Bruce Prichard Recalls The Origin Of The Undertaker vs. Undertaker Storyline

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard talked about the idea of a second Undertaker with Brian Lee, which led to a match at WWE SummerSlam 1994. You can check out some highlights below:

On the idea of a second Undertaker: “Brian Lee was a — we’ll call him a journeyman wrestler. Brian was a big guy, looked to have a future and the possibility to become a star. He had the size and could work. So Brian was around, Brian had been working in Smoky Mountain. Brian and Undertaker were friends. We would be out, and people would go up to Brian while we were out and mistake him for The Undertaker. ‘Oh, you must be the Undertaker.’ It happened several times. It happened with Undertaker there. So sitting there, looking at him going, ‘Y’all could be brothers. You could be twin brothers. What if?’ Famous two words, man. ‘What if?’ Because Ted DiBiase one time had enough money and enough resources as the Million Dollar Nan to have plastic surgery done on Earl Hebner to create a second Earl Hebner. So now there’s two of them running around. He made an exact — you know, it was cloning. Let’s just call it what it was. And we felt, ‘Well, Million Dollar Man would obviously have enough money to clone and make another Undertaker.’

“And Undertaker had been gone off with an injury for enough time that if you were to bring someone back, or bring The Undertaker back — make no mistake about it, we’re going to plug The Undertaker’s return. Have Ted DiBiase talk about the fact that The Undertaker will return, and bring him out when there’s nothing to compare him to. Bring The Undertaker back and have him go in the ring, and have him wrestle a short match. He doesn’t need to do any lines or anything like that, and just have Ted DiBiase do all the talking for him. Tthat was an exciting prospect. And I would dare say that people will say, ‘Oh, I knew it right away.’ No, they didn’t. No, you really didn’t. Because the way that we shot it, the way that the building was lit, very hard to tell. Like, you probably could have fooled me if I didn’t know the first time that The Undertaker, or Brian Lee Undertaker, came out. So it was, that was the idea, and then see what happens from there. If we can get this — you know, could you actually have a program with Undertaker versus Undertaker? And the possibilities were endless, but we had to get to the first one.”

On The Undertaker’s changing look with purple attire: “Well, The Undertaker, every time that he went away and came back he evolved. There was something about him that was different. Whether it was a splash of color, whether it was going from the shirt to the singlet, a different hat or a teardrop, or what have you. There were always changes and an evolution of The Undertaker character. The Brian Lee Undertaker was the original. It was the very first Undertaker that you saw, and the one that you know everybody remembers from Brother Love walking him out from the very beginning. And that was part of the presentation. ‘I have the real Undertaker. I had the real Undertaker, because just look at how he looks. The same gear, the same all this stuff. I don’t know who this guy is, dressed up in purple and all this other stuff with Paul Bearer. But obviously Paul Bearer went and found him, somebody that looks like The Undertaker to portray The Undertaker because I have the real one.’”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.