Blu-ray Review | WWE: Undertaker - The Streak

With the likes of the Rock, Stone Cold and Edge being treated to fulsome box sets over the last year or so, I wondered how long it’d be before we saw one for the Phenom. However, rather than take the conventional form of a career retrospective complemented by an apparently arbitrary selection of matches, The Streak’s centrepiece forty-minutes focus on the Undertaker’s incredible winning streak at WrestleMania, which rose to a staggering 20 – 0 following his victory over Triple H at this year’s event. The man himself has not a word to say on the matter, the kayfabe-friendy programme instead turning to those he defeated on sports entertainment’s greatest stage for their thoughts. Rather than detract from the release though, the Apocalyptic Warrior’s absence only seems to accentuate his mystique – something that The Streak does better than any other Undertaker-themed set released to date, in my view.

This is a very comprehensive release as its focus is so narrow. All twenty of the Dead Man’s WrestleMania matches are presented in full (though not the original entrances and aftermath in all cases – disappointingly the Big Boss Man’s post-match hanging has been removed, as have all traces of Limp Bizkit) and nobody can quibble as they’re all unquestionably relevant. Whilst the Undertaker’s had far better matches than he did against, say, Giant Gonzales, or Big Show and A-Train, every WrestleMania match forms an essential part of his streak and thus his legacy, and as such it’s great to have them all collected together.

It’s worth shelling out the extra few pounds for the Blu-ray here. Although most of the material is upscaled from full-frame standard definition video (which is softened by near-constant zooming in to 16:9 in the documentary), the Undertaker’s matches from WrestleMania XXIV onwards and the interviews with his victims are all presented in high definition widescreen. It’s worth paying the uplift just to see this year’s iconic Hell in a Cell match in true HD.

Like a lot of people, I was hoping for a ‘Best of the Undertaker’-styled release featuring an all-embracing documentary in the style of The Bottom Line on the Most Popular Superstar of All Time or You Think You Know Me, particularly as the only documentary that the Undertaker’s ever been the focus of was It’s My Yard over a decade ago, which inevitably dwelt on his then-contemporary Bad Ass-era angles. However, as the Dead Man’s career has been so lengthy, spanning two full decades of destruction, I don’t think that a single documentary and a single collection of matches could have done him justice. The Streak is therefore the perfect place to start in chronicling the awe-inspiring career of Mark ‘Undertaker’ Calaway – but it is only a start, not a one-stop shop.