The Undertaker once threatened to walk out of WrestleMania.
WrestleMania 33 was the second time that the Deadman lost on the grandest stage, being defeated by Roman Reigns in what appeared to be The Phenom’s final time inside a WWE ring. As seen in The Last Ride documentary, Taker was not happy with his performance, and wanted to make up for the disappointing performance.
The Undertaker Was Not Happy With The Booking Of WWE WrestleMania Match
One year later, the WWE Hall of Famer would take on John Cena in a WrestleMania dream match. Looking to make up for the previous year, Undertaker would train extra hard to put on another classic match with the 16 time World Champion. Unfortunately, Vince McMahon had other ideas.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Undertaker recalled the conversation he had with McMahon regarding the Cena match. On the day of the show, the WWE Chairman informed The Deadman that the match would only go around 5 minutes in length:
“Yeah, I didn’t know it was gonna be short till I got there that day. So I’ve trained for a 45 minute war, right, and all right, here’s redemption. I’m gonna, man, I am going to light this place on fire, I felt good. And Vince calls me into his office and he goes okay, he says it’s just gonna be about five minutes, you know, you’re gonna squash him. I’m like, what? What? And, you know, Vince, he just thought that was the funniest [thing], because he knew how hard I’d been training. I mean, he, and I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, I’m going. I said, I’m doing 30 or I’m not going out. And he’s like, Mark, that’s not what we need. And I’m like no Vince.
Frustrated at the last minute change in booking, Undertaker would call in John Cena, hoping that his WrestleMania opponent would convince McMahon to allow the match to go longer. Unfortunately for the Hall of Famer, Cena also agreed that the bout should be short.
I was like, Where’s John? Where’s he at? So John comes in he goes, Oh no. He goes I talked mad smack about you dude. Yeah, you need to beat me quick and get this over with. I’m like are you kidding me? It’s like we’ve never worked on pay-per-view are you [serious]? And this is WrestleMania, give me a break here. And they both, they ganged up on me. I was finally, I threw my hands up. I was like, I can’t believe [it], and Vince just thought that was the funniest thing because like I said, I trained like an animal, I was so unbearable at home. I mean, as far as my diet and the training and just all my protocols of you know recoup, rehab, I was a nightmare. I get there and yeah, five minutes. And it was like that was it.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and give a h/t to Inside The Ropes.