Why The Undertaker’s First Time Ever WWE Stipulation Match Was A Disaster
A good friend of The Undertaker has recalled a very unique WWE match that became a disaster partly because of the stipulation involved.
Throughout his 30-year WWE career, it seems as though The Undertaker competed in more first-time-ever stipulation matches than anybody else in company history. While some of those matches are legendary like the Hell in a Cell, there are also stinkers like the Concrete Crypt Match.
As a unique character known for burying people, The Undertaker took part in the first-ever Buried Alive match with his archrival Mankind (aka Mick Foley) in October 1996 at an In Your House PLE called Buried Alive.
That Buried Alive Match had unique rules where the winner had to toss his opponent into a grave full of dirt and bury them in the dirt. The Undertaker won the match by sending Mankind into the dirt and burying him with a shovel.
After the match, The Undertaker was attacked by The Executioner. Mankind eventually got out of the grave and they were joined by other WWE heels like Goldust, Hunter Hearst Helmsley (aka Triple H), Crush, Justin Hawk Bradshaw (aka John Bradshaw Layfield), and others. After being buried in the dirt, The Undertaker’s hand rose as Vince McMahon shouted “he’s alive” to end the broadcast.
JBL Thought Process Of Burying The Undertaker In Grave Was A Disaster
While the match between The Undertaker and Mankind was certainly not a stinker, JBL spoke on the Something To Wrestle podcast about the process of using shovels to pour dirt on Taker and how difficult that process was.
“It was an absolute disaster. They had no idea it would take to fill a grave. This is one of the dumbest things WWE did.
Now, the finish itself was excellent. I believe they had something on a system when ‘Taker when in the grave and end up moving him out so obviously he wasn’t buried alive. But they thought at the time that it would be great for some heels to come out and get a little bit of a rub but also bury ‘Taker as we’re going off air before he does the hand-up gimmick through the grave.”
“You know how long it takes to fill in a grave? It would’ve taken us about 7 or 8 hours, no one had any idea. Finally, Foley is just raking it in with his hands; we haven’t put a foot of dirt on top of the grave, nothing. We weren’t even close… It was the s—, it was so bad.”
To solve this grave-filling problem, in future Buried Alive matches there were payloaders used to quickly dump dirt into the grave.