- Undertaker, take one, common mark, silent six.
- What does it mean to be the undertaker?
It means that...
[chuckles]
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
Of who you are, what you are.
[bluesy music]
Your life is surrounded by mystery.
- ♪ I've got one foot in the grave ♪
♪ ♪
- The darkness that looms over the character
Evokes imagination and fantasy.
- ♪ I've got one foot in the grave ♪
♪ two empty pockets and nothing to crave ♪
♪ I got one foot in the grave ♪
- Would you look at that?
- No, you look at that.
- Ooh, there's the tombstone.
♪ ♪
- ♪ I've got two hands that pave my way ♪
- What's gonna happen here?
- ♪ I've got two hands that pave my way ♪
- This is hell on earth.
- ♪ I've got two hands that pave my way ♪
♪ and one lost soul that's on its way ♪
♪ I got two hands that pave my way ♪
- It's just one of those characters
That people were really drawn to
Because it was just so different.
Rest in peace.
♪ ♪
[thunder booming]
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 a arena where you're about to be inducted
Into the hall of fame.
- Here we are. - Here we are.
[soft guitar music]
Hey, buddy. - Man, what a day.
I've been waiting for this for quite a while.
- Oh, my goodness. - God bless you.
- What's up, buddy? - How you doing, man?
- I'm good, brother. - You look sharp.
- Thanks. That's half the battle, right?
- Yeah.
♪ ♪
- [speaking indistinctly]
- You shouldn't have-- you had to call me.
♪ ♪
Whew.
♪ ♪
It means a lot.
♪ ♪
For 30-plus years, you know,
All they got was the undertaker.
They didn't get what they're gonna get tonight.
♪ ♪
They get mark calaway tonight.
♪ ♪
- I knew that was gonna be hard for him.
You know, that's a scary thing.
Like, who am I as mark calaway 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.
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
The greatest quality our inductee brings
To the hall of fame is love.
[cheers and applause]
Because you cannot accomplish what he has in 30 years
For any other reason
Other than the love for his business.
[cheers and applause]
It is now my honor...
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
To introduce you to the newest member
Of the 2022 hall of fame,
Mark calaway, the undertaker!
[crowd roaring]
[bell tolling]
[dramatic music]
- 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?
Moved in--
- '69, wow.
That's amazing.
If these walls could talk, right?
[laughter]
- Yeah, to say the least.
[soft guitar music]
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, salt-of-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.
Lost tim the day before my last wrestlemania match.
So what was I like as a kid?
- That's why y'all had five, right?
It took you five times to get it right?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- 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, you know, food 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?
- [laughs]
Big mistake? Why's that?
- Well, it was a somewhat honest living, I guess.
[upbeat music]
We didn't have a lot of money, but every now and then,
You know, my parents would scrape up some money
To take us to the sam houston coliseum
And watch it live.
The original sheik was coming into town.
♪ ♪
Man, he was the nastiest of nasty bad guys,
And we built ourselves up all week long
What we were gonna do and what we were gonna say
To him when he came by us.
And here he comes, and we were 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.
I 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 need a win here.
- Knocked out! Knockout!
Knockout, knockout!
- [sighs]
What is it? - 2-6.
- You only have 2? - I have 6.
- Kidding me?
- Oh, no!
- I've never played basketball.
I think 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 he figured, "hey, let's get mark to play,"
And I kind of fell in love with the game.
♪ ♪
- He was a rail. [laughs]
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 and senior year,
That's when I kind of started lifting weights.
I was 6'8" and 215 pounds then.
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, really heavily.
I don't know.
It was a couple of days before signing,
And coach kruger called me and said--
He goes, "mark."
He goes, "I need to win right out of the gate."
He says, "I'm gonna go with a couple
Of junior college players."
And I'm like, "ugh, okay."
That's where I--I went to the university of st. Thomas.
That was in houston.
After one year of athletics, the school went bankrupt.
[dramatic music]
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, you know,
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 because of foul trouble.
[light music]
- 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 gonna go to this wrestling camp,
And I'm gonna be a professional wrestler."
"that's cool."
He goes, "man, you should do this with me."
And I was like, "well, think I'm gonna go try
To play some pro ball overseas."
And every day I'd come in,
We'd have the same conversation.
The more I thought about it, it was like,
"well, you know, maybe,
You know, this would be kind of cool."
[crowd booing]
- From st. Petersburg, florida,
Buzz sawyer, the mad dog.
- [screaming]
- Oh!
[crowd roaring]
- Buzz sawyer was training guys to wrestle.
- [screams]
- Look at the mad dog.
Back with his own kind, he feels so at home.
- He says, "okay, $2,500,
I'm gonna teach you to wrestle,
And then I'll get you a booking."
And we're like, "okay, that sounds great."
- Buzz sawyer, he can be a good guy,
And he can be a bad guy.
- [shouting indistinctly]
- You know, he tried to take people money.
I said, "you can't do that, buzz."
I said, "you know, that'll come back and haunt you."
[indistinct yelling]
- So it was the first day of training,
And we're gonna meet, you know, at buzz sawyer's house.
I don't know, close to 15 guys probably
Standing around in his driveway.
And, you know, we're all kind of asking the question like,
"well, where's the wrestling ring?"
- We didn't have no ring or nothing.
We were just always in the backyard
Or in the front yard.
It's just, like, grass and dirt.
He had 15 rottweilers 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 tired and stuff.
And I said, "nah, we ain't through yet."
Just throwing up everywhere, you know.
- Everybody's thinking that we're about to get
In our cars, you know, and go home.
And out comes buzz.
He said, "all right, you know,
Get down in the down position," in, like, amateur wrestling.
- He came and then start 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'd try
And run you off so that you don't come back.
And that was exactly what he was trying to do.
- [yells]
- The only thing was is, I was too stupid to know
That I was supposed to not come back.
I kept coming back till not only
Was there no one else there but me,
But buzz was gone as well.
♪ ♪
This is the receipt when I finally paid
My last $1,000 to buzz sawyer.
It says, "I acknowledge receipt
Of payment of $1,000 from mark calaway."
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 gonna do.
[soft music]
Basketball is becoming less and less important.
Do I wanna 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 gonna be a professional wrestler."
Things were rough.
But I knew that this is what I wanted to do.
[soft music]
- Neither my mother nor my father were
Very excited about me leaving college
To pursue this career in professional wrestling.
I was gonna be the first one to, you know,
Get a degree in the family,
And, you know, I was right on the cusp of it.
I don't think y'all approved too much
Of that decision initially.
- No.
- [laughs]
- 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 was gonna
Get someone's attention.
♪ ♪
So at the sportatorium in dallas,
That's where a lot of the wrestlers would come in.
They would pick 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 gonna--you know, I'm gonna have to stop coming,"
'cause I couldn't afford the gas to drive out there,
And lo and behold, who walks in the office
Is fritz von erich.
- One of the great all-time names in wrestling,
The famous father of the von erichs,
Fritz von erich. Great to see you, fritz.
- 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 of 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.
- Weighing in at 315 pounds, from the lone star state,
Percy pringle presents texas red.
[crowd yelling]
- 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, green.
I don't know anything about the wrestling business,
Really, inside or 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 my-- "wow, that's odd,"
You know what I'm saying?
- Anytime the foreigners came in,
The americans or whoever, the english came in,
They were always gonna 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.
[cheers and applause]
- Tiger singh had a massive following,
Very successful wrestler there.
- [grunts]
- And they loved him.
- I hit him with the chain.
I bust him open.
He goes flat, right, and 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 with 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
And, 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.
There was by no means a fortune, no.
[light music]
- I got this break as 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 live.
You know, I don't have anything lined up.
But all of those things...
- Here he comes.
- Made me a stronger, tougher person.
I've been in the atlanta state penitentiary,
And I'm not ashamed to know it.
I went up there on a bad...
By the time I got to memphis,
I was pretty salty.
And now they're pushing up daisies.
I'm learning now.
I'm learning what the world of professional wrestling is
And what I have to do to protect myself...
- The master of pain grabs and power slams him
Down to the mat.
- And also to continue to grow as a talent.
- Calls himself master of pain.
- Yeah, that's right, master of pain,
Because where I've been the last five years,
You have to know how to handle pain.
[dramatic music]
At this point, I've gone to south africa.
I've come back and couldn't get booked again.
There's some nights I'm sleeping in my car.
I'm starved 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.
- Hmm.
- And jerry lawler loved working with big guys
And beating big guys.
- He tagged master of pain. 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.
- [shouting]
- With one arm, dave, he grabs him.
