There is no question that Mark Calaway as The
Undertaker has been one of the most loyal people to ever compete in a
WWE ring. Making his debut at
Survivor Series in 1990, Undertaker has spent the last three decades creating memorable moments and matches. During this time, he has won the world title seven times, as well as the
Royal Rumble in 2007, among other championships.
Undertaker was also pivotal during the Monday Night Wars spanning from 1995-2001, as he was a top name for WWE against their rival WCW. During this time many top names left WWE for WCW, including Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Curt Hennig, Sean Waltman, Ted DiBiase,
Rick Rude and more.
For many years, there has been a rumor of The Undertaker being close to defecting over to WCW and leaving his loyalty to WWE. The belief by many is that Undertaker met with
Eric Bischoff to gain leverage for WWE to overhaul his character, or he was going to leave to side with the adversary.
However, despite this longstanding rumor, Eric Bischoff told
Pop Culture something quite different.
"See, that's another one of those internet wrestling rumors that continues to survive, what is it now, 18, 19 years later? Nothing could be further from the truth," said Bischoff. "There was never one syllable of conversation between anybody that mattered. Maybe some of the lower level guys on the production, maybe some freelancers said, 'Wow, wouldn't it be cool if the Undertaker came over?"
Bischoff added that there could have been talks, but they were with no one of executive significance.
"Or maybe there was some new assignees over at the Power Plant where some other people that really weren't very significant who had some indirect association with the company that speculated about how cool it would be," said Bischoff. "There was never any meaningful conversation with anybody that mattered at any level."
Kevin Nash has stated in the past that Taker was close to signing with WCW. In an
interview with Sports Illustrated in 2015, Nash said that Taker almost jumped to WCW because he was unhappy with the creative direction of his character.
"We had 'Taker close," said Nash. "All of a sudden he wasn't the Deadman. He became the American Badass for a reason. That Deadman wasn't going to f---in' come to WCW. He would have been the biker character and gone by Mark Calaway.
"All along, I was trying to get guys money, I was trying to get guys paid. And what happened was Vince started giving huge guarantees to the Shawns and Undertakers and those guys and said, 'I can't lose my core guys.'"
Source: Pop Culture