In my last column I looked at the evolution of the One Night Stand concept, pointing out that this year’s main event of Undertaker vs. Edge in a TLC match seems to be at odds with the original idea.james@wwepreview.com

However, from recently reading various old magazines and newsletters, I have come to the conclusion that Undertaker’s involvement in such a match might not be such a stretch after all.

This column looks at the career and evolution of WWE’s longest continuously active performer, and charts how he has been able to defy the odds in evolving his ring style and persona to keep himself a relevant and major draw for almost two decades.

To ‘research’(or so I told my fiancée) this column, I decided to sit down and watch some of the major Undertaker matches dating right back to around the beginning of his career in the WWF. First off was the match vs. Hulk Hogan from Survivor Series 1991, and the Royal Rumble match 1992.

While Taker did do some of the act that he uses today, i.e., the ropewalk, chokeslam, tombstone pildedriver, and flying clothesline, the rest of the body of these matches seem to primarily consist of him walking around like a zombie choking people and no selling everything.

While this sort of behaviour might bring on cries of horror from the workrate fans, when you actually look at the style that the WWF was trying to present at the time, it totally fits in with the sort of thing they were trying to do with their product.

WWF in the early 1990s was heavily marketed at children and the cartoonish original Undertaker character is perhaps the apex of that style, it certainly outlived it…

Popular opinion says that Undertaker was not a great worker, until Mick Foley showed up after Wrestlemania XII in 1996.

Although this was often due to him being lumbered with big ‘monster’ style opponents, i.e. the Giant Gonzales, Kamala, or King Kong Bundy, it should also be noted that the character that Marc Calloway was asked to portray at the time was one that was not conducive to having the sort of ‘workrate classics’ that he can do now.

However, even before Foley’s debut, Taker was showing occasional flashes of what he could be capable of. Matches such as Taker vs. KAMA from Summerslam 1995, and vs. Diesel from Wrestlemania XII showed that given the right situation Undertaker was easily up to carrying lesser opponents to good matches, and they certainly showed that he was not a pure gimmick performer who was not purely spectacle over substance.

The Mick Foley rivalry has been well documented, and marked the time when Undertaker was allowed to develop and showcase the skills that made him one of the better brawlers in the late 1990s.

I looked at Taker vs. Foley from Survivor Series 96, from Revenge of the ‘Taker in April 1997, and then also Taker’s other big rivalry from this time, vs. Shawn Michaels at IYH Ground Zero in September 1997. During this time, Undertaker and Foley nurtured an alternative main event WWF style to the scientific type used by Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart through 1996 and 1997.

While Taker was still using the previously mentioned signatures moves, he now backed them up with an exciting brawling style, while incorporating more high spots, notably the big no hands plancha dive that he started using in 1997.On the back of these newly evolved skills, Undertaker earned himself a title win at Wrestlemania XIII and a lengthy well received run with the belt over the summer, but also became increasingly limited by injuries as 1997 came to an end.

However, he was not the only WWF headliner in this situation, and the gradual shift to an over reliance on brawling would actually end up benefiting him during WWF’s peak years of 1998 and 1999.

The devastating neck injury suffered by Steve Austin at Summerslam 1997 necessitated WWF’s breakout star to change his ring style from the more technical heel work of his earlier career, to a high energy brawling approach in order to cover up the fact that he was now more athletically limited.

Undertaker was able to fit right in with the new ‘Attitude’ style as one of Austin’s main opponents, headlining pay per views more times against him than any other WWF wrestler. Matches such as Summerslam 1998, and in particular Fully Loaded 1999, highlight the ‘Attitude’ era Undertaker as a pure brawler (the latter match had NO wrestling moves in it), but the fans were incredibly into his stuff, and he was able to cement his legacy in the process.

The injuries did take their toll though, and by September 1999 Taker was forced onto the sidelines for his first long sabbatical in many years.

Undertaker’s Judgment Day 2000 return was most notable for his total change of image. Gone were any vestiges of the 1999 satanic character, replaced by a more contemporary biker gimmick, something which is much closer to Marc Calloway’s heart from a character standpoint.

At this point though, it can be argued that this is the one time when Taker did not move with the times ring style wise. While he did have the occasional good match from 2000 to 2001, he still seemed relatively hamstrung by lingering injuries, and actually reached a point (over the Summer of 2001), when he was actually dragging opponents down a level (described as becoming WWF’s version of Kevin Nash in a Powerslam magazine from that time).

