Wrestling's BIG DUMB IDIOTS Who Thought They Were COOL! ?
2. The Undertaker
The Undertaker absolutely needed the character shift he underwent between 2000-2003, but the ‘American Bad Ass’ (and the rest of his motorbike-adjacent nicknames) was strictly only cool in the smallest of doses before the man himself couldn’t help but do something that undermined the whole facade.
White hot when he returned and Judgment Day 2000 and sent Shane McMahon crashing through a table the following month, he was a big loser rather than ‘Big Evil’ when he gave Kurt Angle absolutely nothing in an unproductive squash at the next pay-per-view.
His unproductive performances during the Invasion highlighted the problem with him being a locker room leader too - the example he was setting was the worst one to follow, and gave license to those below him to do the same. WCW wasn’t the shoot enemy anymore, but “the conscience” of WWE wasn’t gonna let ‘em terk err jerbs.
Morphing into Motorbike Mark was no walk in the park either. Undertaker’s overlong 1999 missive about riding bikes in the desert with the Big Show and killing snakes for shoes was so preposterous that newcomer Chris Jericho infamously couldn’t credibly hold back how bored he was.
But those that don’t learn from their mistakes…