Once again, it was supposed to be over. Undertaker lay at the bottom of a pit at Survivor Series while dirt was shoveled atop his prone body. Soon, the Phenom was covered in soil as fans looked at each other, shaking their heads, wondering if this time, Undertaker had truly been laid to rest.
Above ground, Undertaker's half-brother, Kane, contorted his face into a ghastly smile. A bloody Vince McMahon darted his eyes wildly around the arena, portraying a mixture of perverse glee and deadly fear. The joy was rotted in the realization that were it not for Kane's assistance, the mogul would have lost this Buried Alive Match to the man who created it. The fear came from the knowledge that he was dealing with Undertaker - a man who'd returned from the ashes before to inflict harm on those he despised.
With the 'Taker's newest return scheduled for WrestleMania XX, in Madison Square Garden, Vince McMahon, and everyone else in WWE for that matter, has been left with the inevitable question: What exactly awaits the world on March 14? Clearly McMahon has unleashed a horror he regrets ever fooling with, a man who changed the definition of cruelty in a sport known for its heartlessness.
McMahon was there, of course, 13 years earlier, at the 1990 Survivor Series, when Undertaker first announced his presence in WWE by chokeslamming Bret "Hit Man" Hart, introducing Koko B. Ware to the Tombstone piledriver, and battering the legendary Dusty Rhodes all the way back to the locker room. Even then, the newcomer was more than just a force of nature. He was the Grim Reaper come to life, a competitor who could rain down destruction in every corner his shadow darkened.
Early on, his power seemed to be derived from an urn, carried by his pasty-faced manager, Paul Bearer, who'd worked at Undertaker's parents' funeral parlour, and - in one clandestine encounter - fathered Kane.
The urn seemed to instill in Undertaker abilities that mortals simply did not possess, and it emboldened him to attack the institutions that were in place before his entry into WWE. It was during a televised appearance with Bearer on his special interview segment, The Funeral Parlour, that Ultimate Warrior - then one of the most dynamic competitors in the game - was attacked by Undertaker, beaten unconscious, and locked in a coffin. Kamala endured a similar fate, seeing the mystical gods of his childhood taunting him from inside of a pine box.
At first, Undertaker was feared. But he was also admired, and, in some circles, venerated. Before the Gothic movement became embedded in American society, Undertaker's followers - the so-called "creatures of the night" - were at ringside in whiteface and dour clothing, holding thorny stems of black roses in tribute to their idol.
Always, there were attempts to eliminate Undertaker. The might Yokozuna nearly achieved this goal in 1994, when he enclosed Undertaker in a casket. As the arena blackened and a bell tolled, a mysterious green smoke rose from the Deadman's urn, while fans heard an eerie message from Undertaker himself, which vowed that his rivals would never "rest in peace." Undertaker disappeared, but there were sighting everywhere. "Million-Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase even claimed to have control over him. However, the Phenom re-emerged to reveal DiBiase' s "Undertaker" as a fraud, promptly trouncing him at SummerSlam '94.
When Mankind lured away Paul Bearer as a manager, Undertaker gained revenge when he hurled Mankind off the top of the Hell in a Cell cage and through the Spanish announcers' table during their brutal classic at King of the Ring in 1998.
One of the few times that Undertaker displayed weakness was when his own past returned to stalk him. With Bearer's urging, Kane - presumed dead after a fire Undertaker set in the family funeral parlour as a boy - returned to terrorize his brother in 1997. At first, Undertaker refused to engage his sibling in combat. But as tensions escalated, the Deadman reverted to his true self and set his brother on fire in a horrifying Inferno Match at Unforgiven in 1998.
Whether the two ever felt love for one another is an issue worthy of far more lengthy discourse. There were periods when Kane and Undertaker would unite before falling into conflict yet again. Undertaker also cultivated allegiances with other wounded souls, forming the Ministry of Darkness at one stage, with Mideon, Viscera, Edge, Christian and Gangrel.
In 1999, television viewers were shocked when Undertaker attempted to force Stephanie McMahon into a "black wedding" - and affixed Big Boss Man to a giant cross-like symbol. Several weeks later, at WrestleMania XV, Ministry members lowered themselves from the ceiling to interrupt Undertaker's Hell in a Cell match with the Boss Man, and together, they hung the former prison guard 10 feet from the canvas.
Hoping to capitalize on the group's misdirected ideals, Vince McMahon attempted to transform the Ministry into his own devious organization. But the relationship was doomed from the beginning, as cash never predicated Undertaker's sinister actions.
In 2000, Undertaker began blazing ringside on a chopper, and calling himself the "American Badass." Although many of the ghoulish references of the past were purged from his vocabulary, his opponents understood that they were still contending with "Big Evil." Only in his attic at home did he peruse through the dusty tomes of his early years, and summon the incantations that wrought gloom upon so many. Perhaps, with a new millennium taking shape, Undertaker believed that it was best to keep old demons out of sight.
But, as Vince McMahon gazed at an exulting Kane at Survivor Series, the WWE chairman understood that those demons never went away - and, very soon, they would come back.