wrestling / Columns

Evolution Schematic 08.09.08: Mark ‘The Undertaker’ Calaway (Part 6)

August 9, 2008 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Writer’s Notes

Today is a new day! Today marks the first in a new line of Evolution Schematics! For too long, you have suffered and strained under the weight of having Schematics put up far, far later than as God, Nature and Ashish intended. The word has come down from on high, that from now on, all columns must be submitted on time, without delay, for fear of Chemical Castration!

*urgent whisper from aide*

I’m sorry, of fear of being fired from this non-paying job.

But there will be no second chances, once you post an article even slightly late, you are banished from the land!

*another urgent whisper*

Oh, an hour’s leeway is given. But only one slip up will-

*yet more whispering*

Fine, a warning will be given one week, and THEN you’re gone. But no excuses will be tolerated; no petty concerns will be…

*a sharp knock on the head, with more whispering*

You mean if I just email Larry to explain that’s ok? How is that different from the old system?

*whispers, with a louder ‘Because other people are doing it now!’ audible*

Oh. Well, I suppose that makes sense.

And killed some column space. Here endeth the lesson.

But before we move on, a quick word of thanks to Jimthor The Oblong for putting together the short little vid from last week. Jimthor is a resident of Stablewars, a site where you can play a variety of Prediction contests, many of which have prizes for winning of Wrestling DVDs and/or Books. Hopefully we’re going to be crossing over with the Summerslam RT here with their Play Per View contest, (which is open here) so that you can go head to head with 411’s best and prove that you are better at predicting just how WWE will go. Jimthor would have gotten this space to himself, but since he didn’t send me anything, you get an ad instead.

Oh, and of course, a big thumbs up to Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, given that he, you know, made the video originally, Jim just cut a bit out.

Anyway, enough chitter-chatter.

Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4 AND Part 5 are there to be read by you, right now. Go do that. I’ll wait.

When we left off, The Undertaker had just turned on his brother…

Wait, I should clarify that.

The Undertaker had, for the first time, turned his back on Kane & The Fans at the same time in order to hook back up with Paul Bearer. In late 1998. I think that narrows it down enough…

This column brought to you by pizza. Lots and lots of it.

Phase 24- The Army Of Not Enough Lightness.

The night after Judgment Day, Mark underwent a slightly disturbing change. Mark forsake his fan friendly image and went dark.

Real dark.

Hooking back up with Paul Bearer was just the start. Mark had realised that his mind games, his persona had become accepted. People were just saying ‘Oh Yeah, you’re a dead guy’ and then wrestling him as normal. Seeing his brother, watching him fight flesh and blood and, at first, being afraid of it had humanised him. So, he needed to claw back the advantage. He had to make everyone question where the lines were drawn. Merely changing his hair and beard wasn’t enough, not even taking Paul Bearer back was enough. He needed to do something, commit some act, or even better, pretend that he had committed some act, that would send everyone into a panic. He had to do something to show everyone that he was a cold, sadistic monster of a man.

So, the Raw after Judgment Day, right before his casket match with Kane, he announced to the world that he, not Kane, had set the fire that killed his parents.

Was this true? Kane certainly thought so, and at the time, a lot of people bought it, and still do. However, it is rather…convenient. He had a new look, and then decided to tell the world? Even now, The Undertaker and Kane have (or rather had) a somewhat good relationship, and Kane has been proven to have severe mental problems, enough that he might very well block out the memories.

In this writer’s opinion, The Undertaker in all probability didn’t set the fire; he just said that to appear darker. Certainly later on he had good enough friendships that he almost had to admit that he didn’t set the fire later on, so he’s lying at some point.

But regardless, the fact remains that everyone at the time thought he was telling the truth, and that was the main thing. Other wrestlers were now scared of him and his proclamations about his new Ministry Of Darkness, WWF programming began to talk about Mark Calaway had lost touch with reality, was now too deep into his character, the WWF admitting for the first time that he wasn’t really dead, such was the unnerving effect Taker’s persona switch had wrought.

And that was just what he wanted.

