The Undertaker is undoubtedly one of the most legendary figures in the history of professional wrestling. A major superstar in the WWF/E since 1990, his Wrestlemania winning streak is one of the most talked-about feats in wrestling and he is one of the few stars to transcend the sport.
It’s also well-known that the Undertaker is a huge fan of MMA, and since the late 90’s he has incorporated MMA-based offence to his repertoire, going as far as establishing the Gogoplata (‘Hell’s Gate’) as one of his finishers in the late 2000’s.
The Dead Man has never stepped into the world of professional MMA but could he have succeeded had he chosen that career path? Here are five reasons why the answer could’ve been a definitive yes.
Just a disclaimer of course – I’m talking about prime Undertaker from the 90’s/early 2000’s, not the broken down guy in his 50’s that he is today. All due respect of course!
#1 Size and strength
The Undertaker is a huge man. Although he’s not as big as some of his pro-wrestling peers, there’s no denying that at a billed 6’10”, 300lbs, he’s much larger than your average person.
He’s also much larger than your average MMA fighter.
In comparison, for example, current UFC Heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic stands at 6’4” and weighs in at around 245lbs. The tallest UFC fighter right now would be Stefan Struve at 6’11”, and he would likely be the only fighter in MMA to have a height advantage over the Undertaker.
The biggest fighter to win the UFC Heavyweight title was Tim Sylvia at 6’8”, 260lbs, and a video clip I’ve seen of him with the Undertaker shows a definite size advantage for the Dead Man.
While size isn’t everything in MMA, it definitely helps, and it’d also help that Undertaker is incredibly strong too, as he is able to throw other huge guys like Kane, Batista and Brock Lesnar around with relative ease. The cut-off weight limit for a Heavyweight in MMA is currently 265lbs, but I suspect Undertaker could’ve made that weight with ease as WWE tends to embellish the statistics for their Superstars.
At his size, and with his great physical strength, Undertaker would’ve made a tricky opponent for any UFC Heavyweight.
#2 He’s popular with other fighters
Due to his fame and longevity in WWE, if Undertaker had decided to step into the world of MMA in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, there can be no doubt that he wouldn’t have had to look far for training partners.
During his run under the ‘American Badass’ gimmick, Undertaker was regularly seen in the crowd at UFC events, enjoying them and being recognised as one of the company’s celebrity fans.
While fighters such as Conor McGregor have thumbed their noses at WWE, other fighters such as Rampage Jackson and King Mo Lawal have always been willing to state their fandom of pro-wrestling and have often said how much it has influenced them in their careers.
A backstage clip from UFC 42 shows the Phenom – out of character, of course – chilling out with a victorious Team Miletich, following Matt Hughes’s successful title defence over Sean Sherk.
The team clearly like and respect the WWE legend and I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to think that he could’ve found a home there had he decided to pursue an MMA career. Matt Hughes even has Jeremy Horn demonstrate a flying armbar to the Dead Man.
While the Undertaker never did bust out a flying armbar in the WWE ring, he may have taken something else from Team Miletich, namely from one of their star fighters, Jens Pulver.
Pulver was the UFC Lightweight champion from 2001 to 2003 and his nickname? ‘Little Evil’. I don’t think it’s a stretch that shortly after, Undertaker became known as ‘Big Evil’, do you?
#3 He’s tough as hell
It’s a well-known fact that often, MMA fighters have to fight through numerous injuries, whether they come in camp or during the fight themselves. A couple of examples would be Chuck Liddell taking on Tito Ortiz at UFC 66 with a torn MCL, and Georges St-Pierre fighting through a torn groin to defeat Thiago Alves at UFC 100.
Although his character has often shown itself to be impervious to pain, the man behind the gimmick is as human as anyone else and he’s gotten badly hurt on numerous occasions. Thankfully for him, he’s also tough as hell and so he’s no stranger to fighting through injuries.
In 1995, the Phenom suffered a horrible injury in the form of a broken orbital bone when King Mabel botched a legdrop that landed directly on his face. Rather than take months off, the Undertaker simply wore a Phantom of the Opera-style protective mask and got right back into action.
