BIOGRAPHY

 

Mark William Calaway who was born in Houston,TX on 03/24/1965 is the son of Catherine & Frank Calaway. He has 4 older brothers called Timothy, David, Paul & Michael. Mark Calaway is of Irish and Native American descent he graduated from the Waltrip High School in 1983, where he was a member of the basketball team. Mark also played college basketball at Texas Wesleyan University during 1985–1986. almost made it as a basketball player. Calaway almost made it as basketball player. He may be tall, but he’s never been the most fluid, coordinated guy in the ring and despite being a quarter Native American he comes off as pretty damn white so it’s hard to imagine the guy as a professional basketball player but there was a time it could have been in his future. Mark was the biggest and dorkiest dude on his highschool basketball team. Early on his career he split his time between pro wrestling and Texas college basketball and apparently he was pretty good. Ultimately, Calaway must have seen more potential in the world of wrestling or perhaps more accurately, more potential for partying which was a chief concern for much of his early career. It took 6 tries before Mark William Calaway landed on a winning character. When people are asked to name a guy whose career success largely hinged on their gimmick then the Undertaker is generally the first name to come to mind. Not that Mark isn’t talented but he wasn’t always the worker he is today and it’s hard to believe he would have become The Legendary Phenom without the DeadMan gimmick. Calaway married his first wife Jodi Lynn in 1989. They had a son called Gunner Vincent born in 1993. The marriage ended in 1999. Mark married his second wife Sara (who was a WWF Diva) in St Petersburg, Florida on July 21, 2000. In 2001 Sara made televised appearances with the WWF as part of a feud between Calaway and Diamond Dallas Page in which she was acknowledged as being Calaway's wife. The couple had two daughters together called Chasey,born on 11/21/2002 & Gracie, born on 05/15/2005. As of 2007, he and Sara were divorced & he became romantically linked to former wrestler Michelle McCool whom he married on 06/26/2010 in Houston,TX. On 09/01/2012 it was announced that they were expecting the couple's first child. Kaia Faith Calaway was born on 09/29/2012.

Calaway didn’t stumble upon a home-run gimmick right away though. Between 1984 and 1990 Mark, the man behind The Undertaker, cycled through a steady series of unsuccessful personas. He started in Texas World Class Championship Wrestling as Texas Red, moved onto an ex-con character called The Master of Pain then renamed himself The Punisher because by then it was almost the 90s, so of course he did. In 1990 he jumped to WCW, where he played Mean Mark Callous a character who was sort of a proto-Undertaker. Also during his time in WCW he did some wrestling in Japan as Punisher Dice Morgan which is yet more definitive proof that nobody is better at naming things than the Japanese.So yeah, if you ever feel like giving up on some poor shmoe or shmoette in NXT just remember sometimes it takes 6 years and 5 gimmicks of varying degrees of goofiness before something clicks. 

Paul Bearer was with him for his very first match. Paul Bearer aka William Moody was an essential part of the Undertaker act throughout most of the 90s but Moody was actually in Mark Calaway’s corner well before his turn to the dark side. Paul's nickname for Mark was “Wendy”. Paul Bearer had always dutifully kowtowed to Taker on air but apparently he wasn’t afraid to bust his balls in private. Behind the scenes Bearer’s nickname for Taker was Wendy, because his naturally red hair and freckles made him look like the Wendy’s mascot you see. So hey, you’re in good company. The Undertaker was originally named Kane first. Yes, the Undertaker was almost given the name of his on-screen “brother”. Taker was first introduced on an episode of WWF Superstars as Kane The Undertaker but when he had his first match Survivor Series the announcers screwed up and just called him The Undertaker. Somebody must have thought that sounded better, because the name “Kane” would not be heard again in the WWF until seven years later.
The classic Ministry of Darkness version of Taker is his least favorite. A lot of folks would make the case that the Ministry of Darkness era was The Undertaker operating at the height of his powers. His sometimes slightly dorky early years were behind him, and the even dorkier Booger Red years were still beyond the horizon. He was by that point a well-honed performer who hadn’t yet started using his legendary status as a crutch. Undertaker has, on numerous occasions, identified the Ministry of Darkness era as the least favorite of his career. See, by the late 90s Taker had apparently, given up hanging around with Jenna Jameson (he met her when he was 16) and was hitting the church stuff pretty hard and as such wasn’t thrilled about the Ministry’s Satanic overtones or hanging people on crosses I mean symbols. Taker’s dissatisfaction with the Ministry led directly to the creation of the more down-to-earth (and generally kind of lame) Big Evil persona, so on second thought.

    

