WWE legend The Undertaker was Peter Rosenberg’s guest on this week’s edition of the Cheap Heat Podcast on ESPN Radio.

They discussed a wide variety of topics during the conversation, including the Last Ride docu-series, working with Hulk Hogan, the Montreal Screwjob and much more.

They started off by talking about the creation of The Undertaker character and his first meetings with Vince McMahon in 1990.

The Undertaker says he was impressed by Vince McMahon’s early vision for the gimmick. He also recalls envisioning the Undertaker character being similar to horror movie icons like Freddie Kruger and Jason Voorhees.

“[Vince] brings me up to Connecticut, we meet and he’s got storyboards of what he thinks this character is, and it’s just like, wow, this is really cool. It’s really different. Immediately, my mind is just spinning. I’m thinking, Freddie Kruger, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees – all these super villains that are in these slasher movies. But then I’m also trying to figure out how it applies to professional wrestling. Originally, he gave me the likeness and then a lot of it was put in my hands to develop.”

The Undertaker says it took him some time to flesh out the character. At the time, he was known as a big guy who was athletic and could move around the quickly. It took him some time to settle in to the slow, plodding menace he’d eventually develop into.

“It took me a couple times out to realize, well, this isn’t going to work for what I envisioned for this character. I had to slow down some of my pace and some of my athleticism. Then i figured out, ‘I’m going to go really slow and then I’m gonna bang and blow it out of the water and catch people off guard with it, just like they do in the movies.’ So i’m trying to figure out all those elements of how to make it work in a wrestling ring.”

Before he joined the WWF in 1990, The Undertaker was working in WCW as “Mean” Mark Callus. At the time, The Undertaker felt like WCW was a better fit for him than the cartoonish WWF. When his WCW contract expired in the summer of 1990, he became very discouraged. WCW refused to offer him a pay increase. The reality of the situation got worse when WCW officials told him nobody would pay to see him wrestle.

The Undertaker used that negative experience as motivation. As The Undertaker character was taking shape, he thought about how he could differentiate himself from the rest of the WWF’s main event stars.

“There were so many over-the-top characters already [in the WWF],” he began. “Everything was over the top. So I was trying to figure out how am I going to separate myself from what everybody else is doing? How do you stand out with all these already established performers?”

“Vince had had that [Undertaker] character for a while,” he said. “He just didn’t have the right guy that he felt could do it. I guess he needed somebody big that didn’t have much personality (laughs). Here I come stumbling in on that. So I got lucky there.”

“When [WCW] told me that nobody would ever pay to see me, you can imagine the size chip that went on my shoulder. It was like, “Ok, screw you guys, you will regret the day that you didn’t sign me.” It’s so crazy how things work out. If they [WCW] would have given me a little extra cheese, that’s where I wanted to be. I didn’t know any better, but I figured I was a more mainstream wrestler, that’s where WCW was at the time. Vince had all these different characters, and that didn’t really seem to suit where I wanted to be. I wanted to be there with Flair and Arn and all those guys. That just seemed to fit my outlook on wrestling.”

Undertaker says he wasn’t asking WCW for a big raise and would have stayed for a small pay bump.

”Believe me, I wasn’t asking for the Lex Luger deal or the Road Warrior deal. It was a little extra cheese. ‘Nobody’s gonna pay money to see you. We’re gonna give you the same deal.’ I’m like, ‘OK, writing is on the wall. They didn’t even put me up a little.'”

The Undertaker says Paul Heyman and Bruce Prichard are the two men responsible for getting his foot in the door with Vince McMahon.

“So, Paul [Heyman] is managing me at the time that this all came about. Paul Heyman and Bruce Prichard are close. So Paul and Bruce were talking and Bruce was working on Vince. I guess Bruce had finally gotten Vince to agree to watch the Great American Bash [match] that I had with Lex Luger. Maybe a week before that, I really screwed up my hip in match. So I can barely move. But I know I’ve gotta go out and do something. So Vince watches the pay-per-view and says, ‘Yeah he’s ok, nothing special.’ But Bruce said, ‘Does it matter that he can barely walk going into that?’ That grabbed Vince’s attention a little bit. Bruce kept working on Vince until finally I got a meeting.”


Vince McMahon wound up canceling the first meeting he had scheduled with The Undertaker. This was right around the time Brutus Beefcake was badly injured during a parasailing accident. Expecting that his meeting with Vince McMahon would go well, he already gave notice to WCW that he was leaving.

“So now I’m basically working down there, they think I have a contract, I’m working in WCW without a contract. We finally went to the Meadowlands [Arena] I think, the next morning i had a meeting at [Vince’s] house. Even then, I went in thinking, I got this. I had the meeting, maybe two hours i spent with Bruce and Vince and JJ Dillon and Pat Patterson. I have this meeting and think i’m being impressive and charming. At the end of the meeting Vince looks at me and goes, ‘We don’t really have anything right now.’ (laughs). I already gave my notice thinking, I’ve got the meeting, the job’s in the bag, Ive already given my notice down at WCW.”

When asked if Vince McMahon was ribbing him, The Undertaker doesn’t think so. He legitimately thinks Vince just wasn’t ready to integrate him into WWE storylines yet.

“[Vince] didn’t have anything. He’s like, ‘Well, maybe after Mania we’ll have some slots opening up. I was like ‘Ok, well, thank you, I appreciate your time’ and out the door I went. They did within a few weeks call me and said ‘Hey, Hogan’s doing this movie out in LA.’ They wanted me to go read for it [Suburban Commando]. I read for the movie and got the part, the worst movie ever. It was awful, it was truly awful. But you know, that kept me busy for a little while. Then finally, I got a call [to debut at Survivor Series 1990.]"