The Undertaker and Paul Bearer are inextricably linked -- the legendary manager guided the Deadman's career from shortly after his WWE debut until 1996, at which point he turned on him. The two reconciled in 1998, and did so again every few years afterwards. It's safe to say that without Paul Bearer, The Undertaker never would have reached the heights he did. However, prior to his time with Bearer, The Undertaker had already had associations with several other representatives. He was brought into WWE by Ted DiBiase, who then turned managerial control of his charge over to televangelist Brother Love. Love didn't last by the Undertaker's side, leading to the switch to Bearer. In WCW, The Undertaker competed as a member of The Skyscrapers, where he was managed by Theodore "Teddy" Long. After the dissolution of the tag team (more on that later), he entered singles competition, taking Paul E. Dangerously (a.k.a. Paul Heyman) on as his manager. Still, that was only the tip of the iceberg. Earlier still, Undertaker competed under a variety of names across several territories in the southern United States. At various times, his career was guided by General Skandor Akbar, Dutch Mantel (who's a part of WWE today as Zeb Colter), and of course, Percy Pringle III whom you may know as Paul Bearer.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
