Why The Undertaker Felt Bad About Dangerous Spot With Ex-WWE Star

A former WWE star has recalled when The Undertaker felt terrible after doing a dangerous move in a match during the Attitude Era.

As one of the largest wrestlers in WWE history, The Undertaker was known for his incredible arsenal of power moves. When he was in the classic Taker years, he used the Tombstone Piledriver as a finishing move, and it looked like one of the scariest moves in the business because it legitimately did hurt some people over the years.

In addition to The Tombstone, Taker used the Last Ride Powerbomb during his days as the American Badass. Don’t forget about the Chokeslam, which served as a setup move in some matches, but it also worked as a finisher.

When The Undertaker did those power moves on larger opponents, they looked impressive as feats of strength, but when he did them on the smaller guys, they looked absolutely devastating.

An example of that is when the American Badass version of Taker defended the Hardcore Title against Spike Dudley on the December 10th, 2001 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw. During that match, Undertaker delivered a Chokeslam from inside the ring, and he sent Spike over the top to the floor. It looked and sounded very painful.

During an appearance on Chris Van Vliet’s podcast, former WWE superstar Spike Dudley talked about how the spot was his idea.

“Okay, so I’m new in the WWE. He’s the Hardcore Champion, and they book Spike vs. Undertaker. We always went through the match a little bit because TV time, and this is what we’re going to do. So he’s like, ‘Hey, okay, you know, beat me up. I’ll give you this little spot here, and then I’ll give you the last ride and Chokeslam.’

I looked at him, I was like, ‘Is that it?’ I didn’t mean it in the sense of ‘You need to do more, because I’m not going to sell for you.’ But I was like, ‘That’s all you’re going to do with me?’ He’s like, ‘What do you mean?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I’m Spike, I’m 140 pounds, you can do something with me that you can’t do with everybody else because of my size.’

And he said, ‘Well, what do you have in mind?’ And I didn’t really have anything in mind, but I started to think for a second, and I was like, ‘Well, dude, you Chokeslam me out of the ring?’ He went, ‘No!’ I was like, ‘I’m serious. I can take it. I understand it’s going to the pad, which is over concrete, but we can do it.’

He goes, ‘You’re an idiot. No, I’m not doing that.’ I said, ‘Taker trust me, I can do this.’ He’s like. ‘Well, let’s get the crash pad out and try it.’

This is obviously before the show, and so we had these crash pads where you could play and test out stuff. So he tries, he’s spacing it, and he’s seeing how much he can control me and all of that. And he’s still not sold.

Bubba happens to walk down to the ring while we’re doing this, and he looked at Bubba, and he’s like, ‘This kid wants me to Chokeslam out of the ring! Is he insane?’ And Bubba looked at him. He goes, ‘Taker, if Spike says he can take it, he can take it, it’s okay.’ He was like, ‘Okay,’ and he conceded, like, I had to wear him down to do that, and we pulled it off.”

The Undertaker Apologized To Spike Dudley For Dangerous Move, But Spike Assured Taker It Was Okay

As Spike told the story, he mentioned that he saw The Undertaker during WrestleMania 40 weekend in Philadelphia, and Taker was apologizing to Spike about the move. That led to Spike reassuring Undertaker that it was okay because Spike actually came up with the move.

“Taker saw it and, I mean, it was whatever, 20 years ago, and he didn’t remember that. I had to convince him to do it. He was apologizing to me [years later], like, ‘I’m so sorry. I was such an a**hole for making you do that.’ And I was like, ‘I’m an a**hole because I made you do it.’ He remembered the spot, he didn’t remember that I convinced him. He thought in his head he was looking back as like, ‘Hey, I’m the Undertaker, and I’m going to do whatever I want, so I’m going to take liberties on little Spike.’

So he was apologizing for me, going, ‘I can’t believe I made you do that.’ I’m sitting there, going, ‘No, I made you do that.’ So it was a relief off of him. He was like, ‘Oh, thank God. I feel so much better now that I wasn’t that much of a d**k.’ But it was a cool spot. It was no big deal.”