Undertaker: The Last Ride Chapter 1 was a revealing look at the man behind the legend, but Chapter 2 is different in tone. Chapter 2 lives up to its namesake and is all about redemption showcasing how much Mark Calaway will endure to make sure a disappointing performance at WrestleMania becomes a distant memory. Episode 2 reveals the journey from WrestleMania 33 to WrestleMania 34, which would culminate in a return to form against John Cena, and the path to that ultimate destination is filled with compelling stories and details that we’ve decided to collect all in one place for you, and you can check out everything we learned in Chapter 2 starting on the next slide!
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From his thoughts on his match with Roman and how he first met Michelle McCool to his relationship and friendship with Vince McMahon and even what he listened to during surgery, there’s a little bit of everything in this documentary, and plenty to parse through for fans of the iconic superstar.
There’s even a tease of what comes next, and trust us, you won’t want to miss Chapter 3 after that tease. In the meantime, you can check out our full review of Chapter 2 right here, though if you’ve already done so you can just hit the next slide to get started.
You can find the official description for Undertaker: The Last Ride Chapter 2 below.
“After watching back his WrestleMania 33 match against Roman Reigns, The Undertaker sets out on a quest for redemption in chapter two of Undertaker: The Last Ride, available this Sunday on the award-winning WWE Network.”
You can check out everything we learned from Undertaker: The Last Ride Chapter 2 starting on the next slide, and let us know what you thought about the episode in the comments or by giving me a shout on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
Roman Reigns Match
We see early on that Undertaker has a hard time watching the match between him and Roman Reigns, a match he watches with his wife Michelle McCool. He clearly seems frustrated with it, and at one point tells McCool that he feels like he let Roman down. She tries to assure him Roman doesn’t feel that way, but there’s no convincing him.
We see Roman address the match later, and McCool was right. Roman does admit it didn’t go perfectly, but overall doesn’t regret the match or working with Undertaker in the least.
We also see this addressed later on after Undertaker returns to face John Cena at WrestleMania, as he runs into Roman and apologizes for not having it when they faced each other. Calaway tells Reigns “I felt so bad about last year. I just want you to know, that bothers me.” Roman is all smiles through this exchange though, saying “no, no”, but Taker adds “I didn’t have it, you know that.”
Reigns and Calaway talk a bit more and it doesn’t seem as if Reigns held any ill will in the least.
Music Accompaniment
This is one of the smaller but no less noteworthy details revealed in the documentary. As Calaway is wheeled into his second hip surgery he reveals that the doctors played his entrance theme, and you can even hear it before he fades off to sleep. If you’re going to have to be in the hospital, you might as well have your own music accompany your stay, right?
Meet Cute
We also get to see a lot more of Calaway and McCool interacting in this episode, and they touch on how they first met. Calaway says that McCool chased him for months, though we don’t know if he was just teasing her.
McCool says at one point that he really fell in love with her when he saw her throw a football. Evidently, during a show the football was being thrown around backstage by several wrestlers, and many of them weren’t very good according to Calaway. McCool came out of her room at the right moment, and picked up the ball and chucked it, throwing a beautiful spiral.
At that point, the rest was history.
Vince
Calaway and McCool also talk quite a bit about the relationship with Vince McMahon during the episode, and you can’t help but see just how close Calaway and McMahon are by episode’s end. There’s a genuine father son-type relationship between them, so much so that at one point McMahon is asked to talk about Calaway but gets too emotional to continue.
We also see the meeting with McMahon after Calaway’s surgery, seeing if he was open to coming back for the following WrestleMania. Calaway initially doesn’t see it happening, but he agrees to do it if an injury means Vince needs him to pitch hit.
There’s also a focus on how that loyalty between the two first started, and it is tied quite a bit to how Calaway stayed with WWF as many of the biggest names left for WCW. Since then McMahon knows he can always rely on Calaway, and will even have a makeshift ring shipped to him to get him ready for a return.
An AJ Tease
There’s one point in the documentary where Calaway is watching WWE on the monitor, and it’s a match with AJ Styles. Calaway ponders aloud here and says that’s someone he would love to work with. Little did he know that a few years later he would put on one of the most creative WrestleMania matches ever with AJ.
Cena Master Storyteller
One of the cooler things in the episode is how we see the Undertaker John Cena feud from both angles. We follow Cena during his various promos leading up to WrestleMania and Undertaker getting ready for the matchup, and it gives you a new appreciation for what Cena did pretty much on his own here.
Undertaker is focused on making sure he’s ready to put on a good match, so it’s up to Cena to provoke the crowd and maintain the storyline during weekly TV. He does it beautifully, and as he says, the crowd just wants to see The Undertaker period, and his various truth bombs about the last match not being spectacular and needing one more fight fed beautifully into that need to see him once more.
Ready For 45
Speaking of Cena vs Taker, the stellar build-up was paid off by a phenomenal showing from Taker, helped by his new warm-up routine that he perfected during his four-week training in the lead-up to WrestleMania.
Taker was moving with ease across the ring, and delivered his trademark moves with power and grace. That’s why at one point we actually see Taker a bit disappointed that the match was so short. Taker is back in his dressing room and says he would’ve liked to be out there long, adding “I trained for 45 and got 5”.
The show he put on though was vintage Taker, and ultimately that’s what he wanted, though we understand all that training goes into preparing for a marathon, not a sprint.
Super Showdown Train Wreck
The end of Chapter 2 ends in a triumph for Undertaker, but it appears there’s a low point on the horizon. Chapter 3 teases Super Showdown, and after Undertaker says he was looking for that one match that brought him back to yesteryear, you can tell from his expression and mannerisms that this did not end up delivering what he wanted.
In fact, Triple H is just as disappointed, as he laughs and calls the match that had him and Shawn Michaels facing down Undertaker and Kane a “total trainwreck”, and we can’t wait to learn more about what happened behind the scenes.
