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The Undertaker becomes the longest serving performer in the WWE this month. He has spent 25 years with the company, which means that he has been there on a single term for longer than any other employee, except one. Let's take a lengthy look at his legacy.
The Undertaker originally wanted to have a career in professional basketball.
He made his professional debut in 1984 against Bruiser Brody.
His first ring name was Texas Red because he was from Texas and had ginger hair.
His first championship was the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship. He beat Jerry Lawler very soon after his debut in the company in 1989, but lost it back to him 3 weeks later.
Paul Heyman was his manager for a few months in WCW.
When he tried out for the WWE, Vince McMahon was not impressed and did not see any star potential in him. Vince changed his mind after having a conversation with him.
Contrary to the WWE’s own claims, Undertaker actually debuted 3 days before Survivor Series 1990. He appeared in an un-taped match at Superstars.
He originally debuted in the WWE with the ring name Kane the Undertaker. It was shortened to The Undertaker after just 2 appearances.
His finisher was informally known as the ‘Tombstone Piledriver’ before he started using the move. It was called that because of how the attacker and opponent were normally positioned after the move was performed. It loosely resembled a man lying in a grave with a tombstone at his head.
The Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship at Survivor Series 1991, one full year after his official debut. At the time, this was a new record. However, this was also the night that Ric Flair made his WWE debut. He would break the record 2 months later.
When Undertaker won the title, he became the youngest ever WWE Champion. The record would be broken again by Yokozuna in 1993. The record has been held by Brock Lesnar since 2002.
The Undertaker had a role in Hulk Hogan’s movie ‘Suburban Commando’.
The Undertaker was in the main event of the first-ever episode of ‘Monday Night Raw’.
He beat Giant Gonzalez at WrestleMania IX by disqualification. This would be his only WM match that ended this way.
Undertaker beat an ‘Imposter Undertaker’ at SummerSlam 1994. The Imposter was played by real-life friend Brian Lee. Lee would return in 1997 as Chainz, a biker with the Disciples of the Apocalypse stable. Just like Lee used Undertaker’s gimmick in ’94, Undertaker would use Lee’s gimmick in 2000.
The WWE once tried to clean up the reputation of their onscreen talent by banning them from visiting bars, night clubs and strip clubs on the night of WWE events. Kevin ‘Diesel’ Nash claims that he once broke the ruling by sneaking out to a strip club, and saw Undertaker was already there.
For a short period in 95-96, Undertaker wore a grey mask in the ring. It was actually a protective mask he wore while he recovered from a broken orbital bone. Kane’s current mask is based on the same design.
On a similar note, Undertaker wore a customised bullet-proof vest as part of his ring gear in 1999. The real reason was to protect his chest while some broken ribs healed.
Both Undertaker and Shawn Michaels share partial credit for the Hell In A Cell match. Both men wanted to recreate a famous but little known cage-match that was never taped. They expected to use the usual steel cage, but with a detachable roof placed on top. They did not know that the WWE had commissioned a much larger cage until they got to preview it.
According to Mick Foley, both he and Undertaker asked for their releases after the Montreal Screw Job. Bret Hart did not want to lose the WWF Championship in his final WWF match to Shawn Michaels so close to his hometown. Hart was one of the most respected men in the industry, while Michaels was known for his unprofessional conduct backstage. Hart’s supporters were stunned that McMahon would humiliate Hart like that. Neither Foley nor Undertaker would be granted their release.
Rumour has it that Undertaker feared a Boston Screw Job. Shawn Michaels did not want to lose the WWF Championship to Steve Austin in his final WWF match. Fearing that Michaels would find a way to avoid losing the title, he taped up his fists and warned Michaels to stick to the planned finish. Undertaker allegedly sat by the entrance way waiting for Michaels until Michaels got pinned.
The voice used for Kane in the video game ‘WWF Warzone’ was provided by Undertaker. The original plan was for Kane to remain mute because his onscreen character was also mute. But programmers felt that the character’s reactions to attacks looked terrible, so they used voice effects recorded by Undertaker.
Another claim by Kevin Nash was that Undertaker came very close to returning to WCW. He was set come in with a biker gimmick. As we saw, Undertaker debuted the gimmick in WWE in 2000 instead.
