Good times. Probably my favourite incarnation of the Taker, as well. The Uberheel Badass era.
He was a heel Badass, but he had that whole "respect" thing going as well, which is why he raised Hardy's hand at the end. One of my favorite Raw matches ever. I was really thinking they might have let Jeff win it long enough for him to lose it to Angle...as an Angle/Brock feud going into Summerslam that year would have been great. No matter what though, it would have taken a HELL of a Undisputed Title match to take the spotlight from the HHH/HBK match.
The camera work of the Taker/Hardy match has been rarely matched since, as usually the camera likes to give away if a wrestler is coming up behind another one who is on the ladder, but those last few Hardy climbs just were nothing but the top of the ladder and his face before Taker chaired him out of nowhere. I really thought it was over after Hardy blasted him like three times after the Last Ride attempt.