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The Creation of The Undertaker character:
"There's a story and I've told it a few times. I was in talks with the WWE at the time, and I thought that I was coming out of this giant egg and I was going to be Egg Man and you know, I was going to have to shave my head and my eyebrows and my face. So when I heard, when I heard Undertaker, like, I didn't even know what I had no clue what it was, what it meant or anything else. I just knew it wasn't Egg Man. It was an upgrade and so I was very open and then the next day when I flew up to Stanford and Vince McMahon showed me the storyboards of the character and its origins, I fell in love with it. Fortunately, you know, he kind of put it in my lap and help me and let me develop the character. The rest is history, but I fell in love with it right away."
Would he have had the same success as Egg Man?
"Nah, The egg man may have had maybe a 10 or 15 year run. [Laughs] No, I think that egg would have cracked. I think that egg with a crack probably four or five months, then I would have been future endeavored for sure."
Learning he was defeating Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title at Survivor Series 1991:
"Overwhelming. Hulk Hogan being the golden goose, you know, everything at that point is, is built around Hogan. I've been in the company just under a year at that point. [Vince McMahon] comes to you and says, 'OK, you're going to be the World champion" and it was really overwhelming; Probably the most nerve wracking few weeks of my life. That's obviously that's a commitment from Vince. He believes in what I'm doing and where this character is going. The amount of pressure that I put on myself, like I have to deliver on this thing. It was an incredible compliment from Vince that he, he was that comfortable with me and it was...I don't even know how to really describe it because I was not mentally expecting it. Yeah, that just came out of the clear blue and I was like, "Okay. I like...I like where this is going."
The Curtain Being Pulled Back on Professional Wrestling:
"I'm an old school guy, man, and I always liked just the little bit of veil of mystery, so I was really reluctant. Vince has incredible vision and knows and sees these things that just regular people don't see sometimes. I was a traditional, an old school guy, so I just wanted to kind of keep things the same. It was another one of those cases where I was, you know, I was wrong. The business has grown exponentially and continues to grow. So I have to grow with it, but my old school roots are always there and always kind of wished things [remained the same]. I like the fact that we're growing as a company, but I wish we could kind of step, take a step back sometimes and get back to that Attitude Era feel of things at least to not know where, you know, where the product goes and and where the company goes. So yeah, I was, I was not on board with the sports entertainment aspect of it."
The Mick Foley Hell In A Cell match:
"So, you know, as far as being in character, like, and people kind of think I'm squirrely sometimes when I talk about it, but when I make that walk to the ring, like Mark Calaway is usually long gone. I'm as close to being that character, especially at that part of my career, as I can possibly be, but I ended up, but I also tell people that's the only, the one and only time that I felt like I had, kind of an out of body experience, watching. Once I threw him off of the cage onto the table, it was like, I could see him flying through the air, which seemed like it took 20 seconds and not like two. I could see myself. Hey, well, it, it really was, it, it was nerve wracking and waiting on him to, to move. Once I saw him moving around, I felt a little better. Unfortunately the one on the table was the easy one that night. It was that one where he went through the, the Cell. That was what I didn't think he was going to get up from."
A huge thank you to Taylor Millard!
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