Kid Rock recorded the song ‘American Bad Ass’ with Jim Johnston specifically for Undertaker to use as his theme song in 2000. In spite of this, Kid Rock and the WWE struggled to make agreements over how the song could be used. This led to the song being removed from footage.
Because of the aforementioned dispute with Kid Rock, the Undertaker used the Raw theme tune as his own theme tune in the video game ‘WWE SmackDown 2: Know Your Role’.
Pay close attention to Undertaker’s match at No Way Out 2001. This was a triple threat tag team tables match. For most of the match, each performer mirrored whatever their partner was doing. For example, whenever Undertaker struck Bubba Ray Dudley, Kane would strike D-Von Dudley. When Edge hit Undertaker with a chair, Kane got hit with a chair by Christian.
The WrestleMania X-7 match between Triple H and Undertaker was only put together because the WWE couldn’t secure a deal with Triple H’s proposed opponent; boxer Mike Tyson.
The feud between Undertaker and DDP was very quickly written. The original plan was for Undertaker to focus mainly on his tag team with Kane during the WCW/ECW Invasion. DDP agreed to a pay cut to be included in the storyline.
The woman who portrayed Undertaker’s wife Sara was his real-life girlfriend. The duo would marry while she was a character on television. This is also who his neck tattoo refers to. He often has the tattoo phased out in photographs and merchandise.
Fred Durst was added to the ‘WWE SmackDown: Just Bring It’ and ‘WWE Raw’ as part of a licence fee agreement. Durst was the lead singer and manager of Limp Bizkit, who recorded Undertaker’s theme song ‘Rollin’’. Durst would only allow the track to be used in the games if he appeared as playable character.
Many people have forgotten this, but Undertaker held the Hardcore Championship for over a month. It is the only championship in his career that wasn’t a Heavyweight or Tag Team title.
The 2002 Royal Rumble was supposed to be the final appearance of Maven. The script called for Undertaker to eliminate Maven and then give him a severe beating for almost eliminating him. But Undertaker fell over the top rope and hit the floor on purpose, before throwing Maven through the ropes, keeping him in the match. This stunt put Maven over and bought him another chance.
Undertaker was the first person officially drafted to the Raw brand when the Brand Division happened. He would transfer to the SmackDown brand a few months later and remained there until the brand division ended.
The 2002 storyline between Test and Undertaker was originally planned for Brock Lesnar. The WWE wanted Lesnar to beat Undertaker for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. But Undertaker did not want to lose the title to Lesnar because he felt that Lesnar did not respect the business. So he dropped the title to The Rock and he did it instead. Test then took Lesnar’s place in the planned feud with Undertaker.
Continuing on from the last point, Undertaker refused to lose clean to Lesnar at Unforgiven. He wrote the Double-DQ ending himself. The “broken hand†angle was written in so that Undertaker would have an excuse for losing to Lesnar at No Mercy.
The Undertaker claims that he would’ve began a career in MMA if the UFC had been launched sooner. By the time that UFC became popular, Undertaker was already too old to consider training properly for it. This is why he started using submission holds as part of his regular moves set.
Vince McMahon tried to rib Undertaker after an episode of Raw. At McMahon’s instruction, Booker T asked Undertaker to do the spin-a-roonie, but Undertaker refused. Undertaker spent half-an-hour refusing pressure from Booker T, Goldust, The Rock, Triple H, Test, Vince McMahon and the crowd to do the move.
The original plan for WrestleMania XIX was to have Undertaker face A-Train and Big Show in a tag team match with Nathan Jones as his partner. However, fans reacted badly to the idea of Undertaker defending the streak in a tag team match. Especially as this would be his partner’s PPV debut. The storyline side-lining Jones was only developed 2 days before WM.
Undertaker was very heavily against bringing back the ‘Deadman’ gimmick in 2004.
Paul Bearer required essential surgery in 2004, but refused to accept money from the WWE for the operation. So the WWE hired him to be Undertaker’s manager once more. They barely used him on television, but paid him anyway. They released Bearer after they had paid him enough money to cover the operation.
