10 Things We Learned From The Undertaker On Ryan Satin’s Podcast
7. “Are You Really Dead?”
Yes, people genuinely asked The Undertaker that during the first few years of his run.
'Taker estimates that he's been asked this hundreds of times over the years. Naturally, it stopped once the internet took off and fans got a bit more streetwise, but casuals back in the day (between 1990-1994 or so) routinely wondered if he was legit dead, or maybe just... a bit dead?
Interestingly enough, despite becoming one of the WWF's most compelling characters, Calaway says he wasn't mobbed after shows or at the airport like most wrestlers. "People did not know how to take me", he offered Satin - that, to be fair, told him that he was doing something right.
He wasn't rude to people, and he didn't tell them to "Rest In Peace", but 'Taker went out of his way to make himself unapproachable. It worked, and he started to figure that fans loved the mystique of his gimmick. Acting like The Undertaker 24/7 became a way of life.