10 Wrestlers Who Suffered From The Curse Of Comparison

Who wouldn’t want to start their WWE career with a direct comparison to one of wrestling’s greatest and most enduring gimmicks? Kevin Fertig, the man who brought us Mordecai, actively invited comparison to The Undertaker. He proposed his character as the antithesis of ‘The Deadman’. But once courted, ‘The Phenom’ comparison wouldn’t go away.

Fertig’s initial proposal had promise. Mordecai was pitched to Vince McMahon as a religious zealot, clad in radiant white. The character’s motivation was absolving the locker room and the crowd of all their sins. Mordecai was a colour-inverted take on ‘Taker, however, its inspiration was ‘The Deadman’ of the late ‘90s, much of which had been shed as camp and schlocky.

A real-life bar fight nixed plans for Undertaker vs. Mordecai at WrestleMania 21, unravelling the clear course on which the pale ‘Taker was set.

Fertig’s next gimmick Kevin Thorn also drew comparisons to ‘The Last Outlaw’. Though Fertig merely followed Dusty Rhodes’ instructions to darken himself, Vince flew into a rage upon first sight. The new Thorn look led to a dressing down. The boss demanded to know why he had become a ‘Taker look-a-like, ultimately sealing Fertig’s fate.