“The Deadman” is, well, dead.
That is, according to The Undertaker himself.
The WWE Hall of Fame legend spoke on the latest episode of his Six Feet Under podcast about retiring “The Deadman” character and wanting to let it “Rest in Peace,” while transitioning back into his closer-to-real life “American Badass” persona.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the episode where he touches on this topic with his thoughts.
On essentially retiring his original ‘Deadman’ Undertaker character: “Mark and [Undertaker], it’s kind of all morphed together now. So what I’ve tried to do with the original Undertaker character is, kind of let it rest in peace, no other pun intended. That’s why I don’t make appearances anymore with the hat and the coat.”
On whether he would reprise his ‘Deadman’ character one more time: “Everybody’s got a price. But I try not to. The number would have to be really, really big, and it would have to make sense somehow. So yeah, so I’ve really pushed to kind of [be] more Mark Callaway now, because I want to honor that character and the work that I did, and all the kayfabing that I did for that character. If there was something left in the tank as far as me getting back in the ring? Then I would have to figure out some kind of way for something catastrophic to happen to Mark Callaway to bring that other guy out. But that’s just not going to happen. Not being corny, but I do want to let The Undertaker kind of rest in peace and kind of everything now that you see, like the other night on the Netflix deal, was the American Badass.”
On the perks of being The American Badass again: “That’s fun for me at this point. It’s so much more fun, and it frees me up to do things like that, where I can kind of cross over.”
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes.)