5 Reasons The Undertaker's WWE Retirement Will Stick (& 5 Reasons It Won't)
Have we seen the last of The Undertaker in WWE? Or was Survivor Series 2020 a ruse?
Retirements are the biggest work in wrestling.
How many times has a wrestler made a big show of saying au revoir, only to pop up again weeks later to drive ratings or PPV buys? No matter how emotional or affecting the angle in question is, it rarely sticks. You can count the number of wrestlers who sailed off into the sunset without a return ticket on one hand. Hell, Terry Funk retired so many times it became his gimmick for more than a decade.
The Undertaker has been an exception since his debut at Survivor Series 1990. He has defied stereotypes and reinvented the pro wrestling business along his 30-year road at the top. On Sunday, WWE gave Big Evil one last farewell, closing out Survivor Series 2020 with the final image of his fist raised in the air. "My time has come," the sorrowful superstar said to fans, "to let the Undertaker rest in peace."
Or has it?
While we want to believe Taker is done for good, this is a guy who's made a habit of raising from the dead. Can we take Mark Calaway at his word? Let's examine both sides of the argument...
10. WILL: His Legacy
Has any character in WWE history been more legacy-conscious than the Undertaker?
It's become a long-standing in-joke on the Going in Raw podcast that Taker leans too heavily on his historic impact, but hosts Steve and Larson are right: 'Taker knows he's a legend, and he's extremely protective of that fact. Throughout his 30-year career, Calaway has rarely broken character, going to extreme lengths to make sure the Undertaker is remembered as a supernatural badass for all time.
The older Calaway gets, the more that veneer starts to chip away. He still looks good, but the quality of his work is declining, and the calibre of his feuds is cheapening. It's becoming less and less special to witness his once-scintillating entrance.
The generation of fans currently watching WWE don't have the previous decades of 'Taker's work to remember, they're just going off what they're presented today. If Calaway wants to preserve his image in the minds of the teens and twentysomethings, it's time he steps back and lets his history do the talking.