One of the original plans for WrestleMania 21 was for Undertaker to take on British wrestler Hade Vansen. The plan for the feud was for Undertaker to defeat each member of Vansen’s stable, leading to an eventual showdown. However, when Vince McMahon saw Vansen in the ring, he believed that he was far too small. Vansen would be released a short time later.
Another plan for WrestleMania 21 was for Undertaker and Kane to take on Gene Snitsky and Heidenreich in a tag team match. However, the WWE realised at the Royal Rumble that the younger stars will still inexperienced and hadn’t connected with the fans.
Randy Orton, Kurt Angle, Edge and Batista were all offered the chance to end the Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania by Undertaker himself. All of them had too much respect for Undertaker to accept. In fact, when Angle discovered that Undertaker planned to lose the match by submission at the event, he freaked out.
Bob Orton, Jr. was released from the WWE in December 2005 after getting on the Undertaker's bad side, and rightly so. Bob had contracted hepatitis as a teenager, but has since recovered from the life-shortening illness. Bob was not medically cleared for physical action by WWE doctors because of this, and management was notified. But yet management continued to let Orton get physically involved with his son Randy's matches. During a planned spot, Orton started bleeding during a Hell In A Cell match, and got his blood all over Undertaker. One of the WWE's doctors became concerned and demanded that Undertaker got himself tested. Undertaker was understandably furious because Orton had made no effort to tell anyone, and Orton was then released. His son Randy was not affected as he genuinely did not know about his father's illness either.
At one point, there was a very serious plan for Ted DiBiase to break the streak. I don’t mean the Million Dollar Man, but his son. The Undertaker approved of this. It never happened because each time WrestleMania drew near, the WWE didn’t feel that DiBiase had discovered how to connect with fans.
Muhammad Hassan was meant to defeat Eddie Guerrero for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam 2004. However, Hassan was involved with the controversial “beheading†angle. During a SmackDown taped in London, England, Hassan sent some masked men to the ring to attack Undertaker. One of the men tried to behead Undertaker with some piano-wire. On the day that the show was due to air, there was a genuine terrorist attack in London by Islamic extremists. The network hosting WWE shows demanded that the Muhammad Hassan character be removed from television, so plans were changed. Also, Guerrero was not willing to drop the title to Hassan after Hassan asked Guerrero to stop using Hassan’s finishing move, the camel clutch. Hassan was not aware that Guerrero’s father invented the move.
Undertaker was the first ever person to win the Royal Rumble after entering the match in the final entry spot. The Undertaker has entered the Rumble at #30 four times.
CM Punk’s last reign as World Heavyweight Champion allegedly ended because Undertaker found him disrespectful. WWE superstars were expected to uphold a dress code when traveling to and from events. Undertaker and John Cena were two superstars who were made exceptions, although Undertaker did comply with the rules. Undertaker was believed to have asked CM Punk to respect the dress code while he was champion. Punk pointed out that Cena didn’t whenever he was champion. Undertaker found Punk to be conceited as Punk did not yet have the same drawing power as Cena. A short time later, Punk dropped the title to Undertaker.
Even though their wedding photos were published online and in newspapers, Michelle McCool denied being anything more than acquaintances with Undertaker until she left the company.
Undertaker almost no-showed WrestleMania XXX. He did not want to face Brock Lesnar at the event. He believed that spot should’ve been used to put over a star that would be around to help build the company. He was also furious with Vince McMahon constantly telling investors that Undertaker had agreed to face Lesnar when no such agreement was made. In the end, Undertaker gave in after Lesnar agreed to sign a new contract with WWE.
Instead of facing Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX, Undertaker asked to face either Bray Wyatt or Daniel Bryan instead.
Brock Lesnar did not know that he would be breaking the streak until it happened. He knew that Vince McMahon had been pressuring Undertaker to do so, but Undertaker was unwilling. Lesnar and the referee expected Undertaker to kick out of the final pin attempt. The referee claimed that he heard Lesnar whisper “Thank you†to Undertaker.
The Undertaker has appeared in more licensed video games than any other wrestler, almost reaching 50 appearances as a playable character.
In addition to 21 consecutive wins at WrestleMania, Undertaker holds the record for most consecutive matches at the event. He has competed every year since 2001, making that 14 uninterrupted appearances.
