Jim Ross on How Ole Anderson Said The Undertaker Would Never Draw a Dime When He Left WCW

– In an interview with Conrad Thompson for the Grilling JR podcast, Jim Ross spoke about The Undertaker leaving WCW for WWE in 1990. According to Jim Ross, Ole Anderson was not very high on The Undertaker, who had a brief run in WCW from 1989 to 1990 as Mean Mark Callous. While Ross thought Undertaker had a lot of potential, Ole Anderson thought that he would “never draw a dime.” Ultimately, Mark Calaway would go on to have an amazing, illustrious career in WWE and would have the last laugh.

Jim Ross on The Undertaker in WCW and Ole Anderson not liking him: “We had helped facilitate moving some guys from WCW to WWE. Undertaker is a good example. I always thought he had everything. He’s 6’9″, athletic, and tough, durable. Just hadn’t had the right gimmick. And sometimes when you’re like Ole [Anderson] didn’t like him. I don’t know why.”

Jim Ross on discovering The Undertaker: “I saw him on Joe Pedicino’s Ch. 69 wrestling show, wrestling block that used to air in Atlanta. Had like eight hours of territory wrestling, different promotions and so forth. I saw him [Undertaker] on a World Class tape. He might’ve been a masked man, The Punisher, or something like that. I’m not sure. But what he did, what got my attention is he reminded me of Don Jardine. And Don Jardine was wrestling as the Spoiler. But his presence, Jardine was like 6’6″, a real athletic frame — not a bodybuilder, but a real athletic looking, sturdy badass. And so Mark [Calaway] reminded me of him as far as agility and things of that nature. You could see that he had great natural instincts.”

Jim Ross on Ole Anderson letting The Undertaker go from WCW: “So, he ended up going there. Ole said that he’d ‘never draw a dime.’ Never a draw dime. And I think Mark was making 150,000 grand a year there in WCW, and his contract was about up. And I was just trying to help — one of my gigs was to [help with the contracts]. He [Ole] didn’t care about contracts. ‘Calaway’s contract is up.’ [Ole says,] ‘I don’t care. He’s never gonna draw a dime. Let him go.’ ‘Others here, including myself, think he’s gonna be a star.’ ‘Well, there’s others here, namely me, that don’t give a f***.’ Well, thank you. Have a nice day.”

If you’re using quotes from this interview, please credit Grilling JR with an h/t to 411mania.com.