Evolution Schematic 07.19.08: Mark ‘The Undertaker’ Calaway (Part 3)

I suppose I’m looking like a whiny little bitch who ran away from criticism here, aren’t I? I mean, for the first time I’m getting seriously angry and/or legit criticism (that’s the worst type) in my comment section and then I vanish for a week.

All I’ll say is that leaving to wrestle fair away coupled with your internet access dying is not a fun combination. That’s an excuse, and not a particularly good one, but that’s all I got.

Still, I should cover a few things here. First, for those coming in late, a repost of the point/aim/gimmick of this column.

Overview: Pro Wrestling has always been about characters. We wouldn’t care about these people fighting if we didn’t care about the people themselves. But over time, characters have to change in many ways, alignment, teams, drives, desires, ability, sometimes even massive character overhauls. But while in the Territorial days, characters were only known to small areas unless they were wildly successful, these days, in the age of Global TV and exposure, characters have long, involved histories. And in almost any career, a character will change in many ways, at times with no understandable reason. This column will attempt to explain a character’s entire development, from debut to today and beyond, in such a way that the entire run makes sense. It will also, on occasion, look at the Evolution of a match, an event, or some other aspect of the business just for variety. This is not to say that this will be the only, correct interpretation, but merely one way to explain the character’s development. The name comes from the technical term for the picture we all know that starts from a frog and leads to current man (or fat guy on the computer, depending on your sense of humor).

So again, in some vain attempt to explain myself here, I have to pick and choose what I believe and don’t believe, what I do and don’t use. Big Show has been Andre’s son and a Bastard whos dad died of Cancer. They can’t both be true, so one has to be lying. I try to avoid it, but at times when two statements flatly contradict each other, one has to be a lie, and all I can do is try to justify it. And over the issue of who started the fire, in this one Kane did it. (Go here for the alternative version.) This is because when we get to Taker’s ‘admission’ of the fire, I can explain why he would lie about it and why Kane would accept it.

If you really cannot accept this, I’m sorry, that’s just the way I’ve done it, and maybe you should just avoid me for the next few weeks until I move onto my next subject (probably someone nice and non-controversial, like Ultimate Warrior or Steph or Benoit. Hey, if Dunn can make jokes, I can name the bastard.)

Well, I… Don’t feel any better, but that’s all I got. My apologies if you are really pissed off at me, at least more so than usual. And yes, I was a bit dry last time, because I was rushed and just copy-pasted from History of WWE pretty much. Hopefully this week will be better. Your soundtrack is the ‘complete’ output of Jonathan Coulton so far.

Part 1 and Part 2 of this travesty to humanity are there. When we left off, Taker had just won the WWF World Title off Hulk Hogan.

The first time.

Phase 8- The Undertaker, World Champion.

Taker’s WWF title reign lasted about a week (and a few defences against Davey Boy Smith), until the This Tuesday In Texas PPV, when Hogan got a rematch. And thanks to Paul Bearer’s mistake, Hogan grabbed the Urn (which had ashes in it… Well what else did you expect?), used it’s contents to blind Taker, roll him up and thus win the match and win his title back.

Phase 8b- The Undertaker, Former World Champion.

However, thanks to this outrageous cheating, Ric Flair’s attempted interference earlier on and the whole issue about the title changing hands twice in a week in shady methods, WWF President Jack Tunney stripped Hogan of the title and decided to have the winner of the 1992 Royal Rumble become Undisputed WWF Champion.

Good thing he didn’t live to see No Mercy 2007, he’d have died there and then.

Undertaker, as one of the last two champs, was given special treatment when it came to number drawing. Taker and Hogan would get a number between 20 and 30. The method they used for this, be it drawing them first then tossing the rest in or just sitting there and redrawing until they got a number in that range, is unknown, but what is known is that Taker kinda lucked out as he drew number 21.

His luck was totally gone when Hogan eliminated him from the Rumble, eventually himself being tossed to allow Ric Flair to win the match and title from #3. Taker, after failing to be chosen to fight Flair for the title at Wrestlemania, aligned himself with Flair, the two teaming up to lose to Hogan and Sid Justice by DQ on the first non NBC Saturday Night Main Event when Flair pushed the ref while he and Flair double teamed Hogan after Sid walked out.

Claims that Hogan was protected by the WWF refs do seem to have some meat to them at times.

But this, apart from being mere proof Hogan’s money making got him special treatment, seemed to serve as a wakeup for Taker. Or perhaps a wakeup for Paul Bearer. Whoever woke up, they realised that tying their colors to Flair and Jake Roberts’ wagons weren’t getting them anywhere. So, mere minutes after losing that match, Taker prevented Jake Roberts from attacking Miss Elizabeth after losing to Randy Savage. Jake asked Taker who’s side he was on. With two simple words, Undertaker was accepted by the fans.

Phase 9- ‘Not Yours.’