The Undertaker is the longest tenured employee with WWE, apart from Vince McMahon himself.
The Undertaker originally wanted to have a career in professional basketball.
He made his professional debut in 1984 against Bruiser Brody.
His first ring name was Texas Red because he was from Texas and had ginger hair.
His first championship was the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship. He beat Jerry Lawler very soon after his debut in the company in 1989, but lost it back to him 3 weeks later.
Paul Heyman was his manager for a few months in WCW.
When he tried out for the WWE, Vince McMahon was not impressed and did not see any star potential in him. Vince changed his mind after having a conversation with him.
Contrary to the WWE’s own claims, Undertaker actually debuted 3 days before Survivor Series 1990. He appeared in an un-taped match at Superstars.
He originally debuted in the WWE with the ring name Kane the Undertaker. It was shortened to The Undertaker after just 2 appearances.
His finisher was informally known as the ‘Tombstone Piledriver’ before he started using the move. It was called that because of how the attacker and opponent were normally positioned after the move was performed. It loosely resembled a man lying in a grave with a tombstone at his head.
The Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship at Survivor Series 1991, one full year after his official debut. At the time, this was a new record. However, this was also the night that Ric Flair made his WWE debut. He would break the record 2 months later.
When Undertaker won the title, he became the youngest ever WWE Champion. The record would be broken again by Yokozuna in 1993. The record has been held by Brock Lesnar since 2002.
The Undertaker had a role in Hulk Hogan’s movie ‘Suburban Commando’.
The Undertaker was in the main event of the first-ever episode of ‘Monday Night Raw’.
He beat Giant Gonzalez at WrestleMania IX by disqualification. This would be his only WM match that ended this way.
Undertaker beat an ‘Imposter Undertaker’ at SummerSlam 1994. The Imposter was played by real-life friend Brian Lee. Lee would return in 1997 as Chainz, a biker with the Disciples of the Apocalypse stable. Just like Lee used Undertaker’s gimmick in ’94, Undertaker would use Lee’s gimmick in 2000.
The WWE once tried to clean up the reputation of their onscreen talent by banning them from visiting bars, night clubs and strip clubs on the night of WWE events. Kevin ‘Diesel’ Nash claims that he once broke the ruling by sneaking out to a strip club, and saw Undertaker was already there.
For a short period in 95-96, Undertaker wore a grey mask in the ring. It was actually a protective mask he wore while he recovered from a broken orbital bone. Kane’s current mask is based on the same design.
On a similar note, Undertaker wore a customised bullet-proof vest as part of his ring gear in 1999. The real reason was to protect his chest while some broken ribs healed.
Both Undertaker and Shawn Michaels share partial credit for the Hell In A Cell match. Both men wanted to recreate a famous but little known cage-match that was never taped. They expected to use the usual steel cage, but with a detachable roof placed on top. They did not know that the WWE had commissioned a much larger cage until they got to preview it.
According to Mick Foley, both he and Undertaker asked for their releases after the Montreal Screw Job. Bret Hart did not want to lose the WWF Championship in his final WWF match to Shawn Michaels so close to his hometown. Hart was one of the most respected men in the industry, while Michaels was known for his unprofessional conduct backstage. Hart’s supporters were stunned that McMahon would humiliate Hart like that. Neither Foley nor Undertaker would be granted their release.
Rumour has it that Undertaker feared a Boston Screw Job. Shawn Michaels did not want to lose the WWF Championship to Steve Austin in his final WWF match. Fearing that Michaels would find a way to avoid losing the title, he taped up his fists and warned Michaels to stick to the planned finish. Undertaker allegedly sat by the entrance way waiting for Michaels until Michaels got pinned.
The voice used for Kane in the video game ‘WWF Warzone’ was provided by Undertaker. The original plan was for Kane to remain mute because his onscreen character was also mute. But programmers felt that the character’s reactions to attacks looked terrible, so they used voice effects recorded by Undertaker.
Another claim by Kevin Nash was that Undertaker came very close to returning to WCW. He was set come in with a biker gimmick. As we saw, Undertaker debuted the gimmick in WWE in 2000 instead.
