1. You Could Be Placed Into A Bodybag And/Or Buried Alive
But Wrestlemania XV wasnt the only time the Undertaker would kayfabe try to murder someone after a match finished. Back when he'd just cast off his Mean Mark Callous gimmick and swapped liking snakes and Ozzy Osbourne for being impervious to pain and possibly an actual supernatural monster, he used to bodybag his defeated opponents and take them with him. The inference, of course, was that he'd killed the various jobbers he faced and carted them off for burial. And nobody seemed to care enough to offer any respects. In 2004, the Dead Man returned at Wrestlemania XX under the mentorship of Paul Bearer, after having been taken out by his half-brother Kane in yet another Buried Alive match at Survivor Series 2003. The Buried Alive match would be one of the Undertaker's signature matches over the years, along with Hell In A Cell, the casket match, the Last Ride match and the It's-Wrestlemania-You-Have-No-Chance-Of-Winning match. Given that Undertaker has a rich history of losing his own speciality matches (he's lost three out of five Buried Alive matches, he's only won half his Hell In A Cell matches, and he lost the very first Last Ride match to JBL, of all people), it's nice that they gave him a match where the whole gimmick was him winning all the time. Upon his return from being Buried Alive this time, Mark Calaway was playing a hybrid of all of the versions of the Undertaker that had come before, a character that he would continue to play for the next decade on an increasingly part-time, special event basis. For reasons that were never made exactly clear, Paul Heyman decided to have the Dudley Boyz kidnap Paul Bearer (and steal the Dead Mans urn) in order to obtain leverage over the Undertaker. Booked in a handicap match against the Dudley Boyz at the Great American Bash in June that year, Heyman showed Bearer trapped in a glass case partially filled with cement: if the Undertaker didnt throw the match and do Heymans bidding, hed fill the case and that would be it for Paul Bearer. Defying Heyman and beating both Dudley Boyz, the Dead Man managed to prevent Heyman from pulling the lever only to tell his mentor that he had no choice and to REST IN PEACE as he pulled the lever himself. The cameras saw Paul Bearer, trapped in a glass case of emotion, cry out for help and then seemingly suffocate as the cement covered his head. The Dudley Boyz loss to the Undertaker had seemingly resulted in his managers untimely demise anyway. The excuse given for the Phenoms actions was that his connection with Paul Bearer had proven to be a liability, one he had to remove himself. He Keyser Sozed Heyman, showing him what a true man of will was capable of. In reality, William Paul Bearer Moody was suffering health complications and was being written out of WWE storylines. The man in the glass case was a stunt double for the benefit of the live audience; Moody himself had filmed his close-ups for the cameras beforehand, and wasnt even in attendance at the event. The live audience saw Paul Bearer surface in the case and be rescued and carried off stage after the pay-per-view had ended. The audience at home saw nothing of the sort, and had been led to believe that the Undertaker had just killed his own manager, leading to numerous official complaints as to the appropriateness of the storyline. The following weeks WWE programming made it clear that Paul Bearer had survived but was in critical condition a little late for the children watching at home, whod just witnessed one of the companys top babyfaces commit murder. Whats the worst thing you can remember happening to a wrestling performer as the result of a match? Was it the result of storyline or stipulation? Tell us all about it in the comments
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
