by Everlong » Jun 24, '15, 12:50 pm
Ok, I just watched HBK/Taker again for the first time since it aired. I still don't understand the praise.
I don't really see the storytelling element here, at least nothing earth shatternig. The last 13 minutes (!) of the match consist entirely of swapped finishers and crawling. I'm not even exaggerating here. I understand the story being told here is "hitting them with everything they've got," but there are much more compelling ways to accomplish the same story. For example, busting out moves you'd never see either of these guys do, or at least occasionally getting the pace of the action to be a lot quicker to make those moments of rest/crawling mean more.
This is one of those matches that I think would be great in person, but just doesn't come off as well when you watch it from home. I understand why people would be excited about it in the moment, but it's just not a great match when you take it as is. It's decent, it'd be a good RAW main event, but it's not an all-timer by any means based on the action of the match.
It's also left a bad taste in my mouth to this day because the WWE hype machine tried to convince everyone after the fact that this match WAS the greatest of all time (it's not) and that these are the two greatest WWE superstars of all time (they're not). They ran markeitng promos on WWE programming with this sort of propaganda about the match. They didn't need to do that with other, true great matches to convince people that they were great. That really detracted a lot from the moment.
In total contrast, Brock/Eddie is about as genuine as it gets in terms of emotion and greatness. You can just feel the passion emanating from Eddie throughout the entirety of the match, but especially at the end, as I mentioned before, when he finally achieves his dream of winning the WWE championship. It's just an incredible, natural moment that doesn't need the WWE marketing machine to make it feel any bigger.
Additionally, the action of the match is simply superior basically all the way through, both technically and in terms of how much it makes sense according to basic ring psychology. The payoff at the end with Guerrero hitting the frog splash to win after the cheap shot feels like a much better climax than Undertaker getting the pinfall victory after a 13 minute slogfest to close the match.
In short, Eddie and Brock takes this one, and it's one of the easier decisions of the tournament for me so far.
YOU HEARD IT FROM TAJ FIRST FOLKS