10 Most Shocking Wrestling Betrayals
8. Paul Bearer Deserts The Undertaker
1996 was a revolutionary year for the Dead Man.
After years of battling immobile and or past-it behemoths in abysmal matches, the Undertaker was finally permitted to show that he could flat-out go; his feud with Mankind was refreshing both in-ring and out. Their matches were far more fast-paced than the usual lumbering fare, and nowhere near as one-sided. Mankind was a legitimate threat to his dominance, which was becoming fairly boring.
At SummerSlam of that year, Paul Bearer, his rotund and loyal manager of a near half-decade, turned on him at the climax of his Boiler Room Brawl with Mankind. He never did gave a wholly satisfactory answer to why, at least at first, other than he was just a bit tired of him. It was odd - he was just getting really good. Perhaps he was sick of trying to keep up with his former charge's advanced mode of workrate. In any event, it was a shocker. Bearer and 'Taker weren't exactly a played out tag team. We already knew who was the Jannetty and who was the Michaels.
Those shocks continued unabated when Bearer amassed an army of villains both epic (Kane) and dismal (a knackered Terry Gordy dressing up in the jobber-tastic Executioner guise) with which to wage war against the Undertaker (and his "wh*re" of a mother).