The Undertaker Discusses If Undertaker Character Would Be Successful If It Debuted Today, How Much He Did to Protect The Character

On the latest edition of The Bump, The Undertaker discussed if the Undertaker character would be successful if it debuted today. He said it would be virtually impossible to debut the character today and maintain the mystique of it, noting the lengths he went to for so many years to stay in character all the time. Highlights are below.

On if The Undertaker would be successful if the character debuted today or if it was more of a right place, right time thing: “Definitely right place, right time. It would be virtually impossible in this day and age to maintain the mystique of that character. I lived, especially the original Undertaker, and when I went back to it, I protected that character. There is so much stuff, cameras backstage, normally I’m a pretty fun-loving guy and have a good time, but those cameras backstage would absolutely drive me nuts. I never wanted anybody to see Undertaker not being Undertaker. I didn’t do a lot of outside projects because I didn’t feel like, ‘OK, I can go and do this and then come back and then be Undertaker.’ It just didn’t work for me. So I put all my eggs in that one basket and this is the way it was going to be. I dressed in black everywhere I went. When they would book us on Regis and Kathy Lee and all these shows, Paul did most of the interacting, I sat there and stayed in character. It was just like, this is what I have to do to make this thing work, and I think it did. But to do it this day and age? My goodness. Everybody’s got a cellphone everywhere you go, it would be virtually impossible to do it and be able to maintain the mystique of that character.”

On an example of what happened when he didn’t stay in the Undertaker character all the time: “Couple of years ago when I finally got on social media, I got people saying, ‘Well there goes my childhood, my childhood is dead, the Undertaker is on social media, how can the Undertaker be on social media, he’s dead, how can he do that?'”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit The Bump with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.