The Undertaker is WWE's most timeless character, having enjoyed a main event run that is approaching a quarter of a century. It is a remarkable success story when you consider the ridiculousness of his gimmick. Many other wrestlers would have floundered in the "deadman" role, but Mark Calaway managed to make it one of the most celebrated gimmicks of all time. He did so via sheer hard work. His in-ring performances gave a credibility to the otherwise cartoony character. Pretty soon, a word became synonymous with him, and that word was respect. But it is never just a wrestler who makes a gimmick work. There's several people backstage who have input into a character, especially in terms of the creative team and Vince McMahon. The following rare sketches and images from WWE are demonstrative of the intense amount of work and planning that goes on behind the scenes in fleshing a character out. Every little aspect of The Undertaker has been meticulously created by the WWE concept designers. What's fascinating about these images, is that they also demonstrate some of the ideas that didn't make it! Not only are there varying costume designs that ended up on the cutting room floor, but there's also some fairly wacky merchandise to feast your eyes upon!
19. The Look
Here you can see how WWE went about imagining the look of The Undertaker character, with good old pens and paper used to bring the idea to life. You can see how they experimented with different colours to try and see how Taker would stand out most. He ended up wearing both black / grey and black / purple costumes in his formative WWF run. Notice as well, that the picture on the left is more true to the old western deadman character, with tassels and a rope accessory. What's also funny is that the picture on the left features Calaway's natural ginger hair.
