The prevailing narrative surrounding the WWF/WWE career of Mark Undertaker Calaway is that the various permutations on the Dead Man character hes portrayed on and off for the last quarter of a century together constitute the most successful gimmick in the companys long history. While the offices protection of and total support for the character have gone a long way towards the advancement of the character, theres really only one person who can claim credit for the legendary status of the Undertaker, and thats Calaway himself. Lets not forget that, in late 1990, this cartoon zombie gimmick was everything that was embarrassing about being a fan of pro wrestling if you were over the age of twelve. Not only that, but the apparent undead Undertakers whole character was based around his lack of selling, speech or facial expressions all things necessary to the bastard art of professional wrestling. To begin with, having the obvious skills of Bill Moody, aka Paul Bearer, as his manager went a long way towards helping the mute, lumbering giant get over as a heel. Although Calaway was a fast, agile young man, his gimmick required him to slow to a crawl and reduce his moveset to around four moves, one of which was a chokehold. The original Undertaker gimmick not only required the user to avoid actually working the crowd, or working his opponent, but also required him to pretend that he could barely work at all. The monster heel is traditionally a flash-in-the-pan gimmick: once the endangered babyface finally triumphs over him, which must inevitably happen, the gimmick is on borrowed time. The Undertakers gimmick was, essentially, a monster heel with no up side: the supposedly supernatural components were cheesy, his matches were borefests, and the only exciting thing about him was his size and unstoppable nature. Of course the only possible thing to do was to turn him babyface. As time went on, Calaway managed to gradually turn the character into more of a genuine wrestler: he would sell more and more, developing facial expressions and an actual speaking persona as the gimmick evolved, moving faster and faster in the ring and therefore increasing the level of moves available to him as a consequence. Completely accidentally, the Undertaker would also become undefeated at Wrestlemania, the worked accomplishment that would later be capitalised on in storylines and referred to as the Streak. Huge, talented, ferociously loyal, hard as nails and more old school than Miskatonic University, Calaway and his Undertaker character were always going to be Vince McMahons favourite projects. The most successful gimmick in professional wrestling history, it may be it was also originally one of the worst of all time, a terrible idea made legendary by talent and perseverance. Whats your least favourite but most successful gimmick of all time? 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.
