Saturday night is a monumental date with destiny for one Oba Femi.

By pinning Jey Uso, he'd become the 2026 King Of The Ring and be guaranteed a title shot vs. Roman Reigns or Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. Not only that, but Oba could have 2 matches on the August PLE - that title showdown and another that retires the legendary Brock Lesnar seemingly for good.

Or, y'know, WWE boss Triple H might cool his jets on Femi and decide that another Uso main event push is what his audience really want to see instead. Hmm, it isn't. It really, really isn't. Look, this isn't supposed to be some brutal takedown of Jey, because he's class in his own way, but Oba must be the priority right now. Uso challenging Cody doesn't feel SummerSlam worthy anyway.

Other nightmares keeping 'The Game' and his fanbase awake all week include WWE fudging the Queen Of The Ring tourney's purpose, strong SmackDown heels looking like total tools opposite Cody, Danhausen turning the clock back to his borderline embarrassing debut at Elimination Chamber and old rivals reliving old problems in the women's midcard scene.

Real world events threatened to derail Night Of Champions over in Saudi Arabia completely, but WWE are on the way. They better hope it's a trip to remember rather than one everyone would much rather forget. We've already analysed everything that simply must happen in Riyadh this weekend, so now it's time to zoom in on all of the disasters that could afflict Hunter's latest PLE.

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In the year 2000, WWE coined "Decade Of Destruction" as a way to celebrate The Undertaker's first ten years with the company, back when that sort of thing was a minor miracle rather than the norm. 10 years in the 1990s felt like a hundred, and the pace of the second half of the decade in particular resulted in wrestlers having runs that felt like forever even if they'd now be able to go all the way up and back down the card in the time it takes somebody to make it to the end of finishing class in NXT.

Much of the energy could be put down to the laundry list of Jim Ross wins and losses as Executive Vice President of Talent Development from 1995 onwards. Stone Cold Steve Austin was an early signing for JR in December following a controversial WCW firing and transcendent spell in ECW. Mick Foley (more on him later) rocked up on the Raw after WrestleMania 12 having followed a similar trajectory. His old foe Vader was already there, having debuted at the 1996 Royal Rumble. Johnny B Badd was no more but Marc Mero and his real life wife Rena were in as 'The Wildman' and his valet Sable, Rocky Maivia's successful debut at the 1996 Survivor Series couldn't have gone any better, and after a few teething troubles necessitated a heel turn, his rise from doomed newbie to legitimate top star in the industry was meteoric. Other than 'The Man From The Dark Side', this was a roster reborn, and most of the survivors from simpler (AKA financially ruinous) times had to graft their way through all sorts of sludge alongside the defiant 'Deadman' to join the new class.

Bob Holly had rocked up in 1994, and via several dramatic gimmick shifts, was over more than ever before as Hardcore Holly. Billy Gunn had been a cowboy with his storyline brother and a Honky Tonk Man knock-off before The New Age Outlaws hit huge enough for him to find what would go on to fit for the rest of his career.  Sean Waltman - the most damning and damned case study - was considered staler than Asda Smart Price bread by the summer of 1999, despite the fact that he was one of the company's best workers and he'd only returned to the fold as one of wrestling's hottest free agents the prior April. He never reversed the trend, and between that time and his eventual 2002 departure, he entered to a unique strain of disgruntled audience indifference known as "X-Pac heat". Of note also - he wrestled his last WWE match (to date) a week shy of his 30th birthday.

It was a wildly, wildly different time, but throughout it all, The Undertaker had endured. He was by then riding a motorbike to the ring and working as the 'American Bad Ass', having dropped his former gimmick entirely to try and fit in with the styles of the times. His matches had maybe never been worse, but he'd earned the opportunity to stretch the premise of his persona somewhat after so long spent portraying various different versions of the undead monster that debuted all the way back in 1990. 

