Original subtitles

Undertaker, take one, common mark, silence state.

What does it mean to be the Undertaker?

What does it mean to be the Undertaker?

It means that...

You hit me right out of the get -go with something. What the hell?

There he is!

The Prince of Darkness!

People have all these...

Preconceived ideas, who you are, what you are.

Your life is surrounded by mystery.

The darkness

that looms over the character evokes imagination, fantasy.

I've got two heads that pave my way. What's going to happen here?

I've got two heads that pave my way. This is hell on earth. I've got two

heads that pave my way. And one more fool that's on his way. I've got two

that pave my way.

Just one of those characters that people were really drawn to because it was

just so different.

1986, when all this gets started for me and you're just trying to get booked

somewhere and trying to make enough noise to grab some promoter's attention.

And I would have never imagined taking a car service to an arena where you're

about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Here we are.

Hey, buddy.

Man, what a day.

I've been waiting for this for quite a while. Oh, my goodness. God bless you.

All right, buddy. How you doing, man? I'm good, brother. You look sharp.

Thanks. It's half the battle, right? Yeah. All right.

Love you.

Love you.

You had to call me.

It means a lot.

For 30 -plus years, you know, all they got was The Undertaker.

They didn't get what they're going to get tonight.

They get Mark Calloway tonight.

I knew that was going to be hard for him.

You know, that's a scary thing. Like, who am I as Mark Calloway the person, or

where do I go from here?

Wrestling's all he's... Done and all he's known for 30 plus years.

This man is the most revered superstar in WWE history.

The greatest quality our inductee brings to the Hall of Fame is love.

you cannot accomplish what he has in 30 years for any other reason other than

the love for his business.

I spent quite a lot of time on these basketball courts right here.

The neighborhood, I mean, it really, it doesn't, it doesn't hardly resemble what

it did when I was still living here.

So we moved in here in what?

69?

1969.

Wow.

That's amazing.

If these walls could talk, right?

It'd be interesting.

Yeah, to say the least.

I had a pretty normal childhood.

People ask me all the time what led me down this dark path of digging holes and

taking souls. There wasn't anything.

My parents taught to the Earth people.

My mom was a stay -at -home mom, raised five boys, bless her heart.

Here's a shot of all the boys.

Brother David's the oldest, Mike, Paul, and Tim.

Tim, we lost Tim the day before my last WrestleMania match.

So what was I like as a kid?

You were very good.

That's why y 'all had five, right? It took you five times to get it right?

Yeah. Yeah. Then I quit.

Then you quit once you got it right.

My dad, hard worker, I think he instilled that work ethic in me.

During the day, he would do plumbing jobs, roofing jobs, whatever, to put

on the table for us.

And then he would work all night in the press room of the Houston Post

newspaper.

From an early age, it was...

Always about respect and hard work and your name and your word. And

those things were instilled in me at a really early age.

Growing up in Houston, I was a fan of wrestling early on.

You remember taking me and Wayne to Sam Houston Coliseum to watch wrestling?

Big mistake.

Big mistake?

Well, how's that?

Well, like what you ended up doing.

Well, it was a somewhat honest living, I guess.

We didn't have a lot of money, but every now and then, my parents would scrape

up some money to take us to the Sam Houston Coliseum and watch it live.

The original chic was coming into town.

Man, he was the nastiest of nasty bad guys.

We built ourselves up all week long, what we were going to do and what we

going to say to him when he came by us. And here he comes and we're yelling at

him. And man, he just made a quick dart towards us and we about took out a whole

row of people trying to run away from him.

I mean, I was just mesmerized by it all at a really early age.

Kind of got away from it as I got older and started playing team sports.

Remind me how to play knockout now.

I watch y 'all play. I think we called it 21.

Hey, I've been a win here.

Knockout.

Knockout. Knockout.

Knockout.

What is it?

Two six.

You only have two?

Kid me.

Oh, no.

I'd never played basketball. I think I was 13.

And a kid I went to school with needed somebody else to fill out their YMCA

roster. And I guess that was me. I was tall.

So I figured, hey, let's get Mark to play. And kind of fell in love with the

game.

He was in rail.

We were constantly eating. I mean, Mark could never gain weight.

So I think this right here used to be the pizza hut. So we would play in the

morning, and then we'd go hit that buffet.

Finally, they told us to stop coming.

I would just put a huge dent in their buffet.

During the summer of my junior year, that's when I kind of started lifting

weight.

I was 6 '8 and 215 pounds from within.

In that time period, that was a big high school basketball player.

Started getting a lot of interest at that point to go play college.

Lon Kruger, he was at Pan American University and recruited me really,

really heavily.

I don't know, it was a couple of days before signing, and Coach Kruger called

and said,

He goes, Mark, he goes, I need to win right out of the gate.

He says, I'm going to go with a couple of junior college players.

And I'm like, okay.

That's where I went to the University of St. Thomas. That was in Houston.

After one year of athletics, the school went bankrupt.

And that's where I ended up at Texas Wesleyan University.

Mark was kind of passive.

He listened to a lot of soft rock, a lot of easy rock bands like Huey Lewis and

the News and things like that. He kind of kept to himself.

In the basketball realm, his style of play was a bruiser.

He liked to push, he liked to shove.

My destiny was already predetermined. I was a very physical player.

There was a lot of times I'd have more points scored than minutes played

of foul trouble.

He was big into lifting weights.

He started to fill out.

So it was 230, 235, you know, and just solid muscle.

There was this gym that I was going to. There was a guy there. He was like, I'm

going to go to this wrestling camp, and I'm going to be a professional wrestler.

That's cool. He goes, man, you should do this with me. And I was like, well, I

think I'm going to go try to play some pro ball overseas.

Every day I'd come in, we'd have the same conversation. The more I thought

it, it was like, well, you know, maybe, you know, this would be kind of cool.

From St. Petersburg, Florida, Buzz Sawyer, the Mad Dog.

Buzz Sawyer was training guys to wrestle.

Look at the Mad Dog.

Back with his own kind, he feels so at home.

He says, okay, $2 ,500, I'm going to teach you to wrestle, and then I'll get

a booking.

