Vince McMahon has opened up about the loyalty shown to him by The Undertaker at a time when he needed it most.
Vince McMahon’s appearance on The Pat McAfee Show was met with baited breath from the minute it was announced. It’s extremely rare that the WWE Chairman partakes in such interviews, and with the recent reports that he’s due to step back into the ring at this year’s WrestleMania against McAfee himself, the anticipation merely grew.
It was during the chat that McMahon revealed himself as The Undertaker’s inductor when “The Deadman” enters the WWE Hall of Fame on Friday, 1 April. Vince and ‘Taker are known to have this close bond, but according to McMahon himself, a large part of this is down to the loyalty shown to him during the Monday Night Wars (h/t Ringside News):
“By the way, getting back to The Undertaker. Undertaker and I never had a conversation about him going to WCW. Not one. I never asked him. He never said anything about it. Not once.”
This period saw a number of World Wrestling Federation-affiliated talent would make the jump to World Championship Wrestling during what was an immense time to be a wrestling fan, so much so that there was no Monday Night War without Kevin Nash and Scott Hall making the jump there in the first place. They kickstarted a revolution that The Undertaker wanted no part of. He was and always be a WWE lifer.
Bruce Prichard, who currently serves as the Executive Director of Raw and SmackDown, claimed in the past that Vince McMahon knew the soon-to-be WWE Hall of Famer was never going to depart the company. Talking on his Something To Wrestle podcast, the former Brother Love reminisced about ‘Taker’s loyalty to the then-WWF (h/t 411 Mania):
“I was confident that Taker was a WWE lifer. I believe that Vince was confident that Taker was a WWE lifer. It was just timing, and I don’t know that WCW would know what the hell to do with him. You take him out of the gimmick and you go back to Mean Mark, and I truly believe that the Undertaker was such a strong character that you wanted to keep that aura. You wanted to keep that mystery. You wanted to make sure that’s what the audience wanted. I think that’s what everybody wanted.”