Michael Cole recently looked back on Brock Lesnar ending The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak in 2014.
During a recent appearance on “The Sal Licata Show,” Cole revealed that even when Lesnar hit the ultimate F5, he still believed The Undertaker would kick out.
Cole explained that just about nobody within the Superdome thought The Deadman would lose, and the announcers didn’t know Lesnar was winning either. He said,
“I find out about 80% of what’s going to occur. I even have to know plenty of things so as to help the audience with the story. At WrestleMania, I don’t wish to know anything if I don’t need to. … The Undertaker thing, there wasn’t one person in that Superdome that thought Undertaker was going to lose. Each person believed that he was either going to retire undefeated or if he was going to lose, he was going to lose to an up-and-coming person who he could help give the ‘rub to.’ None of us knew Brock was going to win. In truth, I believe the legend goes that the actual ending of the match was modified mid-match.
Anyhow, when Brock hit Taker with the F5, I believed that Taker was going to kick out. It was almost a nonchalant one, two, and I used to be about to say kick out once I froze. The very first thing that got here to mind was, ‘The Streak is over.’ Looking back, I don’t think I could have done that any higher. I don’t think there was a call that would have been done higher than that. If I used to be screaming excessive or whatnot, it just doesn’t have the effect because you could possibly tell within the moment. I don’t watch back much of my stuff, but I do return every infrequently, and it’s hard to disregard this since it’s in each WrestleMania package we ever built. Once I do listen back to that, I get chills sometimes since it was the right call due to shock value. You had a man in myself who was legitimately shocked that this happened. It was a historical moment in our business.”
The Undertaker went 21-0 to construct The Streak, starting at WrestleMania 7 in 1991 and reaching 21 straight wins by WrestleMania 29 in 2013. Lesnar gave him his first WrestleMania loss at WrestleMania 30 in 2014, ending the streak at 21-1. The Undertaker wrestled five more times at WrestleMania after that and finished with an overall record of 25-2.