Preventing Roberts from stepping up from mere slaps to full blown chair shots to a poor little woman (who fully knew the risks of being a manager and was not above pulling off her skirt to distract guys…) surprisingly didn’t sit well with Roberts, and the two were set to fight at Wrestlemania VIII. And after surviving 2 patented DDTs, a sickening Tombstone on the floor was enough to send the Snake out of the WWF.

After wasting time with The Berzerker and Tombstoning Mr. Fuji a bunch of times over the months after Wrestlemania, Taker began a long, long, LONG feud against Harvey Wippleman, which began when Harvey convinced his client Kamala that the only way for him to get ahead was to take on his fear head on. Kamala was absolutely scared of Taker’s mind games, which makes sense, given that he was primitive and had never heard of dry ice before.

They met at Summerslam, Taker winning by DQ when Kim Chee interfered. Taker then took a bunch of various splashes from Kamala, all of which Taker absorbed and sat up from, further scaring Kamala half to death.

He upped the mind games in the lead up to Survivor Series, after his shots at the WWF Title kept getting lost by DQs, Perfect saving his boss Flair all the time. Taker and Bearer kept rolling caskets to ringside to freak Kamala the fuck out.

After some small confrontations with various people, none of which matter in the long term (although him beating Jason Helton is cool to me since I’ve wrestled him), he wrestled and defeated Kamala in a Coffin match at Survivor Series, the first televised Coffin/Casket/Whatever match in WWF history. Harvey wasn’t about to take this lying down, so when Taker announced he was entering the Rumble, he knew that was the perfect time to debut his new client. Taker was unaware of this, as he focused on the matches ahead of him, main eventing the first ever Monday Night Raw, defeating Damien Demento.

So at the 93 Rumble, Taker was doing great, tossing all those in front of him. He had cleared the ring, the only opponent still legal (Bob Backlund) out of it on the floor, Harvey brought out some big ‘naked’ guy, Giant Gonzales. Gonzales beat down Taker, but not enough to force him to be carried out, Taker being ‘awoken’ minutes after getting knocked out by Paul Bearer and the urn, Taker and Paul still ensuring to play the mind games even when being attacked by giant naked men.

Taker would then get the least impressive and most bizarre Wrestlemania win at Wrestlemania IX, winning by DQ when Giant smothered him (uh…) with an ether soaked rag. Gonzales then chokeslammed the referee Bill Alphonso, drawing Taker back from backstage where he had been taken, Taken then managing to knock Gonzales down and standing tall, albeit with a mere DQ win for his efforts.

This led to Harvey bringing in another man, Mr. Hughes, who made history as the first man to steal the urn.

Phase 9b- Chasing The Gold…en Urn.

Taker was now stuck fighting a battle on two fronts, as he tried to keep Gonzales at arm’s length while trying to get Hughes in the ring. Eventually, he had to focus on one then the other, getting a ‘Rest In Peace’ match with Gonzales at Summerslam, a match only he knew the rules for. Hughes responded for the trio by slamming Paul Bearer in the head with the urn, taking Bearer out for a bit (and maybe allowing him to attend to some matters elsewhere with some other big man…). Luckily for Taker, his ensuring mind games with wreathes and various other death related items worked wonders, Hughes getting more and more freaked out until he suffered a series of losses to Taker, forcing Harvey to fire him, after making sure he still had the urn.

Thus at Summerslam, Taker was in the driver’s seat despite not having that much creativity in match ideas, a Rest In Peace match being merely No DQ. And the plan worked wonders, as Paul Bearer made a shock return, attacked Harvey, and Taker was able to pin Gonzales, getting back his urn and manager in one fell swoop.

As Harvey got distracted by the now annoyed Gonzales, Taker set his sights on a different piece of gold.

Phase 10- Chasing The Gold… Full stop.

Yokozuna was feeling good. He was WWF Champion, and All American ‘beloved’ ‘superstar’ Lex Luger had blown his shot at Summerslam. So no-one was left for him to fight.

Enter Taker.

Taker issued the challenge, and Yoko, Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette all refused point blank. Taker kept goading Yoko, replacing an injured Tatanka in the Survivor Series match, teaming with Luger and The Steiners to fight Yoko, Jacques Rougeau, Ludvig Borga, and Crush. Taker showed his allegiance with an absolutely bitching in the best possible way coat with the American Flag sown into the lining. I’m Australian, and even I would salute that.

Taker’s team won the match, thanks in part to Taker and Yoko getting double counted out. This was all the proof the matchmakers needed, and Taker got his match for the title at the Royal Rumble, in a casket match.

After vignettes showing Taker making a double wide, double tall, double long Casket for Yoko (which makes it like… 8 times as big as a regular one!) began to play, Cornette realised that they needed to pull all stops so far out they almost ended back in. So, he called in almost every favor he had, and at the Rumble, the Casket match meaning that the match was clearly No DQ, a total of 12 men managed to beat down Taker and drive him into the casket.

