For over 25 years, The Undertaker has been one of the WWE’s most enigmatic and iconic wrestlers.
Since debuting at Survivor Series in 1990, The Undertaker has become one of America’s most enduring real life pop culture heroes. The Undertaker (real name Mark Calaway) is the 6ft 10 titan behind some of the WWE’s greatest matches and memorable moments.
Who can forget the time he dropped Mick Foley off the top of “Hell in the Cell” back at King of the Ring 1998?
Or the numerous five-star matches that made up his famous “unbeaten streak” at Wrestlemania?
(Wrestling fans, your homework tonight is to watch Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker I & II at Wrestlemanias 25 and 26 tonight. Get it on the WWE Network.)
For over two decades, The Undertaker has been THE man in the WWE. A constant mainstay in the constantly changing company, an old school gunslinger always ready to dust off his boots for some classic duels.
Apart from that one year he had when he wrestled just as a regular guy that is.
(Yes, The Undertaker is lowkey a ginger.)
The unhappy chappy on the left is “Mean” Mark Callous”, a long forgotten character The Undertaker used to go by when he had a short stint wrestling in the NWA (a federation that would eventually become the WCW).
In 1989-90 Mean Mark wrestled in a tag team called “The Skyscrapers” with another fellow called “Dangerous Dan Spivey”. Legendary commentator Jim Ross described Mean Mark as “having a fondness for pet snakes and Ozzy Osbourne”. Footage of this time period is thin on the ground because of the pre-HD, pre-video tape everything era, but here’s a short video of him backing up managers Teddy Long and Paul E Dangerously. (Yes, that’s a young Paul Heyman. As in Brock Lesnar’s advocate).
Want to get really weird? Well for a VERY short time after playing this character, The Undertaker wrestled in Japan as a character known as Punisher Dice Morgan.
He looked like this.
Mean Mark and Punisher Dice are just a few small chapters in what has been an amazing career for The Undertaker. Not many men can claim to have beaten Hulk Hogan for the title, but you pulled that off as The Deadman back in 1991. And then again in 2002.
Then there was that time he reinvented himself as “The Real American Badass” Undertaker. A man so cool, no one laughed when he made a Limp Bizkit song his theme song.
Now 51 years old, you’d think The Undertaker would rest up his boots and look to retire, but only this April he was fighting Shane McMahon in a Hell in a Cell cage match at Wrestlemania 32. Much like The Undertaker himself, the match was brutal, a little bit ridiculous, but utterly jaw dropping.
So here’s to you, Undertaker. You’ve been one of our favourite heroes for the past 25 years. We’d get you a cake to say thank you, but it doesn’t seem like you like those.
Happy Birthday to our friend The Undertaker! Hope you enjoyed the hell in a cell cake. #wwe #wrestlemania #GetOnnit pic.twitter.com/c987xZCyUh
— Onnit (@Onnit) March 24, 2016
Oh, and while we’re here, this is what The Undertaker looked like in high school.
https://www.instagram.com/p/l7pQjsKomx/
