5. Stories Based in Fantasy
When the world of reality was bringing the wrestling world back down to Earth, WWF had ways of launching it back up there at the drop of a hat with characters like Kane, Undertaker and Mankind who were like wild-cards you could do anything with. Undertaker you could argue was the only true 'survivor' (no pun intended) of the 80's, and that was because his gimmick as dark and morbid and adapted well to the attitude era. I think part in parcel because The Undertaker was from the era of super-powered wrestlers that when he was struck by lightning or burnt alive or came back from the dead that people forgave the obvious lack of realism because he was from that era, almost like the last wrestler with super-powers. With Kane, being Undertaker's 'equal' and being a very enigmatic character, could also be lent this discretion and with Mankind being allied with Paul Bearer initially (Undertaker's former manager) also allowed an element of freedom to be a little bit outside the reality box. This didn't matter though, these wild cards just added to the uncertainty of WWF's creative direction, which was a good thing; you could be in the middle of a story where Vince and Austin are at each other's throats again only to have Undertaker turn up with his posse and mess with everything by terrorising the McMahon house like a Red State cult. This made the Undertaker, in my opinion, a very dangerous man during this time, he was the Freddie Kruger of the WWF; at the drop of a hat all of reality was shattered and you felt helpless and exposed, it gave us the escapism of a good horror movie or TV series at times which I think broke the normality of someone fighting someone else just because they were backstage and were bored.