Kid Rock recorded the song ‘American Bad Ass’ with Jim Johnston specifically for Undertaker to use as his theme song in 2000. In spite of this, Kid Rock and the WWE struggled to make agreements over how the song could be used. This led to the song being removed from footage.
Because of the aforementioned dispute with Kid Rock, the Undertaker used the Raw theme tune as his own theme tune in the video game ‘WWE SmackDown 2: Know Your Role’.
Pay close attention to Undertaker’s match at No Way Out 2001. This was a triple threat tag team tables match. For most of the match, each performer mirrored whatever their partner was doing. For example, whenever Undertaker struck Bubba Ray Dudley, Kane would strike D-Von Dudley. When Edge hit Undertaker with a chair, Kane got hit with a chair by Christian.
The WrestleMania X-7 match between Triple H and Undertaker was only put together because the WWE couldn’t secure a deal with Triple H’s proposed opponent; boxer Mike Tyson.
The feud between Undertaker and DDP was very quickly written. The original plan was for Undertaker to focus mainly on his tag team with Kane during the WCW/ECW Invasion. DDP agreed to a pay cut to be included in the storyline.
The woman who portrayed Undertaker’s wife Sara was his real-life girlfriend. The duo would marry while she was a character on television. This is also who his neck tattoo refers to. He often has the tattoo phased out in photographs and merchandise.
Fred Durst was added to the ‘WWE SmackDown: Just Bring It’ and ‘WWE Raw’ as part of a licence fee agreement. Durst was the lead singer and manager of Limp Bizkit, who recorded Undertaker’s theme song ‘Rollin’’. Durst would only allow the track to be used in the games if he appeared as playable character.
Many people have forgotten this, but Undertaker held the Hardcore Championship for over a month. It is the only championship in his career that wasn’t a Heavyweight or Tag Team title.
The 2002 Royal Rumble was supposed to be the final appearance of Maven. The script called for Undertaker to eliminate Maven and then give him a severe beating for almost eliminating him. But Undertaker fell over the top rope and hit the floor on purpose, before throwing Maven through the ropes, keeping him in the match. This stunt put Maven over and bought him another chance.
Undertaker was the first person officially drafted to the Raw brand when the Brand Division happened. He would transfer to the SmackDown brand a few months later and remained there until the brand division ended.
The 2002 storyline between Test and Undertaker was originally planned for Brock Lesnar. The WWE wanted Lesnar to beat Undertaker for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. But Undertaker did not want to lose the title to Lesnar because he felt that Lesnar did not respect the business. So he dropped the title to The Rock and he did it instead. Test then took Lesnar’s place in the planned feud with Undertaker.
Continuing on from the last point, Undertaker refused to lose clean to Lesnar at Unforgiven. He wrote the Double-DQ ending himself. The “broken hand†angle was written in so that Undertaker would have an excuse for losing to Lesnar at No Mercy.
The Undertaker claims that he would’ve began a career in MMA if the UFC had been launched sooner. By the time that UFC became popular, Undertaker was already too old to consider training properly for it. This is why he started using submission holds as part of his regular moves set.
Vince McMahon tried to rib Undertaker after an episode of Raw. At McMahon’s instruction, Booker T asked Undertaker to do the spin-a-roonie, but Undertaker refused. Undertaker spent half-an-hour refusing pressure from Booker T, Goldust, The Rock, Triple H, Test, Vince McMahon and the crowd to do the move.
The original plan for WrestleMania XIX was to have Undertaker face A-Train and Big Show in a tag team match with Nathan Jones as his partner. However, fans reacted badly to the idea of Undertaker defending the streak in a tag team match. Especially as this would be his partner’s PPV debut. The storyline side-lining Jones was only developed 2 days before WM.
Undertaker was very heavily against bringing back the ‘Deadman’ gimmick in 2004.
Paul Bearer required essential surgery in 2004, but refused to accept money from the WWE for the operation. So the WWE hired him to be Undertaker’s manager once more. They barely used him on television, but paid him anyway. They released Bearer after they had paid him enough money to cover the operation.
One of the original plans for WrestleMania 21 was for Undertaker to take on British wrestler Hade Vansen. The plan for the feud was for Undertaker to defeat each member of Vansen’s stable, leading to an eventual showdown. However, when Vince McMahon saw Vansen in the ring, he believed that he was far too small. Vansen would be released a short time later.