Mark Calaway, wounded his arm. He couldn't return to Wrestlemania in 2000. It included the games in May alone. His return marks a change in his character and it also has a new finishing move called "The Last Ride".
The Undertaker returned to the ring at Judgement Day in 2000 under the style of a biker to attack Triple H but the referee used this attack as a pretext to disqualify The Rock. He teamed with The Rock & Kane and finally beats Triple H, Vince McMahon & Shane McMahon at the 2000 King of the Ring. At WWF Fully Loaded in 2000, he defeated Kurt Angle. Calaway also defeated Kane at SummerSlam in 2000 by a count-out, he removed the mask of his half-brother and the latter was therefore fled. He tried to win the WWE Championship from The Rock in a Fatal Four-Way match which also included Kane and Chris Benoit but The Rock retained his title. At Survivor Series (2000), he was beaten by WWE Champion Kurt Angle and didn't win the title. During the match, Angles brother intervened posing as his brother, this has distracted the Undertaker & caused him to lose the match. At Rebellion in 2000, he defeated Chris Benoit. Taker participated in a Hell in a Cell match which included Steve Austin, Triple H, The Rock, Rikishi and WWE Champion Kurt Angle but he retains his title. He participated in the Royal Rumble in 2001 when entering the twenty-fifth position but it will be eliminated by Rikishi. He participated with his half-brother Kane in a tables match which also included Edge, Christian and WWF Tag Team Champions The Dudley Boyz but they retained their titles. Undertaker defeated Triple H at WrestleMania X-Seven and signs his 9-0.
After WrestleMania, he built a team with his half-brother Kane that will last several months. The Brothers of Destruction opposed including Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H in a brutal rivalry. Just after Wrestlemania, they won the WWF Tag Team Championship but lost it in 2001 at Backlash against Steve Austin and Triple H. At Insurrextion 2001, he defeated Steve Austin and Triple H in a Handicap match. He didn't win the WWF Championship at Judgment Day in 2001 against Steve Austin because of the intervention of Triple H. In an edition of WWF Raw, he won by disqualification against Albert for the intercontinental title because of DDP. During Invasion, it was part of the team that lost the WWF against The Team Alliance. Just before SummerSlam 2001, the Brothers of Destruction won the WCW World Tag Team Championship 28. At Unforgiven 2001, they retained the WCW Tag Team Championship against Brian Adams and Bryan Clark. They lost the WCW title later against Booker T and Test.

 

The Undertaker has never tapped out. Speaking of the streak which is 21-1, it may be over but Taker still has another impressive stat under his belt. The DeadMan has never tapped out his entire career. The closest he came was in a match with Kurt Angle where he tapped just as Angle’s shoulders were counted down for the 3 resulting in a no-contest. If you want to count that as a tap out, go ahead but then you also have to count a lot of Taker’s wonky Wrestlemania finishes against that streak. During a Calaway interview conducted by an internet show after UFC 121 Lesnar walked past him staring. Calaway answered Lesnar's stare by saying "You wanna do it?".They eventually fought at Wrestlemania 30 in 2014, where Lesnar finally gave Calaway a loss at a Wrestlemania event. Among other accomplishments Calaway is the winner of the 2007 Royal Rumble, a four-time WWF/E Champion, three-time World Heavyweight Champion and one-time USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion. He is the longest continually employed wrestler in WWE history. The Undertaker started in WWF/E in 1990 and never left, meaning he’s been drawing a paycheck for 24 straight years. Now some employees like Kevin Dunn and Tony Chimel have been employed for longer, but when it comes to actual wrestling talent not even WWF/E stalwarts like Bruno Sammartino can top The Undertaker. He's still running the yard!! 

Now here are some nicknames of Mark Calaway aka Undertaker
"The American Bad-Ass"
"Big Evil"
"The Deadman"
"The Demon of Death Valley"
"The Lord of Darkness"
"The Best Pure Striker in Sports-Entertainment History"
"The Master of Mind Games"
"The Last Outlaw"
"The Phenom"
"The Red Devil"
"The Cornerstone of the WWF/E"
"Booger Red"

-Entrance themes
"Funeral March" by Jim Johnston 
"Graveyard Symphony" by Jim Johnston
"The Darkest Side" by Jim Johnston 
"Ministry" by Jim Johnston 
"American Bad Ass" by Kid Rock 
"Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)" by Limp Bizkit 
"Dead Man Walking" by Jim Johnston
"You're Gonna Pay" by Jim Johnston 
"Rest in Peace" by Jim Johnston 
"Ain't No Grave (Gonna Hold This Body Down)" by Johnny Cash

-Slammy Awards
Slammy Award for WWF's Greatest Hit (1996) Sucking Diesel into the abyss
Slammy Award for Best Tattoo (1997)
Slammy Award for Best Entrance Music (1997)
Slammy Award for Star of the Highest Magnitude (1997)
Slammy Award for Match of the Year (2009) vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXV
Slammy Award for Moment of the Year (2010) vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXVI
Slammy Award OMG Moment of the Year (2011) Kicking out of Triple H's Tombstone Piledriver at WrestleMania XXVII
Slammy Award Match of the Year (2012) vs. Triple H in a Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania XXVIII.

Undertaker was undefeated up until Wrestlemania XXX.

His fallen foes include:

'Superfly' Jimmy Snuka (WM VII),

 Jake Roberts (WM VIII),

Giant Gonzalez (Jorge Gonzáles)(WM IX),

 King Kong Bundy (WM XI),

Diesel (Kevin Nash)(WM XII),

Sycho Sid (Sid Eudy) (WM 13),

Kane (Glenn Jacobs) (WM XIV and XX),

The Big Boss Man (Ray Traylor) (WM XV),

Triple-H (Paul Levesque) (WM X7),

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair (WM X8),

the team of Big Show (Paul Wight) & A-Train (Matt Bloom) (WM XIX),

 Randy Orton(WM21), 

Mark Henry (WM22),

Batista (Dave Bautista) (WM23),

Edge (Adam Copeland) (WM24)

Shawn Michaels (WM25 WM26)

Triple-H (Paul Levesque) (WM27 WM28)

Cm Punk (Phillip Jack Brooks) (WM29)

and has lost his last match against Brock Lesnar (Brock Edward Lesnar) (WM30) which ended his STREAK 21 wins at WrestleMania.