Jim Ross has revealed that he once pitched for Mankind and The Undertaker to fight at the iconic Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay.
Alcatraz Island had been home to a military fort since the 1850’s, before a United States military prison was built on the site in 1910.
The site was later adapted and modernised to become a federal prison in 1934. The prison has become the stuff of legend owing to it’s fearsome reputation as home to some of the most infamous criminals in US history such as Al Capone, Bumpy Johnson and Machine Gun Kelly. (No not that one). It was also said that the prison was impossible to escape from, even though many tried.
The prison closed in 1963 before being turned into a museum, and in a surreal twist almost became the scene of a match between The Undertaker and Mankind.
When Mick Foley was signed by the WWF in 1996, he did so as a perspective opponent for The Undertaker. This led to a number of classic encounters between the pair including a Boiler Room Brawl, Hell in a Cell and Buried Alive Match.
Speaking during a recent Q&A edition of his Grilling JR podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross recalled attempting to book a match between the pair at the infamous prison.
“We kept looking for scenes. We kept looking for settings during that Undertaker-Mankind scenario. We knew the marriage worked. We knew those guys liked working together. So I was just trying to come up with a site that we could utilize that was different. You know, how many times can you give them the boiler room? How many times can you give them Hell in a Cell? You know, they liked that kind of stuff.
So I thought well, having a match in Alcatraz where the doors have opened at a certain time and they would be looking for each other and all that stuff, I thought had some intrigue. It would be sort of a unique setting to say the very least. There’s so much red tape, much to my chagrin that it just wasn’t gonna work out.”
During the episode, Ross ruled out becoming Head of Talent Relations in AEW, despite previously holding the position in WWE.
H/t to WrestlingNewsCo for the transcription.