It's hard to find a pro wrestler who's more widely respected by his peers than The Undertaker. But even The Deadman has his detractors. Here's why these wrestlers have beef with the American Badass.
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00:00It's hard to find a pro wrestler who's more widely respected by his peers than The Undertaker.
00:06But even the Deadman has his detractors. Here's why these wrestlers have beef with the American
00:11badass.
00:13The Undertaker defeated Hulk Hogan to earn his first WWE Championship at Survivor Series
00:18in 1991. That reign lasted all of two days, because Hogan won the title back at the This
00:24Tuesday in Texas event. Undertaker himself addressed the situation in an interview with
00:28ESPN in 2020, referring to his signature Tombstone pile driver.
00:33"'Hogan claims that I hurt him on the tombstone during the pay-per-view.'"
00:41Taker went on to explain that he never got a reason for losing the title so quickly,
00:44but he assumed it was because high-ups in the WWE couldn't trust him to be safe in the
00:49ring with their golden goose at the time, Hogan.
00:52After the Survivor Series match, the Hulkster went so far as to tell medics to call his
00:57What made it even worse was that The Undertaker had taken every precaution he could to avoid
01:02doing any further damage to Hogan's already-injured neck. The Undertaker watched the spot back
01:06and saw that Hogan's head was nowhere close to hitting the chair that was on the mat underneath.
01:11When he confronted Hogan about that, the Hulkster claimed that The Undertaker had actually been
01:15holding him too tight, restricting his movement.
01:18Then I knew, you know, I was like, OK. I kind of realized, OK, I know what you're all about."
01:25Taker added that the two megastars maintained a professional relationship, but they were
01:29far from friends. It seems pretty clear the mistrust went both ways.
01:35During his various stints in WWE over the years, Chris Jericho had plenty of run-ins
01:39with The Undertaker. The Deadman even lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Jericho
01:43in 2010. That said, they never met in singles action on a pay-per-view, and Jericho's recollection
01:48of a 1999 promo can maybe lend some insight as to why that was.
01:53The now-AEW star said on his Talk Is Jericho podcast,
01:57"...I told Undertaker how boring he was after he just delivered a 10-minute super boring
02:01promo. I got so much heat for that. I remember Shawn Michaels said, word of advice, something
02:06you might not want to do on the second night in the company is tell the top star in the
02:10company how boring he is."
02:13While he didn't say Michaels' advice was wrong, Jericho also stuck to his guns, contending
02:17that he found The Undertaker boring. Of course, Taker had to respond. Jericho recalled,
02:21"...he gave me the line of, I've had more shower time than you've had ring time."
02:26The current Ring of Honor champion conceded that it was a funny line, but didn't think
02:30it was accurate. He had been wrestling for nine years by then. He had just come to WWE
02:35from his WCW run. Undertaker had 13 years under his belt by then, some of that time
02:39in WCW, too.
02:41It does seem that Jericho's animus toward Undertaker was mostly focused toward the character
02:45rather than the man. In 2020, Jericho was effusive in his praise for Taker during his
02:5030th anniversary celebration.
02:52"...he's one of the coolest guys I've ever met in my life."
02:56Since retiring from the ring in 2020, The Undertaker has given lots of out-of-character
03:01interviews and started his own podcast, providing commentary on contemporary wrestling as well
03:06as recalling the days of yore. One contemporary wrestler, to have taken issue with Taker's
03:12more controversial remarks, has been former AEW star Joey Janela. In 2021, Janela took
03:16to ex-formerly Twitter and riffed on remarks made by the dead man about wrestlers playing
03:21video games in the locker room. He wrote,
03:23"...I'm gonna buy a PlayStation 5 and immediately bury it in the dirt to show my allegiance
03:28to the legends of locker room past."
03:30Janela would continue in that vein in 2022, responding to Taker's comments that today's
03:35wrestlers lack grit. Janela sarcastically wrote,
03:38"...I 100% agree, Mark. Lots of lame Marvel geek talk in these locker rooms. If I ever
03:43open up a wrestling school before you have your first match, you're gonna have to get
03:47in at least two bar fights with proof."
