10 Secrets Behind WWE Magic Tricks
9. Buried Alive
The Undertaker was associated with all manner of bespoke gimmick matches.
You know that meme of a crying Vinc McMahon? Where he’s so emotional over what the Undertaker meant to him over the years that he has to cut off the question and collect himself?
It’s no wonder he was in tears; after a certain point, ‘Taker boasted so many custom stipulations that his months-long programmes essentially wrote themselves. ‘Taker’s formula was so easy that it saved Vince a right load of hassle. He probably wrote that 2010 Kane feud on the back of his burrito. Which he didn’t know was a burrito, because he was not a genius.
One such match was his old ‘Buried Alive’ staple. It was in terms of layout identical to the Casket match: a brawl in which the purpose was to force one’s opponent inside of something. A goth ambulance match, basically.
They were never exciting, a bit boring and silly, but the actual finish was quite the scene, especially if you were a young’un at the time.
Did the Undertaker, who lost these matches more than he won them, actually die?!
Was he replaced by a different Undertaker?!
No; he would escape via trapdoor hidden underneath the soil into a temporary purpose-built room. Mick Foley, speaking to Inside The Ropes, described the “magician’s switcheroo” as a drawer - ‘Taker was taken out, and a drawer pre-filled with soil was slotted back into the set.