At UFC 121 in October of 2010, the main event of the night featured Brock Lesnar versus Cain Velasquez for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Lesnar was bested by Velasquez in that bout and following the fight, Lesnar walked past The Undertaker and Michelle McCool while Undertaker was being interviewed by Ariel Helwani. During their stare-down, Undertaker said to Lesnar, “Do you wanna do it?” And the clip soon made its way around social media.
Ariel Helwani recently had the chance to conduct an interview with The Undertaker to promote ‘The Last Ride’ documentary on the WWE Network. Undertaker was asked about his run-in with Lesnar and said that he came to the event looking for a ‘wrestling fight’. He wanted to bring Lesnar back into the wrestling world so figured he’d go to Lesnar’s current home of MMA and attempt to do that.
“I was sitting there personally to pick a fight. I was unaware that Dana [White] had no clue with what was gonna happen which I felt horrible about, after the fact. I thought there had been some kind of discussion between him and Vince [McMahon], but at that time, Brock was so hot in the MMA world, so obviously, it’s like, ‘You know what? Why not try it?’ There was no personal animosity really, but it was basically me saying, ‘You left our world. I’m coming into your world and I’m gonna call you out’ and you know, that was it, and obviously it was a huge media storm and it’s all your [Ariel Helwani] fault.
Like a wrestling fight. I was trying to get him back in my world. I’m pretty gutsy, but my days of getting in the octagon are far past me. I mean I am smart enough to realize that, but I thought if I could get somebody that was on — obviously there was such a history there. There’s one with WWE and then his success in UFC, this is huge if I can make it happen. So, that’s what it was all about.”
Undertaker also spoke about ‘The Last Ride’ docu-series. He said it was tough for him to watch at times and talked about how much the wrestling business means to him. Undertaker added that the documentary is an emotional rollercoaster. Part two of the documentary airs this Sunday on the WWE Network.
“It’s tough for me to watch sometimes, but I’m glad that we have it so that people understand how much the business meant to me, means to me. It’ll always be part of me and because I did keep that cloak around the character and the person, I kept ‘em completely separate. I don’t think people really understand how important all this was to me and is to me and so, I think an emotional rollercoaster is the best way to describe the whole thing.”
While conversing about the documentary, the topic of The Undertaker’s streak came up. Undertaker lost his WrestleMania streak to Brock Lesnar in 2014 and Undertaker recalled the conversation he had with Vince McMahon about ending the streak. Undertaker, real name Mark Calaway said that he’s all about doing business and thought about the scenario of him trying to dispute the finish of the match and how that would’ve done no good for anyone.
“I just asked Vince, ‘Are you sure?’ I said, ‘Is this what you want?’ And he was like, ‘If it’s not Brock, who can beat you?’ From the way the streak was built and by that time obviously so, I was like, ‘Alright well, it’s your call.’ Everybody thinks that I have all this juice, that I can say yes or say no. I could’ve said no but, what good was that gonna do? Then we really would’ve had a lot of disappointed people. What do I do? Not go out? I throw a tissy. If I don’t go over… it’s just not me. I’m business and business comes first before anything personal and so, I just double-checked and made sure he was 100 percent sure it’s what he wanted to do and that was the plan, so I went with it.”
Undertaker stated that he is proud of his WrestleMania matches with Triple H and Shawn Michaels. He said that his two back-to-back matches with Shawn Michaels can be put up against any match in regard to storytelling. Calaway added that there was a great deal of pressure being the last person that Shawn Michaels would wrestle in a sanctioned match until Michaels’ return in November of 2018.
“I’ll put first, my WrestleMania match with Shawn up against — and I’m not a braggadocios-type person, that’s just not how I am, but I’d put that match up against any and say, ‘Okay, show me something that’s better than that as far as storytelling and execution,’ and then follow that up with Shawn Michaels’ last match. You wanna talk about some pressure? That’s some pressure man because that’s somebody I feel personally and I think most people do as one of the greatest in-ring, out of the ring performers ever.”
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Ariel Helwani and the ESPN MMA YouTube channel, along with POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blmuu1euDOI[/embedyt]
As mentioned in the beginning portion of the article, Brock Lesnar lost the UFC Heavyweight Title to Cain Velasquez at UFC 121. In the Fall of 2019, Velasquez signed a deal with WWE and wrestled Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship this past November. In late April, it was reported by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio that Cain Velasquez had been released from WWE.