Not least because it appeared - at long last - to bury a formula that WWE had leaned on repeatedly when they needed Undertaker the most. After a year as one of the company's scariest heels, 'Taker was turned babyface in order to try and help plug the Hulk Hogan-sized gap on that side of the ledger in 1992. It worked even better than anybody could have forecast. Dissolving his evil friendship with Jake Roberts, Undertaker crushed 'The Snake' at WrestleMania VIII and was immediately beloved by the awestruck crowd as a result. Having avoided a sword-stabbing from The Berzerker in the immediate aftermath to set up some house show battles, he entered into a year-plus war with...Harvey Wippleman.

(CONT'D)

It all started innocently enough. In an early airing of a (rotten) future WrestleMania main event, The Undertaker worked newly-turned heel Sid Justice in something that might have made a few more towns had Sid himself not decided that he'd made quite enough actually. Under a cloud of various steroid accusations that were prevalent around WWE as a whole back then, he left so abruptly that any follow-up on an enormous WrestleMania VIII main event against the departing Hulk Hogan was left - appropriately - for dead. The subsequent mini-series with Berzerker over-delivered on expectations in terms of how fans connected with Undertaker being in peril though, and with that a pattern was born. The mortician was about to become a monster-slayer.

Biceps shrunk across 1992, but bodies didn't, and massive men were still the preserve of Vince McMahon's plans whenever he could get away with it. This opened the door for Kamala to return to the company for the first time since he'd made towns as a Hulk Hogan house show foe in the late-1980s. Brand new to some fans and memorably dangerous to others, his latest introduction saw him bullied and abused by manager and "handler" Harvey Wippleman and Kimchee and willing to do their dirty work as a result. In this case, said graft was to be a Wembley Stadium showdown with The Undertaker. From a pageantry POV, this topped several of his WrestleMania matches until the company returned to stadiums in the mid-2000s. 'The Deadman' rode to the ring on a hearse, further scaring the life out of a Kamala character that was able to articulate through his body language how he wanted absolutely no part of any of this. Wippleman was unrelenting, pushing forward with his agenda to destroy The Undertaker even if Kamala himself was absolutely terrified about the prospect. Particularly when the first ever pay-per-view coffin match was booked for the first Hogan-less Survivor Series in November. 

The quality floor was below the surface of the earth for the matches, but if the goal was to cement Undertaker as the giant-killing babyface audiences could trust, mission accomplished. Kamala was vanquished, but Wippleman took the loss as a personal affront, pledging to drop a "bomb" in response. He deployed that at the Royal Rumble two months later, unleashing the kayfabe eight-foot Giant Gonzalez to destroy and eliminate The Undertaker from the titular contest and set up another awful-but-endearing rivalry. Within the same period. Wippleman targeted the urn, and used new massive charge Mr Hughes to get that in order to try and weaken a figure who looked increasingly impervious to permanent pain. 

Undertaker vanquished both across 1993, bringing about not just the end of Gonzalez and Hughes but also Wippleman as a manager of consequence in WWE. He'd been usurped rather effortlessly by Jim Cornette and Mr Fuji, not least because they were taking care of WWE Champion Yokozuna - the top monster in a company full of them. The same Yokozuna that needed an opponent to bridge the gap between Survivor Series and WrestleMania. The babyface cornerstone of the company was about to go for gold.

(CONT'D) 

If it's even remembered at all by a generation of fans born long after it occurred, Yokozuna and The Undertaker's Royal Rumble 1994 WWE Title match is remembered more the audacious write-out of 'The Deadman' more than the contest itself. After a casket match that predictably didn't have loads going for it, ten heels joined forces to release the power of the urn, lock Undertaker in the box and - for the first time in the character's career - potentially force him out of the company forever. To illustrate this, the character appeared to float out of the coffin and levitate up to the skies, having delivered his own eulogy from inside the casket.

