JBL Recalls 'Disaster' That Was WWE's First Buried Alive Match

The first Buried Alive match WWE presented took place at In Your House 11 in October 1996 between Mankind and The Undertaker. 'Taker won the match, but Mankind won the war that night as Mick Foley and his crew of cronies ended up burying "The Deadman" to close the show. One of those cronies was a young JBL, then known as Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw, who recalled the match on "Something To Wrestle."

"It was an absolute disaster. They had no idea it would take to fill a grave. This one of the dumbest things WWE did," JBL remarked. "Now, the finish itself was excellent. I believe they had something on a system when 'Taker when in the grave and end up moving him out so obviously he wasn't buried alive. But they thought at the time that it would be great for some heels to come out and get a little bit of a rub but also bury 'Taker as we're going off air before he does the hand-up gimmick through the grave.

Mankind's allies that helped him bury Undertaker were Bradshaw, Dustin "Goldust" Rhodes, Crush, "The Executioner" Terry Gordy, Mankind's manager Paul Bearer, and a company sophomore named Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Despite having several people doing the work, the crew noticeably struggled to completely fill the grave by hand; future Buried Alive matches would have a payloader at the grave to dump the dirt.

"You know how long it takes to fill in a grave? It would've taken us about 7 or 8 hours, no one had any idea," JBL continued. "Finally, Foley is just raking it in with his hands; we haven't put a foot of dirt on top of the grave, nothing. We weren't even close... It was the s—, it was so bad."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Something To Wrestle" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.