The Undertaker recently made an appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed his WWE WrestleMania 40 appearance and noted that he’s open to doing more cameos.
The Undertaker retired after his Boneyard Match against AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36 in 2020. However, he did appear at WrestleMania XL alongside John Cena in the main event of night two during Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title. The Bloodline, Seth Rollins, Cena, and Taker got involved as Cena laid out Solo Sikoa while Taker choke-slammed The Rock. Taker has said that the moment gave him closure about his wrestling career being over.
Taker said, “Yeah, I could do it. I couldn’t do it to the standard that I wanted to do it. There’s certain things that I don’t feel like I would be able to do. After I did it, I came back, and I was like, ‘I’m good now. I don’t need to do this again.’ Not saying that I wouldn’t if they needed something like that again, but I’m not going to have a match, or I’m not coming out of retirement. Yeah, that’s it [boneyard match]. That’s the way I have to look at it.”
Steve Austin was reportedly originally earmarked for the spot at the end of the match where Taker laid out the Rock. The Undertaker also discussed knowing when it was time to retire.
Taker said, “It’s weird. I knew that it was going to come, but I wasn’t mentally preparing myself for it. I always just thought I was going to be able to do it, and realistically, Father Time is undefeated. I knew early on, even when I was still working, and I love this business so much, but I knew I was going to have a hard time. People always ask me, ‘Well why don’t you go down to the PC? Why don’t you be a mentor?’ When I’m around, I do that kind of stuff. But as an everyday deal, I can’t do it. Because recently, I’ve just kind of had closure at Mania. I don’t know if you heard this but I struggled since I retired at being at live events. I would go. I was at the Rumble because I had the 1DeadMAN Show in Clearwater. I stayed over, and I was at the Rumble. By the time I think maybe the first match had gone out, I left. Because internally, my body and my mind is [thinking] you should be getting ready, you should be going out there and I get almost, I wouldn’t say anxiety, but I just get this feeling like I can’t take it because I want to be out there so bad. I wanted to continue to wrestle, obviously, my body broke down and Father Time is undefeated, I never wanted to be a parody of myself and I really risked that at the end. I had some matches that I think, maybe at one point in my career, they were bad. But there was one point in my career I felt like I could take anything and turn it around and I just didn’t have it in me, like the match I had with Goldberg in Saudi Arabia. I should have picked up on the fact that he had his bell rung, and then [he] rung it again when he hit the post, I should have been sharp enough to adapt at that point, and not try to get to where I was getting.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