However, this still left Kane all angry and pissed off and emo and such. So Taker was once again back to fighting his half brother, although this time the fans were firmly…

Well, not firmly, but mostly, behind Kane, even after Kane tried to burn Taker with a fireball and hit X-Pac instead. Taker then entered the tournament to crown a new WWF Champion at Survivor Series, Kane and Taker getting a bye into the second round. Taker would defeat Kane thanks to Paul Bearer, then losing to the Rock thanks to Kane costing the match for Taker with a chokeslam, either to make sure Taker lost by DQ (somewhat unlikely, since Kane isn’t exactly a smart guy) or just trying to get Rock out of the way (more likely).

Taker then turned his sights to Steve Austin, who was frustrated by Shane McMahon turning on him at Survivor Series to cost him the title even after Shane gave him his contract back (more on that later). Taker cost Steve a match against the new champ Rock the night after Survivor Series with a shovel shot, Austin winning by DQ and thus not win the title. Taker then had to contend with both Austin and Kane, the two somehow working together somehow, despite Taker trying to embalm Austin, getting Kane committed (thanks to Paul Bearer being Kane’s legal guardian) and, in a historic image, crucifying Austin on an Undertaker Symbol.

Yeah, that went over well. But then, that was the point. By this time, every man and his dog was up in arms, and Taker was once again feared.

This all led to (what else?) a Buried Alive match at Rock Bottom, where the winner would receive entry into the Royal Rumble, the match being Austin’s one and only shot at getting into the match and thus have a chance for an Iron-Clad Wrestlemania Title Match.

At the time, it seemed to go badly for Taker, as he lost the match thanks to Kane’s interference. But fate works in mysterious ways. Taker took some time off to further enhance his image, growing his hair in a bit, and allow him to create his Ministry Of Darkness from the shadows, allowing it to form without anyone truly knowing what was going on until it was too late.

The first members practically fell into his lap, as The Jackyl, a.k.a Don Callis, left the WWF in order to take up a more lucrative job as Network Consultant with TNN to work in ECW, Don being a businessman first, a wrestling talent second. This left his newly formed team of Faarooq and Bradshaw, Hell’s Henchmen, without a leader. Taker quickly swooped in, and after changing their names to the Acolytes, sent them to work. Their first act in the New Year was to kidnap Dennis Knight from Southern Justice, Taker seeing promise in him. He ‘sacrificed’ Knight to his new dark lords, and Mideon was born. Taker swore to his Higher Power that he would take over the WWF.

And here is where things get a little bit complicated.

Phase 25- The Taker/Vince Plan.

Vince McMahon is not a man to leave things up to chance. The man might take gambles, might take risks, but if he can, in any way, take control of a situation, then he will do so. He will tilt the odds in his favour at every chance. And so, in early 1999, he did just that.

After Taker converted Mabel into Viscera the night of and after the Royal Rumble, Vince saw his initial master plan falling apart. What was meant to be a cut and dried operation, him winning the Royal Rumble and thus screwing Austin out of the title shot, got a lot more complicated when Commissioner Shawn Michaels screwed Vince over when Vince forfeited the title shot, saying that meant Austin got it. Vince had a chance, a steel cage match at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre against Austin, with the WM title shot on the line. He had Paul Wight waiting in the wings, he knew that he could very well beat Austin.

But he wasn’t sure.

So he set up his back-up plan. Vince didn’t want Austin gone from the WWF, he was too valuable. He just wanted him down the list, in the IC or European division, maybe the Hardcore Title hunt. Just not the World Title, that could not be his. And Rock was having his hands full just keeping Mankind at bay, Vince could not trust Rock to beat Austin if and when the time came. And it did come, as Austin beat him in the cage match. Sure, Rock was the champ on Raw the next night, but in the 24 hours between the two shows Vince created and executed a new plan.

Taker was now the ultimate back up.

Taker began to ‘follow his Higher Power’, and began to terrorise Vince’s family. Sending messages through Shane to Vince, Taker began to pretend that he wanted control of the WWF, and would take Vince’s daughter, Stephanie, to do it. Vince began to play the part of the father being terrorised, which had the nice bonus of making the fans and the wrestlers they liked become more sympathetic to Vince, up to and including Austin.

