The Undertaker recounted a time in WWE when he was the victim of a verbal berating by Vince McMahon.
Although Taker and McMahon are close friends, there was a time when the WWE Chairman needed to take sudden action as he felt that changes needed to be made. While all of the top stars were pulled into the meeting, only The Deadman got punished.
Undertaker, who was the World Champion at the time, was told that it was not working and that the title was being switched back to Steve Austin. While no specific dates are mentioned, the timeline of events correlates with Taker winning the title at Over The Edge 1999 and losing it back to Austin on the June 28 edition of Raw.
Speaking on Six Feet Under, the Hall of Famer recalled the meeting that took place between 4 of the top stars of The Attitude Era, where he was the only one who was actually punished:
“Vince [Vince McMahon] pulls Stone Cold, Triple H, Kane, and me into a room. He’s livid, beside himself. ‘Something is not working. Something is not working right. We have to change some things. Steve, you’re going over Taker tonight. We’re switching the title back on TV.’ I think we did it live on TV, if I’m not mistaken, maybe a pay-per-view, I’m a little foggy. I put Steve back over, he takes the belt. I’m not sure what else changed for the other guys. One of them was the Intercontinental Champion, one may have been the US Champion. Nothing changed for them, the only thing that was changing was me dropping this title back to Steve.
It should be noted that of the 4 Superstars listed in the above quote, Taker was the only one who was a champion at that time.
Explaining why the sudden switch took place, Taker revealed that McMahon preferred a babyface champion. After the meeting took place, the Hall of Famer stated that Triple H found the meeting and punishment to be too harsh:
“[Vince] always liked a babyface champion. I’m thinking, ‘These are guys that I respect the absolute most and now we’re in a room together and it’s basically all falling on me.’ ‘Dude, you’re not getting it done as champ, you’re dropping the strap tonight. You two, get your sh*t together too or you’re next.’ That’s how it went down and that’s how I left that room. I remember Triple H coming up to me and he goes, ‘You didn’t deserve that.’ ‘You know what, I don’t think I did deserve that,'”
The Undertaker Discusses The WWE Hall Of Fame
With a 30-year career in WWE and being a huge influence on the industry as a whole, Taker’s induction into the Hall of Fame in 2021 was an inevitability. While there is no argument regarding The Deadman’s legendary status, The Undertaker believes that a wrestler currently signed to AEW should be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
During a separate episode of Six Feet Under, The Undertaker credited a fellow Hall of Famer for improving his in-ring work exponentially.
H/t to Fightful.