The Undertaker: Explained

All the way back at 1994’s Royal Rumble, Yokozuna sealed him inside a casket and that was the end of the Undertaker.

He disappeared from the WWF for 7 months, in reality, to recover from a back injury, but in kayfabe to claw his way out of his own coffin, bloody hands grasping for purchase in the mud of his gravesite as he coughs up wads of dirt, desperately gulping in air, lungs heaving, but suddenly the realisation you can’t feel the cool air rasp across the back of your throat, you can’t feel your lungs full to bursting, you can’t feel anything. I’ve read too much into that. He was a deadman.

Deadman Taker swapped grey for purple, but was only really the first step stone on a staircase that went straight down.

Because soon it was out with the purple and in with the black and the buckles like he’d just discovered the music of HIM. 

1996 marked the true turn to the darkside for Taker who donned druidic gear, employed malign magics and developed a true flair for the theatrical.

Often shocking opponents with his supernatural trickery like summoning lightning, or casting fireballs by pointing his finger, you know, proper magic.

And this was when WWE really doubled down on the pseudo-Satanic religious imagery: it’s the dark rituals and the pentagrams, it’s crucifying Steve Austin, sacrifices, marriages which look like sacrifices,  it’s forming the Ministry of Darkness and proclaiming himself to be the Lord of Darkness.

All pretty standard beelzebobbins, but it was a load of fun throughout the Attitude Era and had the true heights of the feud with a certain long-lost half-brother, we all know who it is, we set it up earlier in the post, say it with me, 1,2,3  Kanye… I’ve read that wrong, Kane.

This was dripping in religious significance and foreshadowing, as a certain other Cain also had jealousy issues when it came to his brother and we know how that went.

Personally, though I love this stuff and 10 year old me absolutely lapped it up, it wears its influences so plainly you don’t massively need me to Explain anything about it.

• Explained
• Laurie Blake
• The Undertaker
• wwe

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