The Undertaker Explains Unusual Reason Behind First Wrestling Job
WWE Hall of Famer The Undertaker has revealed the resemblance to another wrestling star that got him his first booking in the business.
Mark Calaway is synonymous with WWE having portrayed The Undertaker in the company for an astonishing thirty years. However, before his big break in 1990, The Deadman was trying to get his foot in the door of the wrestling business.
Calaway travelled to Dallas’ famed Sportatorium week after week in the hopes of an encounter with World Class Championship Wrestling boss, Fritz Von Erich.
Eventually, he got to talk to the patriarch of the Von Erich wrestling family, and speaking on A&E Biography, The Undertaker revealed that he got his first wrestling booking because Fritz thought The Undertaker looked like his son, David:
“I didn’t have any kind of legacy, I didn’t really know anybody. So I was kind of left to my own creativity in trying to figure out how I was going to get someone’s attention. So at the Sportatorium, in Dallas, that’s where a lot of the wrestlers would come in, they would pick their checks up.”
“So every Wednesday for nearly eight months, I would go up there and I said, ‘Well, if someone doesn’t speak to me or acknowledge me, in some positive sense, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna have to stop coming,’ because I couldn’t afford the gas to drive out there. Lo and behold, who walks in the office is Fritz Von Erich.”
“He’s kind of standing right in front of me and he’s just looking at me.”
“He goes, ‘Who’s that kid out there?’ The next thing I heard was probably what changed everything for me. He goes, ‘Let’s book him Friday night. He looks like David.’ David being one of his sons that he had just lost in Japan, that I happened to resemble, and that’s what it took. Next thing you know that Friday, I’m working in the Sportatorium on their TV show.”