The Undertaker Gives His Real Thoughts On The American Badass
The Undertaker spent 30 years in WWE where he spent the majority of that time at the top of the company but things could have been very different.
In an era of outlandish characters, The Undertaker was introduced into WWE at Survivor Series in 1990. For the next decade, The Deadman exuded mystery and supernatural powers and became one of the company’s most popular stars.
Then in 2000, as the times changed, so did The Undertaker, leaving fans stunned when he hopped on his Harley Davidson and rode to the ring as his new American Badass character. A more realistic, fully-formed version of The Undertaker came to be as he continued to run roughshod over the company. Then, just four years later, that run was over and The Deadman rose at WrestleMania 20 and that is the way things stayed until his last match at WrestleMania 36.
The Undertaker Says The American Badass Wouldn’t Have Lasted In WWE
Speaking on his Six Feet Under podcast, The Undertaker explained why he doesn’t think he’d have a 30-year run in WWE solely as the American Badass:
I don’t think so. I don’t think it has 30 years of legs. It excels pretty fast, but I don’t see 30 years without some kind of…it doesn’t matter what the character is, you have to evolve. With something like the American Badass, there’s not a whole lot of places to evolve to. I’m a big badass biker who gets in fights and talks sh*t. There’s just not a lot of places to go with that. Where, The Undertaker, the original character, there are all kind of different things you can do with that. I don’t think it has 30-year legs.
I took more bumps as American Badass than I did as Undertaker. I actually took more bumps at the end of my career than the beginning. It all worked out the way it was supposed to.