The Undertaker
Mark William Calaway, better known by his ring name the Undertaker, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he is a brand ambassador and a writer for its sister promotion Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Calaway spent the vast majority of his career wrestling for WWE and in 2022 was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Calaway began his career in 1987, working under various gimmicks for World Class Championship Wrestling and other affiliate promotions. He signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1989 for a brief stint, and then joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1990.
Calaway rebranded himself as "The Undertaker" when he joined the WWF. As one of WWE's most high-profile and enduring characters, The Undertaker is famed for his funerary themeing around an undead, macabre "Deadman" persona, which gained significant mainstream popularity and won him the Wrestling Observer Newsletter award for Best Gimmick a record-setting 5 years in a row. He is the longest-tenured wrestler in company history at 30 years. In 2000, the Undertaker adopted a biker identity nicknamed "American Badass". Calaway resurrected the [|Deadman] gimmick in 2004, with residual elements of the "American Badass" remaining.
The Undertaker was known for his role in WWE's flagship event WrestleMania. He achieved 21 consecutive victories at WrestleMania, referred to in WWE as The Streak. He headlined the event five times. He is also known for pairing with his in-storyline half-brother Kane, with whom he alternatively feuded and teamed from 1997 through 2020. During his wrestling career under the Undertaker gimmick, Calaway won the WWF/E Championship four times, the World Heavyweight Championship three times, the Hardcore Championship once and the World Tag Team Championship six times. He also won the Royal Rumble match in 2007.
Early life
Mark William Calaway was born in Houston, Texas, on March 24, 1965, the son of Frank Compton Calaway and Betty Catherine Truby. He has four older brothers named David, Michael, Paul, and Timothy. He attended Waltrip High School, where he was a member of the football and basketball teams. He graduated in 1983 and began studying on a basketball scholarship at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas. In 1985, he enrolled in Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas, where he majored in sport management and played as a center for the Rams in the 1985–1986 season. In 1986, Calaway dropped out of university to focus on a career in sports and briefly considered playing professional basketball in Europe, before deciding to focus on professional wrestling.Professional wrestling career
Early career (1987–1989)
Calaway began training under Buzz Sawyer in late 1986; he disliked Sawyer, who reportedly lacked commitment and provided a limited education. Calaway learned "on the job" thereafter. Performing under a mask as Texas Red, Calaway wrestled his first match on June 26, 1987, for World Class Championship Wrestling, losing to Bruiser Brody at the Dallas Sportatorium. He was accompanied to the ring by Percival "Percy" Pringle III, who would later serve as his manager in the WWF as Paul Bearer. Two myths have circulated regarding Calaway's beginnings in the industry, the first being that he made his in-ring debut in 1984, and the second being that he was trained by former WCCW colleague Don Jardine. While never trained by Jardine, Calaway was an admirer of his work and would emulate Jardine's top rope walk. PWInsiders Mike Johnson stated, "Undertaker using some of Jardine's style eventually morphed into this story that he was trained by Jardine."He wrestled in Durban, South Africa on August 22, 1987, as "Texas Red Jack", losing to Tiger Singh. He would also wrestle in prison shows under the name Boris Dragu, a Russian grave digger.
In 1988, Calaway developed a military gimmick named The Commando and wrestled in the Chicago area for Central Illinois Wrestling. He would also have a brief stint in Georgia for Southern Championship Wrestling.
By the end of 1988, Calaway joined the Continental Wrestling Association, wrestling under several gimmicks. On February 2, 1989, managed by Dutch Mantel, he was reintroduced as The Master of Pain, a former murderer. On April 1, The Master of Pain won his first professional wrestling championship by defeating Jerry Lawler for the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion. Just over three weeks had passed when Lawler became the first man to pin him, giving it back to him. While performing as The Punisher upon returning to Dallas, Calaway won the USWA Texas Heavyweight Championship on October 5, 1989, when Eric Embry forfeited the title.