All very silly, but all to buy the real life Mark Calaway a break to heal up from the company's gruelling schedule and tend to some personal issues at home. In doing so, he'd miss WrestleMania X, but a SummerSlam return was pencilled in, with a literal headline story to go alongside it. Ted Dibiase - by now a mainstay manager assembling a "Corporation" stable with his unending wealth - revealed that he had found The Undertaker, and having brought him to the company to wreak havoc the first time around, he was doing so again. Paul Bearer rebuffed any possibility that Dibiase could be telling the truth, and he was proven correct when the Million Dollar Man revealed his imposter Undertaker en route to a showdown between real and fake on pay-per-view. Once again, WWE leaned in on theatrics, but it was clear from early on who the faker was, at least building anticipation for the return of the real deal. Per reports, the original finish was due to see the two run into one another to create one final form Undertaker, but that was thankfully dropped in favour of a brutally turgid match ending with a tombstone.

The match was over, but the long, long series with Ted Dibiase had only just begun. Taking on Wippleman's desire to see off The Undertaker having watched his prior plan go up in smoke, Dibiase sent charge after charge to their doom, pay-per-view after pay-per-view after pay-per-view. Undertaker got his revenge against Yokozuna at the 1994 Survivor Series, but the match was blighted by interference from IRS. Death and taxes collided at The Royal Rumble, where the former couldn't extract full revenge because of a run-in by King Kong Bundy. That served as a WrestleMania XI set-up which existed to facilitate new Corporation hire Kama stealing the urn from Paul Bearer. Undertaker fought - or was screwed over by - Kama across the summer months, leading to a payoff at SummerSlam where once and for all he concluded his business with Dibiase's crew, a full year on from when it first started. Its tendrils remained too, with urn-theft being part of Undertaker's follow-on rivalry with King Mabel until he wrapped that up in December and, for the first time since his late-1993 charge at Yokozuna, forced himself back into the WWE Title picture.

At long last, he was through with monster-of-the-week stories against managers who never really explained why they were so obsessed with him in the first place. He wasn't quite ready to ascend back to the top of the company, but he was about to pair off with the opponent that finally broke that cycle. He was about to wage war with an unlikely name that went on to change his career forever. He was about to Have A Nice Day.

(CONT'D)

When TAFKA Cactus Jack arrived in WWE on the Raw after WrestleMania to bring his new monstrous Mankind persona to life, longstanding fans would have been forgiven for assuming that this would put The Undertaker back on the treadmill. He was a scary seemingly-not-of-this-world creature that mirrored the style of the beasts 'The Man From The Dark Side' had been tasked with slaying for years. But something was different in the tone of the character, and man-behind-the-mask Mick Foley was committed to making himself the most effective Undertaker opponent ever.

The results were immediate, and literally so.

Having unleashed his terrifying Mandible Claw on Undertaker during their first exchange, Mankind had a far deadlier weapon that Wippleman or Dibiase could ever wield. He rattled Paul Bearer enough that he inadvertently clonked Undertaker on the head with the urn to give Mankind the win in their first ever pay-per-view singles match at King Of The Ring two months later. Or was it inadvertent? Mankind was so terrifying that, after this victory and numerous other attacks that inflicted more damage on 'The Deadman' that had ever been seen before, Bearer joined forces with him following a scary and violent Boiler Room Brawl at SummerSlam. Four years after Kamala ran a mile out of Wembley Stadium in terror, three after Giant Gonzalez fell for the final time, two after an "Underfaker" was vanquished and one after the Million Dollar Corporation were finally disposed of, Undertaker's dominance over forces of evil was questioned to such an extent that even his loyalest supporter turned to the real dark side. It was previously unthinkable, but Mankind had completely changed the rules about what we were to consider about the character, from his fallibility to his mindset and the motivation, and now even what passed for his friendships.

'Taker got a measure of revenge in their 'Buried Alive' battle a month later, but found himself under the dirt by the end of the pay-per-view. A purple glove powered through the soil (!) after a lightning bolt (!!) hit the grave (!!!), but it was in service of something much bigger. Undertaker went through the most substantial physical transformation of his career to date, dropping his former threads entirely for a modernised take on the gimmick, and in doing so was able to overcome the brutality and betrayal of Mankind and Bearer respectively. He went on to win only his second WWE Championship at WrestleMania 13, toasting how he now only needed his "creatures of the night" in the crowd to thrive. The shadow of Bearer and Mankind loomed for a post-Mania title rematch, though, with the feud literally reheated when 'The Deranged One' through a fireball at Undertaker's face. At the appropriately-named In Your House: Revenge Of The Taker, the Champion defeated the Challenger and took revenge for the fiery assault by burning Bearer's face. This pushed 'The Fat Man' over the edge, resulting in the reveal of Kane's existence and backstory, the news that he was still alive, and that he was coming for The Undertaker's soul. Via side quests with The Executioner and Vader, WWE had slipped slightly back into old habits by giving Bearer heel foil for his own Undertaker gauntlet run, but Kane was confirmation that it had been for a greater good.

Kane's debut - one of WWE's greatest ever - at the climax of Undertaker's absolutely mesmerising Hell In A Cell bout with Shawn Michaels at In Your House: Badd Blood was pure WrestleMania fuel, and furnished WWE with an Undertaker rivalry as hot as the company was getting. As the organisation roared back into form, new/lapsed fans loved Kane as a super-charged, evil version of the character they couldn't believe was still around, and both men went into 1998 with an ungodly amount of commercial and critical momentum. The Bearer run had been nothing like Wippleman and Dibiase's after all - it had built to a terrifying final boss in the form of the tortured sibling, and their ups and downs together came to define the Attitude Era almost as much as the exploits of Steve Austin, The Rock et al.

There was no way back for The Undertaker now. WWE had gotten as close to reality and America's zeitgeist as it had been in a decade, and his place in all of that was assured via brotherly combat more than the magic of the urn, or monsters-of-the-week coming for his head. When Vince Russo's brand of insanity consumed the company, the devil consumed The Deadman, and when injuries gave his persona a much needed break, it was reborn as the realest version yet. 'The American Bad Ass' was a necessary excursion for Mark Calaway, even if it scans as quaint or cheesy now. As every other character "was themselves with the volume turned up", so too now was Mark Undertaker riding his beautiful Titan bike and beatin' everybody's ass like a good locker room leader. It ran its course too, but bridged a gap and gave 'The Deadman' a breather before the time was right to revive it for post-boom period hardcore base. WWE had spent years bashing or completely avoiding nostalgia of any kind, but by WrestleMania XX - the site of Undertaker's return to familiar narrative footing - the very theme was "Where It All Begins Again". This was the new age of DVD boxsets, a monopolised and monetised gathering of wrestling's past, and the perfect point to make something old something new again. Best of all was the idea that this simply couldn't be like it was in the mid-90s doldrums. 2004 wasn't 2000 hot, but it was 1995 cold either, and whilst John Cena and Batista weren't quite ready for their Austin and Rock runs, they weren't about to tank the numbers like the lowest days for Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and Diesel either. These times, we were told, were more straightforward, and certainly not that ugly bottom-of-the-barrel New Generation the company were at pains to tell you wasn't worth revisiting. 

There's a terrific gag in an early episode of The Simpsons where hack journalist Kent Brockman gleefully cues up an interview with champion boxer Dredrick Tatum simply because the pugilist name-checks Springfield. He throws to the chat where Tatum exclaims; "That town is a dump! If I ever wind up back in Springfield, you know that I f*cked up really bad". Context ignored for the cheapest of cheap pops that programme-makers patronisingly believe will entertain locals just for recognition's sake. By 2004, with nothing popping off half as much as they'd like, WWE was about to wind up back in the past with The Undertaker. And everybody would come to see by the end that they had indeed, "f*cked up really bad".

(CONT'D) 

Undertaker's aforementioned 2004 return started on familiar footing when he toppled Kane for the umpteenth time, but his SmackDown television rivalries with Booker T, The Dudley Boyz, JBL and Heidenreich were indicative of the increasingly desperate creative malaise and worryingly shallow talent pool. Older heads could remember when this had been the case before, so when pretty much all of that was wiped off the board around WrestleMania season in 2005, the sense of panic settled. 'The Grandest Stage' went Hollywood for its 21st edition, and WWE promoted Undertaker's unbeaten record at the 'Show Of Shows' with cinematic gumption, setting the conscience of the company up as a legend for Randy Orton - by then in free fall as a babyface and in dire need of this reboot - to "kill". On the night, the duo had a tight and tidy match that was comfortably the best of Undertaker's last 12 months, creating a sense that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't stuck in a brand new vortex after all.

It was a false dawn.

Undertaker and Orton's match was very good, but it didn't grab the headlines for being the best of the night. That fell to a man that had recently coined himself "Mr WrestleMania" for how often he was able to be the 'Showstopper' on WWE's grandest stage. Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle had an absolutely incredible outing, making good on sky-high in-ring expectations and capturing lightning in a bottle for the merits of the much-maligned brand extension. In their own way, they needed this too - Michaels hadn't exactly pulled up trees in his never-ending feud with Triple H nor follow-on series' with Kane and Edge, whilst Angle was as lost in the SmackDown mire as The Undertaker had been. WrestleMania 21 is an excellent show and is still remembered for elevating both John Cena, Batista and Edge, with their stereo title/Money In The Bank wins reflecting WWE's overdue commitment to the future rather than relying on its past. Elsewhere though, nostalgia and/or relative randomness ruled the day. Orton Vs Undertaker and Michaels Vs Angle were Raw Vs SmackDown matches and first-time main stage attractions, not payoffs to stories that had captivated fans week to week simmering on the shows since Survivor Series. Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero failed to live up to expectations set by a match they'd had nearly a decade earlier. Roddy Piper and Stone Cold Steve Austin had an interminable Piper's Pit verbal joust that culminated in lone featured full-timer Carlito eating a Stone Cold Stunner. The Big Show was a busted flush by 2005, but his dignity-sapping sumo match with Akebono foreshadowed the type of stunt-casting typical of an early Saudi Arabia supershow from when the company first made a deal with the Kingdom in 2018. WrestleMania's marketing campaign had worked a treat, paying customers were at very least invested in happenings at the top of the card, and the show earned the strong number it drew. But in an effort to provide the all-encompassing everything-to-everyone event, WWE flew too close to nostalgia's ever-appealing rays. Never was this more apparent than when newly-minted Hall-Of-Famer Hulk Hogan made light work of Muhammad Hassan and Daivari. 

The segment played out as many others do when during WrestleMania breather slots. A lower-status babyface (in this case, Eugene) is out there with the crowd ostensibly just to have a good time, they get interrupted and likely attacked by a middle-of-the-pack heel (in this case, Hassan) only to be saved by the higher-status babyface (Hogan), to create the capital-M moment and wedge somebody popular on the show. And so it went. Hassan and Daivari were cruel to Eugene, took their licks from 'The Hulkster' and most assumed that was that for all involved. But, uncharacteristically for the era, WWE were hiding something much longer term in plain sight. Hogan entered the heels' orbit so that, post-WrestleMania, when they turned their attention to Shawn Michaels, he could be the saviour partner for 'HBK'. This in turn kicked off their slow-burner of a story for a massive SummerSlam main event. Big names, big matches, big stories, but what of the heels that were the glue in all of this? Having been so quietly influential in getting this one-off dream match off the ground for the 'Biggest Party Of The Summer', were they rewarded with a similar platform?

Not quite. Or more accurately, not at all. More accurately still, they were gone from television completely and forever, written off as an act entirely less than six months after being introduced. What the hell happened, and what the hell would it all eventually have to do with The Undertaker?

