Undertaker: The American Bad Ass
(or Boring Guy Walking)
Federation: WWF
Real Name: Mark Calloway
Other Gimmicks: Original Undertaker, Master of Pain, Mean Mark Callous
The Undertaker has been a dominate force in the WWF since he first entered the company back in the early 90s. Even though he had the gimmick of a zombie that couldn’t be harmed by anything other then his parents’ ashes, he became a fan favorite and a permanent fixture in a company losing talent to the WCW. Fast forward to late 99, the Ministry of Darkness had disbanded and our evil satanic cult leader was showing The Big Show how happy being stranded in the desert can be (Show not only killed a snake but turned him into boots, now that’s a happy fun time). Now Mean Mark’s knees were pretty bad at this point and he needed to get surgery so he also showed Big Show the happiness of being a tag team of one. You read that right kiddies, Taker made his tag partner fight alone against their opponents and basically became The Under-Productive-Taker. Taker left to have his knees fixed and possibility conduct an experiment to determine how his parents’ ashes became bodies again. Judgment Day 2000 came around and Taker returned. But, something was wrong. When he left he was still the undead and a cold-blooded attempted murderer and kidnapper. But it seems in several months he because a good guy and alive. Yes, some how Mark came back to life in a story probably better never told on WWF/WWE TV. Not only was vitality restored to Mark but he gave up his satanic ways and became a generic biker. Apparently living people that have never killed a cheerleader in an auto accident cannot do the tombstone piledriver so Mark started using a standing powerbomb called The Last Ride as his finisher. The Last Ride is ok except when he does it to bigger guys (like Test) he nearly falls down on them afterwards. This gimmick wasn’t that bad on its own with only the genericness and total lack of continuity being it’s down points. Two things however really made me hate Mark from his return to the end of 2001. First even though he was now a completely normal mortal he no-sold like the original zombie Taker. Ok, the old Taker was undead and felt no pain so even though it was crap that he never sold at least it made sense. Now he was a normal guy that could take punches to the face, powerbombs, and other painful physical contact like it was nothing and just a couple of months ago he would sell being attacked. Second he brought his ugly wife in. Sara Calloway’s face can kill old folks with bad tickers at only a mere glance so I’m guessing that many elderly heart attacks out there were caused by Mark own personal Medusa. She gladly didn’t stay that long but managed to pin DDP on WWF TV which is just plain wrong.
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