After wrestling for WCCW, USWA and WCW, Mark Callaway made his official WWF debut as The Undertaker at Survivor Series in 1990, and the rest was history. For over three decades The Undertaker has been one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling.  In this article we are going to learn about two huge twin wrestlers,  who were using the undertaker gimmick for over a year, when Mark Callaway made his official WWF debut.

Twins Val and Tony Puccio both weighed around 500lbs. They were trained by Johnny Rodz and shortly after making their wrestling debut in 1989, the twins made their television debut for Mario Savoldi’s ICW.

Sometime in the summer of 1989 the Undertakers made their television debut for ICW, when their manager the Duke drove color commentator Tony Rumble out to see them at A cemetery. That is where The Undertaker’s first appeared with black robes and makeup. Shortly after ICW aired the clip on TV, The Undertakers started wrestling for the company as The Henchmen and The Punisher.

The Undertake’s had only been wrestling for a few months when they joined ICW, but they were  around 500lbs each and had an amazing gimmick. What the Undertakers lacked in experience, they made up for in size and attitude. In their first year in wrestling, The Undertakers beat Joe Savoldi and Vic Steamboat for the ICW tag team titles. 

In 1990 The Undertakers beat  Phil Apollo and Eric Sbraccia in a tournament final to win the ICW tag team titles for a second time. During an earlier match in the tournament The undertakers beat the team of Ebony and Ivory. After the match Ebony and Ivory team member Al Phillips was placed A  body bag. The next year the WWF’s Undertaker also started placing defeated opponents in body bags after matches , one of those opponents was Al Phillips. 

After Mark Callaway debuted as the Undertaker, Val and Tony Puccio purchased the rights to the name, and the twins went to Japan in 1991. While touring Japan The Undertakers lost to The Malenko Brothers and The Blackhearts. The Undertakers didn’t just job to American stars while in Japan, they twice beat Haruka Eigen and Motoshi Okuma, as well as gaining a win against Mitsuo Momota and Rusher Kimura.  

Following a successful tour of Japan, the Puccio twins received a tryout for the WWF as double Trouble. In September of that year the Undertakers won two matches against local wrestlers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  Val and Tony officially signed with the WWF in 1992, after selling the Undertaker name to the company. 

Val and Tony Puccio officially changed their name to Double Trouble and wrestled on many WWF house shows in 1992 and 1993, although they didn’t wrestle on TV. During their time with the WWF Double Trouble lost to The Bushwackers, High Energy, The Natural Disasters and the Steiner’s on house shows. They also were defeated by Animal of The Legion of Doom in handicap matches.  The Undertakers did get a couple of wins on WWF house shows, defeating  old ICW rival Phil Apollo and Scott Taylor, as well as Apollo and Mark Thomas. 

In 1992 the WWF had a working agreement with WAR in Japan. That year Double Trouble went off to Japan with other WWF stars to wrestle on cards for WAR. While touring with War Double Trouble spent most nights losing to Haku and The Barbarian, although on that tour Double Trouble did get a win over Mexican star Guerrero Del Futuro and Japanese star Nobukazu. 

After their WWF contract expired, Double Trouble returned in 1994 for three matches against WWF tag team champions The Headshrinkers. That would be their final matches for the WWF. 

When Double Trouble first stopped wrestling for the WWF full-time in 1993, they joined Tony Rumbles CWA wrestling  as Double Trouble , where they became the companies first tag team champions, when they beat the Interns for the companies vacant titles. The duo would win the titles once more, winning them back from Vic Steamboat and Ray Oddessey.

Val would get one more run in the big time, when he joined ECW in 1995 as Big Val. Val Debuted losing to Mikey Whipwreck, before forming ECW’s first version of The Full Blooded Italians with JT Smith. As a member of of the Full Blooded Italians Val feuded with Hack Myers’s. Val lost three very competitive matches against Hack Myers’s. Big Val gained his first ECW win, when he beat Tony Stentson at Wrestlepooliza 95 by DQ, after Myers’s interfered. This was Big Val’s last match with the company.

Double Trouble reunited in 1997 to beat Ace Darling and Devon Storm, in what was their last recorded match. Val Puccio later appeared on A TLC  reality show, before passing away in 2011 at age 45. Tony is not active on social media.

Val and Tony Puccio  did not have a 30 year career with the WWE. They will not be getting inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame, but those who saw them, will always remember their creativity and imposing look, and the way they terrorized fans in their time in ICW,  before anyone ever thought of calling Mark Callaway the Undertaker. Their fans will also remember them tasting some success in The WWF, ECW and Japan.