#ThankYouTaker

With all the many people The Undertaker has inspired, coached and put over, I'd lay good odds that I'm the only one who can say this: if there had been no Undertaker, a divas' fashion website would never have been born. Odd as it sounds, the chain of chance that sometimes connects the most unlikely of events in our lives made it so. If I had never become a wrestling fan, I would never have become a diva devotee, never have fallen in love with their fashion and never co-founded diva-fierce.com. But because of the Undertaker, I did become a wrestling fan. Strong and somber, sometimes a brilliant comic but never silly, bristling with an aura of power even before he moved, he stood out to me above all the rest. Because of him, I stopped snickering at wrestling and started studying and appreciating it, and finally respecting and loving it. His matches and moments were always the highlight to me, no matter what else happened. I only got in on the twilight hours of his long career, but I still was privileged to see him live - an awe-inspiring experience as anyone else who has been lucky enough will tell you! I didn't want him to go out like this, not with a loss and not with this kind of loss.  But  I caught the last days of Ric Flair's career as well, and I remember not wanting Taker to go out like that either. I never wanted him to hold on a little too long, to where I felt protective of him and worried that he couldn't hold his own. I am grateful that he avoided that fate. I wanted him to go out like Randy Couture did, draining the last dregs of a peerless career, but hearing the closing bell before it had rung its last and walking away with his greatness still fresh. He did that, coming into his own element once again when he was alone in the ring last night, closing the final performance for all of us with his trademark intuitive sense of the character. He left it all there in that ring: hat, gloves, history. He gave everything for this business: his body, his streak, his last strength. Not only did he give everything, he was everything. A living (or at least undead ;)) legend, a walking icon, capable of telling great stories with creativity and athleticism time after time on a rope-enclosed stage. And who will ever dare to match the bar he has set?
I wish him the very best of every moment in every day of his well-deserved retirement. But still, there is a dull ache that catches me when I remember for the thousandth time since yesterday that no more will an arena go dark to the sound of a gong. No more will the notes of a funeral dirge signal that an opponent need no longer ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolled for them. And now it tolls for us, signifying that memories and recordings alone will now keep alive the mystique, the magic that was The Undertaker in the ring. I'm sure he'll go on to impact this business in important ways behind the scenes. Someone who has given as much as he has doesn't just shake wrestling out of their blood one night and move on. But I'll miss him. I'll miss the lightning and the Last Rides, the eternal entrances and those piercing green eyes. Some time in the future, someone else will take up the Tombstone and make it their finisher. But there will never be another Taker. Not in the ring, not behind the scenes, not anywhere. How is it possible to say "thank you" enough to a man who gave everything he had? Words are too small sometimes to hold everything that needs to be stuffed into them, but they have to serve. THANK YOU, Taker. For the pain. For the thrills. For the shock. For the hurrahs. For trying not to break character when you wanted to laugh at a fangirl's funny sign ;). For Every. Single. Moment. Thank you.