And we're like, okay, that sounds great.

Buzz saw he could be a good guy and he could be a bad guy.

You know, he tried to take people's money. I said, you can't do that, Buzz.

said, you know, that'll come back and hunt you.

So it was the first day of training, and we're going to meet, you know, at Buzz

Sawyer's house.

I don't know, close to 15 guys probably standing around this driveway. And, you

know, we're all kind of asking the question, like, well, where's the

ring? We didn't have no ring, you know. We were just always in the backyard or

in the front yard.

Just, like, grass and dirt.

He had 15 rock waters out there, you know, in the backyard.

Man, for like the next two hours, we do nothing but conditioning.

We had to run around the block, and they all tied and stuff.

And I said, no, we ain't through yet. Just throwing up everywhere, you know.

Everybody's thinking that we're about to get in our cars and, you know, and go

home, and out comes Buzz.

He's like, you know, get out of the down position like an amateur wrestler.

He came up there and started stretching them out.

Twisting them all sideways and everything, you know.

Basically, you know, it was the way it was done back then. Guys would take your

money and then they try and run you off so that you don't come back.

And that was exactly what he was trying to do.

The only thing was, I was too stupid to know that I was supposed to not come

back. I kept coming back until not only was there no one else there but me, but

Buzz was gone as well.

This is the...

when I finally paid my last $1 ,000 to Buzz Sawyer.

It says, I acknowledge receipt of payment of $1 ,000 from Mark Talloway.

Boy, that was a heck of a lesson that I learned there.

I was left $2 ,000 in the hole and not knowing what the heck I was going to do.

Basketball is becoming less and less important.

Do I want to be the 12th guy on the bench in somewhere like Lithuania or

something?

And now I'm watching wrestling and I'm studying wrestling. The more I thought

about it, it was like, well, you know, maybe, you know, this would be kind of

cool. And like I said, I was a fan as a kid.

I'm going to be a professional wrestler.

Things were rough, but I knew that this is what I wanted to do.

Neither my mother nor my father were very excited about me leaving college to

pursue this career in professional wrestling.

I was going to be the first one to get a degree in the family, and I was right

on the cusp of it.

I don't think y 'all approved too much of that decision initially.

No, you told me that. I said, you're wrong, you're wrong.

Don't call me for money. You're on your own.

Yeah.

I didn't have any kind of legacy. I didn't really know anybody.

So I was kind of left to my own creativity on trying to figure out how I

going to get someone's attention.

So at the sportatorium in Dallas, that's where a lot of the wrestlers would come

in. They would take their checks up.

So every Wednesday for nearly eight months, I would go up there.

And I said, well, if someone doesn't speak to me or acknowledge me in some

positive sense, I said, I'm going to have to stop coming because I couldn't

afford the gas to drive out there. And lo and behold, who walks in the office

Fritz von Erich.

One of the great all -time names in wrestling, the famous father of the Von

Erichs, Prince Von Erich. Great to see you, Prince.

It's great to be here, Bill. I just hope that these folks appreciate the new

world -class championship wrestling they're about to see.

And he's kind of standing right in front of me, and he's just looking at me.

He goes, who's that kid out there?

Next thing I heard was probably what changed everything for me. He goes...

Let's book him Friday night.

He looks like David.

The state flag of Texas indicates who David Von Erich is for. David being one

his sons that he had just lost in Japan that I happen to resemble.

And that's what it took.

Next thing you know, that Friday, I'm working in the sportatorium on their TV

show under the mask, under the moniker of Texas Red.

at 315 pounds from the Lone Star State, Percy Pringle presents Texas Red.

Brody with that big elbow to take young Texas Red down.

A talented young man who probably wonders how he got this match with the

experienced superstar, Bruiser Brody.

I think I got five or six, seven bookings.

I'm green. I don't know anything about the wrestling business, really, inside

outside of the ring.

And that's where I met a South African kid. His name was Steve Simpson.

Here's Steve Simpson, crisscross, cross again.

Oh, what a high crossbody right there. He saw me work and invited me to go to

South Africa for four months.

So we got some promo pictures.

All his pictures were in a graveyard.

I thought to myself, wow, that's odd. You know what I'm saying?

Anytime the foreigners came in, the Americans or whoever, the English came

they were always going to be the bad guys.

So they give me this chain.

And, you know, they said, just take this chain with you.

So my first night out, I'm working against Tiger Singh.

Tiger Singh had a massive following.

Very successful wrestler.

And they loved him. I hit him with the chain.

I bust him open.

He goes flat, right, in the crowd.

The fans, they just completely circle the ring.

I'm getting hit with bottles, rocks, chairs. You name it, I'm getting hit

it.

They were still trying to riot.

But I made it out.

It was the wild, wild west.

And I'm, what, 22 years old.

Yeah, just getting subjected to rocks, bottles, chairs every week.

I grew up a lot in South Africa, that's for sure.

You were basically being paid to learn the business, but it was by no means a

fortune, no.

I got this break at Texas Red, and then I got to go to South Africa.

You know, I'm right back in the same situation. I don't have any place to

I don't have anything lined up.

But all of those things made me a stronger, tougher person.

I've been in the Atlanta State Penitentiary.

I'm not ashamed to know it. By the time I got to Memphis, I was pretty faulty.

I'm learning now. I'm learning what the world of professional wrestling is and

what I have to do to protect myself.

And also to continue to grow as a talent.

Calls himself Master of Pain.

That's right.

Master of Pain.

Because where I've been the last five years, you have to know how to handle

pain.

At this point, I've gone to South Africa. I've come back and couldn't get

again.

There are some nights I sleep in my car, starve to death.

I get the call to Memphis to work with Jerry Lawler. Jerry Lawler, whatever you

call yourself.

If you get out alive, you'll be thankful.

And Jerry Lawler loved working with big guys and beating big guys.

He tagged Master of Fame. Look out for this guy. My goodness.

He's huge and he's mean. You're always looking for something that is eye

-catching. And Mark's physique, his size, his height. I mean, you couldn't

ignore this guy.

