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News: The Undertaker Agrees to New WWE Deal, Sgt. Slaughter Talks Undertaker’s WWE Tryout, WrestleMania 35 Behind The Scenes Video

By John Canton • Published 14th April 2019
TJR Wrestling

The Undertaker is staying right where he’s been for nearly 30 years as part of WWE. According to Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer, The Undertaker has agreed to a new deal that will prevent him from doing appearances outside from WWE.

Here’s how Meltzer explained it: “He’s gonna fulfill his commitments, but I don’t think he’s gonna do new ones because that’s the new deal he signed with WWE because WWE doesn’t want him doing it anymore.”

In other words, he signed some new deal with WWE that is going to prevent him from doing autograph signings or other appearances aside from the ones already booked. It likely means WWE is probably going to pay him just to be exclusive to them whether he works regularly or not. It’s expected that The Undertaker will wrestle at WWE’s next Saudi Arabia event in early June with Elias as the rumored opponent.

Those commitments include upcoming appearances for Inside the Ropes. When they booked Undertaker in October, they did it through a manager and they were going to fly him to England/Scotland for three dates including signings, photos and a Q&A. However, WWE recently told them he can’t do the Q&A anymore. They have since announced Mick Foley will be there to do the Q&A, so it was a change in plans. Those appearances are April 29 in Manchester, April 30 in London and May 1 in Glasgow.

Another booking The Undertaker has is at the Starrcast event in Las Vegas in late May. As soon as that was announced, there were reports of WWE not being happy about it. Apparently, it’s still a go.

It was announced a few days ago that The Undertaker will be appearing at the Niagara Falls (Ontario) Comic Con on June 9th. That appears to be his last non-WWE appearance unless WWE cancels it.

That’s only about two hours from me. I’m not into traveling to events to meet wrestlers much, but I’m sure the fans that do meet him will enjoy it even though he’s not the kind of guy to have a big smile on his face at these kinds of things.

The Undertaker is 54 years old now and it’s not known how long he is going to wrestle for. November 2020 will be 30 years since he started in WWE, so it’s possible he’ll keep going until at least that date.

* Speaking of The Undertaker, WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter talked about how he helped in the process of The Undertaker getting signed by WWE in 1990. Here’s how Sarge explained it to Sports Illustrated this week:

“Yeah, I helped bring him in. He was wrestling down in WCW, kinda floundering around. Had real short hair red hair. Mark Callous, Mean Mark Callous. Saw a video of him, took it to Vince McMahon and he said, ‘Sarge, if you think he’s good enough to be here, bring him in for a tryout.’ So, brought him into Rochester, New York. He wrestled the first match and as I was watching the match, all of a sudden, my headset went off my ear and I heard Vince McMahon’s voice and he said, ‘Where’d you find this guy?’ And I said, ‘In a box of tapes.’ He said, ‘Well, send him to my office when he’s done.’ So, Mark came back from the ring and he said, ‘How did I do?’ I said, ‘Vince McMahon wants to talk to you.’ He said, ‘Oh, did I do something wrong?’ I said, ‘I think you probably did something right.’ So, I introduced him to Vince and he’s been there ever since.”

Good story. I think there have been several different people that have claimed they discovered The Undertaker in the WWF. It all depends on who you want to believe. I think Sarge is being honest with this story.

* A new video has been released showing WWE superstars preparing for their matches at WrestleMania 35 last week. As usual, it’s a good video that ran about 12 minutes. You can check it out below.