The Undertaker looks back on his huge victory over John Cena at WrestleMania 34.
The Phenom spoke about his showdown with the Cenation leader during an interview with Chris Van Vilet, where he revealed that he initially prepared for a 45-minute matchup, but was told on the day of the show by Vince McMahon that the bout would only last a few minutes. Taker adds that Cena was also into the match being short, as it played well into the story they were telling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says he didn’t find out the match was going to be short until the day of:
Yeah, I didn’t know it was gonna be short till I got there that day. So, I’ve trained for a 45-minute war, right, and all right, here’s redemption. I’m gonna, man, I am going to light this place on fire, I felt good. And Vince calls me into his office and he goes okay, he says it’s just gonna be about five minutes, you know, you’re gonna squash him. I’m like, what? What? And, you know, Vince, he just thought that was the funniest [thing], because he knew how hard I’d been training. I mean, he, and I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, I’m going. I said, I’m doing 30 or I’m not going out. And he’s like, Mark, that’s not what we need.
Says Cena agreed that the match should be short:
And I’m like no Vince, I was like, Where’s John? Where’s he at? So John comes in he goes, Oh no. He goes I talked mad smack about you dude. Yeah, you need to beat me quick and get this over with. I’m like are you kidding me? It’s like we’ve never worked on pay-per-view are you [serious]? And this is WrestleMania, give me a break here. And they both, they ganged up on me. I was finally, I threw my hands up. I was like, I can’t believe [it], and Vince just thought that was the funniest thing because like I said, I trained like an animal, I was so unbearable at home. I mean, as far as my diet and the training and just all my protocols of you know recoup, rehab, I was a nightmare. I get there and yeah, five minutes. And it was like that was it.
In a separate part of the interview, Taker spoke about how much kayfabe has changed for this generation of wrestlers. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)