The Undertaker: Long Term Story Telling in Wrestling (video)

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I contend this is gaming related because not only was there a WWF roleplaying game, but the long term storylines of Wrestling often mirror long term D&D campaigns. 

Also, 'taker is a big D&D nerd. His wizard's name is tattooed on his neck. 

[captainjapan]

I'm not a wrestling fan, but I get why people are. I can't suspend belief to the level that it would take to get me to watch it regularly. That's the point of the video, right?; that having made a long-term investment in watching these "characters", fans become immune to the ridiculousness. Fans get wrapped-up in the story and enjoy wrestling on a different level than I can. I won't knock it or else I might as well knock comic books and then fantasy fiction, in general.

It's a good tribute. Kind of like a thirty-year campaign write-up. How did you find out the Undertaker was a gamer, @ampleframework?

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Oct 3, 2021 10:17:01 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

I'm not a wrestling fan, but I get why people are. I can't suspend belief to the level that it would take to get me to watch it regularly. That's the point of the video, right?; that having made a long-term investment in watching these "characters", fans become immune to the ridiculousness. Fans get wrapped-up in the story and enjoy wrestling on a different level than I can. I won't knock it or else I might as well knock comic books and then fantasy fiction, in general.

It's a good tribute. Kind of like a thirty-year campaign write-up. How did you find out the Undertaker was a gamer, @ampleframework ?

I think it's a combination of gymnastics, stage acting, and role-playing. Most fans know at some level it's not "real" but we just suspend our disbelief and choose to engage with the stories and the characters. It's in this way that I relate it to tabletop or LARPing. 

I don't remember 100% where the information on his gaming came from, but it was in a wrestling podcast with someone close to him. I think maybe Percy Pringle aka Paul Bearer, who knew the man very closely and kept up with his hobbies and passions, since he portrayed his manager on-screen. It's definitely not a widely known piece of trivia. It's difficult to even find anything about it on Google. It's probably because the man took great pains to not "break kayfabe" during his career, so very little details about his personal life ever came out until he retired. 

(That's a rarity in modern pro-wrestling, by the way. Many of the younger talent don't even have gimmicks or stage names and talk about the business openly. This would have horrified guys from 'taker's generation and the ones leading up to it. "Protecting the business" was serious business. You'd get ostracized or beaten up for exposing the theatrical nature of it. This goes back to the carnival roots. It's a carnie culture thing.)

[captainjapan]

My google-fu came up with nothing about D&D, either. But it did come up with this new interactive movie, just in time for Halloween:

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Oct 3, 2021 21:53:46 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

My google-fu came up with nothing about D&D, either. But it did come up with this new interactive movie, just in time for Halloween:

I'm scurred. 

(You know, come to think of it, the tabletop gaming thing might be "inside info" from like 20 years ago, if the source can be trusted. As some of you know, I live in the deeeeep South and that's where many of these wrestlers are from. There's always been these little indie circuits around here. I went to school and worked with guys who dabbled in pro wrestling to varying degrees of success. The inside scoop about 'taker's nerdy side very well could have come from them. I also know he loves to fish, but that's because I saw the man himself at the lake once. The images don't do him justice. It's like sharing a physical space with an ogre.)