03:50By the way, the Avengers movies suck. Janela later revealed that former AEW colleague Cody
03:55Rhodes reached out to reprimand him for the comments toward Undertaker, but he assured
03:59The American Nightmare that he was just joking around for a reaction. For his part, Janela
04:04has mostly used Undertaker as a device for arguing against a double standard.
04:09After about five years with the company, WWE released Paul London in November 2008. He
04:14spoke extensively about his time there in the Brian Kendrick and Paul London's Excellent
04:19Adventure Double DVD in 2010, including a few choice words about the Undertaker. London
04:24said that he would catch glimpses of the good that Undertaker could do, but shook his head
04:28at other things, like being dragged out of a hotel room in the early morning for Wrestlers
04:32Court, in which the Undertaker usually presided over punishments for perceived bad backstage
04:37behavior. London said the Deadman acted as Judge Judy. London added another swipe, saying,
04:42"...I'm not a fan of people who love themselves. I'm not a fan of people who wear their own
04:46merchandise. I'm not a fan of people who put Deadman on their license plates."
04:50Both Kendrick and London said that people would act differently around Undertaker backstage,
04:55with some people they thought were friends tattling about bad behavior to the Deadman,
04:59a position he seemed to relish. London has since expanded upon Undertaker's backstage
05:04presence during a 2023 interview with Wrestling Then and Now.
05:07"...the Don Corleone of the locker room, I think. There's nobody more respected in the
05:11locker room than him."
05:13But London added that the Undertaker was also feared. He said,
05:17"...Taker had people that'll do his bidding so he could teach other wrestlers lessons
05:21while appearing to stay above the fray."
05:24Doug Gilbert's one-and-only WWE pay-per-view appearance came during the 1996 Royal Rumble,
05:30headlined by Bret Hart defending his WWE Championship against The Undertaker. Gilbert and Undertaker
05:36had previously worked together in the Memphis-based United States Wrestling Association. In a
05:41title match wrestling shoot interview, Gilbert shared a story about a pre-Undertaker, Mark
05:46Calloway, hitching rides. Gilbert said,
05:48"...I carried Mark around. Mark rode with me, The Undertaker, when he was in Memphis and
05:52we hung out together. We made trips, I mean four days a week together and we'd ride in
05:57my car because he didn't have enough money to put tires on his car."
06:00On January 3, 1996, Gilbert won a battle royal to earn himself a spot in the Royal Rumble
06:06match later that month. Gilbert said that considering they had ridden together before,
06:10he assumed he would have some form of friendly reunion with Taker. But he was met instead
06:15with a gruff and dismissive demeanor, which Gilbert took as The Undertaker feeling like
06:19his former driver didn't belong in the Rumble match. Gilbert said,
06:23"...It's all about what have you done for me lately, I guess. He sure didn't remember
06:27that he didn't have enough money to get to the towns without me."
06:30Gilbert said he tried to catch up with Taker, asking him if he'd been doing OK. He recalled
06:34to The Undertaker offering a one-word reply,
06:37"...Yeah."
06:38Gilbert said,
06:39"...I thought, man, f—k you."
06:41Rene Dupree has spoken quite a bit about his mid-2000s WWE run, including one story that
06:47speaks to The Undertaker's role as a backstage leader — and not in a good way. In an appearance
06:52on That 90s Wrestling podcast in 2021, Dupree recalled a time where he had upset the balance
06:57backstage. By not going out on a drinking trip, he said he wasn't even invited to.
07:02"...They shoved my $500 shoes and nearly a thousand-dollar suit and ruined it in the
07:08shower."
07:09Worse than that, Dupree said some other wrestlers urinated and defecated on the French flag
07:14he carried with him. He said,
07:16"...I don't know what bulls— world you live in, but in my world that's called racial discrimination.
07:21That was really hurtful."
07:22Dupree said he first went to producer Arn Anderson, who advised him to just let it go.