World Championship Wrestling (1989–1990)
By the end of 1989, Calaway joined World Championship Wrestling as a heel and adopted the ring name "Mean Mark" Callous, a name devised for him by Terry Funk. He was portrayed as a sinister force, wearing predominantly black ring attire and was described by commentator Jim Ross as having a fondness for pet snakes and the music of Ozzy Osbourne. Callous was promptly drafted into The Skyscrapers tag team to replace a legitimately injured Sid Vicious, and made his debut on January 3, 1990, in a match later televised against Agent Steel and Randy Harris. The new team gained some notoriety at Clash of the Champions X when they beat down The Road Warriors after their match. However, Callous's partner Dan Spivey left WCW days before their Chicago Street Fight against the Road Warriors at WrestleWar. Callous and a replacement masked Skyscraper were defeated in the street fight and the team broke up soon afterwards. Now a singles wrestler, Callous took on the guidance of Paul E. Dangerously.Calaway later began to question his future in WCW after being told by company booker, Ole Anderson, during contract renewal discussions that nobody would ever pay money to watch him perform. It was in response to this that Calaway made numerous efforts to join the World Wrestling Federation, going to many lengths to land a meeting with Vince McMahon. However, accessing and securing an interview with McMahon was described by Calaway as a despairing task.
Among routes Calaway took to land a meeting with McMahon was trying to convince individuals acquainted with McMahon or already existing WWF talent to recommend him into the WWF, such as Hulk Hogan, Paul Heyman, and Bruce Prichard, crediting the latter two for arranging the meeting at McMahon's mansion.
Calaway immediately gave notice to WCW before the interview took place. McMahon initially declined to hire Calaway; however, several days later the owner pitched the idea of an "Old West Undertaker", a concept he had intended to create for several years but had never found an appropriate wrestler to play the part.
Calaway's final WCW match was on September 7 at a WorldWide taping in Amarillo, Texas in which he defeated Dave Johnson. During his time in WCW, Calaway briefly wrestled in New Japan Pro-Wrestling as "Punisher" Dice Morgan. After leaving WCW, he briefly returned to the USWA to participate in a tournament to determine the new USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion; Calaway defeated Bill Dundee in the first round, but lost to Jerry Lawler in the quarterfinals.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment/WWE
Debut of The Undertaker (1990–1991)
In October 1990, Calaway signed with the World Wrestling Federation, set to portray the "brainchild" of McMahon that he had assigned to him, originally entitled Kane the Undertaker. Despite Calaway's perplexed, pessimistic feelings about McMahon's gimmick idea, he was readily accepting of the role, feeling anything better than the laughingstock gimmicks of that time, such as The Gobbledy Gooker. Kane the Undertaker was characterized as a menacing derivative of the Wild West undertakers depicted in television westerns. Resulting from that, this first edition of the Undertaker's series of Deadman incarnations has been distinguished in external media as "The Old West Mortician". He made his overall WWF debut on a November 19, 1990, taping of WWF Superstars quickly defeating his first opponent, Mario Mancini, in a singles match. Also prior to his Survivor Series appearance, Kane the Undertaker had a match on November 20 against Rick Sampson, which later aired on the December 9, 1990 episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge.Calaway's official live televised debut was at Survivor Series in which he was presented as the heel mystery partner of Ted DiBiase's "Million Dollar Team". Approximately one minute into the match, the Undertaker eliminated Koko B. Ware with his finisher, the Tombstone Piledriver.. During the match, the Undertaker also eliminated Dusty Rhodes before being counted out; however, his team won the match with DiBiase being the sole survivor. During the match, Calaway was referred to as simply the Undertaker, omitting the portion "Kane", which was dropped shortly after the event. Throughout the end of 1990, the Undertaker mostly picked up squash victories against jobbers on Superstars of Wrestling and Wrestling Challenge tapings. He was a participant in the 1991 Royal Rumble match which was won by Hulk Hogan.
In February 1991, Brother Love delegated his short-lived management role of the Undertaker over to Paul Bearer, Love communicating the need for someone who better aligned with the Undertaker's "deadman" themes. Histrionic, wailing and ghostly in character, Bearer complemented the Undertaker and was almost always seen bearing an urn which he raised in the air to transmit supernatural healing powers to the Undertaker; this typically resulted in the Undertaker recovering from attacks and counterattacking his adversaries. During his early years, the Undertaker took to a post-match ritual of placing his defeated opponents in a body bag and carrying them backstage. He continued picking up victories in squash matches leading up to his first feud in the WWF with "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka.