The Origins of The Undertaker Character

How did you become the Undertaker? So that's Vince's brainchild. So I went to another company, WCW, where I was mean Mark Callis. And right there, check that young stud out right there. That's terrifying, isn't it? You think it's a warmest hobbit. Just, yeah, we can take that down anytime. So I go there and I was there about eight or nine months and my contract was coming up. And I go in to renegotiate my contract and they were like, look, you're a great athlete, kid. But no one's ever going to pay money to watch you wrestle. Like, I'm just looking for a little bit of bump, right? A little bump in my paycheck. I'm not looking for the mega deal. I'm just looking for a little bit of bump. Now, we're going to give you the same deal for a year. I mean, you just, you know, you do great things in the ring, but no one's ever going to pay money to see you wrestle. Did they give you advice on how to get someone to pay you? No. Wow. Yeah, that was it. That was it. So I'm like, okay, my ceiling, I know where my ceiling is here, right? So just through, you know, a few different people, I get connected with some people in the, in the WWF, which was WWF at the time, WWE now. And I had a match coming up. My hip was already bad at that point, even back then. Yeah. It got much worse, but I was already limping. And I just heard it when we'd got Vince, you know, they had said, all right, you know, they've got a pay-per-view just watching work, you know, so Vince watches me work. And I'm calm, like, I'm, you know, talking to my buddy Bruce. I'm like, Bruce, my hip is jacked. He goes, just go out there. Vince is going to be watching, right? So I'm working with a guy by the name of Lex Luger, went out there and did what I could. I sucked. I mean, you know, I was, I was physically, you know, I was physically not able really to go the way I could go. And Vince wasn't impressed. You know, he's like, okay, he's, you know, he's run of the mill. Fortunately, guys like, you know, Paul Heyman and, and, and Bruce Pritchard, you know, they believed in me and they kind of kept pushing for me to get this meeting with Vince. And finally I did. And he calls me, I got to go to his house, right? So I go to his house. Like, fuck you. It's nice. It's fucking nice. He's a Connecticut man. He's you're a Connecticut. Yeah. So I'm up in call to the castle. Oh, dude. Yeah. And that's what I'm thinking, right? Because most people go to the, you know, the office, to the towers there in Stanford, right? And I'm thinking, fuck, I'm going to the house. I got this shit, right? So I go in and have the meeting. Meeting goes for about an hour and a half. You know, and this is, you know, there's a lot of, is that a butler? But I know we had a housekeeper. Imagine there'd be a dude with British accent and hands from the door. I never saw him. He's just ripped. Yeah. Right. You had to be everybody. Everybody's Jack that works for rips. But so I go, I go there and, you know, granted we do some hokey shit. It is what it is. And they really, at that point, had some really, really fucking goofy characters. And, you know, so that we're having this, we're sitting in his living room and he goes, well, Mark, you got to be hidden talents, you know, other than, you know, wrestling. Do you do anything? And I'm trying to be funny and not nervous and, well, you know, I'm sitting in the shower pretty good. And as soon as I said it, right, I'm like, oh, fuck, I shouldn't have said that. I'm going to be fucking shower guys. You know, some, some silly, right? Shower guys. Yeah. I'm going to have to sing, you know, I'm thinking, I'm like, oh, shit. I should not have said that. Right. And then I'm like, I'm kidding. You know, I'm trying to clear the air right away. I'm just kidding. I can't sing. Not, you know, and he's got the look right. And he knows how to, you know, he can read people and he's like, really? No, I can't. I can't. So I got this long meeting at the end of the meeting. He goes, well, we don't have anything for you right now. I'm thinking, oh, fuck. I guess, I guess overplayed my hand here because I'd already give WCW my notice that I was leaving. I like, fuck, I got it. I'm this is what I'm thinking in my head, right? I was like, he invited me to the house. He's going to hire me. Right. So you guys, I see you guys down the road. So now I'm sitting there. Fuck, I got no job. And anyway, so one day it's getting close to Thanksgiving and they start doing this promotion where they've got this giant fucking egg. Have you heard this story? Oh, yeah. The gobbledygooker. The gobbledygooker, right? So we do a pay-per-view around Thanksgiving. It's called Survivor Series. So this year, this particular year, it's 1990. They're going to, yeah, there it is. They've got this giant egg on the set, on the TV every week. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, holy fuck. I'm going to be, now I've gone from shower guy. Now I think I'm going to be egg man, right? Fuck, I'm going to have to, you know, I'm trying to grow my hair out and I think, fuck, he's going to make me shave my head. I'm going to shave my eyebrows. I'm going to be fucking egg man. Oh, and I'm a nervous wreck, right? So one day I'm sitting at home, phone rings. I get up and go answer it because we didn't have cell phones back then, right? So, hello? And he goes, is, is this the Undertaker? I was like, Undertaker, Undertaker? Undertaker hit an egg man. Fuck, Undertaker, that's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, yeah, this is Undertaker. Yeah, and it was Vince. And that was how he introduced the character to me. He called you up and asked you if you're the Undertaker. Yeah, and I had no clue to what it was. And wow. And I said, yeah, yeah, I'm the Undertaker because I knew it wasn't egg man. And everything had to be better than egg man. He wasn't singing the shower guy. Yeah, he wasn't singing the shower guy. It wasn't egg man. Flew me up to Connecticut the next day, showed me the storyboards and the character, the original character is based on an old western Undertaker. You know, the two guys in Main Street, they had the fucking shootout. One guy loses, Undertaker comes out and measures them, does the box. Well, that was the original likeness and the name, the Undertaker. And he just never found the guy. He had had it for years, I guess. So why did he send you away the first time? When you went to the house? Well, he didn't have, at the time, he didn't have a spot for me. But he was thinking. But he was thinking. And then it kind of dawned on him that he had that character and he just needed a big guy with no personality. You know, there was void of personality to do the deal. And he gave it to me. And there's my debut right there. That's November of 1990. And I was six years old and I was shitting my pants. Were you? This was the scariest thing you can imagine for a six year old. You know, you're watching all these. You know, there was some guy in a chicken suit that came out of that egg to show you how silly things were back then. So it had our attention. And then all of a sudden, this guy comes out and he's like half dead and you don't know what's going on and he's scary and dominant. The thing. Yeah, the thing was dominant. But this is the era of everything. I mean, you could tell this guy's in bright pink and so that's Coco beware. Yeah, he's wearing some hot yoga pants. Yes, you know, I mean, you know, that guy had a parrot on his shoulder when he came to the ring. Did he? Yeah. Right. Was it a parrot? Yeah. Yeah. Frankie. Yeah.