wctennis

Paul Bearer's Tennis Racket

"Oooooooohh YES, I have the tennis racket now!"

At In Your House: DTA fans were treated to a casket match between the Undertaker and Kane. Besides the first appearance of the Lumbertaker (gyuh), the real show-stealer in this otherwise exciting match was Paul Bearer and his tennis racket. That’s right, folks…. I said his tennis racket, not his urn.

For those of you scratching your heads, this oddity didn’t go unexplained. In fact, Bearer addressed the record-setting PPV audience not on the mic or at the announce table, but by standing directly in front of a camera at the pinnacle of the match. For those of you who don’t remember, let’s just say that it was way more of Paul Bearer than you’d ever want to see. After telling us how he had stolen the racket from James Cornette (who hadn’t appeared in WWF action in months, by the way), Bearer neglected to explain why the racket was more useful at ringside than the urn was.

During the match he used the racket to assault not only Kane’s opponent, but the ref and the announcers as well. Thankfully, neither Taker nor Kane drew power from this new prop. It didn't even have any bearing on the outcome of the match. More confusing than the conclusion of this match was that no one knew if the urn was missing or what. That fact was just ignored. Luckily, Paul's tennis racket was never seen again, but the fact remains that this was by far the most ridiculous and random episode in Bearer’s historic managing career.