When it comes to ranking professional wrestling careers, few performers have the longevity, respect, and big match pedigree of The Undertaker.
From turning a gimmick that could have gone really, really, really bad into one of the all-time greats, to streaking his way through WrestleMania for the better part of three decades, and even becoming one of the locker room leaders of the biggest wrestling promotion of all time, Undertaker holds a special place in professional wrestling history for more reasons than one and will continue to inspire performers a half-decade after his retirement.
And yet, per the “Deadman” himself on his Six Feet Under podcast, if he had made a few minor changes to his lifestyle during the 1990s, he might still be wrestling today, namely getting a tour bus so he could get more and better sleep during the grueling days of his prime.
“I would have had higher quality matches, I would have I think I mean, even I lasted for as long as I did. I think I might have even lasted longer if I had been able to take that kind of care of myself. The struggle for me those last seven-eight years, it was just health. There was nothing really that happened or could happen that I didn't feel I had a grasp on how to handle it or how to make it work. That part was second nature at that point, but physically trying to perform and keep myself at a level where I could perform,” The Undertaker explained on his Six Feet Under podcast via Fightful.
“If I got on the bus sooner, and maybe slept a few more nights in the 90s? H*ll, I might be still wrestling right now. Yeah, at a high level. It would have helped, but the 90s, I started in a hole.”
Say what you will about the prospects of a 58-year-old Undertaker still mixing it up in a WWE ring, but considering he only worked 12 matches over his final five years in the promotion, it's not impossible to imagine the “Living Deadman” working a match at WrestleMania and another match in Saudi Arabia if he was physically up to it even now. Considering Sting has a half-decade on Taker, and he's only retiring now, it's safe to say Mark Calaway and WWE missed out on potentially millions of dollars due to that darn bus situation in the 1990s.
The Undertaker wonders who leads the WWE locker room in 2024.
Elsewhere on his Six Feet Under podcast, The Undertaker reflected on his experience as one of WWE's locker room leaders during his prime and how that role has evolved in the modern era of the promotion.
Unlike in the past, where the boys would use Taker as a resource between each other and with management, now, he feels as though that role is no longer needed, as the locker room more or less polices itself.
“I’m not there that often and I don’t know that there is that person. I think the whole culture has changed so much, that I think it’s kind of — I don’t know this for certain, it’s just my assumption, everything’s kind of self-policed,” The Undertaker explained via TJR.
“If there is somebody that’s kind of screwing things up, usually everybody’s got one or two people that they’re really, really, really, really close with, but I don’t know. I don’t know if they have that one person that’s willing to assemble the group and cuss them. I say that as kind of a halfway joke. I also was the first one to pat them on the back for tearing down the house.
“I don’t know. There could be [a designated locker room general], but I don’t know who that would be. The culture is really different. Most of the top guys all have buses and stay on their buses.”
While Big E has suggested recently that Seth Rollins is a locker room leader in WWE, his role almost certainly doesn't compare to what The Undertaker used to do back in the day, as it's hard to imagine the “Visionary” having to do everything his undead counterpart had to during the Montreal Screwjob in 2024. Still, in a way, that's probably for the best, as it's better to go to HR if there's an issue than have a giant-sized wrestler have to enforce street justice if one of the boys decides they might not play ball with a booking decision or wants to literally fight the promoter.
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