07:27Then he went to The Undertaker. He surmised from their conversation that Taker had been
07:31behind the whole thing to teach him a lesson. Dupree left WWE at his own request in July
07:372007.
07:39Not everyone with a beef against The Undertaker is still with us. Brian Pillman sadly died
07:43from a heart attack at the age of just 35 in 1997. And it seems he took some bad blood
07:49with The Undertaker to the grave with him.
07:51The two first worked together in WCW when The Undertaker was mean Mark Callis. According
07:56to the 2017 book Crazy Like a Fox, The Definitive Chronicle of Brian Pillman, the two exchanged
08:02words after their match at 1990's Clash of the Champions XI, and apparently never had
08:07anything positive to say to each other again.
08:10When Pillman jumped to WWE in 1996, long after Taker did so, he was only the second wrestler
08:15in the promotion's history to get a guaranteed contract. Taker was among those who took issue
08:20with that, and other deals like it, viewing it as new signees getting perks longtime stalwarts
08:25weren't afforded.
08:27The two also seemed to just have a personality clash. Crazy Like a Fox notes that Pillman's
08:31outgoing demeanor rubbed Undertaker the wrong way. Meanwhile, Pillman saw The Undertaker
08:36as a fraud.
08:37The book states,
08:38With Pillman's credibility as a street fighter and NFL alumnus, he saw a vast contradiction
08:43in Undertaker, who Pillman deemed a fake biker. Brian saw him as a man without any reputation
08:49as a credible fighter, but still carried himself as if he should be feared. In many ways, Pillman
08:53thought Callaway was a phony.
08:56Chris Canyon also died young. He tragically took his own life in 2010 at the age of only
09:0140. He had long struggled with his closeted homosexuality in a sport rooted in the trappings
09:06of masculinity. Canyon was likewise another WCW star who made his way to WWE, coming to
09:13the latter company after WWE bought out WCW in 2001. Canyon suffered an injury during
09:19a dark match in October of that year. He struggled with depression and erratic behavior during
09:24his time off for the injury, and the infamous segment that marked his return surely didn't
09:29help.
09:30On the February 13, 2003 episode of SmackDown, Canyon re-emerged from a large present given
09:37to The Undertaker by The Big Show. Canyon was dressed as Culture Club singer Boy George
09:41and forced to sing his own rendition of the song,
09:43"'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?'
09:45The segment ended with Taker hitting Canyon with several audibly stiff chair shots, including
09:50one unprotected to the head. Canyon was released by WWE a year later. In his memoir, he said
09:56that he believed the segment to be a joke about his sexuality. He also accused the company
10:00of releasing him because he was gay.
10:03The Undertaker has since addressed the Canyon rumors, denying he was even aware of the fact
10:07he was gay, while accepting that the chair shots were dangerous.
10:10And I had to sing, and it's brutal. I don't sing well.
10:15Tracey Smothers worked just about everywhere in wrestling, including with a pre-Undertaker
10:19Mark Calloway in Memphis. The late veteran was very vocal about the way he felt the former
10:24Mean Mark had changed over the years. Smothers accused The Undertaker, along with Shawn Michaels,
10:29of having a hand in his departure from WWE in 2000. And he claimed he wasn't the only
10:34one to get that treatment.
10:36In a 2018 interview with Hannibal TV, Smothers said,
10:39Yeah, back then, I guess you take it personal, you do, especially when they screw you over.
10:43But I guess in that spot, guys think they've got to be paranoid. But I've heard some stuff
10:47Undertaker's done, you know. He used to have a smile on his face all the time. But I guess
10:52in that spot, in that position, you know they think everybody's against them.
10:56Smothers recalled an incident backstage between an unnamed developmental wrestler and The
11:00Undertaker. He said,
11:01It was some kind of meeting. Undertaker was there, something or whatever. His cell phone
11:05went off. I guess Undertaker got pissed about it, and I think he tried to make amends with
11:09him or something. Bought a real nice bourbon or something. But he got him fired.