10 Wrestlers Who Had Heat With The Undertaker

During his 30-year WWE career, The Undertaker frequently acted as the ‘conscience’ of the locker room.

A respected veteran who led by example and whose intimidating presence helped keep the guys and gals in line on the road, Mark Calaway was not a man you wanted to get heat with.

Yet, as history has shown us, The Deadman’s fearsome rep didn’t stop some performers from raising his ire. It typically didn’t end well for those poor souls.

These are 10 WWE stars who had HEAT with The Undertaker.

10. Shawn Michaels

The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels will forever be linked, thanks to their classic matches at back-to-back WrestleManias.

They are close friends on great terms these days, but that wasn’t always the case. It was only because of Shawn’s personality change after he became a born-again Christian that the two mended fences.

The Heartbreak Kid’s first WWE run, he was, in kind words, a pain in the arse. He’s admitted as much plenty of times himself, noting that he was not an easy person to deal with during those fast-living days. Michaels ruffled a lot of feathers in the WWE locker room during the mid-to-late 90s, including The Phenom’s.

As one of the locker-room leaders, ‘Taker had a front-row seat to Shawn’s selfish and self-destructive behaviour, and he didn’t have a lot of time for it.

Things came to a head backstage at WrestleMania XIV where, rumour has it, Mark Calaway let Michaels know that he was going to put Steve Austin over the right way in their WWE Title headliner by silently taping his fists in front of The Heartbreak Kid.

The implied threat was recognised, and the champ did the job for Stone Cold, no questions asked.

9. Vince Russo

As polarising a figure as the wrestling business has ever seen, Vince Russo has both his staunch defenders and a long list of detractors.

One of the architects behind the massively successful Attitude Era, Russo’s car crash TV-style writing in the late 90s made WWE must-see TV to millions of fans.

As one of WWE’s top stars, The Undertaker was right in the thick of storylines and had Russo involved with his creative direction. ‘Taker underwent quite a transformation during this period, emerging as the leader of the satanic Ministry of Darkness stable.

As he was such a big, marketable star, Russo would always try and involve ‘Taker in some way. According to Russo, this led to some heat between the pair, as Mark Calaway was feeling more than a little banged up and resented always being asked to do something physical.

Russo didn’t hear this from The Undertaker directly, but rather from Terry Taylor (and he only heard about it after he left WWE for WCW).

Russo, in his defence, said that he always asked The Undertaker how he was feeling and claims that ‘Taker himself always said he was good to go.

8. The Jackyl

The WWE locker room was a very different culture back in the 90s. Often described as being a ‘shark tank’ like environment, it was ultra-competitive and not everybody always got along.

Still, it paid to be in the good graces of a select few, including The Undertaker and Bradshaw. Unfortunately for Don Callis – AKA The Jackyl – he was not on good terms with either.

According to Matt Hardy, Callis endured a torrid time backstage because he didn’t see eye-to-eye with the duo, in large part due to his own outspoken nature.

Now, Hardy didn’t elaborate too much or give any details of how ‘Taker acted towards Callis, but there was definitely heat there.

In his own autobiography, Matt alluded to the part he played in Don’s torment, including a ‘rib’ where he and brother Jeff broke toothpicks off in the door handle of Callis’s rental car.

This was at the behest of Bradshaw, but whether ‘Taker had a part in it is unknown.

In the end, the heat on Callis was so bad that he ended up being released, presumably for his own good.

7. John Laurinaitis

Very few people have anything positive to say about John Laurinaitis and The Undertaker had a good reason for being upset with the former Talent Relations chief.

Their heat stemmed from ‘Taker’s Armageddon 2005 Hell in a Cell match with Randy Orton. The match itself was fine, but it came out afterwards that Randy’s father, Bob Orton Jr., had tested positive for Hepatitis C.

Laurinaitis had known about the results and yet Cowboy Bob was still allowed to bleed all over The Deadman.

‘Taker found out because the doctor who administered the tests was a WWE-affiliated mutual friend. Needless to say, he hit the roof and immediately demanded answers from Johnny Ace.

Laurinaitis actually had to fly to a house show and personally talk things out with Calaway face-to-face.

Bob Orton had contracted the disease when he was a teenager but had forgotten about it since, and outside of a few weeks where he was sick, didn’t feel any of the effects of the disease and had never passed it on to another wrestler. Nevertheless, Cowboy Bob was let go soon after.

6. Duke Droese

The WWE career of Duke ‘The Dumpster’ Droese was relatively short and mostly uneventful. An undercard act during a down period in the company’s business, the trash man gimmick was never going to have longevity or enable Duke to ascend to a headline spot.

While trying to get over and improve his position on the bill, Droese (in his own words) had a series of matches with John Pierre Lafitte on non-televised events where they made a point to go out and steal the show.

According to Droese, he would be confronted by the likes of Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker when he got backstage. They, he said, would complain that they were unable to follow what he and Pierre had just done and that they should tone it down.