Did you see that? - And holds him.
- I get a new name.
I'm the master of pain,
Straight out of atlanta federal penitentiary.
- All right, either one of you 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.
- Master of pain covered. Lawler is out.
Three.
My goodness, he has just won the unified world belt.
- Just a sense of being in the ring with certain guys,
Yeah, I knew immediately
That he had a big future ahead of him.
- Not only are they big when we talk
About the poundage, jim.
They're so tall, 6'8", 6'9",
Skyscrapers indeed with these two.
♪ ♪
- At the time in wcw,
Dan spivey and sid vicious were the skyscrapers.
- One, two, three! It's over!
- 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 blobs of people, right?
Jim cornette had seen me, and he 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.
- Never before have you seen such size,
Strength, and pure tenacity!
- Yeah!
- And when we come down on your head, man,
You're not gonna know what hit you!
- The skyscrapers are working against the road warriors.
- Hey, skyscrapers!
It's time to get ready to walk the plank.
- Wcw was in turmoil the whole time.
It was terrible.
It was absolutely terrible.
You know, they're making all these promises,
And, you know, here you got
Two great big guys that were athletic
And can move and do the things that we could do.
And, you know, they never did anything with us.
- "dangerous" dan spivey, "mean" mark callous,
The skyscrapers! [crowd booing]
- So danny comes to me, and he goes, "look."
He goes, "just tonight, just follow my lead."
And I was like, "what's that mean?"
He was just, "just follow me.
Just do--you know, just stay behind me."
"oh, okay."
- You know, I just got tired of all the [bleep]
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.
- Bob, he's got that chair! Oh, my god!
- Oh, my god!
- He hit him right on the head.
- The chair was all bent up and stuff,
And I get a look at mark, and he was just like, "wow."
- They have laid the road warriors out,
The skyscrapers!
- That was the last night that I worked with mark.
I went back to japan.
You know, I was so mad at the wcw
For not doing anything with us.
I 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, you know, major setbacks for, you know,
Me trying to progress in the business.
- I thought mark's pairing with dan spivey
Was terribly miscast.
I found mark calaway behind the scenes
Was more fascinating than wcw's presentation
Of mean mark.
Mark was a natural leader,
Was a man's man, great athlete.
Anyone, I don't care if you're 4'9"
That can walk the top rope the way
That he did and drop an elbow,
Let alone someone his size...
We needed to showcase this.
- I'd 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 liked 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."
You know, ole looks right at me,
And he goes, "mark, you're a great athlete,
But no one's ever gonna pay money to watch you wrestle."
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Wow, okay.
I was really taken aback. Like, how do you react to that?
Like, this is, like, the passion of my life,
And then, you know, here's somebody
Of ole anderson's stature,
Someone that you've looked up to,
Basically telling you that, you know, you ain't got it.
- And ole 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
'cause 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, paul e. Dangerously,
Is now managing the roughest, toughest, meanest,
Leanest, lewdest, rudest, crudest man in the nwa,
"mean" mark callous!
- Press slam down.
- How do you like that, huh?
- Down goes mean mark!
Great elevation and a big foot.
- 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 this 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 gonna get a raise,
And then you get hit with,
"no one's ever gonna pay money to watch you wrestle,"
That was a definite shot in the gut.
Wasn't much to say after that.
- I think that they kind of looked
At "mean" mark callous as very one-dimensional
And, I daresay, boring.
He was a big guy.
The skyscrapers, they weren't doing
An awful lot with them,
Nor did 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 prichard.
And they were trying to get me a meeting with vince.
- 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 prichard.
- 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 mean mark had wrestled lex luger in that match.
- [grunting]
- Bruce prichard thought he had talent.
Vince mcmahon watched a tape and didn't think
He had any talent at all.
- Got a phone call from vince saying,
"he's just another tall,
"redheaded 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.
[upbeat music]
- We had worked the meadowlands
The night before,
So paul heyman wanted us to go out 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 in, right?
We're going to the china club. I gotta 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,
Crotch down to the calves.
- I said, "I just ripped my pants."
"eh, 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 1:00 in the morning,
At least that I knew of.
- We finally get back to paul's house,
I don't know, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning.
And I'm trying to find a sewing kit.
And I've never at this point in my life
Never sewed up anything.
I get them put back together. We go out.
Go out to vince's house, and, you know,
Very conscious of not, like, turning my back to anybody
So they can see, like, this unmatched seam
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 calaway instantly
And thought that, you know, "this guy's got a future.
I think he's gonna work out."
- How could that man walk into a room
And someone like vince mcmahon, with all of his big visions,
Not go, "oh, 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 gonna 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 gonna be hatched at survivor series.
- And as soon as I saw it, I was just like,
"oh, no, no, they're gonna make me egg man.
"they're gonna make me shave my eyebrows off and shave ev--
"you know, and I'm gonna look like mr. Clean,
And I'm gonna be a giant egg."
- To be clear, mark calaway 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 calaway think that he could be hatched
From an egg and be the egg man
And maybe shave his head
And we could have a whole nother career.
Who knows?
- I had worked myself up so much
That I just knew the phone was gonna ring
And, "hey, egg man."
And sure enough, the phone rings one day.
[phone rings] I was like, "hello?"
"is this the undertaker?"
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- 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 yin to brother love's yang,
Was black and white.
I was white. This character would be black.
- So creative services does things like put
A black cloak on him, all this black,
And I show it to vince, and when vince sees it,
He looks at it and goes, "oh, my god.
He's an undertaker."
- Which was, again, a perfect complement to brother love.
Originally we named him cain,
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 cain.
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 essentially
What 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,
The wheels were starting to turn already.
And it was really cool.
- Mark calaway 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.
[bell tolling]
- Without further ado,
I will introduce to you now my mystery partner.
Well, at the time, nobody had any idea
How this undertaker gimmick was gonna get over.
I mean, I don't think anybody--
I don't even know if vince envisioned
Just how big the undertaker would get.
Weighing in at 320 pounds, from death valley,
I give you the undertaker!
- The undertaker, the mystery partner,
Is now revealed!
- I've never heard of him. - Oh, take a look!
- Holy cow!
Look at the size of that ham hock!
[ominous organ music]
- 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-racking.
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 wanted to 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 my internal walls.
I'm just trying to keep it together
And do what I'm supposed to do
And make this first impression.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
And then you have to take into consideration,
Waiting in the ring: Dusty rhodes,
Bret "the hitman" hart, jim "the anvil" neidhart,
Koko b. Ware.
All these top guys at the time are in the ring,
And I'm about to go lay waste to all of them.
- Nasty, nasty look.
- [grunting]
- Look at that.
Just looking to hurt people, are you?
- It was quiet.
You could hear people talking like, "holy crap.
What is this?"
[crowd yelling]
- Boy, did he write an epitaph for koko.
- Whoa, 'cause they're just completely focused in
On what this is.
- He hits like a ton of bricks, this guy.
- The undertaker has been counted out!
- 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 gonna make this work.
And he was gonna make it stick
Because he's already experienced the failure in wcw,
And he's not gonna let himself or even wwe screw this up.
- The undertaker is absolutely running rampant
Through the ranks of world wrestling entertainment,
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.
And I don't know what made me do it,
But I rolled my eyes back into my head.
[crowd yelling]
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.
[crowd yelling]
Kind of came across that inverted piledriver.
Somebody used the analogy,
"well, it looks like you were grabbing a tombstone
And placing it on a grave."
And bang, there you go,
Tombstone piledriver.
♪ ♪
The rest is history, I guess.
- Tombstone city!
Oh!
- The crossing of the arms, the tongue, and the eye roll,
Which we dubbed as shakespeare.
When the producers would say,
"okay, what's gonna happen after the one, two, three?"
I said, "it'll be, you know, straight shakespeare
At that point."
They knew that I was gonna cross the arms,
Roll the eyes, and stick the tongue out.
- Ooh, there's the tombstone.
[crowd roaring]
- 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 the 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.
- [laughs]
- You let me run around a funeral home,
And you let me go to wrestling.
- I'm just saying, the evidence
Is all pointing towards you, mom.
What do you like most about the undertaker
The character?
- You didn't like him at all?
No?
- I was mean?
I was--you're kidding me.
I was a favorite for all those years.
I was just a little dark.
- Too weird? [laughs]
Well, it all comes out now.
- What is going on here?
[bell tolls]
No!
- Soon all mankind will witness
The rebirth of the undertaker.
It didn't affect me that much.
In fact, there were some times 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 the road with me.
And that character, especially early on,
Needed that sidekick.
- 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.
- You may be afraid.
Oh, yes, you may be deathly afraid!
- 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 paul and the undertaker mix
Was, like, paul had the high-pitched,
Squeaky, creepy voice.
- There on the inside, inscribed,
Glowing in the dark, will say...
- 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.
[bell tolls]
- Rest in peace.
[growls]
- 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 help guide him through this new journey.
- It was such a cool dynamic that we had.
It was the perfect match.
- Rest in peace! [cackles]
- 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 looks straight at my mom.
And he goes something like,
"what are you gonna do, old lady?
"what are you gonna do? Am I beating your baby boy up?
What are you gonna 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 on to 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?
- That was your baby boy up there
Getting his butt handed to him,
And you were gonna help me out, but...
[laughter]
- So far, the competition here
At world wrestling federation
Hasn't been all that tough for the undertaker.
- Tried to pile him with the tombstone!
Oh, yes!
- One. - Come on!
- Two. - Get him!
- We got a new world champion!
- 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.
- Okay, you're coming back from the dead.
- So, 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 know,
I thought my family was burnt up in a fire,
Including my little brother, and come to find out
That my little brother was always alive.
- Kane is alive, undertaker!
- Burned from head to toe, disfigured forever.
- He'd been institutionalized and kind of forgotten
To 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 gotta be kane!
That's gotta be kane!
- The rage, the envy,
All those emotions of sibling rivalry.
- The undertaker looking at him,
Looking into the eyes of that giant
Who stands in front of him.
- It was just an unbelievable story
That started from day one when they introduced me
From the first time that I came out
As cain the undertaker.
- Cain the undertaker!
[dramatic music]
- You know, I took cain 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 story line that we need to develop."
- Oh! - Oh!
- A choke slam into the casket!
- 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.
- [laughs wickedly]
♪ ♪
- 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 story line of two brothers over 20 years...
- I can't believe it, 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 world wrestling entertainment.
- And it didn't matter whichever direction
We went in.
If we came back together, it was box office.
- Hell hath no fury like these two!
- 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.
[electricity buzzing]
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.
[soft music]
- I rank undertaker, kane number one.
I think it ranks right up there with austin mcmahon.
I think it's either number one or number two
Of the greatest story lines that has ever been.
- The undertaker will bury those stiffs.
- Not with these wwe figures running wild!
Boss man'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, mark.
- 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.
- Ooh. - Ooh.
- [giggles]
- It was always that next level,
And that next level was the undertaker.
[crowd cheering]
- Taker, taker, taker!
- No matter what the sort of version
Of the character is, every single one of them
Captivated people's imaginations.
All right, bud.
[crowd cheering]
- Like, I can remember, you know, late '90s,
Like, fans sending him vials of blood,
Their blood in these vials.
And, you know, they would bring him stuff backstage,
And he would be like, "this vial of blood."
Sleeves of tattoos of him
Or tattoos all over their bodies of him
Or just stuff that you would think, you know,
"we should call the cops, maybe."
- I've had this tattoo for a long time.
Today it's finally gonna get signed by the undertaker,
And it'll be tattooed straight over
So it'll be a part of me forever.
- He's a badass, you know?
You love to beat up your boss.
You know, you don't get to do that,
So when other people get to do it,
It's just a great thing to see.
- This is like babe ruth when my father was little.
All: Taker, taker, taker, taker, taker!
- 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 people dropping down and bowing to him
And, like--as if he was this real demonic overlord
In a movie or something.
[bell tolls]
[dramatic music]
- The undertaker mystique is legit.
♪ ♪
You know, he's standing out there, and that purple haze
Would come up, and the lighters would go up,
You know, like the old grateful dead concert.
♪ ♪
[crowd roaring]
- 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.
- Now, 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 awe-stricken.
It was really an amazing moment,
And that's when I truly knew that I had arrived in wwe.
[crowd cheering]
- 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 pummeling the undertaker.
- Hey, wait a minute. Look at this!
Oh!
- Mick foley figured out what his niche would be,
And he capitalized on it.
And his deal was extreme violence.
- My gosh! - Oh!
Oh!
- The rivalry between undertaker and mankind
Had gone through different machinations
And had gone the whole gambit.
- That's mankind. - Mankind!
- Oh!
- And we got to the hell in the 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,
You know, hell in the 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 the 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, and he went,
"ha-ha, you know what you ought to do?
