By all accounts, The Undertaker’s 30th anniversary happening at Survivor Series 2020 is his true, definitive farewell. His Last Ride documentary earlier this year was one of many indications his career is over and he’s finally officially retired.
However…this is professional wrestling. Virtually everyone who has retired has reneged on that at some point. Shawn Michaels refused to wrestle another match, then did. Ric Flair retired at WrestleMania 24 and fought for TNA multiple times. Terry Funk’s been retiring for like 30 years.
The Undertaker isn’t even immune to this. He’s “retired” several times just to come back the next WrestleMania or so. I don’t 100% believe this is it for him, and as such, I can’t help but to look at the roster and see people I’d still like for him to feud with.
So let’s talk. Theoretically, if Undertaker were to wrestle longer (rather than just one more match), here are 10 opponents (in no particular order) I would really like to see him go up against, along with some honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the list.
Honorable Mentions
Big guys have always been Undertaker’s bread and butter. In a different era, we’d have seen him have long programs with Braun Strowman, Dabba-Kato and Jordan Omogbehin, no matter what their chemistry would be like. Taker was a monster, but he was also the go-to monster-killer. For that matter, Lars Sullivan would be an obvious pick, but I don’t personally enjoy Lars all that much to add him onto this list.
Sheamus is on a similar wavelength. I really think The Celtic Warrior should have been one of The Deadman’s opponents for WrestleMania back in the day when he was a more active member of the roster and Sheamus was still on the rise. For my money, I’d rather sacrifice one of the Triple H matches, if not both, and replace those two spots with Sheamus and Wade Barrett.
Aleister Black, Dexter Lumis and Finn Balor are people I think everyone is expecting to be on this list, but I had to bump them off in favor of others. Frankly, with Balor, the whole demon thing is overrated in my mind. Outside of looking different, he doesn’t perform differently and his entrance isn’t even all that much changed. If he were to put in the work to make his match with Taker come off special, I’d be down for it, though.
Lumis and Black are mysterious, darker characters, too, so they’d make sense in that same regard. I don’t know if the chemistry would be there, but I’d at least like to see what they could do alongside The Phenom. The same goes for Damian Priest, but I don’t have much to talk about there other than how I’d like to see what he would do against Undertaker from 2007, for instance.
Roman Reigns is always a worthwhile option. The Tribal Chief is doing some of his best character work ever at the moment, and if he hadn’t already beaten Undertaker at WrestleMania, now could have been a good time to do that. Rekindling that feud doesn’t have to take priority over all the other things on this list, though, so that’s why I wouldn’t put him anywhere higher than the honorable mentions category.
That’s also my justification for not putting Randy Orton on the top 10. I love the idea of The Legend Killer doing something against Undertaker to push his newfound dominance, but I don’t like the idea of Taker losing on his way out. The same is also why you wouldn’t find Bray Wyatt here, as The Fiend would have to win that fight and I can’t sign off on that idea, as I’ve never been the biggest Wyatt fan in the world and Undertaker’s my #2 of all time. Priorities.
T-Bar (more so, Dominik Dijakovic)
T-Bar is dumb. We all know that. The RETRIBUTION gimmick is terrible and he’s already tapped out, so he’s lost all his credibility without having to rehab him entirely.
But Dominik Dijakovic is awesome. He’s a great performer in the ring, has a lot of promise for his future and is one of the taller guys on the roster.
I feel like working opposite Taker would teach him a lot about working like an agile big man in ways that he won’t be able to learn otherwise. It could be when a few things finally click and allow him to take that next step into being a main event talent, rather than someone who just has all the potential of being a top guy.
Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa
These two may seem like oddball picks, but hear me out. Who better represents the feel of NXT and the potential of that brand than Gargano and Ciampa? Adam Cole and Velveteen Dream have their upsides, but #DIY always strike me as the standouts.
These two are students of the game and guys who could teach master classes on working as it is. But imagine how much better they would be if they could have had a chance to work a program with Undertaker.
Ideally, Ciampa would be the heel in his feud, whereas Gargano would be the babyface against Undertaker. I’ve never been as big a fan of heel Gargano or babyface Ciampa and I think being the underdog against someone as big as Taker would work better for Gargano, while I can see Ciampa being coldhearted and attacking The Deadman.