Rather than listen to their advice, Droese would instead suggest that they should step up their game. Upon reflection, he conceded that his backchat got him heat and likely worked against him in the long run.

5. Matt Hardy

Matt Hardy was going through some stuff towards the end of 2005. He had lost his girlfriend after discovering her affair with his supposedly good friend, was fired, rehired, feuded with the unfaithful couple, lost the feud and was shifted over to SmackDown.

At the 2005 Survivor Series, Hardy was supposed to take a Chokeslam as part of The Undertaker’s return at the end of the pay-per-view. Fed up with his lot and not feeling like being Chokeslammed that night, Matt opted to instead simply powder out of the ring and retreat to the back.

When ‘Taker reviewed the footage at the SmackDown television taping a few days later, JBL pointed out the side-step and ‘Taker chewed Hardy out for it in front of everyone, asking him if he thought he was better than everyone else who had been instructed to take a hiding.

Matt kept his head down and took the ass-chewing, but his punishment wasn’t over. For the next few months, he pretty much did job after job for others and was even booked to take Viscera’s walrus move in the 2006 Royal Rumble, as part of his punishment.

Hardy eventually sat down with ‘Taker and they hashed things out, after which the penance was considered paid.

4. The Big Show

Paul Wight was snapped up by WWE in early 1999, moving from WCW for a big, fat contract and the promise of main-event superstardom and matches with the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The Big Show was brought in in a big way but, sadly, quickly demonstrated that he was perhaps not quite ready for the spot he was being primed for.

According to Calaway, the giant also treated other people like they were less than him, which rubbed ‘Taker the wrong way. Wight has spoken about how he would get the ‘crooked finger’, with The Phenom calling him over for a verbal beatdown, whether it was about how he spoke to a technician or something he did in the ring that wasn’t up to standard.

‘Taker was doing this because he understood the giant’s potential and wanted him to be great, but admitted it took a while – and a lot of stern talks – before the advice sunk in and Wight started to put it together (in and out of the ring).

Wight has since credited The Undertaker’s tutelage for helping him become the performer he then turned into, but things were tense between them for a bit there.

3. Mabel

Another superheavyweight that felt The Undertaker’s wrath was Nelson Frazier, AKA Mabel.

After winning the 1995 King of the Ring tournament, Mabel received a major push, which included a SummerSlam main event showdown with WWE Champion Diesel.

But Frazier’s massive size coupled with his inexperience made him dangerously reckless. Unfortunately for the former Man on a Mission member one of the people he accidentally hurt was The Undertaker.

While delivering a series of leg drops onto The Deadman, Mabel neglected to properly ‘work’ the move and dropped his gargantuan frame right on Calaway’s face instead. The upshot was that ‘Taker suffered a broken orbital bone, which is why he wore that Phantom of the Opera-style face mask towards the end of ’95.

Naturally, Calaway wasn’t happy with having his face caved in and Frazier got some heat backstage, which was exacerbated by him also injuring Big Daddy Cool by dropping his full weight on his chest.

‘Taker won the resulting feud with Mabel and, not long after, Frazier was given his marching orders. When he came back years later, Calaway requested he become a member of the Ministry of Darkness, so that he wouldn’t have to actually wrestle him again.

2. Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho had one of the most memorable debuts in WWE history, interrupting The Rock on Raw and getting into a promo duel with the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment.

A week later, Y2J continued to antagonise the main event crew when he interrupted The Undertaker and Big Show.

Jericho chastised the team for taking up so much television time, referred to ‘Taker as ‘the personification of boredom’ (as opposed to the ‘personification of evil’) and accused them of turning the show into ‘Raw is Snore’.

This would be all well and good, had ‘Taker not just rambled on incoherently for an age, delivering a promo that was, in fact, very, very boring.

Jericho was supposed to be the heel, but fans actually agreed with his assessment of the segment, making the so-called Unholy Alliance look bad in the process.

When he got backstage, Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin let him know that he might not want to call one of the biggest stars in the company (as well as a locker room leader) ‘boring’ in front of millions of fans.

1. Diamond Dallas Page

We had our suspicions that Diamond Dallas Page had heat when he was given a stalker character, was routinely pummelled by The Undertaker and Kane, was pinned by The Undertaker’s then-wife Sara, and then got a self-help guru gimmick designed to take the p*ss out of his personality.

Aside from committing the cardinal sin of being a former WCW star, DDP also apparently made a major error when – according to Disco Inferno – he went to The American Badass before one of their matches with a script for what he wanted to do in the ring.

Per the legend, ‘Taker took the piece of paper, scrunched it up into a ball and promptly threw it in the bin. ‘Taker was also miffed when Page didn’t bump and feed quickly enough for his comeback during a house show bout, adding to the tensions.

The utterly one-sided nature of their feud and the one-time WCW Heavyweight Champion’s slide down the card soon followed.

And for Dallas, that definitely was a bad thing.