With one arm, baby. One arm.

I get a new name. I'm the Master of Pain.

I'm straight out of Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. All right, either one of

jerks, let's go.

I mean, he was green.

But the great thing about it was he knew he was, and he was really eager and

anxious to try to learn.

Master of Pain climbs in there against the king.

Jerry Lawler, this is a world unified title match.

The belt is on the line.

The next thing you know, I'm beating Jerry Lawler, and now I'm the Mid -South

World Heavyweight Champion.

Lawler is out.

Three.

My goodness, he has just won the unified world belt.

Just the sense of being in the ring with certain guys. Yeah, I knew immediately

that he had a big future ahead of him.

At the time in WCW, Dan Spivey and Sid Vicious were the skyscrapers.

And Sid broke a rib, punctured a lung.

There's not a lot of guys in the country that are 6 '8", 6 '9", that aren't

just, you know, just massive.

of people, right?

Jim Cornette had seen me, and he had let them know there's a kid down in

Tennessee that could probably take over for Sid. That's how I got that break.

I fit the description of what a skyscraper was.

Get out of here!

That was my first big company.

Get a good shot!

It's over!

He was green, but...

You know, he knew all the fundamentals. I could tell he was a good athlete.

The

skyscrapers

are working against the road warriors.

WCW was in turmoil the whole time.

It was terrible. It was absolutely terrible.

You know, they make all these promises. And, you know, he got two great big guys

that were athletic and could move and do the things that we could do.

And, you know, they never did anything with us.

So Danny comes to me.

And he goes, look, he goes, just tonight, just follow my lead.

What's that mean? He says, just follow me.

Just do, you know, just stay behind me.

Okay. You know, I just got tired of all the bullshit with WCW.

For some reason, that just ticked me off that night.

Just going crazy. I mean, I just kind of lost it. And nobody, you know, nobody

beat down the Road Warriors.

Danny beat down the road warriors.

The

chair was

all bent up and stuff.

And I could look at Mark and he was just like, wow.

That was the last night I worked with Mark.

I went back to Japan.

You know, I was so mad at the WCW for not doing anything with us.

They handled it terribly.

Mark was good. I mean, they didn't do anything with him after I left.

Again, I'm getting hit with these shots that are just major setbacks for me

trying to progress in the business.

I thought Mark's pairing with Dan Spivey was terribly miscast.

I found Mark Calloway behind the scenes was more fascinating than WCW's

presentation of being Mark.

Mark was a natural leader.

Was a man's man, great athlete.

Anyone, I don't care if you're four foot nine that can walk the top rope the way

that he did and drop an elbow, let alone someone his size.

I needed to showcase this.

I've been with WCW now about eight or nine months, I guess.

And it was time to start renegotiating my contract. I was happy there.

I like being in WCW. So I get called in, and Ole Anderson was there, who was

booking the territory at the time.

They basically offered me the exact same deal that I had just worked on.

And I was like, well, I was like, okay.

I was like, I was, you know, I was hoping for just a little bit of a bump.

know, Ole looks right at me, and he goes, Mark, you're a great athlete.

But no one's ever going to pay money to watch you wrestle.

Wow. Okay.

I was really taken aback. How do you react to that? This is the passion of my

life, and then here's somebody of Ole Anderson's stature, someone that you've

looked up to, basically telling you that you ain't got it.

And Oli told me that that big redheaded stepchild will never draw any money.

And that was it.

Mark had to get out of there.

WCW fumbled their opportunity with Mark from the first day they had him.

That was a definite shot in the gut.

But it ended up fueling me that much more because then I had a chip on my

shoulder. It took my...

determination to even a higher level because i knew within me that i had

something to offer and they were the ones making the mistake for those of you

who don't know by now the rumors are true the bad seed of the big apple polly

dangerously is now managing the roughest toughest meanest leanest rudest crudest

man in the nwa mean mark

Press slam down.

How do you like that, huh?

Down goes Meade Mark.

That's 300 pounds.

I was doing things that guys my size, they didn't do in the ring.

I'm a big guy, but I've got the agility and I'm athletic and I can do a lot of

things that guys my size can't do when you're thinking you're going to get a

raise.

And then you get hit with... No one's ever going to pay money to watch you

wrestle.

That was a definite shot in the gut.

There wasn't much to say after that.

I think that they kind of looked at me and Mark Callis as very one -dimensional

and I dare say boring.

I was a big guy, skyscrapers. They weren't doing an awful lot with him, nor

they allow either guy to show much of their personality.

At that time, Paul Heyman was my manager.

And he had been in contact with Bruce Pritchard.

And they were trying to get me a meeting with Ben.

Well, I was under contract at WCW.

And I betrayed that contract.

I breached it. I violated it.

Mark wanted out.

And I had a conversation with Bruce Pritchard.

Paul said, hey.

Mark's contract is coming up. Are you guys interested?

And I was very interested, and I wanted to talk to him. And we covertly arranged

a meeting between Mark and Vince McMahon.

We had had a meeting scheduled, and it was the day after WCW

had a pay -per -view event that me and Mark had wrestled Lex Luger in that

match.

Bruce Prichard thought he had talent.

Vince McMahon?

watched the tape, and didn't think he had any talent at all.

We got a phone call from Vince saying, he's just another tall, red -headed

basketball player to me.

I don't see anything in him. Cancel the meeting.

I didn't know Mark from Adam, but there was something about him that was unique,

and there was something about him that thought, you know, we could do something

with this guy.

Finally, Vince took a meeting with him.

We had worked in Meadowland the night before, so Paul Heyman wanted us to go

in the city the night before my big meeting.

I was like, sure, Paul.

Well, there's no sense in having a meeting with Vince McMahon if you can't

unwind in advance and let loose a little bit before your big meeting that would

affect the rest of your entire life and generations to come.

So my dumb self wears the clothes.

that I'm going to the meeting with, right? We're going to the China Club. I

to look nice.

I had a sports car that sat very low to the ground.

So when the 6 '6", 6 '7", however tall Mark is, bent down to get into my

sports car, I ripped the whole ass out of the seat of my pants.

Completely blown out.

