The biggest fight of the Summer ended with a less than ideal finish. Let’s break it down.
Lesnar had Undertaker in the kimura lock. Undertaker pushed up to his feet and managed to get Lesnar’s shoulders on the mat. The official moved round and started to count a pin fall only for the bell to ring and cause confusion.
Baffled at the sound of the bell, the official was then seen shouting at the timekeeper stating he never asked it to be rung. Heyman started screaming at the official that Undertaker had tapped out. In the meantime Undertaker gave Lesnar a low blow and put him in triangle choke, the official turns round and continues the bout only for Lesnar to pass out whilst giving him the “defiant gesture”.
Fans were left confused, Undertaker’s music played and he was declared the winner. It was at this point that another camera angle showed Undertaker actually tapped out whilst the official was unsighted on the other side counting the pin fall.
This booking has left many fans feeling robbed of seeing an actual finish between the two and I can understand why, especially when they could have gained the same results but done it all in a more simplified fashion.
The whole issue with this finish is that the timekeeper rang the bell when they have no authority to do so, or have ever done so in the past. The official will always signal to the timekeeper that the bout has started or finished, in this case they didn’t. Then there is the fact that the position of the timekeeper in relation to Undertaker and Lesnar was completely wrong as they couldn’t have seen the tap either.
Hindsight is always an easy thing but booking a timekeeper to end such an important match is something WWE should have considered heavily before deciding to go in this direction.
Why didn’t they just have a second official come down after the first referee took a bump? Once the original official recovered the second referee could have stayed at ringside and been the person in position to see the tap. We would have then had the two referees arguing about the call with Heyman, Undertaker could have still given Lesnar the low blow, the original referee could have overruled him as no footage was available at the time, continued the match, have the same finish and then the footage only becomes available afterwards to reveal that Undertaker did actually tap.