Now then. Taker is a master of Mind Games, his entire career shows that. And he’s also a man to now ignore unpleasant possibilities. He’ll plan for any occasion, he’ll have back ups and back ups for back ups. I guess he might have a back up for the back up of the back up, but that’s merely confusing speculation. Regardless, it’s pretty hard in the WWF to plan anything involving more than a couple of people without it getting out. 10 or so guys to run in on a match would almost certainly lead to some sort of word spreading about. So, Taker and/ore Paul probably knew that something would happen. So they planned for that option, putting a camera into the casket and hiring someone to be lifted up to the sky. And thus Taker was ‘gone’, allowing him time to recover and plan.

Phase 11- Taker V Taker.

But while he was gone, another man had an idea. Ted DiBiase felt that he needed another boost of credibility, he needed to get ahead. And so, he claimed that he had ‘bought’ The Undertaker. This did seem on some level to be reasonable, given that Taker debuted on Ted’s Survivor Series team. And given the mass of Undertaker sightings that seemed to occur across America (well he is easy to spot), when Ted brought out a guy who looked an awful lot like how Taker looked before, some people were fooled.

One person who wasn’t was, oddly enough, The Undertaker. So when Undertaker played mind games with… Undertaker, people got confused. It was almost farcical, with the same man appearing in different places at the same time. So Leslie Nielson, a very farcical detective, was brought in to find the Real Undertaker.

He found him when he watched the main event of Summerslam, when Paul Bearer’s Undertaker defeated Ted’s Undertaker, thus proving that he was the better Undertaker and thus, logically, the real one.

Phase 11b- Unfinished Business.

After disposing of the Underfaker, Taker turned his attention back to the man who had ‘put him out’, Yokozuna. A rematch between the two was made, once again a casket match, but this time with future Internet Meme Chuck Norris as the special guest enforcer to keep everyone out. But he was only partly successful, as IRS interfered, while he was trying to ‘audit’ The Undertaker and thus fulfil the obvious Death V Taxes showdown that had to happen eventually. Despite IRS’ help, and the attempted help of a few other guys, Taker was able to get his revenge and shove Yokozuna into the casket to prove his point.

So now Taker was once again faced with a manager’s many clients trying to bring him down. The Million Dollar Corporation wanted his scalp for bragging rights (seriously, Tatanka was a member by this point so his scalp was a goal). Taker spent most of 1995 fighting off various members throughout the year. He beat IRS at the Royal Rumble, only to have his urn stolen yet again by King Kong Bundy. He then beat King Kong Bundy at Wrestlemania, only to have the urn re-stolen by Kama, who then melted it down into a bitching necklace, in the negative form of the word bitching.

So Taker fought Bam Bam Bigelow, Sid Vicious, Kama, anyone who got in his way. He took a break to go for the 95 King Of The Ring, qualifying by beating the then IC Champ Jeff Jarrett. But then Taker was beaten by the duo of Kama and his stomp and Mabel’s leg drop. Ok, Mabel won the whole thing, but still, that was a shocker. How did that happen, given that Taker really didn’t get any power from the urn?

Possibly he wanted to lure Kama into a trap, making him think he was getting to Taker and thus put the urn necklace on the line in a match. Or, much more likely, Kama’s boot just rattled him. As good as Taker is, as hard as he is, as much as he can withstand pain, sometimes you just get hit in the wrong spot at the right time, and he got pinned because of it.

Certainly it drove him, as he wins became more dominate, more focused as he continued to beat the Corporation at every step, finally getting his moral victory by beating Kama in another Casket Match at Summerslam. But a short while later, as he was brawling with his future opponent King Mabel in a massive brawl featuring several top names, Mabel managed to prove that Taker’s head seemed to be a weak point, as he broke Taker’s orbital bone, putting him out for a couple of months.

Phase 12- Taker of the Opera.

Taker returned at Survivor Series 95, complete with ghostly grey facemask. He had a Survivor Series match, although his team-mates (Fatu, Savio Vega and Henry Godwinn) didn’t really matter, as he pinned 3 out of 4 (Jerry Lawler, Hunter Hearse Helmsley and Isaac Yankem) before Mabel walked off.

The following night on Raw, Taker got a WWF Title shot, Bret Hart only retaining the title when Diesel interfered. However, before he and Diesel had a chance to really tear it up, Taker had to fight Kama one last time to get his urn back. And he got it back… for a few minutes as it got stolen AGAIN, this time by Mabel.

Didn’t do Mabel much good, as Taker finally got his urn back at the 5th In Your House, beating Mabel in a Casket Match to finally reclaim the prop. It didn’t really mean anything, but he had to keep up appearances, and thus now that he had it back, he could focus on the more important World Title. He got his title shot at the Royal Rumble, set to fight Bret Hart, much to Diesel’s annoyance. So much so that he cost the now unmasked Taker the match yet again, getting Bret Hart DQed by attacking the official before he could count Taker’s pinfall.

Taker then cost Diesel the WWF title as well at the 6th In Your House, pulling him down under the ring to allow Bret Hart to escape over the top. The two giants then fought at Wrestlemania, with Taker proving his place as arguably the best big man in the world with a decisive victory, thanks in part to the mind games leading to the big event, a memorable moment being Diesel finding a casket with himself inside it.

So Taker had proven he was the best big guy. What on earth was next?