Crotched down to the calves.

I said, I just ripped my pants.

Don't worry about it. We'll fix it. Don't worry about it. There weren't many

emergency tailors in New York City at 1 o 'clock in the morning, at least that I

knew of.

We finally get back to Paul's house, I don't know, 3, 4 in the morning, and I'm

trying to find a sewing kit. And I've never at this point in my life never

up anything.

I get them put back together, go out to Vince's house, and, you know, very

conscious of not, like, turning my back to anybody so they can see, like, the

unmatched theme and all the strings and stuff hanging out of the back of my

pants. I thought it was funny. I thought he should show up at the meeting with

the pants ripped. I figured at least Vince McMahon will remember it.

Mark didn't share that opinion.

I meet with Vince.

It seems like it's going really well.

What was supposed to be a 30 -minute meeting ended up going four hours.

Vince really fell in love with the human being, Mark Calloway.

and thought that, you know, this guy's got a future. I think he's going to work

out. How could that man walk into a room and someone like Vince

McMahon with all of his big visions not go, whoa, ka -ching?

I'm aware of the fact that they're discussing and they're trying to get me

booked, but they still, you know, they haven't figured out what they're going

do. A lot of mystery surrounding the massive oval.

They start this promotion where they've got this gigantic egg on the set.

And it's going to be Hatch the Survivor Series.

And as soon as I saw it, I was just like, oh, no.

No, they're going to make me Eggman.

They're going to make me shave my eyebrows off and shave, you know, and

going to look like Mr. Clean, and I'm going to be a giant egg.

To be clear, Mark Calloway was never a candidate to be hatched out of an egg.

Also, to be clear, It was also a great idea and a great rib to make Mark

Calloway think that he could be hatched from an egg and be the Eggman and maybe

shave his head and we could have a whole other career. Who knows?

I had worked myself up so much that I just knew the phone was going to ring

hey, Eggman.

And sure enough, the phone rings one day.

It's like, hello?

Is this The Undertaker?

The phone rings one day.

Hello?

Is this The Undertaker?

It was Vince that called me. So that alone was really cool to me.

That was his character that he had come up with.

So I was stoked. I didn't sleep that night.

Okay, this is it right here.

This is the opportunity that you've been preparing yourself for. Don't screw

this up.

Let's go to work.

The concept being the Ying to Brother Love Zhang was black and white.

If I was white, this character would be black.

So Creative Services does things like put a black cloak on him, almost black,

and they show it to Vince, and when Vince sees it, he looks at it and goes,

my God, he's an undertaker.

Which was, again, a perfect compliment to Brother Love.

Originally, we named him Kane.

the first man to commit murder.

And it couldn't get any more opposite than Brother Love than to manage someone

by the name of Kane.

And our creative services department came up with some different sketches and

different ideas as to what would this character look like.

There were a variety of different sketches, but one of them was

you saw in Undertaker's debut, and it was...

very, looked like an old -timey Undertaker.

And then when I saw the actual storyboards with the likeness on there,

wheels were starting to turn already, and it was really cool.

Mark Calloway had the character traits of an older soul and kind of cool -hand

Luke, the gunslinger from the Old West, and fit that Undertaker role.

in real life.

Without further ado, I will introduce to you now my mystery partner.

At the time, nobody had any idea how this Undertaker gimmick

was going to get over.

I mean, I don't think anybody, I don't even know if Vince envisioned just how

big the Undertaker would get.

give you The Undertaker.

The Undertaker, the mystery partner is now revealed.

I never heard of him. Holy cow.

Look at the size of that ham hock.

The entrance was unbelievable.

Everybody was like, oh my gosh, wow.

The fact that the million dollar man Ted DiBiase was introducing

The Undertaker, that let the audience know, okay, this is not a good guy. This

is a bad guy.

Then he's dressed all in black. He's got a pale face, deep sunk eyes, and

the music was so ominous that it brought the mood of the

entire arena down, and you felt like you were at a funeral.

It was extremely nerve -wracking.

It's my debut with the WWE.

It was such a different character.

There was nothing happy about it. This dude was an ominous figure.

He was a killer. It landed right perfectly in my wheelhouse of what I

do.

That character had to move slow.

That was the hardest thing to do is to walk that slow.

And be that ominous character when on the inside, man, I am just bouncing off

internal walls.

I'm just trying to keep it together and do what I'm supposed to do and make this

first impression.

And then you have to take into consideration, waiting in the ring,

Brett the Hitman Hart, Jim the Anvil Neidhart, Coco Beware, all these top

at the time are in the ring, and I'm about to go lay waste to all of them.

Nasty, nasty look.

Look at that.

Just looking to hurt people, are you?

It was quiet. You could hear people talking like, holy crap, what is this?

Whoa. They're just completely focused in on what this is.

People

were

just mesmerized by this character that was coming out. So it was really cool.

Vince McMahon's big vision comes to life.

Everything WCW could have had.

But didn't.

Because the one thing WCW didn't have was imagination.

And Mark was going to make this work.

And he was going to make it stick.

Because he's already experienced the failure in WCW.

And he's not going to let himself or even WWE screw this up.

The Undertaker is absolutely running rampant.

through the ranks of the world wrestling federation leaving a trail of

devastation in his wake the eye roll just happened

i was wrestling greg the hammer valentine and i slapped a choke on him

i don't know what made me do it but i rolled my eyes back into my head

When I went backstage, everybody was freaking out, like, whoa, what was that?

That was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

And then, like, I always knew I had a fairly long tongue, and I remember

Gene Simmons from Kiss, you know, and he would do that.

So that I probably stole from Gene Simmons, but...

Obviously became kind of an iconic part of my pin combination.

When you first start with WWE, you have to have your signature finisher.

Kind of came across that inverted pile driver.

Somebody used the analogy, well, it looks like you were grabbing a tombstone

placing it on a grave and bang.

There you go.

Tombstone pile driver.

The rest is history, I guess.

Crossing the arms, the tongue, and the eye roll, which we dubbed as

Shakespeare.

