8 Vital Elements Behind The Many Faces Of The Undertaker

3. He Brought The Darkness With Him

After three years as the Western zombie mortician, the Undertaker began the first of many of his shifts in persona, taking time off to sort out a nagging back injury and returning at Summerslam 1994 in what€™s referred to as the Dead Man iteration of the character, a less stiff version with long black hair. In late 1996, he would be buried alive, returning a month later at Survivor Series by descending from the rafters on gigantic bat wings. This would signify the emergence of the Lord Of Darkness version of the character: still more relaxed and humanised than the previous version, yet far more chilling, with horror and Satanic imagery. By now, Calaway was far more able to sell and react as a normal professional wrestler might in the ring, and had expanded his moveset to compensate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxE1_V_YifE The darker, more sinister character was all him, however. Calaway had long been a metal fan, a biker, into tattoos and loving his skull imagery and iconography: the Lord Of Darkness version of the Undertaker was his creation, a character far more dramatic and intense than the slow moving undead creature he€™d debuted as six years earlier, and one that appealed to him as an exaggerated representation of his own interests and inclinations.

"That was kind of like the last facet of the whole darker side that I brought out. You know, Vince had this vision of the whole Undertaker character: fortunately, he allowed me to make the essence of it€ I think one of the reasons why it was so successful is it's very genuine. I've always been one that's kind of fascinated with the darkness, and it came out so genuine because it was. People try and go out there and portray this character, and it looks contrived and it looks like they're trying to be something, you know, that they're not. And you didn't get that with the Undertaker, because what I was doing was coming natural to me.€ - This Is My Yard, 2001

The times were changing, and a character like this could actually be a successful babyface in 1996: although the Undertaker had teetered to and fro from time to time, he€™d been a babyface since turning on Jake €˜The Snake€™ Roberts in 1992. That would change in 1998 with the introduction of the Ministry Of Darkness, as the Undertaker€™s gothic rebel transitioned into the evil Satanic cult leader that would allow Calaway to play a heel role for the rest of the decade, taking the same supernatural, horror-tinged metaphors and imagery and giving them a villainous spin. The reasoning behind the turn and the creation of the stable was typically Mark Calaway, however:

€œI took away some of these other wrestlers' names and gave 'em their own Ministry names, and I think a lot of people that were involved in it benefited from the spotlight that they hadn't had before. A lot of guys were brought up through the Ministry... Edge and Christian were part of it, the Acolytes... I take these ideas and I try to provoke some emotion from them, whether it be good or bad. At the time, I felt like being the antagonist, the heel of the whole situation, so I turned what was cool into something that was... kinda weird." - This Is My Yard, 2001

Calaway had, so far, had almost complete creative control over how the character would be presented, although it was in collaboration with the storylines and angles that Vince McMahon wanted the character to take part in. That would change with the merger of the Undertaker€™s Ministry stable with Vince McMahon€™s Corporation stable to become the Corporate Ministry. Suddenly, The Undertaker was the junior partner in his own firm, as his storylines inevitably began to revolve around the McMahons. Calaway himself wasn€™t altogether happy with how the character had changed, admitting that it was the first time that the Undertaker had been a part of something that wasn€™t specifically derived from his character or history.