Undertaker gave some details about knowing how to handle Hulk Hogan at an early stage in his wrestling career. In a recent interview with ESPN’s Pete Rosenberg, Taker talked about the unsettling incident of Hogan acting like a young Mark Calaway injured his neck during their big WWE title match at the 1991 Survivor Series. Taker said as a greenhorn in the WWE, he was devastated by the supposed occurrence as he initially gave Hogan the benefit of the doubt.
“It was a set-up from the whole get-go,” Taker stated, who recalls showing up to the event early and having Hogan pull him aside in the locker room.
“‘Hey kid, can I talk to you?’ Right? So we go into one of the locker rooms in the shower, right?” Taker said all the business talk was done in the shower.
“So he’s telling me, he goes ‘Hey, I got this neck injury,’ he says, ‘I’m really nervous about taking your finish. I said, ‘Hulk believe me, I will protect you. I pride myself on not hurting people and I promise you, I will have you so tight that there’s no way possible that you’re going to hurt your neck.’ So with that, we went on about our business. Every point during the day, I’d pass him in the hall and whatnot and get the (points to his neck), you know ‘Remember, about my neck, right?’ So that’s all I got all day was ‘my neck.’ So we go into the finish, [Ric] Flair comes down, slides the chair down, I pick him (Hogan) up and when I tell you I had the brother secure, he was secure! Boom, I give him the Tombstone. Soon as my knees hit I hear, ‘Ohhh, you got me, brother!'”
“I was 24, 25 years old and I just crushed Hulk Hogan, right? That’s what’s going through my head. Like they gave me this opportunity they gave me this chance to run with the ball and I just hurt the golden goose. So I’m just devastated, mortified right?
“So I go backstage and I ask, ‘Where’s Hulk at?’ Right? ‘Oh, he’s laying on Vince’s office floor.’ So I go in there and he’s laid out on the floor ‘Ohhhh’ and he’s carrying on. I’m going into check on him, but then here come the paramedics and stuff. So me here and ‘Kayfabe,’ right? So I go behind a wall with Shane [McMahon]. Me and Shane are behind a wall.
“Then I hear, ‘Somebody get my wife and kids on the phone.’ So you can only imagine, right, I don’t know what the hell’s going on other than the fact I hurt the golden goose.” Shane McMahon was trying to reassure The Deadman that he absolutely protected Hogan when doing the Tombstone, but the young Taker wasn’t hearing it.
“Shane’s right there telling me, he’s like, ‘Mark,’ he goes, ‘his head wasn’t anywhere close to touching that mat.’ I’m like, ‘No, man.’ I just couldn’t here it,” I was like, ‘No, man. I hurt him.’ I couldn’t put a thought together. I just thought I killed him.”
Undertaker says replay was readily available to talent back then so he didn’t see the footage until the following Tuesday in Texas.
“By now, a lot of the boys had come up to me and they’re like shaking their head like, ‘His head never got anywhere close to the mat,’ and you watch it back and you can tell his head doesn’t touch,” Taker said.
Taker approached Hogan when they were both back in San Antonio.
“I was like, ‘Terry, I watched it back – your head never hit.’ He was like, ‘Well brother, what it was was you had me so tight that I had nowhere to move and that’s what jammed my neck cause I couldn’t move at all.’
“At that point, then I was like, ‘Okay.’ Then I knew, you know, I was like, ‘Okay. I kinda realized I know what you’re all about and that’s all I needed.'”
Rosenberg asked him about what his relationship with Hogan was like after that, particularly when they ran into each other down the road years later.
“I treated him with the respect for what he did for the business, he deserved, so I treated him that way. I was not overly friendly, but if he was in the building, I always made sure to say hello and engage him in conversation, but you know, like I said, from that Tuesday in Texas, when I got that answer, I knew all I needed to know about him. Then my radar was always up anytime that I had to interact with him, but I dealt with him in a professional manner.”
What about that time during their feud in the 2002 when Hogan stalled out Undertaker’s bike going up the ramp on RAW?
“I laughed a little bit, honestly. I would be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t get a kick out of that.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
You can catch the full clip of Taker’s take below:
