“Protected it for so long”; WWE Hall of Famer opens up on The Undertaker’s selfless act
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The Undertaker in his Iconic pose
We have known Undertaker as an intimidating character for so long now. His fearsome aura sent jitters down our spine and we saw visible fear in his opponent’s eye. The Phenom debuted at 1990’s survivor series, as a part of Ted DiBiase’s The million Dollar team and subsequently defeating the ‘The Dream Team’ lead by Dusty Rhodes.
For 30 years Undertaker remained in his character with minimal out of the ring interactions. Considered a legend, The Deadman won several accolades in his illustrious career including the WWF/WWE championship (4 times), the World Heavyweight championship (3 time) and several other championships and events.
No doubt, having such an illustrious career, The Undertaker was a locker room leader. And recently in an interview on Steve Austin’s podcast Broken Skull Sessions show, Bubba Ray Dudely aka Bubba Ray recalled The Deadman “rejecting” the idea of kicking out of Dudely boys’ Finisher ‘3D’:
“Nobody kicked out, if we hit the move, maybe there was a save or a pull-out… nobody kicked out. As a matter of fact, at the Great American Bash when it was The Dudleyz versus ‘Taker, we said to ‘Taker, ‘If you want this…’ and he said, ‘Nope, you protected it for so long. We’re not gonna do it if it doesn’t mean anything.’ Total respect.”
Later the Phenom defeated the Dudely boys after delivering the ‘tombstone pile-driver’ to D-Von Dudely and completing the stipulation of buring Paul Bearer in cement.
If not ‘The Undertaker’ then who kicked out of the finisher?
6 years later in a retirement angle, The Dudely Boyz faced the Motor City Machine guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) in whivh Chris Sabin kicked out of the move after a pin attempt by D-Von and later losing the TNA tag team championship.
“We hit the 3D on Chris Sabin, D-Von goes for the cover… one… two… Sabin kicks out,” Bully Ray recalled. “What the hell? Mike Tenay on the call on commentary, ‘I don’t think anybody’s ever kicked out of this move.’ Blah, blah, blah. The next set of tapings, me and D-Von, ‘Thank you very much everybody, we love you, goodbye, we’re out the door.“
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Mohammad Jazib
(92 Articles Published)