The Undertaker controversially tops Brock Lesnar at WWE SummerSlam
The score has been settled between Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker. And at the end of the day, the old dog's bag of tricks sealed the deal, seizing a controversial victory by submission.
Lesnar opened the fight with a furious assault on his opponent, but the veteran Undertaker had plenty up his sleeve. Dueling chants broke out around the Barclays Center as two of WWE's most popular stars duked it out. The match began in the ring but moved fast and quickly out of it, Lesnar unleashing his trademark suplexes and eventually tossing 'Taker into a ringside table, leaving him on the ground reeling with a likely rib injury. It appeared the fight may have been over, the muscled, athletic Lesnar's stamina giving him an edge regardless of the potential crippling injury to his opponent.
But, as these fights tend to go, that wasn't the case.
Lesnar, bleeding from the face, taunted The Undertaker as he made his way back into the ring and caught Lesnar by the throat with a choke slam, reversing the tides of the fight. The wily Undertaker then landed a vicious piledriver but Lesnar wriggled away. Both men lay on the ground and traded punches, grappling their way to a wild finish.
After several more minutes of back-and-forth, it appeared Lesnar had won after the bell rang and Undertaker had apparently tapped out. But the referee waved it off, arguing that he never signaled for the ball. While Lesnar's manager Paul Heyman screamed in frustration, Undertaker snuck up and caught Lesnar unawares. He seized him in his trademark “Hell's Gate” hold and finished the fight.
Heyman then hijacked the bell and attempted to call for a Lesnar victory, at which point who had won was extremely unclear. But the official ruled in favor of Undertaker, and that stood as the official result.
The two wrestlers famously fought at WrestleMania 30 in 2014, where Lesnar ended his opponent's “streak” and dealt him his first ever loss at the event. The Undertaker made his return in July at Battleground, where he surprisingly appeared during Lesnar's match with Seth Rollins and sabotaged the fight, dealing Lesnar a kick to the groin and costing him the match.
Lesnar and Undertaker actually teamed up early in Lesnar's career before battling in 2002 for the WWE Championship, which Lesnar won. He would win again in 2003.
Earlier in the night, Seth Rollins topped John Cena with some unexpected help from host Jon Stewart to seize the WWE's U.S. Championship in addition to his own World title.
- Jeremy Woo
