While The Undertaker terrified fans around the world for three decades, he has recalled that there was one wrestler who scared even him.
From his debut as an unstoppable zombie at the 1990 Survivor Series to his time as an almost Satanic cult leader during the Attitude Era and even his phase as the ‘American Badass’, the mere sight of The Phenom would scare his opponents as well as many members of the audience.
Now, he has revealed the wrestler who scared him when he was a fan in the crowd himself.
The Undertaker reveals which legend “scared the s**t” out of him
During an appearance on Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson, Undertaker recalled going to see the original Sheik at a wrestling show when was 10 or 11 and planning to confront the star.
“He scared the s**t out of me when I was a little kid (…) I don’t know, I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. I was living in Houston, Texas.
“My mom had got some tickets and The Sheik was coming in to work with somebody. I don’t remember who he was gonna wrestle.
“Me and my buddy across the street, we were talking mad like, ‘When The Sheik comes down to the ring, we’re gonna jump on the barricade and we’re gonna say this.'”
By the time Undertaker went to see The Sheik in action, the star was already an infamous heel. He would lock opponents in choke holds and try to cut them with a hidden pencil. He was also known for throwing fireballs in opponents’ faces.
Despite Sheik’s reputation, the young Mark Calaway was still determined to shout at him. However, when he did, he got more than he bargained for.
“We got ourselves all psyched up. We’re out there, we’re out on the rail, they’re about to come down. We start yelling at him and he makes just a lunge at us.
“We damn near took out the whole row trying to run because we thought The Sheik was gonna get us, man. We wiped out this old lady. We were hauling a** trying to get out the way!”
The Sheik continued to wrestle until 1995 with the last few years of his career spent taking part in death matches for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in Japan. There he teamed up with his nephew, ECW Original Sabu.
Sheik died of heart failure on January 18th, 2003 at the age of 76. He was post-humously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2007.
H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the above transcription