Vince and Taker played everyone, outside of a few choice people in on the plan, Bearer, Shane. But Stephanie did not know, that was crucial, her reactions had to be real.

So, in public, Taker began to terrorize the McMahons and the WWF, Vince putting Taker into an Inferno match against his brother to ‘punish’ him, thus giving him a great visual as Taker burned Steph’s old teddy bear. The Brood stepped up to the plate, trying to take the Ministry down to help Vince. So Taker simply converted them to his cause. He dressed up as Kane, he attacked Vince’s Corporation, everything was carefully orchestrated to fool everyone.

At times, Taker did go too far. After beating Big Bossman at Wrestlemania XV in a Hell In A Cell match, with the Brood’s help he hung Bossman. With a noose and everything. Bossman wasn’t seen for a bit, which leads one to conclude that, since when he came back he was fine, that Bossman was in on it and thus had to be taken away for a bit to explain how the Ministry could get to Stephanie.

And that they did, kidnapping her the Raw after Wrestlemania. Vince at this point had to keep his distressed father act going, so when Austin came calling for his Smoking Skull title back, Vince acted like he wanted to give it back to Austin, letting Shane take over on the war against Austin, Shane stacking the deck against Austin for Backlash. But by this time Vince had lost faith in The Rock, and thus knew that he wouldn’t let him hold the belt again. Letting Austin hold the belt for another month or two longer was better than Rock having it.

Besides, he was still playing Daddy.

So Vince continued to run and be scared of The Undertaker, consoling his daughter and ignoring Shane’s war with Austin. However, Ken Shamrock proved to be a bit too tough a customer, as he was able to find Stephanie’s whereabouts that night on Raw from Christian, and thus ‘save’ her long before she was meant to be found. Stephanie’s kidnapping would have been long and kept everyone busy, but then Shamrock got involved, and Christian failed Taker.

So The Brood was kicked out of the Ministry, and Taker kidnapped Shamrock’s sister. Taker and Shamrock had a match at Backlash that Taker won thanks to Bradshaw. Vince also made sure that Rock didn’t get the Title back (and thus screw up his promises to Taker) and helped Austin retain the title, which seemed to prove to everyone he was a reformed character. Hell, it convinced Austin enough that he saved Stephanie from a Black Wedding to The Undertaker the night after Backlash, after Shamrock and Big Show both failed.

Thing happened very quickly at this point of the WWF’s history. With the company on such a rise, everyone’s actions became that much more important. It didn’t help that Vince and Taker’s plan was so sneaky and backhanded.

But even they realised that, now that Austin would be willing to help Vince against Taker, that everyone was buying it. And thus the infighting and such had to stop, so Vince and Taker agreed to simplify matters.

Phase 26- Insert joke about how all Religions are businesses here.

So on the very first Smackdown, The Corporation (now led by Shane McMahon) and The Ministry of Darkness formed The Corporate Ministry. Shane, Big Bossman, HHH and Chyna joined the team, and were let in on the secret. HHH especially, as he and Taker had to ‘beat up’ Vince McMahon on the first Smackdown and thus he had to be in on it. The Corporate Ministry was publicly formed to fight Austin, Rock (who was now by himself and thus popular) and Vince. This had a couple of benefits, in that they didn’t have to waste time fighting each other when they could focus on the true enemies, and it also caused people to become confused even more. Bossman was hung by Taker, and now they’re working together? Taker must be really evil and a great brainwasher…

The Union of Mankind, Shamrock, Test and Big Show was somewhat of a thorn in the side, but Taker rose above it and continued to act like the Devil Incarnate on his path to his promised WWF Title.

This led to Taker and Austin fighting at Over The Edge 99 for the Title, where Shane appointed himself special guest referee and then Shawn Michaels stepped in, and in a glorious moment for Vince, Taker, Shane and everyone else on the side of darkness, dead dogs and Mom’s Devil Food Cake, appointed Vince McMahon as the second special guest referee.

Tragedy then struck on the night, as Owen Hart fell to his death prior to his match. However, Vince would not be denied, and the matches went on, the plan working as Vince ‘accidentally’ cost Austin the match, Shane pushing Vince into Austin into a Taker roll up and a fast count, thus giving The Undertaker his WWF title.

