Why exactly did The Undertaker adopt his old “dead man” gimmick?
It was never truly revealed, but it wasn’t meant to be a dead man gimmick, itself. Before he went to WWF, he was in WCW as Mean Mark Calloway. It was a type of cowboy gimmick. However, they never renewed his contract so he went to WWF. He kept the western theme, but he was actually based on a undertaker, which is a mortician and it include a western theme like from the old movies with the hat, boots, and leather. So he was actually the just a normal guy that collected bodies (as a mortician), but WWE decided to give him supernatural powers. He was imprevious to attack, meaning, he was able to take a lot of moves without making it look like it hurt, so that might be a reason he was called a deadman. He felt no real “pain”. Later on, they would make Paul Bearer his manager and the new mortician, while Taker would solidify his career as a deadman with supernatural power, a pretty rare gimmick at the time. So I would say it was because of Taker’s behavior. Western theme cause he was from T
He reverted to that gimmick because Vince and Kane screwed the Bad *** Gimmick in a Buried Alive match…Kane cheated on Vinces behalf and buried Taker. They then start airing promos and doing the old “lights go out” thing for a couple weeks until showing that Taker was coming back at Wrestlemania 20.
