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LOOKING BACK AT THE CAREER OF YOKOZUNA, PART 2: YOKOZUNA TEARS THROUGH EVERY MAIN EVENT STAR IN THE COMPANY AND FACES DOWN HIS BIGGEST FEAR - CASKETS

Welcome back to the second part of my career retrospective on the late, great Yokozuna. Last time around, we saw the beginning of Yokozuna's run in the WWF where he won the Royal Rumble, beat Bret Hart for the WWF Title at Wrestlemania 9 only to lose it immediately to Hulk Hogan, regain it from Hogan and send him packing from the WWF, and survive the challenge of Lex Luger and his bus. Yokozuna had already defeated many of the biggest names in the WWF, but he was by no means out of credible challengers, and in the Fall of 1993, Yokozuna would have to face one of the WWF's all time greats.

Part II: Championships and Caskets

Even though he had blown his one and only chance at defeating Yokozuna for the WWF Title, Luger was determined to find a way to get another title shot and would continue to shadow Yokozuna until he got one. They captained opposing teams in the main event elimination match at Survivor Series 1993, and the original lineup was to have had Luger, Tatanka, and the Steiners taking on Yokozuna, Ludvig Borga, and the Quebecers. Unfortunately for Luger's team, Tatanka's undefeated streak was ended by Borga on an episode of WWF Superstars, and he was subsequently put on the shelf by repeated Banzai Drops from Yokozuna.

With Tatanka now out of Survivor Series, Luger needed to come up with a replacement partner, and the guy he came up with was the unlikeliest of choices: the Undertaker. While there had been no previous interaction between them, the idea of Undertaker and Yokozuna facing off was one that caught the interest of a lot of people who wondered if Yokozuna would be able to match up to the Undertaker. Undertaker finally tagged in late in the match and they wound up brawling to the floor and getting counted out, but Yokozuna was stunned that nothing he did to the Undertaker seemed to hurt him, and after a full year of manhandling and often severely injuring everyone he got in the ring with, Yokozuna finally appeared to have found someone he might not be able to beat.

The two were signed to face off at Royal Rumble 1994 in a Casket Match, with the WWF Title on the line. Even though Undertaker got the same contract as Luger, stipulating that this would be his only title shot, people considered the match as good as over since the Undertaker had been presented as virtually unbeatable for the entirety of his run, and certainly wouldn't lose to Yokozuna. He had held the WWF Title for six days in late 1991, but ever since then had been conveniently kept away from the title picture, and between his own history and Yokozuna's apparent fear of the Undertaker and his casket, nobody thought Yokozuna had a prayer of making it out of the Royal Rumble with the title.

However, if you've ever even heard of this show, then you already know about the infamous finish. Undertaker dumped Yokozuna into the casket and was about to close the lid when several other heels ran out of the back to attack Undertaker and prevent him from winning the title. It eventually wound up becoming a 10-on-1 attack that Undertaker still almost won until Mr Fuji and Jim Cornette stole the magic urn from Paul Bearer and opened it, allowing the power of the Undertaker to escape and render him lifeless. Yokozuna was easily able to dump Undertaker into the casket and get the win, only to be subjected to a postmatch promo where smoke poured out of the casket, the Undertaker appeared on the screen to deliver a speech, and then he levitated from behind the video screen to the heavens, or at least the roof of the arena.

In spite of how stupid the ending to the match was, Yokozuna again walked out with the title and sat back to watch the Rumble match and find out who his Wrestlemania challenger would be. It ended up that he would have two challengers, as Bret Hart and Lex Luger had both gone over the top rope at the same time, leading to the match being declared a tie and both men being awarded title shots at Wrestlemania.

Luger got the first shot, and this time there would be a special referee there to make sure everything was on the level. The referee was revealed to be Mr Perfect and it seemed like the title was finally in Luger's grasp, but after he knocked out both Jim Cornette and Mr Fuji and then hit Yokozuna with the loaded forearm, Perfect chose to try and get Fuji and Cornette out of the ring instead of counting. Luger gave him a light shove and Perfect disqualified him, screwing Luger out of another title shot and leaving Yokozuna one win away from another victorious evening.

Yokozuna faced Bret in the final match on the show, and the special referee for this match, Roddy Piper, made sure that we wouldn't have any more shenanigans when he personally knocked Cornette out to take him out of the equation. Even without his guys at ringside to support him, Yokozuna still dominated Bret and set up for the Banzai Drop, but lost his balance and fell backward into the ring, knocking himself out and allowing Bret to pin him and regain the title.

Yokozuna not only didn't get a rematch, but soon found himself almost entirely directionless. He and Crush unsuccessfully challenged the Headshrinkers for the WWF Tag Team Title at King of the Ring 1994, but Yokozuna floundered aimlessly until he was forced to face his biggest fear once again. The Undertaker had returned at Summerslam, and immediately set out for revenge on Yokozuna. They signed to wrestle in a Casket Rematch at Survivor Series 1994, only this time, Chuck Norris would be the ringside enforcer referee to prevent anyone from interfering and make sure what happened at the Royal Rumble didn't happen again here. IRS did still manage to sneak past Norris and interfere, but Undertaker still prevailed, rolling Yokozuna into the casket, throwing Mr Fuji's Japanese flag in after him, and slamming the lid shut to win the match.

After his loss to the Undertaker, Yokozuna disappeared completely from the WWF. It seemed odd that a guy who had steamrolled over so many top stars the way he had would just drop off the map completely like that, but he would be back and would again make an impact and claim championship gold, and I'll talk all about it next week in Part 3!

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