5 Reasons The Undertaker's WWE Retirement Will Stick (& 5 Reasons It Won't)
3. WON'T: He Wants To Go Out On His Back
The Undertaker: The Last Ride was full of harrowing glimpses at the Undertaker's march to then. Across its five episodes, the 2020 docuseries showed some of the most hard-to-swallow images of Calaway ever produced.
We saw him drained, foggy, injured to the point of fearing death. We saw the doubt that afflicted him as he aged, but that wasn't as disturbing as the resolve he has to keep going.
"I'm either going to go out in a match that's fitting for the Undertaker at WrestleMania, or I'm going out on my shield," he said, "One way or another." Taker's deathwish seemingly came true in his Boneyard match against AJ Styles at Wrestlemania 36. It was a brutal conflict that took 8 hours to film, but ultimately, the reborn American Badass prevailed.
Calaway is about as old school as it gets, and its tradition that top guys leave on a loss. Could this be the "going out on my shield" fate that Undertaker desires? If The Last Ride showed us one thing, it's that Taker won't be satisfied bowing out unscathed like he did Sunday night.