10 Things We Learned From The Undertaker On Stephanie McMahon's WWE Show

On the plus side, some snappy images ESPN shovelled from the trusty WWE archives more than made up for it.

It is pretty sweet that the WWF had some concepts nailed down for The Undertaker character before WCW's outgoing 'Mean' Mark had even left the rival company. Vince McMahon phoned up Calaway and asked: "Is this The Undertaker?". Confused, Mark had no clue whatsoever to make of that, and he actually thought somebody was ribbing him or pretending to be the WWF's figurehead.

Nope, it was genuinely McMahon. He'd already started calling Calaway by his gimmick name (for whatever reason), and flew the soon-to-be WWF star in to show off that aforementioned concept art. 'Taker was on board with it straight away, but it's clear this was excellent casting by the federation's braintrust. They'd found the ideal man to play a character dreamt up during creative meetings by Vince's pool.

Some of the artwork is eerily similar to the look Calaway would debut on television and pay-per-view starting with the 1990 Survivor Series. Like, it's spot on, and it doesn't sound like WWF artists had any idea who'd be playing the gimmick until afterwards. Yep, inspired casting indeed.

Stephanie's Places is worth watching exclusively to see those early sketches for The Undertaker persona. In reality, this might well be the slickest pen-to-paper-to-TV transition in pro wrestling history. The fed literally couldn't have found a wrestler better-suited to bringing 'Taker to life than Calaway.

Even he was blown away by some of the concept sketches shown to him during that first meeting at WWF headquarters.