8 Vital Elements Behind The Many Faces Of The Undertaker

5. The 'Rest In Peace' Catchphrase Was Coined On His First Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I6IkjXDnCI Although Survivor Series on Thursday 22nd November 1990 (Thanksgiving that year) marks the Undertaker€™s first appearance on WWF television, his debut match was some weeks earlier: he€™d worked a number of house shows in the gimmick before making his debut proper. Technically, his first appearance on the WWF€™s flagship TV show Superstars Of Wrestling had been taped a few days earlier too, on Monday 19th November: it would be broadcast two days after Survivor Series, on Saturday 24th November. That night, the commentary team were well-prepared. €˜Rowdy€™ Roddy Piper and the Honky Tonk Man would trade insults all night while Vince McMahon himself (in the days when he was only really known on television as an announcer) would keep order and call the match, where in typical early nineties WWF style, Undertaker would squash a nobody, in this case moustachioed jobber Mario Mancini. The three men succeeded in putting the new guy over, as well as in plugging his appearance on the Royal Rumble weeks in advance. Yet it€™s a throwaway comment at the end that makes this match memorable: Vince cracks a horrible, horrible joke about the Undertaker being €˜deadly', which he sells as though it€™s a proper zinger, to almost no reaction. It€™s the Honky Tonk Man, of all people, that saves McMahon from the dead air of sheer embarrassment, making himself cackle with his 'rest in peace' crack at 2:50 in the above video, as the replay shows the ropewalking move that would become known as €˜Old School€™ in a decade or so. That line would become synonymous with the Dead Man for quarter of a century. Honky should have asked for commission.