10 Major WWE Rumors That Never Came To Pass

For over 26 years, Mark Calaway has played The Undertaker, indisputably the greatest character in WWE history.

Even when he switched to a biker persona in the early 2000s, he still had the same name, and there was an unmistakable aura of the dark side about him. In Undertaker's early years, though, there were a couple of occasions where the gimmick stood to have been altered forever.

Survivor Series 1990 played host to two debuts - The Undertaker and The Gobbledy Gooker, a turkey which hatched out of an egg that had been teased (!) on TV for weeks. The Gooker is generally considered one of the dumbest ideas in WWE history, and the egg stands as a symbol of the utter nonsense that the promotion foists on the fans from time to time. However, heading into the Survivor Series, it was public knowledge that WCW star "Mean" Mark Callous had been signed by the WWF, and he was thought to be hatching from the giant egg in his debut. The Eggman, as he was to be called, probably wouldn't have made it as far as The Undertaker.

By 1996, though, The Undertaker was cemented as one of the company's most popular babyfaces. Still, that didn't stop talk of switching up his persona. After losing a Boiler Room Brawl to Mankind - with some help from a traitorous Paul Bearer - at SummerSlam 1996, 'Taker took a leave of absence from WWE programming. At that time, rumours began to swirl that Undertaker was going to return dressed in all white and renamed "The Savior." That certainly would have been weird, but cooler heads prevailed, and his Survivor Series return saw him modernised a bit. But ultimately (and mercifully), he was the same Undertaker (with some bat wings, of course).