Karrion Kross
This is my biggest leap of faith. We haven’t seen much from Karrion Kross. He wrestled a handful of squash matches, won the NXT title and got injured in that match. That’s tough to gauge his pros and cons.
But the idea behind this is intriguing enough for me to look past that and say he’d be one of my top picks. He seems to be a prospect WWE has a lot of investment in and if Triple H sees something in him, it’s probably for good cause. If so, and since Kross is a bigger guy who isn’t too bulky not to be able to move around, he could be one of those guys to benefit from beating Undertaker.
Keith Lee
With Keith Lee, you can pretty much copy and paste the same stuff I’ve already mentioned about how big guys have worked well with Undertaker and how he’s a younger guy who has all the promise in the world and could learn from wrestling The Phenom.
Lee is one of the people I have the most reverence for on the current roster. If WWE doesn’t screw things up, he could be a legitimate top guy who is very marketable and beloved for years to come.
Working with Undertaker isn’t a required piece of that puzzle, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Kevin Owens
One of WWE’s biggest missteps in recent years, I think, is not having Kevin Owens feud with Undertaker. KO was on the rise and had proven himself very early on as a reliable worker and a worthwhile main event star to invest in, while Undertaker was weening down his time, but still working on a relatively normal basis.
Owens could have easily called out Undertaker and tried to make a name for himself opposite The Deadman, only to find out that it’s much harder to actually put him down for the count even after he’s gotten past his prime. This could have been a WrestleMania feud, even, if things lined up.
These days, it would be much harder to justify. Owens is a babyface who no longer needs that rub since he’s already found his spot and Undertaker is, well, retired. If The Demon of Death Valley were to return for one more match, I can’t imagine picking Owens as the guy for the job, but I feel like we missed out on a potentially wonderful feud between these two.
King Corbin
People don’t seem to like Corbin and I don’t quite understand why. To me, he’s one of the best heels WWE has had in years. He’s managed to play both the chicken shit coward who runs away from fights and backs out from a challenge as well as the guy who can legitimately beat practically anyone on the roster.
Corbin’s credible, like it or not. He retired Kurt Angle, won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, won Money in the Bank and the United States Championship and is the current King of the Ring. This guy can stand toe-to-toe with most of the big men and not look out of place.
He’d be a great opponent to talk shit about how he’s better than The Undertaker and then be taught a lesson.
Samoa Joe
If there’s one “big man” left in WWE that I think we really missed an opportunity on with an Undertaker feud, it’s Samoa Joe. For all we know, Joe’s days in the ring may also be over, but he claims that isn’t true.
This is one of the options I do think could be a potential final opponent for Undertaker, if not just to do the damn match. For all the years when these guys were in their primes, they were wrestling for other companies. Had Joe made the move to WWE years ago and left TNA earlier, I have no doubts we’d have seen these two lock up in what would have been an epic feud.
Sadly, it seems about as likely to happen as the next pick…
Sting
Enough has been said about this that I don’t need to go into detail. We’ve all talked about it for 20+ years.
Sting isn’t technically part of the roster anymore and is also retired, but he clearly wants the match. Strangely, it seems Undertaker almost specifically has avoided doing that and doesn’t seem as into the idea. They should have done this instead of the Triple H match and I don’t think anyone would have been disappointed.
Maybe in another timeline…
AJ Styles (but for real)
The Boneyard Match doesn’t count. That wasn’t a real match. Cinematic matches in that style are just glorified vignettes and it doesn’t at all give us an indication of what these two guys could do in the ring together since there isn’t a ring at all.
This never would have happened the way it did if the coronavirus hadn’t changed plans. I’m confident they would have wrestled a rather short match, but it would have possibly been the best Undertaker’s had since 29, if not 26.
It doesn’t sit right with me that the last “match” Undertaker had was just a brawl outside. If The Phenom vs. The Phenomenal One was to be a real in-ring contest, though, I think I could be more okay with it.
Who would you like to see Undertaker feud with if he continues wrestling? Drop your list in the comments below!
