WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on Something To Wrestle With, where he talked about a number of topics including The Undertaker gimmick.
JBL said, “The Undertaker character, it was so strong. And it constantly went through metamorphosis throughout his career. You look at how much he changed throughout. You know, nobody stays in the same character for 30 years and is successful to the level that Taker was for that entire time. You know, Taker was on top from the moment he walked in the company to the last match he’s ever had. I mean, that is one of the most incredible runs in the history of this business. But one of the reasons he was able to do that was because of the different iterations of The Undertaker character, where he almost stepped out of the Undertaker at one point completely before the American Badass. But during this point, he starts going to the darker side Undertaker. Which by the way, this is the most preposterous character ever. He knew it when he got pitched this: you’re going to be a dead guy who’s not really dead, that doesn’t sell, and who can create and do crazy supernatural things. No one in the history of this business gets this character over except The Undertaker. This is an absolutely preposterous character when you look at it, when it’s just sitting there on the drawing board. I mean, when you get this guy who was Texas Red. And you’ve got this incredible athlete who was this preseason all-American basketball player, he’s this huge guy. He’s this really smart guy. This is the gimmick you give him? This is one of the worst gimmicks ever when you see it on the drawing board. When you see Undertaker do it, it becomes this Hall of Fame character that’s one of the most iconic things that ever happened. You know, it goes back to Gary Hart saying to me — he used to say this to everybody. ‘If they want you to be a clown, be a professional clown. Take the hand dealt and deal with it.’ And Taker got this gimmick that was not that good, and turned it into one of the greatest of all time.”
On if someone else could make it work:
“Nobody would have bought this. With the caskets, with the guy sitting up, with the supernatural stuff, with ‘He’s dead, he’s not dead.’ No one would have bought it. I mean, no one would have bought it. I mean, this would have been a character, you saw some characters come along in WWE that didn’t work. You saw some in WCW that didn’t work and were preposterous. This was the same mode. It’s just, you happened to have Mark Callaway behind it.”
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(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
