Ranking all 25 WrestleMania matches of The Undertaker

5. The Undertaker vs. Triple H – WrestleMania XXVII

The second match in the WrestleMania trilogy featuring The Undertaker and Triple H came at WrestleMania XXVII, just one year after The Deadman had retired Trips’ best friend and DX stablemate, Shawn Michaels. The story coming into this one was that HBK didn’t believe Hunter could defeat The Undertaker, especially since Michaels had failed in his attempts the two previous years. This was a No Holds Barred Match and there were certainly plenty of highlights in this one.

The first half of this nearly 30-minute battle featured some nice spots like going through Michael Cole’s little area and Triple H took a nasty fall on a backdrop off the announce table. It initially looked like Trips had possibly injured his wrist but he was able to keep going. He could have done a bit better job of catching The Undertaker when he came flying over the top rope. It wasn’t quite as bad as what happened at WrestleMania XXV with the cameraman but this could have been disastrous. Luckily, ‘Taker fought through and was able to take an awesome spot that saw Triple H give him a spinebuster off of the steps through an announce table. Great stuff there.

While the first half was good, the second half of the match went to another level. Triple H hit his first Pedigree of the night but ‘Taker kicked out of it, which then led to The Undertaker hitting the Last Ride out of the corner (come on Trips, you’re better than that) and then a Tombstone. Triple H refused to give up, though. He would hit not one, but two more Pedigrees that couldn’t keep The Undertaker down and vented his frustration by blasting The Phenom with multiple chair shots that really made an impact. He yelled at ‘Taker to stay down, which only added to the drama and psychology of the match, then went even further when he hit the Tombstone on The Undertaker and then went for the cover ‘Taker-style by folding the arms and everything. Great reaction from the crowd on that one. But The Deadman kicked out again and that led Trips to grab the sledgehammer out of frustration but ‘Taker had just enough strength to lock in Hell’s Gate. Triple H tried everything he could to get out of it or grab the sledgehammer but he just didn’t have it in him and finally tapped out in a great finish. Phenomenal match. 19-0.