He also took on Mankind in a Hell In A Cell match at King of the Ring 1998, while suffering from a broken ankle and fought through a severe concussion to finish his Wrestlemania 30 match with Brock Lesnar.
He even went through an Elimination Chamber match, despite suffering serious burns to his back and shoulders following a pyrotechnic accident. While today’s UFC stars are covered by a health insurance policy for injuries suffered in training camp and also inside the Octagon, plenty of them end up fighting on through bad injuries as they just don’t want to drop out of a scheduled fight.
With his history of fighting through injuries, would you bet against the Undertaker doing the same? I don’t think so.
#4 He’s willing to learn
When the Undertaker first arrived in the WWF in the early 90’s, his character was that of a zombie, for all intents and purposes.
That meant that in the ring, he was slow; his movements were all deliberate and his matches were fought at a largely glacial pace, something that was compounded by him being matched with large, usually immobile opponents.
As his character developed through the 90’s and became more human, Undertaker’s ringwork adapted. The pace picked up, the move set was expanded, he began to sell more and put on some classic matches with technical wrestlers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.
When the 90’s came to a close and the Phenom became more worn down and injury prone, his style developed into that of a brawler, focusing mainly on strikes and more power-based moves.
And when MMA took off in the early 2000’s, the Dead Man developed an MMA-influenced style complete with a myriad of submission moves, more realistic strikes, and even put on chain-wrestling style matches with Kurt Angle and grappling-oriented matches with former UFC star Ken Shamrock.
All of this shows that the Undertaker has always been willing to develop his style and change with the times, something that’s massively important in the world of MMA.
For instance, where brutal wrestlers such as Mark Coleman and Randy Couture used to love to pin their opponents into the Octagon fence for a ground-and-pound assault, nowadays ground-based fighters avoid the fence like the plague due to opponents developing ways to use it to help them to get to their feet.
As a clearly adaptable athlete, the Undertaker – had he come into MMA at a much earlier point in his career of course – could’ve been the rare type of fighter to be able to change and adjust his style with the times, rather than becoming left behind like a relic.
Due to all the changes in his in-ring style over the years, it isn’t a stretch to imagine a grappling-based Undertaker developing into a more striking-based fighter – kind of like Ken Shamrock in the early 2000’s – and thus being able to have more longevity in a potential MMA career.
#5 His character and charisma
While we’ve talked about physical attributes thus far, what we haven’t mentioned is the Undertaker’s character. Like his in-ring game, the Phenom has developed and adapted his character through the ages perhaps more than any other professional wrestler.
Starting off as the zombie mortician, we’ve seen him become a supernatural hero in the mid 90’s, a twisted Satanic cult leader in the late 90’s, a badass biker and a vicious bully in the early 2000’s and then in the mid 2000’s, an MMA-based wrestler using a supernatural gimmick to play mind games with his opponents.
Currently, he seems to have settled on the gimmick of the ‘Last Outlaw’ – a massively experienced veteran who’s seen and done it all, and yet can still hang in there with the younger generation. It’s almost Clint Eastwood-esque.
Through all of this, one thing has remained constant; the fact that the Undertaker has a natural and unique aura that draws the fans in perhaps more than any other wrestler. Whether he’s been a beloved babyface or a hated heel, the Undertaker always garners a reaction from the crowd.
And with MMA being treated as much as entertainment as it is sport – arguably more so today than ever – there’s no doubt that even if his fighting skills weren’t up to much, the Undertaker would’ve become a big star in MMA based purely on his personality, as well as his size.
Look at Kimbo Slice, for instance. By any standard, he was a pretty poor fighter, but even up to his death he remained a huge draw with MMA fans purely due to his reputation and his charisma.
Can you even imagine the number of eyeballs that could’ve been drawn to the UFC had the Dead Man stepped into the Octagon in the early 2000’s? You could say that the attention would’ve been “phenomenal”.
How do you think the Undertaker would’ve fared in MMA? Let us know!
Until next time.....
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