Seth Rollins Talks The Undertaker Moving Away From His "Deadman" Persona
The Undertaker's "The last Ride" docuseries on the WWE Network has captivated fans seeing the behind the scenes aspect of The Undertaker's career that has rarely been seen before. Fans have gotten to see Vince McMahon's reaction to The Undertaker's WrestleMania 33 match, and The Undertaker's pursuit for a perfect end to his career.
Seth Rollins joined Corey Graves on After The Bell where the two talked about Rollins and Becky Lynch's pregnancy news. The two also talked about the Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance, which led to them giving their thoughts on The Last Ride.
"From what I've seen, I've only seen the first episode as of right now, It's amazing. It's amazingly well done. It's awesome. I don't know if there's anybody in our business as highly respected as the Undertaker, but 12-year-old me is kind of going, I don't want to know this," Graves said. "I want The Undertaker. I like to think he could really summon lightning. In a weird way, it's like the death of the innocence.
"I think the smart thing with Taker is that he did it at the right time in his career. So 12-year-old you, if they had shown The Last Ride when you were 12, it would have ruined everything," Rollins said. "It would ruin the whole thing, but we didn't have that back then, and he was not in the prime of his career because his character doesn't work today.
"There are like some weird exceptions. Bray Wyatt comes to mind from a ultra-character character perspective who sort of kind of slides by a little bit or gets a little pass, but The Undertaker character is so supernatural. So now when he's at this point in his life where he is comfortable transitioning out of The Undertaker character and that skin all the time and being just Mark Calaway. I think that it's OK. It makes it OK for me when I watch it, when I see him being a human being."
Graves and Rollins also discussed The Undertaker's transition in his career where he is talking more about his career. Rollins talked about how this is coming out at the perfect time following his Boneyard Match against AJ Styles.
"In a weird way, in my opinion, having him remove the veil of The Undertaker almost makes him a character because he's this guy who has done all of these things, and he's got all these accolades and accomplishments. And now he's kind of pulling back another layer," Graves said. "It's like a fresh coat of paint, whereas if he comes out in jeans and a t-shirt now, you're still enamored because you he's got this credibility and all this stuff and all this this weird mystery still, and I could see it actually benefiting him for the next few years.
"Yeah, in the long run, I think it's going to really help him transition into just being himself and whatever retirement looks like for him or whatever the next phase of The Undertaker looks like for him, and he did it really I thought cleverly too because it was kind of slow," Rollins said. "It wasn't like one day he's 'The Deadman," the next day, here's 'The Last Ride.' He used this story with AJ Styles to kind of lead him into this place where he's at. Now he can he can be The Undertaker on social media too. The Undertaker can have an Instagram and stuff like that.
"There's a sentence I'm sure nobody ever thought would be spoken," Graves remarked. "Oh, The Undertaker's on Twitter."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit After The Bell with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.