When the producers would say, okay, what's going to happen after the one,

three? I thought it would be straight Shakespeare at that point. They knew

I was going to cross the arms, roll the eyes, and stick the tongue out.

And another precursor that I've never really talked about is when I was young,

my mother actually worked in a funeral home.

So I was around this stuff at an early age.

I think it's all your fault.

My whole career.

You used to take me to wrestling as a kid.

And then you worked in a funeral home.

You let me run around a funeral home.

And you let me go to wrestling.

Please don't tell me I created this.

I'm just saying the evidence is all pointing towards you, Mom.

What do you like most about The Undertaker, the character?

I didn't like him at all.

You didn't like him at all?

No? He was mean.

I was mean?

I was a, I was a, are you kidding me? I was a favorite for all those years. I

was just a little dark.

Weird.

Too weird.

Well, it all comes out now.

What is going on here?

Soon all mankind will witness the rebirth of

the Undertaker.

It didn't affect me that much.

In fact, there were sometimes on a TV day where I'd get there early and go and

find a casket and lay down and take a nap in.

Take a look at the Undertaker.

Does he look like he has any friends?

Does he look like he needs any friends to win?

Bruce Prichard was doing double duty as Brother Love, but he was still helping

Vince write TV at this point. So he didn't really have the time to go out on

road with me. And that character, especially early on, needed that

I chose not to do that. I chose to stay in the office. I chose to stay home and

produce.

And at the same time, Percy Pringle had come up to interview about a job. And

when the question was asked to Percy, tell me about yourself. When he said he

was a licensed mortician, I think, you know, everybody's jaw dropped in the

room.

If that wasn't fate, I don't know what was.

When Pat and Vince heard that, they were like, oh my God, he would be perfect

for The Undertaker.

Brother Bearer, what is your first name?

Paul. And frankly, Paul Bearer was much better as a manager for The

Undertaker than Brother Love.

Did you feel the presence of my Undertaker? What was so cool about

And the Undertaker mix was like Paul had the high -pitched, squeaky, creepy

voice. There on the inside, inscribed, glowing in the

dark, we'll see.

And then you had, you know, you had the Grim Reaper come in with the, you know,

the rest in peace, and it was low and slow.

Rest in peace.

It was just a rekindling of a friendship and a union that took place when Mark

was first breaking in the business to have a veteran like Percy Pringle to

manage him. Now, later on, when Mark is first embarking on a new gimmick in a

new place, to have a familiar face in Paul Bearer and an experienced one to

guide him through this new journey.

It was such a cool dynamic that we had.

It was the perfect match.

Rest in peace.

Early 90s.

I'd come into town, and I went by my mom and dad's house.

I got a bunch of tickets, and I'm working against Big Sid Vicious.

I was like, hey, my mom's out there tonight. She's a pistol.

We get in the middle of the match.

He's got a rear chin lock on me.

And we're straight at my mom.

And it goes something like, what are you going to do, old lady?

What are you going to do? Am I beating your baby boy up?

What are you going to do? And he didn't get it out of his mouth. And here she

comes. And she's reaching for the barricade as my brother and my dad are

grabbing onto her and holding her back.

And I kid you not, she had bruises the next day on the inside of her arms from

where they were having to hold her back.

She was not having it.

That's when Mom got banned from wrestling.

Was anything I said a lie? Did I make anything up? Did you not have to get

restrained? Well, yeah, but you just told her the worst part.

That was your baby boy up there getting his butt handed to him, and you were

going to help me out, but...

Yeah, and I couldn't get to him.

I remember coming home from that match, and one of the kids said, have you liked

listening that close?

I said, I don't like it. I never want to sit that close again.

You turned around, and you said, don't worry, you won't.

So far, the competition here at the World Wrestling Federation hasn't been

that tough for the Undertaker.

The Undertaker is such a dominant force that you have to have an equally

dominant opponent.

And we had damn near run out of dominant opponents for The Undertaker.

So we had to create one.

So I'm back in Memphis and I got this call that they had this idea.

It's like, well, we'll put Glenn under a mask and we'll come up with this story

of why he's under a mask and they'll have one match together.

We just kind of went through the whole history of The Undertaker. And, you

I thought my family was burned up in a fire, including my little brother. And

come to find out that my little brother was always alive.

burned from head to toe, disfigured forever.

He'd been institutionalized and kind of forgotten in history, but the whole time

his brother had been watching the rise of The Undertaker.

Oh, my God! Wait a minute! It's Paul Bearer! And that's got to be Kane!

That's got to be Kane!

The rage, the envy, all those emotions of a sibling rivalry.

The Undertaker looking at him, looking to the eyes of that giant who stands in

front of him.

It was just an unbelievable story that started from day one when they

me from the first time that I came out as Kane the Undertaker.

Kane the Undertaker!

You know, I took Kane off of the name and was just The Undertaker, but when he

showed up and was Kane, it was so, so good, and it always made sense.

The Undertaker, set up for the tombstone, driven down to the canvas.

This is shocking.

Vince is like, why are we wasting one match on this?

This is actually a storyline that we need to develop.

Undertaker is my favorite superstar.

And the fact that they were building me, they were building Kane into the

Undertaker's mythology, it simply did not get any bigger than that.

I think that the audience liked both characters so much that

the audience didn't want to see Undertaker and Kane fight.

And when we finally...

brought the two brothers together, now the audience was happy.

The evolving storyline of two brothers over 20 years.

I can't believe it! They're Kane and the Undertaker!

People were so into the Brothers of Destruction.

There's no doubt that Undertaker and Kane combined make the most destructive

force in the history of the World Wrestling Federation.

And it didn't matter whichever direction we went in.

If we came back together, it was box office.

It didn't matter whether we were wrestling against each other or we were

tagging together.

People were enthralled with those two characters.

There wouldn't be a Kane if there hadn't been an Undertaker in the end.

So I owe him a lot, both professionally.

and personally.

I get it all the time to this day.

Are you and Kane really brothers?

I look at him as a brother, so brothers in spirit.

I rank Undertaker Kane number one. I think it ranks right up there with

McMahon. I think it's either number one or number two of the greatest storylines

that it's ever been.

