The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak nearly ended on a count out back at WrestleMania 25.
What some consider to be the best WrestleMania match of all time, The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michael took place from Houston, Texas’ NRG Stadium in 2009. Undertaker and Michaels put on an absolute classic, with “The Deadman” ultimately coming out on top.
Recently, the man who refereed that match, Marty Elias, was a guest on Chris Jericho’s podcast, “Talk Is Jericho,” During the show, Elias revealed that The Undertaker’s streak almost ended that night due to a count out.
After a spot where Undertaker dove out of the ring, he landed wrong and actually came down on his head. Taker had told Elias if he didn’t make it back into the ring, to actually count him out.
However, Elias was selling a bump he took earlier in the match, and was able to use that to slow his count. Taker was able to get back in the ring and finish the match as planned.
“At WrestleMania 25, when I did my counts on Taker after the dive, that count was a shoot count (When Taker went for the dive, didn’t get caught, and landed on his head).
“The only instruction I ever got out of that match was from Taker. He said, ‘If I don’t get back in, you shoot count me out’, and we came very, very close to counting him out.
“But if you go back and look at that, I was drawing my counts out, and I was drawing 74,000 people in with my counts. I took my time because I was still selling because they had bumped me earlier. So I was still selling that.
“But at the same time, I was still dramatizing it and I was elongating that count. So I was getting the people behind me.
“I was looking at Taker, and Taker and I didn’t make eye contact until nine on the 10 count. So that streak almost ended at WrestleMania 25 on a count out.”
“He was concussed. He had a broken collarbone. He broke his ring finger. So yeah, he was pretty fu*ked up.”
The Streak wouldn’t end for another five years until Brock Lesnar defeated The Undertaker at WrestleMania 30. To this day, the only two men who have ever defeated Undertaker at WrestleMania are Lesnar and Roman Reigns.
Undertaker officially retired from active professional wrestling in November of 2020, making the announcement at Survivor Series. He was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame by Vince McMahon this past April in his home state of Texas.
Quotes via WrestlingNewsCo
