10 Wrestlers Who Ditched Their Terrible Ring Names
2. The Punisher - The Undertaker
On face value, the Undertaker hardly seems like the most fitting name to give to a professional wrestler. But the Deadman - an equally silly nickname - has gone on to become such a legend that the name has since become a normal part of wrestling vocabulary.
Besides, even though it’s another job-themed gimmick (and an obscure one at that), it’s still better than some of the alternatives that ‘Taker wrestled under during his earlier days.
During a brief spell in Japan at the 1990 NJPW Big Fight Series, he regularly appeared alongside Bam Bam Bigelow as Punisher Dice Morgan. No, that’s not a typo - he really was called Dice. And he wanted to remind you that he was going to punish you. Still, at least in Japan he had an actual first and last name. The previous year, when competing for the World Class Wrestling Association in Dallas, he’d simply been known as the Punisher, before going on to display even less subtlety in USWA as the "Master of Pain".
Maybe ‘Taker really was a punisher, and maybe he really had mastered pain, but above all else, maybe he should have let his ring work do the talking rather than trying to overcompensate with the name.
Somehow, the Undertaker is now looking like the subtlest name of the lot...