"you ought to start the match on top of the cell.
- Mankind is climbing the cage.
- He's supposed to start out inside the cage, isn't he?
- And then he kept laughing, and I got serious,
And I said, "I think I can do that."
- Nick talked vince into it,
But then they had to sell mark.
- And 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... - He's doing it!
- "you want me up there?
"you want to come up there and fight?
I'm gonna come up and whip your butt."
- Oh, my gosh.
- People didn't know was,
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 [bleep]" moments,
A lot of them.
- What's gonna happen here?
Look out! - Oh, no!
Good god almighty!
That killed him!
- 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 way,
You know, he over-rotates,
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 the cell.
You look up there and you say, "no, that couldn't happen.
"it'd be impossible. 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.
[crowd roaring]
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 gonna roll off that gurney,
And I'm gonna climb that son of a gun again.
- You're kidding me!
- How in the hell is he standing?
- Oh, my god. - And look at this.
He's got a smile on his face, for god's sake!
♪ ♪
- 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 way so much.
- If he throws him off the other side, there's--
Oh!
Good god!
- It knocked me out legitimately.
♪ ♪
Ching, boom, I realize 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 gonna get up.
- And I'd seen the undertaker and terry funk exchange words.
The undertaker looked at him and said,
"see if he's alive."
Terry goes over.
He said, "he's still breathing."
- I remember time and time again just saying,
"mick, stay down, just stay down."
- Oh, my. - Oh.
- And he's smiling.
- That was one of the most violent matches
That I've ever witnessed in the wwe.
- You say, "sum up undertaker versus mankind
In hell in the cell in one word."
Train wreck.
And it was absolutely horrifying
As an audience member watching it.
Crowd: Three!
[cheers and applause]
- He's just an incredibly tough human being.
I would definitely say that mick and I
Took years off each other's careers.
In 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.
[dramatic music]
- 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-racking 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 back side 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 calaway and an undertaker.
♪ ♪
- Mark calaway 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 get to see much of mark calaway at all.
Mark calaway didn't exist.
- Mark would show up to places as the undertaker,
And he would limit his exposure,
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.
[crowd cheering]
- I presented myself like that
Because I didn't want to disconnect.
All: Rest in peace, rest in peace!
- I didn't want people to see me in public
And be jovial, carefree mark calaway.
Are we ready for a funeral?
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? [laughter]
Or would you like to hear "rest in peace"?
- Yeah. [laughter]
- Those early years, you basically got undertaker
And a slightly toned-down undertaker.
- Are you married? - Am I 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 masa fuchi, paul bearer.
There was crush, savio vega, the godwinns, rikishi,
Yokozuna, taker, and myself.
That was the group, bsk.
[upbeat music]
We played dominoes. And that was a yokozuna thing.
And yok used to be, "come on, time to play some bones.
Yoko, bsk, let's play some bones."
- Bones, that's the slang for domino, bones.
And then the street-- we was on the streets.
You travel all the time.
And then the krew, of course, we changed the c to the k.
And now you have it.
- We went out night after night after night.
We never got in 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 daniel's.
- 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,
You know, 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.
[dramatic music]
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 I 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 dad.
It was the hardest, I think, with my oldest son, gunner.
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, you know, 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 kaia and kolt.
♪ ♪
I consider myself really lucky to have another opportunity
To be a parent.
♪ ♪
[bell tolls]
[dramatic music]
- His opponent, from death valley,
Weighing 328 pounds,
The undertaker!
- In the very beginning,
When the undertaker came out, it was gray and black.
And he 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.
- The undertaker!
♪ ♪
- I was constantly trying to keep that character fresh.
- Look at this, look at this! Oh!
- We went to purple,
Whether it be the undertaker's tie or his gloves,
And you heard a little bit more from the undertaker.
- My whole existence is death.
- Mark made the undertaker character work over the years
Because he 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 in the middle of death valley
And 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 is who mark calaway is.
And now you have the american badass is born.
- Anytime you take something that's working
And change it, you run the risk
Of 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
With american badass, the undertaker!
- And instead of 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
Were always the same.
But it was just the presentation.
And that was just my way of evolving and trying
To evolve with the audience.
- The phenom is back.
- The return of the dead man.
American badass, there he is,
The prince of darkness!
- The undertaker!
