The Undertaker is a pretty amazing character. He’s been ‘killed’, he’s been resurrected, he’s tried to embalm people, he’s sacrificed people on a cros – err, I mean SYMBOL.
Basically, he’s been in a lot of bad angles, but has survived to tell the tale (and cash a lot of big checks).
One of the worst Undertaker angles was when he came back to the WWF after a 6 month absence. Titan wanted to bring him back for SummerSlam, but they had no idea where he was (in the storylines).
You see, since being killed off at the Royal Rumble, the WWF hadn’t seen from the Taker. However, there began to be Undertaker sightings (like Elvis sightings) all over the place…at the butcher shop, at schools, at jewellery stores (yes, JEWELLERY STORES), you name it, people saw him!
One of the guys who claimed to have spotted the Taker was Ted DiBiase. At this point, DiBiase was no longer the great worker of the 80’s, but rather a conniving manager type who claimed he was going to bring the Undertaker back to the WWF.
Naturally, this infuriated Paul Bearer, Undertaker’s manager of record, who claimed that only HE could bring back the Undertaker.
To help clear up the confusion, Vince commissioned Leslie Nielsen (of the Naked Gun and Airplane movies) to “find the Undertaker” in a series of skits that proved only one thing: even the comedic genius of Frank Drebin couldn’t make Pat Patterson’s writing humorous.
Anyway, DiBiase produced the Undertaker to the WWF audience. The problem was that it wasn’t the REAL Undertaker at all, but rather an impostor (who was actually Mark Calloway’s good friend, independent star Brian Lee).
Paul Bearer claimed DiBiase’s Undertaker was a fraud, and challenged him to a match, which took place at SummerSlam.
In honor of the big match, Paul had a new urn constructed, which emitted a beam of light roughly equivalent in power to one of those skylights that advertise a new drug store opening. Bearer gayily danced around the ring with his new toy prior to the match.
Finally, the two Undertakers squared off. They looked nearly identical, save for two things:
Calloway was about four inches taller than Lee…
…and Lee had a different face than Calloway.
(They weren’t identical twins or anything, ya know!)
After a really boring match, Calloway pinned Lee. The fake Undertaker was never seen again.
Except, of course, for the independent circuit, where Lee still plys his trade as “1994’s Undertaker”.
And that truly sounds like a fate worse than death.