Phase 26b- The Undertaker, WWF Champion.

So, after a week to let the bad press die down, Vince decided that, given Austin had lost the title and all the plans had worked, it was time to reveal himself. So he had Taker announce that the Higher Power would reveal himself. First to Austin, who greeted the revelation with full blown rage, and then the next week to the World.

Phase 26c- IT WAS ME ALL ALONG AUSTIN!

And that he did, after a bit of video tomfoolery, Vince announced to the world that he was in fact the Higher Power, and that the world was indeed full of chumps and chumpettes.

Oh, and daffodils.

As Vince was busy sucking himself off, Stephanie and Linda McMahon came to ringside. Austin had not told the world who the higher power was, but he had confronted Linda and Steph about it. And since they were not in on it, they sided with Austin.

This led to Austin becoming CEO and thus gaining control of the WWF and therefore all of Taker’s plans fell down. But he did manage to keep things under control at first, surviving a title match with Big Show thanks to taking a chokeslam through the ring. Then he and HHH began to have problems. Naturally, when Vince was in command, the two were cool, but now that he wasn’t, their egos began to butt heads, as it were. But if that were not bad enough, Rock came calling for a title shot. So Taker had two problems, but luckily for him they seemed to have solved each other at King Of The Ring, as HHH cost Rock the match, allowing Taker to retain his title.

The next night on Raw, Austin revealed his last second title match clause, and proceeded to win the title.

Phase 27- The Ministry Falls Apart

Taker was given a rematch at Fully Loaded, in a first blood match with Austin. Special stips were added, with the rules stating that it Austin lost, he would never again get a WWF title shot, and if Taker lost, Vince McMahon had to be gone from WWF TV forever, or until Austin said otherwise, whichever came first.

Taker and Austin then spent a good month busting each other open, and other people as well, blood spilt in practically every arena around. Taker also began to court his Half-Brother, wanting him on the team, especially as HHH continued to get frustrated and more and more a loner. But Kane didn’t want to choose between his Half Brother and his new friend X-Pac. Taker said he understood, and unlike X-Pac (who had the nerve to tell Kane to, you know, do the right thing), he would never ask that of him.

But Taker then went and attacked X-Pac anyways, which sort of forced Kane to choose. And he chose X-Pac. But then, Taker had already made his choice, as while he was publicly courting Kane, he was secretly turning Big Show to his side, convincing the easily led big guy of the merits of joining him. And so at Fully Loaded, Big Show pinned Kane, and he and Taker beat down Kane and X-Pac.

This proved to be a bad move, as X-Pac interfered in the main event, kicking a chair into Taker’s face and busting him open, thus costing Taker the match, making him not win the title, and sending Vince off of TV ‘forever’.

Well done him.

Phase 28- The Unholy Alliance

Taker and Big Show thusly formed The Unholy Alliance, with Mideon and Viscera acting as their back up. While 3/4 of the group had been in the Ministry, the group was no longer associated with the McMahons, and was their own thing. The group tried to get Taker back into the World Title hunt, but after he lost a #1 Contender’s match to Chyna when she pinned HHH (long story), he and Show refocused their energy onto the Tag Titles, winning them off of Kane and X-Pac at Summerslam.

However, on a Raw a couple weeks later they lost the titles to The Rock And Sock Connection when Taker walked out on Big Show to go deal with something with Paul Bearer.

And no, I have NO idea what was in Paul Bearer’s jacket. Best guess was that Taker had received an offer to save money on his car insurance.

The duo would survive these problems, regaining the belts on Smackdown a week or so later in a Buried Alive match thanks to HHH (who took Big Show out with his sledgehammer while Show was burying Mankind… then continued the burial).

And for some reason, this pissed Taker off. Big Show didn’t win the match, he got lucky. So he punished Big Show, orchestrating their loss of the belts back to Rock & Mankind, and then beating Show down.

And then Vince McMahon had the gall, the absolute gall, to tell Taker what to do. So he upped and left.

It would be almost a year before he was seen again…

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Mathew Sforcina