- Wrestlemania, the showcase of the immortals,
It's the way that vince lets you know
That what you're doing, you're doing right.
- Oh!
- And you're on that card, and you will be immortalized
For being at wrestlemania.
- Oh, tombstone city!
♪ ♪
- Oh, no!
- Unbelievable!
- One day while we were on the road
To wrestlemania and a promotion,
Michael hayes was like...
- "hey, undertaker's undefeated at wrestlemania."
- I was like, "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 tenth.
That's the first time that I really acknowledged it.
You know, after I pin flair and I do the finger thing
Where I count them all off on my hands.
- He's 10-0, 10-0!
- Well, the streak really wasn't anything
That anybody realized.
Once people started talking to it, vince, of course,
Took it, looked at it, and said,
"of course I meant to do it that way."
- Okay, well, 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 dead man.
- 13-0! - Wait a minute!
- Mark henry, rest in peace.
- 14-0!
- 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 taps out!
- And the streak is intact!
- There were spots you want to be in in 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 followed with the two
That I had with triple h.
- Catching michaels in midair!
Tombstone!
Wrestlemania's phenom.
- That was a four-year story at wrestlemania.
And most people don't really understand that.
- The undertaker is 18-0!
- Not having any idea when I was having my first match
With the undertaker or the second where
This whole story line 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, okay, this might be the guy that beats the streak.
[bell dinging]
And then, nope, it continues on.
[fireworks popping]
- The friendship, the real-life friendship
Between the three
And the rivalry between the three also
Was absolutely legendary.
- Three amigos,
Two guys I think the world of
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 ever had.
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 this
On an everyday basis anymore.
Vince saw that opportunity,
An opportunity to do what was right for business
And 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 looks at me, and he goes,
"michael, they changed the finish."
And I was just stunned.
♪ ♪
- A third and five to the undertaker!
Brock lesnar, into the cover, hooks the leg.
The streak is over!
- I'm speechless.
- So are 75,000 people here.
♪ ♪
- 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.
[cheers and applause]
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.
♪ ♪
- Oh, michelle mccool!
This could be a game changer.
- 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.
[soft music]
Man, wouldn't leave me alone. [laughs] not that she can--
- 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 the younger 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 the 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.
Now you're styling.
It's been a process for me to learn to switch
The priorities around.
Oh. - Ah!
It's been fun, and I'm just very fortunate
That I was given that opportunity,
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 himself 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 loves so incredibly much until this day.
And I knew that was gonna be hard for him to leave
Something that he loves 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 to 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.
[applause]
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, 2 1/2, 3 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 gonna 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.
♪ ♪
- [speaking indistinctly]
- You shouldn't have-- you had to call me.
- The undertaker agreed on one condition:
That my dad had to do his induction.
- [sighs]
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.
[cheers and applause]
- Not only in the realm of sports entertainment
But just in being a man and the way I conduct myself
And the way that I deal with people...
- The greatest quality our inductee brings
To the hall of fame is love.
[cheers and applause]
- 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 calaway, the undertaker!
[bell tolls]
- And when that "donggg" hits,
Everyone knows.
Everyone knows who it is, and everyone stands up.
Everyone catches their breath:
"I'm about to see the undertaker."
[dramatic music]
- In terms of all-time characters,
I mean, one.
All: Undertaker! Undertaker!
- I think why I say one is because there's a lot more
To mark than the undertaker.
- Mark calaway 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 being that character, no one could do that.
- There'll never be another.
The only person that rivals that
In their positioning of the lore and the history
Of wwe is vince.
- Being inducted into the hall of fame
Was just the icing on the cake of just
An incredible 30-plus-year journey.
None of that happens without,
You know, those humble beginnings,
Waiting for somebody to talk to me at the sportatorium.
Perception is reality.
Respect and loyalty go a long way,
And no matter what, never be content.
♪ ♪
Why'd you want me to get this so bad?
- [laughs]
Had nothing to do with my career or what I achieved.
You just wanted me to be done.
- Well, it is. [bell tolls]
You can rest assured
That now that the undertaker
Has entered the wwe hall of fame
That I will...
All: Rest in peace.
- Thank you!
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
- 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 ♪
- ♪ I've got one foot in the grave ♪
♪ two empty pockets and nothing to crave ♪
♪ I got one foot in the grave ♪
♪ ♪
[thunder booming]
[bell tolls]