Another plan for WrestleMania 21 was for Undertaker and Kane to take on Gene Snitsky and Heidenreich in a tag team match. However, the WWE realised at the Royal Rumble that the younger stars will still inexperienced and hadn’t connected with the fans.
Randy Orton, Kurt Angle, Edge and Batista were all offered the chance to end the Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania by Undertaker himself. All of them had too much respect for Undertaker to accept. In fact, when Angle discovered that Undertaker planned to lose the match by submission at the event, he freaked out.
Bob Orton, Jr. was released from the WWE in December 2005 after getting on the Undertaker's bad side, and rightly so. Bob had contracted hepatitis as a teenager, but has since recovered from the life-shortening illness. Bob was not medically cleared for physical action by WWE doctors because of this, and management was notified. But yet management continued to let Orton get physically involved with his son Randy's matches. During a planned spot, Orton started bleeding during a Hell In A Cell match, and got his blood all over Undertaker. One of the WWE's doctors became concerned and demanded that Undertaker got himself tested. Undertaker was understandably furious because Orton had made no effort to tell anyone, and Orton was then released. His son Randy was not affected as he genuinely did not know about his father's illness either.
At one point, there was a very serious plan for Ted DiBiase to break the streak. I don’t mean the Million Dollar Man, but his son. The Undertaker approved of this. It never happened because each time WrestleMania drew near, the WWE didn’t feel that DiBiase had discovered how to connect with fans.
Muhammad Hassan was meant to defeat Eddie Guerrero for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam 2004. However, Hassan was involved with the controversial “beheading†angle. During a SmackDown taped in London, England, Hassan sent some masked men to the ring to attack Undertaker. One of the men tried to behead Undertaker with some piano-wire. On the day that the show was due to air, there was a genuine terrorist attack in London by Islamic extremists. The network hosting WWE shows demanded that the Muhammad Hassan character be removed from television, so plans were changed. Also, Guerrero was not willing to drop the title to Hassan after Hassan asked Guerrero to stop using Hassan’s finishing move, the camel clutch. Hassan was not aware that Guerrero’s father invented the move.
Undertaker was the first ever person to win the Royal Rumble after entering the match in the final entry spot. The Undertaker has entered the Rumble at #30 four times.
CM Punk’s last reign as World Heavyweight Champion allegedly ended because Undertaker found him disrespectful. WWE superstars were expected to uphold a dress code when traveling to and from events. Undertaker and John Cena were two superstars who were made exceptions, although Undertaker did comply with the rules. Undertaker was believed to have asked CM Punk to respect the dress code while he was champion. Punk pointed out that Cena didn’t whenever he was champion. Undertaker found Punk to be conceited as Punk did not yet have the same drawing power as Cena. A short time later, Punk dropped the title to Undertaker.
Even though their wedding photos were published online and in newspapers, Michelle McCool denied being anything more than acquaintances with Undertaker until she left the company.
Undertaker almost no-showed WrestleMania XXX. He did not want to face Brock Lesnar at the event. He believed that spot should’ve been used to put over a star that would be around to help build the company. He was also furious with Vince McMahon constantly telling investors that Undertaker had agreed to face Lesnar when no such agreement was made. In the end, Undertaker gave in after Lesnar agreed to sign a new contract with WWE.
Instead of facing Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX, Undertaker asked to face either Bray Wyatt or Daniel Bryan instead.
Brock Lesnar did not know that he would be breaking the streak until it happened. He knew that Vince McMahon had been pressuring Undertaker to do so, but Undertaker was unwilling. Lesnar and the referee expected Undertaker to kick out of the final pin attempt. The referee claimed that he heard Lesnar whisper “Thank you†to Undertaker.
The Undertaker has appeared in more licensed video games than any other wrestler, almost reaching 50 appearances as a playable character.
In addition to 21 consecutive wins at WrestleMania, Undertaker holds the record for most consecutive matches at the event. He has competed every year since 2001, making that 14 uninterrupted appearances.
The Undertaker is the longest tenured employee with WWE, apart from Vince McMahon himself.