The Undertaker buried those deaths.

Not with these WWE figures running wild.

Bossman's laying down the law.

It's lights out.

He was the leader. He was the head of everything we were doing.

And I know your real name.

What?

My name's not Mark. I'm The Undertaker.

Hey, girls. Don't you know he's not a real athlete? He's just a wrestler.

Easy, little man.

That next level and that next level was The Undertaker.

No matter what the sort of

version of the character is, every single one of them captivated people's

imaginations.

Like,

I can remember, you know, late 90s.

Like fans sending him vials of blood, their blood in these vials. And, you

they would bring him stuff backstage and he would be like this vial of blood.

Leaves of tattoos of him or tattoos all over their bodies of him or just stuff

that you would think, you know, we should recall the cops, maybe.

It was

so many

people. And, you know, people that would come in character as him or that would

be there, you know, he'd walk by and it's people dropping down and...

Bowing to him and like as if he was this real demonic overlord in the movie or

something.

The Undertaker mistake is legit.

You know, when you stand out there and that purple haze would come up and the

lighters would go up, you know, like the old Grateful Dead concert.

Every night when his music would go off, Paul Bearer would roll up his jacket

sleeve and show me that the hairs on his arm were standing on end.

And I'll never forget watching The Undertaker come out.

And I thought to myself for a second, I was like, oh my God, that's The

Undertaker. It's overwhelming in a wonderful way. You're just sitting there

thinking, this is cool, this is cool. He's coming after me, this is cool.

I was awestruck.

It was really an amazing moment. And that's when I truly knew that I had

in WWE.

It was unlike wrestling anybody else.

Like, you understand as it's happening what an honor it is to be in the ring

with him. And then you just have to convince yourself that you belong.

Uh -oh, here we go!

that you should be hanging with him, that you're on that level.

Mankind, wasting no time at all in following the Undertaker.

Hey, wait a minute, look at this!

Oh, wow!

Mick Foley figured out what his niche would be, and he capitalized on it, and

his deal was extreme violence.

My gosh! Oh!

We... Rivalry between Undertaker and Mankind had gone through different

machinations and gone the whole gamut.

And we got to the Hell in a Cell.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you take a look at this apparatus, one would have to

imagine that it was conceived in hell.

Which was the definitive match.

15 -foot walls, surrounded by a cage roof, twisted steel.

To this day, it's hard for me to have a conversation with anybody, any fan, that

they don't bring up Hell in a Cell with Mick Foley.

Two men enter, only one man can leave.

Probably one of the most extreme, violent matches ever.

He knew that I'd had an incredible match with Shawn Michaels, the first Hell in

a Cell.

And he didn't feel like he would be able to deliver in the way that Shawn had.

I watched with Terry Funk and I said, what am I going to do?

He started laughing. He went, you know what you ought to do? You ought to start

the match on top of the cell.

And then he kept laughing, and I got serious, and I said, I think I can do

Mick talked Vince into it, but then they had to sell Mark.

Every day, he would just shoot it down. And then finally, he said, Jack, why are

you so intent on killing yourself?

The Undertaker says, you want me up there? You want to come up there and

I'm going to come up and whip your butt. Oh, my God.

People didn't know his Undertaker went into that with a hurt ankle and was

hobbling. Through the whole match with an ankle that he shouldn't have been

walking on.

There were a lot of things to that match that just were that holy s*** moments.

A lot of them.

What's going to happen here?

You know, that

was Mick's calling card.

Not only how much he could dish out, more so probably how much he could take.

He was willing to put his body on the line to entertain his fans.

You carry a lot of responsibility because if you don't do it the right

know, he over -rotate, he doesn't make it, you have to deal with that. Never in

my wildest dreams would I have thought either one of these guys would come

flying off of that hell in a cell.

You look up there and it's just, no, that couldn't happen. It'd be

Somebody would be dead.

To be completely honest, I'm just hoping that he hits the table. And as morbid

and weird as that sounds, there's a big difference between hitting the table and

hitting the concrete.

A normal human being doesn't get up from that.

I don't know if I can get up.

But if I can get up, I'm going to roll off that gurney.

And I'm going to climb that son of a gun again.

We knew from the get -go, as soon as we got up on top of the cage, the supports

that wrap the fence mesh, you know, when you stepped on one of those panels, you

could hear them shooting off.

It was giving away so much.

It knocked me out legitimately.

I realized I don't have as many teeth as I used to.

It was pretty intense.

I was just looking down, waiting on him to move.

You'll notice when he goes through, all those people that run and jump back into

the cage, none of that was planned. That was people that saw that and didn't

think he was going to get up.

And I'd seen that Undertaker and Terry Funk.

Exchange words.

The Undertaker looked at him and said, see if he's alive.

Harry goes over and said, he's still breathing.

I remember time and time again just saying, Mick, stay down.

Just stay down.

Oh, my. And he's smiling.

That was one of the most violent matches that I've ever went to send to WWE.

You say, sum up Undertaker versus Mankind and Hell in a Cell in one word.

And it was absolutely horrifying as an audience member watching.

He's just an incredibly tough human being.

I would definitely say that Mick and I took years off each other's careers.

At any given match on any given night, you're really only a couple of inches

away from something catastrophic happening at one point or another.

It's a tough way to make a living.

At present count, I'm somewhere around 17 to 18

different surgeries to repair wrestling -related injuries.

Both my hips have been done. I have torn my bicep. I have torn my shoulder

apart. Two orbital...

Blowout fractures in both eye sockets.

Torn pec.

Broken ankle.

Broken hands.

More stitches than I care to count.

When you're out with injury, it's a very nerve -wracking time.

So you have to be able to get over the mental aspect of being off TV.

And then where do you fit in on the backside on your return?

Yeah, injuries are tougher mentally than they are physically.

It's a tough way to make a living.

When I started with the Undertaker character, it basically took over

almost every aspect of my life.

It just seemed to me that there couldn't be a Mark Calloway and an Undertaker.

Mark Calloway became The Undertaker, so it wasn't about getting in or out of

character.

