Undertaker: The WWE Champion Doesn’t Always Need To Be Large, But Should Always Be Credible
The Undertaker, due to his longevity in WWE, has seen the style and philosophy driving the promotion evolve many times over the years. Now, he weighs in on his personal goal throughout his seven reigns as WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
As The Undertaker prepares for his “final farewell” at the 2020 Survivor Series event, Mark Calaway, the man behind the character, is opening up about his three-decade-long career in WWE and the many twists and turns that have been present throughout his journey. One consistent roller coaster throughout his time in WWE was the WWE Championship picture.
Undertaker first won the title in 1991, defeating Hulk Hogan at the 1991 Survivor Series event. His last championship win came 18 years later, when he defeated CM Punk at the inaugural Hell in a Cell pay-per-view in 2009. Throughout those 18 years and every year that’s followed, the style at the top of the card has morphed to fit the roster and audience attending the events at that given time.
Speaking with Yahoo!, Undertaker was asked whether or not he believes the WWE Champion should be somebody who is large in stature. Undertaker would say that, for him, the most important element of the top Superstar at any given time is credibility.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big guy big guy, but we have stretched the realms of reality sometimes with some of our champions,” Undertaker began. “When you see some of the guys that they have to work with, it’s like, OK, I get it, we’re sports entertainment — BUT. My whole goal when I went to the ring, I don’t care if you’re smart, not smart, whatever, when I’m in the ring I want people thinking, ‘This dude’s legit.’ If I hit somebody, I want people in the front row going, ‘No, dude, he hit him. I don’t care what happened in the match before, he just lit him up. This is on.’ So it’s hard because we’re kind of starting to get a little bit of an influx of big guys, but it’s just kind of where– because there’s so much new talent, you can’t put the title on a guy just because he’s big and back in the day, man, we had tons of big guys that could go and could carry it and do that.”
He continued, “So it’s more of a guy that kind of fits in the middle of the road. A guy that you’ll believe working with a big guy but can also work with a little guy. But there are certain guys that have had — I won’t bring in names — but it’s just like, yeah, I just don’t buy it. I don’t buy this as my champion. It’s not any fault of their own, other than they’re physically not able to match up against certain people.”
Another big man who proudly carried the torch for WWE throughout the years is the Undertaker’s on-screen brother, Kane. Recently, Kane opened up about whether he believes this is really the final hurrah for Undertaker. Learn more at this link.
