Dead and Buried: The Tale of the Origin of the WWF’s Undertaker

Brian Damage

The Undertaker is arguably one if not the greatest gimmicks the WWF/WWE ever had. While Mark Calaway brought the dead man to life, the actual gimmick’s backstory is a very interesting one. Today on the blog, we look at the origins of the Undertaker gimmick and how it developed into the phenom that it would later become.

When Mark Calaway joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1990, there were some rumors that Vince McMahon had an idea to make him into a Viking character due to his red hair and pale skin. There were also some rumors that Calaway would debut at the 1990 Survivor Series popping out of the giant egg that was talked about for weeks leading up to the event. Obviously, neither of those ideas came to fruition. What we got instead was so much better.

Calaway would debut as the Undertaker or known early on as Kane the Undertaker. There were rumors that the name Kane was added to the gimmick to try and work around the issues they were going to have. Bruce Prichard said differently. “In many ways Kane was the most evil person in biblical lore, kills his own brother, first man to ever commit murder. And I just loved that name, cool strong name Kane. “And so it was going to be Kane The Undertaker, that was the deal, you couldn’t get more evil than Kane. He was dressed in old western undertaker garb and was managed by Brother Love. The gimmick was seemingly an instant hit with fans. In the WWF, gimmicks ruled the landscape and usually came from the minds of Vince McMahon and his right hand man Pat Patterson. The idea for the Undertaker gimmick may have come from both McMahon and Patterson, but going forward with the idea initially hit a snag.

Enter two brothers from the Bronx, New York named Val and Tony Puccio. The Puccio brothers were wrestlers who competed on the northeastern independent circuit as The Undertakers. Val was known as Punisher and Tony as Henchman. They found the most success with their Undertaker gimmick in a Boston based promotion called ICW later renamed International World Class Wrestling aka IWCCW. It was there that the Undertakers won that group’s version of the tag team titles on two occasions. 

While they were making their strides on the independent scene, the Puccio brothers were smart enough to trademark their gimmicks in 1989. After Mark Calaway debuted his version of the Undertaker gimmick, it is believed the Puccio brothers sent a cease and desist letter to the World Wrestling Federation over copyright infringement. With the WWF’s hands tied legally in a potential court battle, McMahon and company reached out to the Puccio’s. 

In 1991, Vince McMahon offered the brothers a lump sum of $3,000 and a job with the company. Ultimately, Val and Tony saw the opportunity to work for the WWF too good to pass up and decided to relinquish their rights to the Undertaker copyright. The brothers were then repackaged under the name of ‘Double Trouble.’ The team wrestled primarily in dark matches and house shows facing teams like High Energy, the Bushwackers, the Natural Disasters, the Steiner Brothers and the Headshrinkers. Unfortunately for the Puccio brothers, they never made it on WWF television, although they were granted a number of untelevised opportunities at the tag team titles against both the Natural Disasters and the Headshrinkers. 

Double Trouble were even sent on a tour of Japan, where they wrestled for Genichiro Tenryu’s WAR promotion. While the Puccio brothers were seemingly getting to live out their dreams, the WWF eventually cut ties with them after three years. The brothers would return to the indie circuit with little fanfare. Tony would eventually retire from wrestling, while Val made it to ECW where he helped JT Smith lay the groundwork to forming the faction known as the Full Blooded Italians (FBI). 

In the end though, all that the Puccio brothers had to show for giving up the Undertaker name was 3 grand and a bunch of matches in the WWF that nobody really saw. Meanwhile, Mark Calaway took the Undertaker and became one of the company’s biggest stars selling millions of dollars in merchandise that the brothers never saw a dime of. Personally, the entire scenario reminded me of an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. A character named Kramer sued a coffee company after burning himself with their coffee. Instead of holding out for a huge settlement, Kramer jumped at the first offer the coffee company made. The brothers lost out on millions from the WWF, just for an opportunity to wrestle a bunch of house show matches.