The legendary Undertaker recently appeared on the Geordle Podcast to discuss his decision to shift away from his Deadman gimmick and morph into the American Badass. The future Hall of Famer also touches on a conversation he had with Brock Lesnar back in 2004 when the Beast wanted to leave WWE. Highlights from the interview are below.
On the decision to shift away from his Deadman gimmick and morph into the American Badass:
So the American Badass, several things were going on there. One, yeah, I got hurt. I injured my groin and right close to coming back from my groin injury, I tore a pec, so I was out most of that whole year leading into the American Badass. But what was going on was the Attitude Era. You know, you’ve got Stone Cold who’s cutting these incredible promos that people can really identify with, right? I mean it’s like real life with a little bit of gas behind it. You got The Rock cutting these unbelievable promos. All these promos are just — they are so good. I think — I would have survived but I wouldn’t have thrived if I would not have taken a break and took — as good as the character is, you’re kind of boxed in too, with what you can do and what you can’t do. You know, it’s hard for The Undertaker to be in the ring while The Rock is talking about poontang pie, you know what I mean? And that had some type of retort that The Undertaker could give. So, one, it was a period for me to just take a deep breath and do something different for a minute.
On the conversation he had with Brock Lesnar back in 2004 when Lesnar wanted to leave WWE:
I really haven’t told this story very often. He [Brock Lesnar] was thinking about going to play pro football and I was like, ‘Brock,’ I was like, ‘Look, you gotta do what’s right for Brock, you know?’ Everyone’s gonna be pissed that you’re gonna leave. They’ve put all this money and this push behind you but, if you don’t go do this, you’re gonna look back one day with the what ifs,’ right? And I don’t know how much influence it had. He did end up leaving. He tried football, didn’t work. He ends up in the UFC. But I didn’t hold any grudge for — I always in the back of my mind felt like he would be back some day. You know, it’s just usually the way it works out. But I do know you can’t live with what ifs. It’ll eat you up, right? So, you know, I didn’t have a problem. I didn’t have the biggest problem as most people did with it.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)