The Undertaker discusses one of his most famous character incarnations, The American Badass.
The Hall of Famer and former multi-time world champion spoke about this gimmick during a recent interview on the Six Feet Under podcast. Taker was asked whether he thinks he could have stretched the American Badass character out for 30 years similar to how he did for his Deadman character. This was his response:
I don’t think so. I don’t think it has 30 years of legs. It excels pretty fast, but I don’t see 30 years without some kind of…it doesn’t matter what the character is, you have to evolve. With something like the American Badass, there’s not a whole lot of places to evolve to. I’m a big badass biker who gets in fights and talks shit. There’s just not a lot of places to go with that. Where, The Undertaker, the original character, there are all kind of different things you can do with that. I don’t think it has 30-year legs. I took more bumps as American Badass than I did as Undertaker. I actually took more bumps at the end of my career than the beginning. It all worked out the way it was supposed to.
While he may not have stretched out The Badass for 30 years, this was the incarnation that the Undertaker wrestled his final matchup in against AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36.
In a separate interview with Sports Illustrated, Taker spoke about the creative differences he’s had with Vince McMahon but how they eventually grew past that in their relationship. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
