Undertaker & Cena: Wrestling’s Last Western
The Deadman saddled up once more at WrestleMania 34.
The term “anachronism” is generally used pejoratively to describe something that looks or feels less than modern. In that sense, the match between John Cena and the Undertaker at WrestleMania 34 was something of an anachronism. It involved two wrestlers largely aged out of the week-to-week-ad-infinitum cycle of WWE television who wrestled a slow-paced, relatively noncompetitive no-frills match that ended when someone hit a single finisher in the middle of the ring. Compared to the glitz of Mardi Gras sparkles and the glamour of 3D superimposed stacks of pancakes, it felt, well, kind of ordinary, at least by modern WrestleMania standards.
In spite of all our connotations, however, there’s nothing inherently wrong with something being anachronistic. Sure, regressive social philosophies are bad, but in the world of art, it is the unexpected and seemingly out-of-context that grabs the eye. In fact, anachronistic objects or moments often stand out to us as exceptionally memorable because they remind us that art and media are constructs specifically created for us to enjoy (think of the samurai sword in Pulp Fiction or a Star Wars joke in a Monkey Island game).
The very thing that made Undertaker-Cena special was that it was a blast from wrestling’s past: a simple story about a man who wanted to prove himself and a measuring stick with minimal incentive to oblige. In fact, the angle and match bore strong resemblance to a Western: there was a callout, a lawman waiting for a train to arrive, and a final confrontation in which two gunslingers gave their all in a fight that was more intense than beautiful.
Of course, the Western genre is itself anachronistic, and notably anachronistic in the world of pro wrestling. Dusty Rhodes was famously devoted to John Wayne and masterfully transferred the tough talk and will he-won’t he drama of Western movies to the ring, a style that dominated main event wrestling from the mid-70s through the 1980s. In fact, it was this cowboy-infused wrestling world that a tall Texan with deep-set eyes entered in 1984.
When Mark Calloway got his big break as the Undertaker in 1990, he debuted not just as an invincible zombie, but a Western invincible zombie, complete with long duster and wide-brimmed hat. In some ways, that aspect of the character spoke to a shift in both wrestling and popular culture at that moment: the cowboy archetype was dead (or undead, as it were). The WWF had squashed the attempts of southern wrestling promoters to compete nationwide, killing cowboy culture in wrestling, and the myths of westward expansion and Native American relocation were being rethought in the classroom, signaling the end of the collective cowboy obsession.
A few years back, Triple H famously referred to Undertaker and himself as “the last of the smash-mouth wrestlers,” which still feel like poorly chosen words, but it would definitely be accurate to say that the Undertaker is the last great wrestling cowboy. He is the culmination of what Dusty Rhodes and Blackjack Mulligan and Stan Hansen built: a singular badass figure who commands respect and makes his enemies pay dearly. He is the embodiment of and last lifeline toward the part of wrestling’s past that’s still mysterious, still larger than life, and still extrajudicial.
So, when people say that the Undertaker’s match with John Cena didn’t feel like it belonged on a modern WrestleMania card, it’s probably because it didn’t align with the way matches and stories are packaged in 2018. It wasn’t a “moment” in which “Superstars” “performed” to “put smiles on faces” and thrill the “the WWE Universe.” It was an old school wrasslin’ match where one guy called out another, told him where to meet him, and waited there, calmly sipping on a beer, until his rival showed up. It was the perfect setup for wrestling’s last cowboy, and the perfect end to what may be our last Western.
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