The Undertaker: The legend of Mark William Calaway

alko

Registered User
Oct 20, 2004
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What about his finishing moves?

- Chokeslam
- Triangle choke
- Devil's Triangle/Hell's Gate
- Last Ride
- Tombstone Piledriver

For me, Tombstone looked very dangerous. Sure, there is a trick to do it safely, but anyway. One bad move and could ended very bad.
 

JackSlater

Registered User
Apr 27, 2010
18,042
12,664
What about his finishing moves?

- Chokeslam
- Triangle choke
- Devil's Triangle/Hell's Gate
- Last Ride
- Tombstone Piledriver

For me, Tombstone looked very dangerous. Sure, there is a trick to do it safely, but anyway. One bad move and could ended very bad.

The tombstone had such a low point of impact compared to the standard piledriver (knees rather than ass) that I have to think it was pretty safe and controlled. I would rather take a tombstone than the last ride. Undertaker's submission moves were a nod to his real life MMA fandom. I thought that the chokes were good submissions for wrestling, but I found them to be a very weird fit with that character.
 

ManofSteel55

Registered User
Aug 15, 2013
31,864
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Sylvan Lake, Alberta
Undertaker always got better POP's than anyone else, including Hogan

Hogan was a household name, but thats because he was pushed like that. Taker got no where near the push Hogan got and yet still became a household name.
Taker wasn't a face in WWE until Hogan was basically gone, and he never got a Hogan prime type pop in WWE. Hogan wasn't just a household name because of the push, he was a household name because he was a legitimate cultural phenomenon. Taker wasn't that. There are only three who fall into that category - Hogan, Austin and Rock.
 

ManofSteel55

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Aug 15, 2013
31,864
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Sylvan Lake, Alberta
i think both Taker and HBK would have had better title runs if it wasnt for injuries.
but Taker was definitely handicapped by a weird gimmick at the begining. where it was hard to be the guy, if you cant really talk outside a graveyard vignette.

i love Taker (hate when people call him by his name... why?). im full aware he wasnt the best in the ring, but without a doubt my favorite character and wrestler ever.

The cool thing about Taker is that they didn't give him title runs because they didn't have to give him title runs for him to get over. Some guys need to belt to add legitimacy to them. Taker got his legitimacy by kicking everyone's arse for years and not losing feuds. His feud with Hogan was a draw - really the first feud he lost was to Yokozuna, nearly 4 years into his WWF run, and that was only because it was a no DQ casket match match and basically every heel on the roster came out and beat him down. You can count the number of guys who Taker lost a feud to on your fingers, and most of those were in the latter half of his career.
 

JianYang

Registered User
Sep 29, 2017
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16,119
He's not close to Hogan's popularity. Hogan was transcendent. He was mainstream.

Taker's popularity is largely confined within the realm of the wrestling world.
 
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alko

Registered User
Oct 20, 2004
9,348
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Slovakia
www.slovakhockey.sk
The run in Wrestlemania. Im curious, why the guys in WWF (WWE) decided to built it? Only for the legacy of Undertaker? Because titles were reserved for others guys and they have to offer something to him?
 

Kimi

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Jun 24, 2004
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Newcastle upon Tyne
The streak wasn't planned, it just happened. It wasn't pushed as a selling point of his matches until later in his career. It wasn't giving him anything, it was just a hook they could use to build his matches and sell PPV buys.
 

ManofSteel55

Registered User
Aug 15, 2013
31,864
11,992
Sylvan Lake, Alberta
The run in Wrestlemania. Im curious, why the guys in WWF (WWE) decided to built it? Only for the legacy of Undertaker? Because titles were reserved for others guys and they have to offer something to him?
You mean the streak? It wasn't planned, it just kind of happened. There are tons of reports of Vince considering having Taker lose at Mania much earlier in the streak (apparently it was a last minute decision to have Taker beat King Kong Bundy, for example). There were also rumors that Diesel was supposed to beat Taker at WM 12 until Diesel gave his notice that he was leaving for WCW.

I don't think they even really realized what they had until they were 10 or so in to it. The first time I remember it being mentioned was around WM 17 when he had his first Mania match with HHH. He was already 8 - 0 before that match.
 

JackSlater

Registered User
Apr 27, 2010
18,042
12,664
In addition to it being generally unplanned, I found the marriage of a Wrestlemania streak and the Undertaker pretty weird. WWE did a good job milking it for stories and quality matches in the last 15 years or so, but it seemed off to me that the Undertaker, given his gimmick, would care about the big stage of Wrestlemania and perform better. A guy like Shawn Michaels having a Wrestlemania streak (raising his game because he loves the big stage or whatever) would make a lot more sense, but they stumbled into the Undertaker having it so that's that.
 

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