(CONT'D)

Much is made of exactly how far Marc "Muhammad Hassan" Copani could have gone if given the run that was reportedly on the table for him and manager/tag team partner Shawn "Khosrow" Daivari in 2005. From his December 2004 debut onwards, there were multiple reports that suggested he was expected to be in the main event picture by SummerSlam, and with spots wide open on both brands with new champions John Cena and Dave Batista requiring equally new challengers, it certainly wasn't out of the realms of possibility that Hassan could have been perfect foil for 'Big Dave'. On paper, the gimmick stood the chance to be a fascinating character study with the sort of nuance and interest badly, badly lacking from the increasingly grotty mid-2000s WWE product. Bravery, and a massive step forward for the wrestling industry in how to portray Arab-American personas in the devastating aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks half a decade earlier. 

"Fascinating". "Nuance".  "Bravery". Not words often attached to WWE, and particularly not in this era. September 11th though? Now that's something they could exploit. 

Hassan's first promos were knowingly heel-leaning and smug, but the key was his delivery. To see them written down was to see somebody speaking up for himself and others like him that felt oppressed in testing political times. With rippling muscles threatening to burst out of his skin, Hassan politely introduced himself, explained how he was born and raised there, and asked not to be confused with the acts of terrorism on America and around the world. "You people" was a giveaway that Hassan was trying to create his own wedge, even if he was theoretically asking audiences not to revert to their in-built prejudices. Daivari very literally said the quiet part loud, translating Hassan's words for Arab viewers as WWE allowed in the swell of boos from the crowd watching on the TitanTron. But why were they booing? Simply because somebody wasn't speaking American? It asked interesting questions and prayed on a jingoistic streak running through the audience, as did two more segments where the pair delivered the same message from leafy suburban street and Hassan's uncle's convenience store. Daivari's performance was the more pro wrestling of the two, with him getting increasingly worked up during the translation section to such an extent that he'd run out of breath before insincerely smiling through a wrap-up. The act permitted audiences to recognise the men as heels, but the words had yet to cut deep. Hassan spoke with anger about the countries prejudices and a "dirty, yellow underbelly" of hatred, but again; if you felt targeted by this, did this mean you held those prejudices?

Hassan's last expensively-produced vignette was from the evocative setting of an airport, where he spoke about security unjustifiably harassing, humiliating and strip-searching him during security checks simply because of his Arab-American descent. He worked himself into something resembling rote by the end, shouting that if people "don't give us the respect that we demand...I will beat it out of anyone who gets in my way". It reduced the complexity of the gimmick by orders of magnitude, as did his first major in-person appearances after the videos. 

On December 13th 2004, Mick Foley dropped in to Monday Night Raw plug his latest book and speak fondly of his time visiting armed forces for one of the company's newly-annual Tribute To The Troops special. He made his stances on war and politics as clear as ever (even name-checking John Kerry as his Presidential choice, to boos from the Alabama locals) but called it "one of the great privileges of his life" to visit the troops alongside WWE before being interrupted by the theme of Muhammad Hassan and Khosrow Daivari. Daivari introduced Hassan in Arabic to boos, and Hassan talked about how he refused to "blindly support the troops" after the events of 9/11. He questioned Foley's version of patriotism, only for Foley to note that though he disagreed, they could only have their frank exchange of views because of the USA's freedom of speech. Hassan doubled down, calling the troops "gutless cowards" and "heartless infidels",  resulting in Mick losing his patience and challenging the newcomer to a fight. Until he backed out, positioning him as a coward as well as a bigmouth, rather than somebody with a legitimate axe to grind.

It got worse for Hassan behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera as the weeks progressed. He was positioned against Sgt. Slaughter just to make the direction of travel explicitly clear, but in the aftermath, he was in bother for not selling enough for the Hall-Of-Famer. It had only lasted three minutes and he was obviously booked to win, but the locker room was what the locker room was, and they'd been worked into a shoot about the bombastic attitude of the newcomer just enough to think he was flexing his ego as well as his muscles. Other than registering a three in the match, he couldn't win' - programmed to dominate an old-timer then castigated for being dominant. Hassan apologised in an effort to keep the peace, keep his spot, and keep his head above water, but heat was rising faster than he could manage. Segments with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler were reduced to "love it or leave it" gabfests. Steve Austin was once scripted to refer to the pair as "sand people", with even the most generous of critics not able to draw a line between the story being told and the Star Wars reference. Most notably, the Raw and SmackDown rosters parking their brand warfare to gang up on Hassan to throw him out of the Royal Rumble match was as even more pointed reflection of the rotten locker room at the time than Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Bob Holly's mauling of Daniel Puder minutes earlier. 

