Houston Sports - The Undertaker

The Undertaker (Mark Calaway)

Born: March 24, 1965

Sport: Wrestling (7-time world champion, 7-time world tag team champion, Hall of Fame) 

As baseball season winds down to its final week of the regular season and football season continues to progress, I find myself increasingly frustrated with my local teams.  Both the Astros and the Texans have struggled to score in recent days, displaying less "offense" and more "offensive" play with both teams dropping three straight and currently sitting outside of any sort of playoff scenario.  Some of the recent sports TV news has focused on a major wrestling event that happened this weekend, and the persona of a Houston-based star of that sport may end up being the only kind of help my beloved hometown teams will need if they don't improve soon.  With that in mind, I figured that this week we should take a look at the story of The Undertaker, one of the longest-lasting celebrities of professional wrestling, and a proud product of Houston, Texas.

Houston's Waltrip High School in the 80s when Calaway attended

Mark Calaway was born in Houston as the youngest son of Frank and Betty Calaway, and he attended Waltrip High School on the north side of town alongside his four older brothers.  Athletic and competitive from an early age, he was active in multiple sports include basketball and football.  Upon graduating in 1983, Mark was offered a basketball scholarship by Angelina College, a community college in Lufkin.  After briefly attending, he opted to return to Houston for a chance to play at St. Thomas University, but after one season the school dropped its basketball program.  The 6' 9" Calaway got his third chance at playing college ball at Texas Wesleyan University, as the starting center for the Rams.  An imposing figure that still showed impressive finesse on the court, Calaway regularly watched televised wrestling matches and attempted to recreate the moves he saw on teammates and friends.  Nobody thought his fascination with figures such as Hulk Hogan and the Von Erich family would amount to much until his junior year of college, however, when a European scout contacted Texas Wesleyan's head coach, Richard Hoogendoorn, about having the young man play professionally in France.  Despite an offer of $80,000 per year, Calaway refused and insisted that he had chosen to pursue a career in wrestling.  Despite plenty of protests and disbelief from those near to him, he was true to his word.  The 1986 season was Calaway's last, and he dropped out of school to focus on his career in the ring.

Taking advantage of his intimidating size and presence, Mark Calaway got a job as a bouncer in Arlington to pay the bills while he worked his way into the wrestling industry.  He had tried to get training from a professional wrestler named Buzz Sawyer while still enrolled in school, but the would-be coach provided little in the way of instruction before essentially scamming Calaway out of his money and skipping town.  Undeterred, Calaway started attending the Sportatorium in Dallas, which was home to the World Class Championship Wrestling run by Fritz Von Erich.  The giant, red-headed Calaway was spotted quickly by a man named William Moody as a possible talent, and he agreed to work with him.  Moody was working at the time under the stage name of Percy Pringle and he acted as Calaway's manager during his very first bout, a matchup against seasoned veteran Bruiser Brody on November 7, 1987.  Calaway's name for the fight was Texas Red, and he competed in that persona beneath a lucha libre mask throughout the following year.  In April 1989, he signed with the US Wrestling Association and won his first match as a character known as The Master of Pain, and later competed successfully as The Punisher.  Before the year was up Calaway was signed to compete in the NWA (soon to be known as World Class Wrestling), which was the second highest level of professional wrestling, to fill in for wrestler Sid Vicious on a team known as the Skyscrapers.  It seemed to be a major break for the 24-year-old, but after taking on the persona of Mean Mark Callous in a tag-team match his partner decided to walk away from the organization.  Calaway acted as a solo fighter for the duration of his year-long contract, but WCW leadership determined he would not be able to handle a main event fight and he quickly sought out a meeting with the World Wrestling Federation.  Although the match wasn't immediate, Calaway was soon picked to play a role that WWF boss Vince McMahon had imagined that was based on the image of a Wild West mortician.

And so it was that in October 1990, Mark Calaway became The Undertaker.  At first, he was cast as the heel, professional wrestling's term for the perceived "bad guy" who the fans were supposed to vilify and boo.  His debut came as a member of a team alongside The Million Dollar Man, and although Undertaker was eventually eliminated his team did claim victory.  Sporting a long, black coat and hat, the gravedigger persona was instantly a hit with fans.  As the calendar rolled to 1991 he was reunited with an old ally as Vince McMahon chose William Moody to act as Undertaker's manager in the character of Paul Bearer, a suit-wearing mortician that carried an urn that seemed to give his fighter unnatural abilities.  The pair worked together for many years, although at times they cast as unwilling partners or even enemies depending on the storyline.  The Undertaker continued his work as a heel throughout an eventful 1991, winning his first WrestleMania fight, feuding with The Ultimate Warrior for a time, and quickly rising up the ranks to defeat Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship.  At just 26, he was the youngest champion in WWF history, although he only held it for six days before having it taken.  In 1992, Undertaker prevented an attack by his villainous ally, Jake "the Snake" Roberts, against Macho Man and his wife, Miss Elizabeth.  The move was the first time for the Undertaker to turn babyface (or simply "face"), the wrestling term for switching sides to be a hero or good guy.  Roberts was defeated by Undertaker at WrestleMania, the second win on what would eventually become a record 21 consecutive victories now known simply as The Streak.  But despite the victories his body had sustained a lot of wear, and at the start of 1994 a nagging back injury forced him away from competition for seven months, so a story line was devised where he was sealed in a casket but announced that his spirt "would not rest in peace".  While he was away from the ring, Calaway's wife Jodi gave birth to the couple's first son.

Late in 1994, The Undertaker was seemingly reborn but was played by one of Mark Calaway's real-life best friends, Brian Lee.  This led to the real Undertaker finally returning, defeating the doppelganger, and reasserting himself as a dominant force in the WWF (later rebranded to WWE due to a trademark dispute).  He feuded with the Million Dollar Man, Yokozuna, Bret Hart, and others, but perhaps his biggest rivalry came from Mankind, who regularly interfered with Undertaker's matches to keep him from winning.  Paul Bearer betrayed his protégé, siding with Mankind, and ultimately leading to a now-infamous cage match between the two that Undertaker ultimately won.  Over several years he saw his persona change from an undead gravedigger to a gothic biker with tattoos and bandanas, but his dominance over the competition remained a constant.  A storyline introduced his half-brother, Kane, who was originally Undertaker's primary nemesis but eventually changed sides and joined him to form the Brothers of Destruction.  Undertaker also had moments where he turned heel, notably when he established the Ministry of Darkness to combat Stone Cold Steve Austin, but he regularly returned to hero status and continued to be a fan favorite for many years.  His record of consecutive victories at WrestleMania ended at the hands of Brock Lesnar in 2014 following a 25 minute match in one of the most shocking results the WWE had ever seen.  After being the main draw for the sport for many years, the Undertaker began to step back from the limelight and in 2020 he competed in his final WrestleMania.  Because of the worldwide lockdown restrictions associated with Covid-19, the match against AJ Styles was recorded as a boneyard match and ended with the Undertaker burying his competition and riding away on his motorcycle.  He announced that he was officially retired later that year, leading to a cascade of tributes for his 30-plus year run that saw him become the face of professional wrestling.  He was a member of the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2022.  Outside the ring he has five children, supports the University of Texas football team, trains in martial arts, and has established a charitable fund at Texas A&M University that provides medical treatments for large dogs.  The Undertaker remains a brand ambassador for the WWE and is an active public speaker with a regular podcast and social media presence.

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