Whether this was because of the badly botched WCW invasion storyline, or just because the influx of new potential headlining talent such as Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho making him look bad in comparison, there as clearly something not clicking with Undertaker during this time. However this career low (in my opinion) would soon be followed by an incredible rejuvenation.

The theory that Undertaker’s career stagnation was caused in part by the Invasion storyline can be validated by the fact that his career turn-around kicked off in its immediate aftermath; with a heel turn and a dramatic feud with Rob Van Dam culminating at Vengeance 2001 with a brutal match over the Hardcore Title.

This was followed up by one of the great forgotten feuds of 2002, one that culminated in an awesome match vs. Ric Flair at Wrestlemania XVIII, and with this match Undertaker was beginning to recover his reputation for being able to carry opponents to a great showing.

Taker was allowed to perform the virtual mercy killing of Hulk Hogan’s title reign at Judgment Day 2002, and from then until Survivor Series 2003 evolved his ‘Big Evil’ character into a well rounded character very different from anything he’d done before.

The brawling and high spots were joined by the beginning of Taker’s MMA influence, while the brawling itself was eventually refined into more of a ‘striking’ (at least from a WWF standpoint) style. This character also cut good promos that were far removed from the original Undertaker style, and thus he was able to compete in more conventional feuds rather than ones that had to be specifically made for him.

During this period, Taker competed in many impressive pay per main events, including making a star out of Brock Lesnar by cleanly putting him over in the Hell in a Cell at No Mercy 2002.

Undertaker was now in his early 40s, and the next stage of his career, while mostly nothing spectacular from an in ring view, would allow him to rest and recuperate for his current run.

When Kane put him out at Survivor Series 2003, Undertaker was able to take another well earned break and come back fresh at Wrestlemania XX. This time, he was using a revamped original Undertaker gimmick, including Paul Bearer, and was originally going to be treated primarily as a special attraction ‘legend’ character.

2004 was not a great year, match wise for Taker. His feud against JBL over the summer was more about establishing the lengths Layfield would go to in order to retain his belt, and anyone would have struggled with John Heidenreich.

Things looked up in 2005 though, and the year long feud with Orton, while tarnished by some of the more outlandish aspects of the Undertaker character, produced some fine work ringwise. It should be noted that by this time, Undertaker was basically back to his best work in all but persona; once the bell rung the ‘deadman’ character ceased to be relevant.

Following the Hell in a Cell conclusion to the Orton feud at Armageddon 2005, we move on to Undertaker’s current run, which is in many ways the most remarkable of all.

Starting with an incredible match of the year effort against Kurt Angle at No Way Out 2006, Undertaker seemed totally revitalised. While he was stuck with Mark Henry at Wrestlemania XXII and the Great Khali over the Summer, he was able to get one of the best matches out of Henry, and was able to really put over Khali, establishing him for a time as the new monster in the WWE.

Taker made further stellar efforts in allowing relative newcomer Mr. Kennedy to look on his level in the last part of 2006, while continuously refining his own style in order to keep it fresh. His efforts were rewarded, when at 45, he won the Royal Rumble for the first time, and in the best shape of his career had an incredible match that defied expectations at Wrestlemania XXIII, winning the title for a fifth time and seeming poised for a lengthy title reign throughout 2007.

At this point Undertaker was working faster than at any point in his career, and had seemingly defied time in order to be putting in performances that would seemed more likely from people twenty years younger.

However the undeniable effort that he had put in to attain such a look took it’s toll, and he ended up tearing a bicep and being injured for much of the year. Happily, though he was able to resume active competition pretty much where he left off, and the feud with Batista, while admittedly overexposed, did consistently produce good matches.

This year, Undertaker has again been producing superior efforts. His ongoing feud with Edge has been one of the highlights of 2008, both from an angle and match point of view.

Earlier in the year, Taker was able to prove that he could now carry the monster style wrestlers that had previously dragged him down to acceptable matches in his own right, with an odds defying series with Big Daddy V and Mark Henry on Smackdown and a dominant performance in the Elimination Chamber in February.

The TLC match at One Night Stand should break new ground for him, and the prospects look good for the match quality-wise, as Taker’s only other ladder-based match was the very good RAW effort against Jeff Hardy in 2002.

Some people have expressed concern over Undertaker being out of his element in the ONS match, and this would certainly seem to be the case on the surface.

However looking back at his long WWF career, it is clear that the only way that Marc Calloway has been able to keep the Undertaker character fresh and relevant is by constantly refining and developing it, if necessary stepping out of his comfort zone in order to move with the times; the mark of a true professional.

I’m relatively new to the column writing field, and am eager for any feedback: please send any to james@wwepreview.com