If December had shown flickers of promise, January was the spiritual demise of the character, but its actual death would be far more protracted and punishing. And ironically, what started with Mick Foley was going end, forever, RIP, with Mick Foley's greatest rival. 

(CONT'D)

In mid-2005, Muhammad Hassan had what most witnesses called a career-shortening interaction with The Undertaker. Then after that absurd Wrestler's Court exchange, he was given a Last Ride through a metal stage at the Great American Bash pay-per-view. 

Taking very bad advice from a very bad-intentioned Kurt Angle "as a rib", Hassan politely asked Eddie Guerrero to stop using the camel clutch in matches on account of it being his finisher. Per all the stories, 'Latino Heat' was very chilled about the request, but it all fed into a wider joke at Marc Copani's expense. He wasn't aware that Eddie's father Gory invented the move. Eddie didn't boot off, but everybody else did. Once again, Wrestler's Court beckoned. His perceived disrespect toward the Guerrero family resulted in Hassan being charged by Judge Deadman or whatever he called himself, and the rest of the losers in the room. He was ordered to cover a bar tab that the wrestlers gleefully took advantage of, with Copani reflecting later that it came out at around $2,000. The gimmick's impending demise increasingly started to look like a blessing rather than a curse, though the departure would forever be attached to the infamy that came just before.

Ahead of the aforementioned bout with The Undertaker that felt like the next logical step in getting Hassan ready for his potential SummerSlam scrap with Dave Batista, the one-time 'American Bad Ass' was set upon a gang of of military-fatigued men in masks on an episode of SmackDown taped on the July 4th edition of SmackDown. After Undertaker had battered Daivari, the men garrotted him with piano wire and carried the manager out as a martyr for the cause. Dated beyond the pale and set to annoy the wrong people before the worst case scenario had occurred, WWE had lost sight of everything in a quest for nothing. It was the cheapest of stunts on the most sacred of days. Easy to see what they were going for, but as it turns out, you shouldn't have been able to see it at all. Real life intervened sharply, when, a day before the show was set to air internationally, the 7/7 bombings occurred in London, killing 56 and injuring hundreds more. The segment still aired in its entirety in various international markets (though not in the UK per Sky Sports and UPN's collective insistence it get pulled) and the furore was such that WWE elected to give up on the gimmick and wrestler entirely at 'The Bash'. It was to be one and done for Undertaker and Hassan, with the aforementioned finisher being so effective that hit wrote him off television forever. It served more as a walk-back for the poor taste of the attack, but wrestling has a funny way of atoning for its sins and this was seen by many as a perfect way to draw a line under things. Until the demands of the 52-week-a-year product dictated otherwise.

After a few months back in developmental, storyline survivor Daivari ("Khosrow" was dropped from the presentation) appeared back on television as the ultimate cheap heat magnet for a Kurt Angle character getting cheered against top babyface John Cena. What would eventually become familiar within WWE was at the time deemed unthinkable, and it was to Daivari's credit that the company believed he'd be the necessary lightning rod to fix the apparent glitch in the system that had occurred for the first time when Cena feuded with Chris Jericho months earlier. 'Big Match John' went on to face this divisiveness for the rest of his full-time career, but one babyface with no such worry was The Undertaker. What he needed was a WrestleMania opponent of reasonable calibre, and when Mark Henry was deemed to not quite fit the bill, he too was given Daivari as a manager to drum up the heat where a 'World's Strongest Man' couldn't. For the second time in less than a year, Daivari was memorably decimated by 'The Deadman', this time eating a Tombstone on top of a wooden casket on the pre-'The Show Of Shows' 2006 reboot of Saturday Night's Main Event.