That was one of the secrets to the success of The Undertaker is you didn't

to see much Mark Calloway at all.

Mark Calloway didn't exist.

Mark would show up to places as The Undertaker, and he would limit his

and every move was calculated.

The man didn't speak for years.

You want to talk about somebody who's all in?

If you went to a nightclub or saw him in an airport, it wasn't the costume,

but there was no denying that was The Undertaker.

Long hair, black sunglasses, all black clothing, like his demeanor was The

Undertaker.

I presented myself like that because I didn't want to disconnect.

I didn't want people to see me in public and be jovial, carefree Mark Calloway.

Are we ready?

It just didn't work in my mind.

And fortunately, early in the 90s, I was able to protect all that. And how are

you, Undertaker?

Fine. Oh, good.

Are those enough words?

What would you like to hear?

Rest in peace. Yeah.

In those early years, you basically got Undertaker and a slightly toned -down

Undertaker. Are you married?

I'm married.

I'm married to the creatures of the night that come and support me.

I was afraid of that.

And I didn't really let a lot of people in, other than my close inner circle of

people.

We're on the road.

250, 270 days a year. I was with those guys more than I was with my family.

Just a bunch of good dudes that hung out. The members were Masafuji, Paul

Bearer, there was Crush, Savio Vega, The Godwins, Rikishi,

Yokozuna, Taker, and myself.

And that was the group.

BFK.

We played dominoes, and that was a Yokozuna thing.

And Yoke used to be, come on, Tyler, play some bones. Yoko, be as curious,

some bones.

Bones, that's the slang for domino, bones.

And in the street, we was on the streets.

We'd travel all the time.

And then the crew, of course, we changed the seat to the cave.

And now you have it.

We went out night after night after night. We never got...

Any trouble. We didn't get into any fights.

Nobody messed with us. We ain't got no problem. Just don't run out of Jack

Daniels. We have been through it, bro. And I don't mean like wrestling through

it. I mean, we've been through it in life together.

And he knows what I mean. You have those guys that are going through the same

things you are and understand what's going on at home.

Because they're going through the same stuff.

And they know the grind of the road.

He's the leader of the locker room.

And a lot of that is based on respect.

And he asks for respect and he wants respect.

Pretty simple exchange.

There wasn't anything in the wrestling world that I didn't have the answer for.

Now, my personal life was a little bit different.

I had more holes in that than a piece of Swiss cheese.

This business is tough. It's not an excuse, but it's tough to be

a star in this business because the only way you do that is you've got

to be on the road and you've got to be gone.

I love my children, and hopefully they understand how much I do love them, but

missed out.

I missed out on so much of those early years with them.

because I was pursuing this dream.

It's just hard to be that guy on the road and then come home and try and be

It was the hardest, I think, with my oldest son, Gunnar. I think he got the

worst end of the deal.

And it wasn't that I didn't love him. I did. I loved being home and doing things

with my girls.

I didn't have really an option to spend as much time with them as I wanted.

So I'm very blessed and very fortunate to, you know, have a second chance with

Kaya and Colt.

I consider myself really lucky to have another opportunity to be a parent.

In the very beginning, when The Undertaker came out, it was gray and

And it was very simple.

The Undertaker was this dark, sinister character.

And The Undertaker in our vernacular would be a heel.

He was a bad guy.

But he was so good at being a bad guy, the audience loved

the character, The Undertaker.

I was constantly trying to keep that character fresh. Look at this! Look at

this! Oh!

He went to purple, whether it be the Undertaker's tie or his gloves. You

a little bit more from the Undertaker. My whole existence, Mark

made the Undertaker character work over the years.

Because he...

that evolved it and made it change in a way that I don't know if anybody else

could have done it. Well, here we are, middle of Death Valley, in the current

fleet of Undertaker motorcycles.

This is really a special part of my career, being able to do this now.

You know, it gives them an opportunity to see a little bit more of, you know,

what I am away from wrestling.

And the motorcycle -riding, jean -wearing badass who Mark Calloway is.

And now you have the American badass who was born.

Anytime you take something that's working and change it, you run the risk

pissing off the people that support you because you're doing something different

than what they got attached to.

This place has just gone crazy for the American badass, the Undertaker.

Evolving the American Badass, you go back to the familiar.

You go back to your roots, go back to your origins of The Undertaker.

I mean, the roots of the character are always the same.

But it was just the presentation.

And that was just my way of evolving and trying to evolve with the audience.

WrestleMania,

the showcase of the immortals.

It's the way that Vince lets you know that what you're doing, you're doing

right.

And you're on that card, and you will be immortalized for being at WrestleMania.

One day, while we were

on the road to WrestleMania and promotion, Michael Hayes was like, Hey,

Undertaker's undefeated at WrestleMania.

Really?

Well, we need to do something with this and make this something.

I don't think I was really aware of it until my 10th. That's the first time

I really acknowledged it.

You know, after I pin flare and I do the finger thing where I count them all off

of my hands.

The street really wasn't anything that anybody realized.

Once people started talking to it, Vince, of course, took it, looked at it

said, of course, I meant to do it that way.

OK, let's start making a big deal out of it.

Who can beat Undertaker at WrestleMania?

We got something here, and then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger for the

next 11 years.

He is 12 -0 at WrestleMania.

An unparalleled record for the Deadman. The

fact

that it became its own thing, I really think

it speaks to...

How dedicated he is.

His ability to constantly perform on the grandest stage of them all.

Tombstone! We have a new world champion!

And he comes out and the streak is intact!

There were spots you want to be in at WrestleMania.

You want to be in a championship match.

You want to be in the main event.

Or you want to take on Taker for the streak.

I don't think there's four matches back -to -back that are any better than the

two that I had with Shawn following.

with the two that I had with Triple H.

That was a four -year story at WrestleMania,

and most people don't really understand that.

Not having any idea when I was having my first match with The Undertaker or the

second, where this whole storyline would go, but then to have my two buddies

going in there.

The magic of that for Taker is that he was able to make that be believed every

year, that this might be the guy that beat the streak.

And then, nope, it continues on.

The friendship, the real -life friendship between the three, and the

between the three also was absolutely legendary.

