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The Undertaker has revealed when he knew that his last match was going to be his final match in WWE.
WrestleMania 36 was a bittersweet occasion for The Phenom. At the 2020 event, The Undertaker faced AJ Styles in the main event of night 1 in The Boneyard match, a cinematic match in a graveyard due to restrictions in place due to the ongoing pandemic. Defeating AJ Styles and riding off into the night, the WWE Hall of Famer put on a great performance in his final match and seemingly signified his retirement from in-ring competition.
However, as wrestling fans know, retirements rarely stick. Even The Undertaker returned for one final run after seemingly retiring in the main event of WrestleMania 33 after losing to Roman Reigns.
Looking back at the encounter on the Six Feet Under podcast, The Undertaker explained how the on-location match was able to adapt to the unforeseen circumstances and how he was able to blend his characters into one for the match:
“We got lucky in the sense that we got to go out of the Performance Centre. Because all the matches, Edge and I think Randy Orton, they had a hell of a match but it was so sterile because there was no reaction. We weren’t even pumping in noise at that point or didn’t have the virtual audience.
It was just them having a match in the Performance Centre, a killer match but there’s just no emotion to feed off of. That’s the thing that you live for. We were fortunate enough that we got to go off and had this cinematic match. It was cool for me because I got to kind of tie in all the characters in one.
I got to tie myself, the old school Undertaker, the American badass, everything got tied together for that match just due to the fact, the content of the interviews and the stuff that AJ was doing. That match was obviously supposed to be held in the ring. So we got really lucky that we were able to have those kinds of toys and the atmosphere.”
With the match being a cinematic one, multiple takes were shot to make the match as high quality as possible. In between takes, The Deadman revealed that he had the realisation that there wouldn’t be any more matches after this one:
“We were between takes. We were getting ready to, I think getting ready to go to the big finale off the top of the barn there. It was getting cold. We’ve been at it since I think we started filming around dark which was around eight o’clock. So now it’s four in the morning and my back, everything is locking up.
That’s like when I had [the realization], that’s when it finally clicked like ‘This is it dude. You’re not coming back after this one.’ It was just a moment; I was sitting there by myself and just a moment of pure clarity that just said ‘Sh*t. This is it right here’ Obviously I didn’t share it with anybody. We got through it.”
“I was happy because it was another thing like I was really fortunate enough to be involved in so many innovative matches and these crazy storylines and to be able to do this big cinematic type match which would add different layers to the product. I was happy with all that.”
Ending his thoughts on the match, The Undertaker has extremely high praise for his final opponent:
“Deep down I always thought AJ was the Shawn Michaels of this generation. I wanted to have that kind of match that I had with Shawn with AJ in a ring, but I don’t think it would have been as poetic as what we were able to do.”
The Undertaker Discusses Epic WrestleMania Match
Few have been able to make as many historic moments at WrestleMania as The Undertaker. With the establishment of The Streak and its shocking ending in 2014, The Undertaker defeated some of the biggest names in WWE history on The Grandest Stage while also putting on the match of the night on numerous occasions. When discussing his epic match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 25, The Undertaker revealed a surprising fact.
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