Henry was a dud of an opponent for Undertaker either side of the battle with Orton and an epic war with Batista one year later. That battle with 'Big Dave' was a turning point for both men, kicking off an all-time rivalry and helping each man find a rich vein of form they'd tap for years to come. 2006 wasn't quite as kind to either, and in The Undertaker's case, ancient history was about to repeat itself.

When Harvey Wippleman wanted to drop a bomb on The Undertaker, he unleashed Giant Gonzalez. When Daivari wanted to do the same, The Great Khali was his weapon of choice. Midway through an Undertaker/Mark Henry rematch on the SmackDown after WrestleMania, Khali was introduced the world, towering above everybody including a deliriously happy Daivari. The Royal Rumble 1993 tapes had been well-studied, with their face-to-face drawing gasps before Khali felled Undertaker with a single chop. Undertaker sat up, but Khali effortlessly ripped the turnbuckle pad off and smashed his face into the steel before taking him down and out with a series of giant punches and kicks. When the two wrestled for the first time at May's Judgment Day, the presentation was even more effective. Taker sold and sold, gaining only a brief measure of revenge when Khali found himself tied in the ropes. Daivari was once again a difference maker, providing enough of a distraction to free the beast and allow him to hit a monstrous big boot before a single chop and kick to the head allowed for a win with a one-foot pin. On commentary, Tazz noted how 15,000 people were in shock, and the only thing he was wrong about was the attendance figure. SmackDown pay-per-views didn't pull up trees and Khali wasn't as big a needle-mover domestically as much as in his homeland, but between Undertaker and Daivari, he'd been given the best possible chance to succeed. 

Ahead of the first ever Punjabi Prison match between the two at The Great American Bash in June, Daivari recruited ECW's Big Show to help him inflict further damage. As commentators questioned of The Undertaker was the same version of himself after the first kicking, his very legacy hung in the balance ahead of whatever this new stipulation looked like. Daivari threw down the gauntlet to confirm Khali as WWE's "phenom" once and for all, leading the giant on a charge through the SmackDown undercard until Undertaker answered the call and accepted the challenge. Meanwhile, Khali and Big Show's reign of terror continued until the pay-per-view itself when, seemingly inexplicably, Khali was taken out of the contest.

On-screen Teddy Long decided to punish Big Show for his sidekick duties by making him enter the bamboo structure with The Undertaker, but in reality, Khali had failed a wellness test and couldn't work. The end result stunk and was weird, but with Show effectively serving as one of Daivari's goons rather than his final boss, what chance did it have? Just how retrograde this all was brought into focus in the immediate aftermath. As with the Million Dollar Corporation and the older monsters of yore, once the suspension of disbelief was gone, so too was the buy-in to anything Undertaker was up to.

Their business was concluded August 18th in a well-received SmackDown Last Man Standing main event. Naturally, Daivari was key to its success. Constantly throwing himself in harm's way, he took some spectacular bumps on the fondly-remembered SmackDown fist stage, going head first into the stage glass and ass-first down the mini-ramp Rey Mysterio had for his entrances. It ended in grisly fashion, with a series of of-the-time chairshots that bloodied up Khali and left Daivari's empire ruined once and for all, and was an appropriate end-of-the-world finale that - in all-but the violence - mirrored how 'The Lord Of Darkness' would vanquish his foes a decade earlier. WWE had repeated history, and though they'd failed to learn any of the lessons from the last time one of their biggest stars had been lumbered with human obstacles, not all was lost. The 2005/6 dalliance with Daivari et al served as an important reminder to WWE had what they actually had with The Undertaker, versus what they could lose. From this point onwards, the unbeaten WrestleMania streak became arguably the biggest draw WWE had for the 'Show Of Shows' on an annual basis, and his feuds in general were - when at all possible - contained to being for big titles or even bigger stakes. 

Far from being the death knell on a glorious run, this strange rivalry was in fact the motivation Mark Calaway needed to rethink and completely reshape the next chapter of his iconic career. 

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