A Case for Big Evil

The last time we discussed Undertaker in this article series, he was wearing purple corpse-handling gloves and showing off supernatural abilities like summoning lightning and teleporting inside of a grave; that version would go through several tweaks (some major, some minor) over the course of three years to end up as a totally-not-Satanic co-leader of the Corporate Ministry before injuries put him on the shelf for eight months.

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His return in May of 2000 brought with it the first significant overhaul of the character since his debut a decade prior; while small changes had accumulated over three years before the injury, after the injury Taker had replaced the supernatural powers and "is he a zombie?" mythology with motorcycles, chewing tobacco, bandannas, and ill-advised fashion choices.

By early 2002, though, the character began taking on a much harder edge, along with an in-ring style heavily influenced by mixed martial arts, which was beginning its mainstream ascension in popular culture. Taker cut his hair short, adopted a wide variety of chokes, began openly trash-talking his opponents during matches, and developed a habit of breaking his own pin attempts to continue abusing his foes.
"Big Evil" was born, and invigorated the American Badass character as a no-nonsense heel set on owning and defending the ring as "his yard". The feud surrounding today's match catapulted Taker back into the main event scene, giving him an all-too-brief run with the WWE Undisputed Championship and adding a murderous rage to his personality which gave his matches an intensity they had lacked for a long time.
Big issue with Rhea Ripley revealed HERE