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And Bikertaker was brief and cool for the soul reason that when Bikertaker was buried alive, it brought back the Deadman.

 

Believe it or not, the Bikertaker gimmick lasted a solid 3.5 years!

 

 

 

And an aside, the right baseball comparison for Taker may be Hank Aaron.

 

I'd switch sports a bit and upgrade that to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Another longevity king, but with people realizing they were watching something special the whole time, not just near the end.

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If we want another baseball player with similar attributes, I'll throw out Cal Ripken, Jr. He had a long career, all with the same organization, was incredibly popular throughout that time (at least within fans of that organization, if not among the general public), and became even more famous because of a long lasting streak.

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I'll say this about Taker. He took a stupid gimmick and made it awesome. It could have easily been a Red Rooster, but Calloway was so awesome he not only got it over, he outlasted everybody. His enduring legacy will be that of a throwaway unwanted big guy wrestler who carved his niche in his own unique way.

 

The guy didn't need a belt to get over, and that says a lot. He was our Andre, and I don't think we'll ever get another one.

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And Bikertaker was brief and cool for the soul reason that when Bikertaker was buried alive, it brought back the Deadman.

Believe it or not, the Bikertaker gimmick lasted a solid 3.5 years!

 

At the time it seemed like it was FOREVER. I watched as a little kid, then during the attitude and post attitude era. For awhile there, Bikertaker was really the most canon version in my head.

 

After stopping and coming back to wrestling after a decade off and realizing he was still Deadmanning it up, I realized that Bikertaker was really just a blip looking at his entire timeline.

 

No idea if it is true, but I read more than one place that Calloway actually liked being the Bikertaker way more than the Deadman gimmick.

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The thing about BikerTaker is that it at least fit what WWE was at the time. The Deadman sometimes seemed almost divorced from the rest of the company. I remember in the lead up till WM 14 you had like the Austin-McMahon thing starting, HBK was lie stuffing biking shorts with socks and pointing a them, Owen was pissed at Vince for the screw job.. It was trying to blur the line between real and make believe. Then you had Taker vs Kane and the 2 are literally shooting lighting at each other on RAW. It didn't fit.

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The thing about BikerTaker is that it at least fit what WWE was at the time. The Deadman sometimes seemed almost divorced from the rest of the company. I remember in the lead up till WM 14 you had like the Austin-McMahon thing starting, HBK was lie stuffing biking shorts with socks and pointing a them, Owen was pissed at Vince for the screw job.. It was trying to blur the line between real and make believe. Then you had Taker vs Kane and the 2 are literally shooting lighting at each other on RAW. It didn't fit.

They were still a bit in transition at the time. That was the year that Mankind, Cactus Jack, and Dude Love all showed up in the Royal Rumble. Goldust was near his peak. Gangrel would show up soon and make Edge and Christian vampires before they were folded into and out of the Ministry. Terry Funk was running around as "Chainsaw Charlie" because that's what he felt like doing I guess.

 

And I'm sure there were others I'm forgetting. Point is, the silly gimmick era might have been weakened, but it was far from gone.

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There is a difference between the "gimmicks" of that time and earlier gimmicks. The earlier gimmicks the characters actually were those things, like there was a garbage man wrestling for some reason. Whereas by WM 14 it was totally different. Foley using 3 gimmicks was more about him being a crazy person who couldn't differentiate between them. Chainsaw Charlie was just a crazy person who ran around with a chainsaw. Golddust was some sick, perverted guy. The Brood were the closest to an old school gimmick but I still took it as people who really liked Vampires rather than like actual vampires. I don't think I remember anyone like bringing garlic to the ring with them or trying to drive stakes through their hearts.

 

The Undertaker at this time was shooting lightning out of his hand, so was Kane. It's totally different.

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There is a difference between the "gimmicks" of that time and earlier gimmicks. The earlier gimmicks the characters actually were those things, like there was a garbage man wrestling for some reason.

 

Yeah, that was a sort of late-80s early 90s thing. But I'm not sure what that has to do with Undertaker shooting lightening from his hands. Did I forget a bevy of gimmicks with superpowers from the era? I remember Papa Shango cursing people and I guess there was Max Moon (pfft), but that's about it. Unless you want to count folks like Legion of Doom, Demolition, and Warrior in there.

 

Seems to me that the combination of Undertaker, Kane, the Brood, and the rest of the Ministry in one of the bigger angles of the time represented the high water mark of the supernatural in WWF.

 

As for the second job gimmicks, they were still around.

 

 

Now I'm gonna go drink some orange juice. Like a man!

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Godfather. Papa Shango was beyond WWF stupid. When the Ultimate Warrior wasn't throwing up in character the fans were in real life.

 

I never thought about it before, but the Taker gimmick was probably another occupational gimmick when it was first conceived. Vince liked to have the garbage man, the cop, etc., so I can see him doing the same thing with an undertaker. Of course it was totally Mark Calloway that embraced it and took it to another level.

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I think the difference between Taker shooting lightning nad Gangrel coming "form hell" is this: They didn't do a vignette of The Brood in hell amidst fire and brimstone chatting with the devil. Saying they were from hell or whatever was just normal wrestling hyperbole. Whereas they used effects to show Taker and Kane actually shooting lightning at each other.

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You can look at it all from a nuanced standpoint, but I think the bottom line in all this is that the whole shooting lightening thing was more a by-product of the early Attitude Era and not an aberration from it. At the time, they didn't really have a rule book and just did anything that popped into mind. The more crass, crazy, stupid, or impossible the better as long as it was different and kept the audience wondering what they were going to do next. It was an era of complete experimentation and whatever dumb idea Vince McMahon or Vince Russo had while sitting on the crapper that morning.

 

Taking the Undertaker out as far as he would ever go, much more than the whole no-selling mortician managed by Brother Love gimmick he started off with, was just a part of the climate of the company at the time.

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I think the difference between Taker shooting lightning nad Gangrel coming "form hell" is this: They didn't do a vignette of The Brood in hell amidst fire and brimstone chatting with the devil. Saying they were from hell or whatever was just normal wrestling hyperbole. Whereas they used effects to show Taker and Kane actually shooting lightning at each other.

Right.

 

Translation: I said what I believe to be true and no amount of logic or reasoning will make me admit in the slightest that my original statement is not 100% true. To do so would be in violation of all things internet. I couldn't possibly have misspoke. That couldn't happen in a thousand years.

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I was hoping that when Triple H got that stupid Terminator entrance (what a surprise, Triple H always gets the biggest entrance at WrestleMania every year), I was hoping Robocop would make his return so we'd finally fulfill ancient NES fantasies of Robocop vs Terminator.

 

I mean why not. We've had Trump vs Rosie..

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