Three amigos are two guys that make the world up.

Personally and professionally, I think it sort of told the story of a

generation.

We all took that journey together, almost from start to finish.

When we said end of an era, it really was.

And that's what makes magical matches, and that's why those four matches, they

were just obviously the four best matches, I think, that I've probably

It would have been great to retire undefeated at WrestleMania.

It would have been something that no one would have ever been able to beat.

I don't think anybody ever believed that someone would beat the streak.

But there comes a time with any performer where they just, they can't do

an everyday basis anymore.

Vince saw that opportunity, an opportunity to do what was right for

get somebody over in that process.

Whoever would beat that streak would become a massive heel.

What Vince didn't see was that he would become the heel.

Well, the decision to end the streak was made by Vince McMahon.

It went back and forth a couple times, so much to where I still thought The

Undertaker was going over, and Mark looked at me and he goes, Michael, they

changed the finish.

And I was just stunned.

A third and five to The Undertaker!

I hated it when I watched it. I still hate it today.

If there was ever one character that deserved to

live on undefeated,

The granddaddy of them all, it was The Undertaker.

You have to think about business.

And, you know, that's kind of what it came down to.

You know, it is what it is.

I'm very grateful that the streak went to 21 -0.

But... At the end of it, I'm also very thankful and proud that, you know, I was

able to pass the torch along, too.

There were two people I did not want to meet when I...

went to WWE, and that was Kane and Undertaker.

Just from their personas on TV, who would actually want to bump into them,

right?

I walk into catering. One of the first people I see is Kane.

Lo and behold, he is the nicest guy in the entire world. And then there's Mark.

He wears black eyeliner, black trench coat, like he looks creepy as can be on

TV.

I'd say hi, but I didn't want anything to do with him at first.

Man, she just chased me around.

Man, wouldn't leave me alone.

He'll say that I chased him and I wanted him, and not true.

2007, when she came on the road with WWE, you know, we had worked with a

talent. So he kind of started helping me in the ring.

And then some of my girlfriends and some other guys started noticing, like,

Undertaker doesn't help girls in the ring.

We were actually in an arena one day, and I was throwing the football inside

arena with some other guys, and one of these guys had dropped a pass again, and

it bounced, rolled up to her feet. She grabbed it.

She hummed about a 30 -yard spiral right at me.

And I was in love.

The truth of the story is he saw me throw a football, and he said he fell in

love, and that's just how simple he is.

How simple -minded.

Finally, I just gave in, like, look, if you'll leave me alone, I'll go to dinner

with you.

Now happily married for 11 years, have two kids.

Hey, dude.

I'm basically learning how to be a dad and be present all the time.

How you styling?

It's been a process for me to learn to switch the priorities around.

Oh, it's been fun, and I'm just very fortunate that I was given that

because my older children, they didn't get enough of me.

He puts a lot of unfair guilt on himself. You know, he doesn't give

enough credit as a father, as a husband.

Well, I think in any relationship, it's always nice for your spouse or your

significant other to truly understand what your job entails.

She's been phenomenal in the sense that she understands what being the

undertaker means to me.

She realized that I was getting older and my body's breaking down.

I knew that had been his identity for so long, and it's something that obviously

he still loved so incredibly much until this day.

And I knew that was going to be hard for him to leave something that he loved so

much behind and that had been a part of him for so long.

You know, I never wanted anybody to have to cover for me because I was too

gimped up or I was too beat up and I couldn't move around.

There were many, many long...

heartfelt discussions about what's best for our family, what's best for me

personally.

It definitely wasn't an easy decision or a decision that I made by myself.

I was like, I just physically, I can't perform at a level that people expect

for me to perform at.

And that reality really hit me that I was done.

How long did Stone Cold Steve Austin's run at the very top last?

Two and a half, three years?

How about Dwayne Johnson's?

John Cena got a decade, a decade and a half?

30 years.

30 years.

As a top attraction.

As a legend.

The enormity.

of that longevity can never be understated.

Well, Vince thought he was going to have to talk Mark into the Hall of Fame, but

lo and behold, the Undertaker was absolutely ready.

I'll catch up with you later.

All right. Bye. Bye.

You had to call me.

The Undertaker agreed on one condition, that my dad had to do his induction.

Other than my father, he's probably been the most influential man in my life.

This man is the most revered superstar in WWE history.

Not only in the realm of sports entertainment,

in being a man and the way I conduct myself and the way that I deal with

The greatest quality our inductee brings to the Hall of Fame is love.

You know, I don't know where I would be or what I would be without Vince.

The newest member of the 2022 Hall of Fame, Mark Chalaway, the Undertaker.

And when that hits,

everyone knows.

Everyone knows who it is, and everyone stands up.

And everyone catches their breath. I'm about to see The Undertaker.

In terms of all -time characters, I mean, one.

I think why I say one is because there's a lot more to Mark than The Undertaker.

Mark Calloway is one of my idols. He is a mentor to me, both professionally and

personally.

To this day, I think The Undertaker is the greatest character in the history of

professional wrestling.

The longevity, whether it be in the streak or be in that character, no one

do that.

There'd never be another.

The only person that rivals that in their positioning of the lore and the

history of WWE.

Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is the icing on the cake

of just an incredible 30 plus year journey.

None of that happens without those humble beginnings waiting for somebody

talk to me at the sportatorium.

Perception is reality.

Respect and loyalty go a long way.

And no matter what, never be content.

Why did you want me to get this so bad?

So you'd pay for it.

Had nothing to do with my career or what I achieved. You just wanted me to be

done. And that's supposed to be final.

Well, it is.

You can rest assured that now that The Undertaker has entered the WWE Hall

of Fame, that I will rest in

peace. Thank you.

I'm one of the people that believe that The Undertaker's career will never be

over. This character could go to the ring on a walker and the audience

would still stand and cheer.

They don't care. They just want to see The Undertaker. That character is that

strong.

Never say never.

I've got one foot in the grave.

I've got one foot in the grave.

I've got one foot in the grave. Two empty pockets and nothing to crave. I've

one foot in the grave.