10 Things I Hate About The Undertaker
7. It’s Hard To Get Over Working The Dead Man
Whether heel or babyface, the Undertaker has always been a monster. These days it’s worse: he’s a legendary monster, giving him a cachet perhaps unprecedented in WWF/E history.
He was pinned only twice in the first two years of his career in the WWF. Back in those first few months, people were told that he should never leave his feet. That’s a given when you’re wrestling a six foot nine guy booked to get over huge, but especially when that guy’s supposed to have a supernatural, indestructible aura as well as all that.
Peers like ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Chris Jericho have talked about working with The Undertaker, and how - because of the character he was working as much as his size - he’d forever be selling on the back pedal.
When you work the Dead Man, you have to work for everything you get. He’ll sell for you, but you’ve got to earn it, and when it comes to your time to sell, you’ll have to bump all over the ring for him in return.
That wasn’t sour grapes on their part: it was understood that this was the way matches with The Undertaker had to be laid out, and that when you had The Undertaker coming up, you’d better be sure to have invested in a little cardio, kid.
Although The Undertaker would actually be booked to lose far more often on pay-per-view than you’d think, his matches on free television would usually be booked to go his way. They’d be shorter, by necessity - and it’s almost impossible to go over the Dead Man clean in ten minutes when you have to structure a match around him being indestructible.
That’s one of many reasons why...