It is no secret that the Undertaker suffered yet another injury that will put him on the shelf a while, in what was a return from a layoff since Wrestlemania, where before hand he was "taking it light" due to a pyrotechnic accident back in February. For WWE this has to be some sort of record when it comes to a major star that they were planning on relying a good portion of their summer storylines on to come back from a hiatus like this and have to be immediately shelved. The Hollywood writers were able to quickly scramble and work his injury into a storyline which should lead them into Summerslam, but one has to imagine that this wasn't how they imagined the build-up to one of their "big four" PPVs.
This leaves Kane to carry the angle and go on some sort of vengeful tear throughout the summer, a scene that fans have been watching for years now and have never really been sold on after the initial Undertaker vs. Kane angles fell flat for one reason or another.
This past Monday, a huge opportunity was missed in the "all-brand" Raw that featured Quinton "Rampage" Jackson from UFC as the guest host. While he was tied up with a rather odd and poorly-acted one-night feud with Ted Dibiase Jr. and Rowdy Roddy Piper that only gained heat when "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes started slurring out a promo for the new A-Team film, one has to wonder if this would've been different if the Undertaker was not injured. Undertaker is clearly the biggest mark for MMA within the company and has worked MMA finishes into his matches for years now, including re-enacting the Carlos Newton/Matt Hughes triangle choke/powerbomb finish into a match with Kurt Angle and using a various array of MMA chokes to finish off his opponents.
The Undertaker always gets good heat, and while it looks like they will be building to Kane vs. Undertaker for what feels like the millionth time (including the house show circuit, it probably is), using the A-Team angle with Rampage on one of the more heavily-watched episodes of Raw for the summer seems like a perfect way to make Undertaker, a fan of Rampage's happy, and of course to build up to Summerslam. Of course there is that whole incident of Undertaker not signing a young Rampage's autograph years ago, but I'm sure Rampage would've been thrilled to be working with the "Dead Man" on this week's Raw as opposed to the freakshow that fans were treated to.