Ringside Report Takes a Close Look at the WWE Universe

By Ron Signore

The sequence of March into April is an important time of year for some. To be blunter, the universe: The WWE Universe that is. This is the time of year where the World Wrestling Entertainment organization makes way for their “Super Bowl,” WrestleMania.

The gimmick of entertainment started by Vice McMahon commenced in 1985 with a headline of Hulk Hogan and Mr.T in a tag team match against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff. The excitement of the event took on a life of it’s own and through the years has gotten us to WrestleMania 37.

Professional wrestling has evolved into something of it’s own brand of entertainment. Back in the days of the first “Mania,” and even prior, professional wrestling was almost like a traveling circus. It had it’s tricks of the trade, its secrets of personal lives and it’s wowing optical illusions to grab viewers of the earliest of ages.

Now, we have gone far beyond the squared circle in this sport. I do call it a sport, there is absolutely a need of athleticism involved to perform night after night. At some point, everyone knows the matches are pre-determined. While the results may be no more than entertainment for sport, the bumps and bruises are very much real.

As time has gone on, no matter the sanction (promotion) running the shows, the events have been nothing more than entertainment that follows a story line like that of a soap opera. There are story lines of betrayal, love, greed, ego, and domination that have found ways to become more extreme. Some extremes have changed the business significantly. The persona’s or characters portrayed by the performers cross lines to be exposed of their natural name or personal matters to try and draw in a more intimate and reality to the story lines. More and more extreme stunts keep the crowd coming back for more.

We have been graced by many amazing performers over the years. Names like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Ultimate Warrior, Brett “Hitman” Hart, Macho Man Randy Savage, The Rock and Stone-Cold Steve Austin are all relative to spectators because they became engulfed in mainstream media and pop culture in their eras. One, however, lived in his persona inside and outside of the ring out of respect for the business that had been so good to him: The Undertaker.

Billed at 6 foot 10 inches and 309 pounds from Death Valley, The Undertaker became a legend as time grew. We learn that some people act their character to perform, but the line between The Dead Man and his real-life doings of Mark Calaway were never known to be different. Until now.

Calaway debuted in the professional wrestling circuit in June of 1987 and made his debut as The Undertaker in the WWF (now WWE) at Survivor Series in 1990. Calaway lived and breathed this persona of his. Traveling in attire that would resemble what the Taker would typically wear, and above all, in public, never breaking character.

In 2017, Calaway began to let camera crews follow him around to document his journey towards retiring. The title of the product was promoted as “The Last Ride.” This was an incredibly unique perspective of not only the persona of the Undertaker, the personality of who Mark Calaway really was, but also the reality behind the business.

The journey begins going into WestleMania 32 where the Undertaker is booked in a match with Roman Reigns. WrestleMania is not only important to fans of the promotion, but Undertaker fans hold Mania very dear to their hearts. The Undertaker had won 21 straight matches in the event going into WrestleMania 30, when he lost to Brock Lesnar to snap the streak. While the Taker had come back to win his next two Mania matches, the aging Calaway was in a position to walk away from the business after the match with Reigns.

As the years went on and Calaway aged, we learn that he was working less and less each year to the point where he would work one match a year and that was at WrestleMania. While the Undertaker would go on to lose to Reigns at WM33 in Orlando, leaving the Taker seemingly to retire after the match by a show of leaving his gear in the ring, the competitor in Calaway struggled with letting go. When you or I say competitor, we typically thing of avenging a loss in this context. Calaway is much less selfless than that. His review of the match against Reigns was that he did not give the fans the match they deserved. He claimed to look old and slow, which he did. It was not about wins and losses- obviously- it was about the performance the fans got.

After surgery and rehab, Taker would come back for two more Mania matches. One against John Cena and his final against AJ Styles. The match against Styles would be his last and throughout the documentary, we see the Undertaker/Calaway finally come to a point mentally where he is ready to walk away. The match with Styles was a “boneyard” match, a theatrical haunting of a venue with extreme visual effects to see one opponent bury the other in a grave. After the Taker won, he rode off on his motorcycle into the night with his symbol and fire in the background as he combined 3 personas into his final character with remnants of his classic Undertaker persona, his modified Dead Man/American Bad-Ass persona and Mark Calaway. It was the perfect sunset to the career of one of the most beloved performers to the business.

Calaway has not been in the ring since and seems to be enjoying his retired life with his family down in Austin, TX. For someone who spent so much time in front of the cameras as this mortician and dark evil phenom, we cannot classify Calaway as anything more than one of the kindest and gentlest human beings in the business. The darkness aura of death, yet the biggest teddy bear with the irony (because he is an actor at heart) of being one of the most genuine people you could enjoy getting to know.

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