The Undertaker's Secret WWE Arch Enemy Nobody Talks About

It all started innocently enough. In an early airing of a (rotten) future WrestleMania main event, The Undertaker worked newly-turned heel Sid Justice in something that might have made a few more towns had Sid himself not decided that he'd made quite enough actually. Under a cloud of various steroid accusations that were prevalent around WWE as a whole back then, he left so abruptly that any follow-up on an enormous WrestleMania VIII main event against the departing Hulk Hogan was left - appropriately - for dead. The subsequent mini-series with Berzerker over-delivered on expectations in terms of how fans connected with Undertaker being in peril though, and with that a pattern was born. The mortician was about to become a monster-slayer.

Biceps shrunk across 1992, but bodies didn't, and massive men were still the preserve of Vince McMahon's plans whenever he could get away with it. This opened the door for Kamala to return to the company for the first time since he'd made towns as a Hulk Hogan house show foe in the late-1980s. Brand new to some fans and memorably dangerous to others, his latest introduction saw him bullied and abused by manager and "handler" Harvey Wippleman and Kimchee and willing to do their dirty work as a result. In this case, said graft was to be a Wembley Stadium showdown with The Undertaker. From a pageantry POV, this topped several of his WrestleMania matches until the company returned to stadiums in the mid-2000s. 'The Deadman' rode to the ring on a hearse, further scaring the life out of a Kamala character that was able to articulate through his body language how he wanted absolutely no part of any of this. Wippleman was unrelenting, pushing forward with his agenda to destroy The Undertaker even if Kamala himself was absolutely terrified about the prospect. Particularly when the first ever pay-per-view coffin match was booked for the first Hogan-less Survivor Series in November.

The quality floor was below the surface of the earth for the matches, but if the goal was to cement Undertaker as the giant-killing babyface audiences could trust, mission accomplished. Kamala was vanquished, but Wippleman took the loss as a personal affront, pledging to drop a "bomb" in response. He deployed that at the Royal Rumble two months later, unleashing the kayfabe eight-foot Giant Gonzalez to destroy and eliminate The Undertaker from the titular contest and set up another awful-but-endearing rivalry. Within the same period. Wippleman targeted the urn, and used new massive charge Mr Hughes to get that in order to try and weaken a figure who looked increasingly impervious to permanent pain.

Undertaker vanquished both across 1993, bringing about not just the end of Gonzalez and Hughes but also Wippleman as a manager of consequence in WWE. He'd been usurped rather effortlessly by Jim Cornette and Mr Fuji, not least because they were taking care of WWE Champion Yokozuna - the top monster in a company full of them. The same Yokozuna that needed an opponent to bridge the gap between Survivor Series and WrestleMania. The babyface cornerstone of the company was about to go for gold.

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