They brawl for a bit and Jeff dives off the steps onto Sheamus. Long, plodding chinlock. Running white noise gets 2. Twist and a swanton hit for 2.9 when Sheamus gets his foot on the rope. END! Brogue on the floor and mid-ring ends it. Evil reigns supreme - let that be a lesson to you, kids. Be an asshole and you'll be a winner!

Miz and Morrison do a promo and find out the rules of this match now. Who is Miz's agent!? An Asuka hype video airs showcasing Becky putting her over for beating her and being the best in the world for a long time. Most of WWE's women can get a match into positive stars. Nia's not like most girls. Asuka gets an Octopus, but Nia throws her off. Nia biels her into the corner and avoids a front choke with a suplex/jackhammer-ish thing. Liger bomb gets 2 for Nia. Flying armbar on the floor and they fight for a double countout. Riveting.

MVP wants the best champagne tonight - so Lashley isn't winning. Lana takes credit for Lashley getting the title shot. MVP tells Lana that Lashley told her to not be at ringside - not him, so she needs to face her fears and talk to her hubby. A GREEN DAY THEME FOR 2020!? Universal Title match is up and boy is this a terrible recap AND NOW IT'S MIZ AND MORRISON MUSIC VIDEO TIME. The Strowman Express gets A-Train's smoke effects. Well, if they could almost get Matt Bloom over - sure why not.

Strowman no-selling Miz's attempt at a Cro Cop high kick is peak WWE in 2020. Flying Chuck sends Braun off the apron to the floor. Miz gets an RNC but Braun escapes, so Morrison lands some mounted strikes. Miz eats a chokeslam and spinning powerslams Morrison. This was lacking things that were good. Styles vs. Bryan is recapped with AJ's title win and I think being a babyface again. AJ says that he's having a celebration and he makes his dreams happen - so maybe he's a heel still. AN HOUR AND A HALF IN AND WE'RE ON WORLD TITLE MATCH NUMBER 2. Maybe space this stuff out a bit. Damn.

I like that MVP fucking his knee up in TNA led to him not only not getting the TNA World Title (from EY doing a Daniel Bryan takeoff) - truly the best of days, but led to him being a manager for Lashley and now all of that is paying off on WWE TV and MVP's a bigger deal now than he was a decade ago when he was a Kool Aid Man-getup wearing jobber. Drew gets locked in the full nelson and gets in a bodyscissors on it - now that's a new way to do a full nelson!

FUCK that not-a-death valley driver on the floor could've ended badly for Drew there. Big crotch lift uranage by Lashley  hits and then he does...I think a lifting flatliner for 2. Countdown meets a spear by Lashley for 2. Lana comes down and causes a distraction leading to a headbutt and claymore to end it. Well this sure cooled Lashley off again. Time to resume the "IT'S TIME FOR ME TO GET A NEW WIFE!" angle and send Lashley back into the mid-card. Or he's turning face again. Drew says he'll be champion for a long time and kisses the camera and thanks the fans. What a pussy.

Raiders and the Profits brawl and destroy Braun's car - so of course they're all scared of him. Now see, normally, tag teams being afraid of a singles champion is really stupid - but doing it NOW, after Braun beat a tag team, it makes sense. I'm sure by accident, but still. Wacky cinematic brawl with all their skit props happens. Rowe hits the hiptoss>knee combo. Bowling ball to the balls spot and we get a comedy skit recap. Then a motorcycle ninja gang shows up let by Tozawa. They all team up to take out the ninjas but TOZAWA HAS A GIANT BLACK NINJA. They run atop the production trucks and Hanson gets tired and they brawl more. They fight off the truck and get wacky comedy crippling injuries. Jessica Car says Hanson is cute and then Jurassic Park sound effects care them. Montez is a good singer, and is Matanza coming to kill them all?

 

We're told that the Raw tag title match won't happen here and Joe says "ninjas can really ruin a night!" So WWE just admits before the match that it's all pre-taped and they're doing what they can to make it the best post-production experience in history. We get a goofy CG graphic for each guy and a Fink intro with the falling MSG mic drop using archival audio. Edge's black, red, and army green is an...interesting combo.

Long restholds and armlocks. Edge gets a sloppy crossface. Edge eats a back suplex into the announce table, which can barely be heard due to how overproduced this is. Back suplex onto the table should be a DQ in a STRAIGHT WRESTLING MATCH. AND barring that due to modern rules IT SHOULD MAKE A SOUND! Edge's right wrist was fused as well. Yikes. Orton goes for the three amigos, but Edge counters and gets his own three amigos.

Superplex to Edge before they bodyblock each other off crossbodies. Savage and Steamboat are brought up a lot. I don't recall Savage ever having a match this bad - including his TNA match, and Steamboat's final matches were worlds better than this with him not wrestling for 15 years. Impaler DDT hits for 2. It's the EST of MatchES. Edge hits Christian's fulcrum kick and flashpoint elbow/sliding D. Edge gets another Crossface and gets cradled for 2. Orton gets an Angle slam for 2.

Edge goes for an unprettier, but Orton counters it into an RKO, which Edge turns into an Edge-O-Matic for 2. Edge needs to get lessons from Candice Michelle on how to do the Unprettier. Or maybe Christian. Orton gets a sloppy pedigree for 2. Edge gets 2 off a backslide - I'm sure an homage to the GREATEST KERRY VON ERICH MATCH EVER! Sliding sunset flip from Edge gets 2, and he's got great up and down speed still. RKOOUTTANOWHERE FOR 2 and fans "mark out". Remember when Angelico did a crazy dive off the top of Dario's office and Vamp just took his headset off and marked out by running around ringside for a bit? Yeah, that was awesome - this is WWE's fake attempt at making the same kind of reaction.

Punt is teased, but EDGE SPEARS HIM! A SECOND SPEAR GETS 2! Another homage to Christian-Orton with Edge doing the same dive into an RKO THAT ALWAYS BEAT CHRISTIAN! Edge gets the head and arm choke and Orton ballshots him and punts him to win. Randy crawls on Edge's broken body, with a newly-torn triceps and tells him to go home and tell Beth and the kids that Uncle Randy says high. The medical team goes to put Edge on the gurney and we get a legit great closing shot of Orton.