Kevin Sullivan Talks Undertaker Drawing "Biggest Money" And Leading The Locker Room, More
Kevin Sullivan recently spoke with Terry Funk on the first episode of Sullivan's Slaughterhouse, right here on WrestlingINC.com. During the podcast, Sullivan shared his thoughts on the Undertaker and his role in the WWE locker room and discussed Ricky Steamboat not getting the credit he deserves.
According to Sullivan, no one will be able to lead the WWE locker room once the Undertaker retires.
"He had a very good gimmick that people could get into, but his work is what set him apart." Sullivan added, "after he goes, he retires, I don't see anybody that could lead them like he [has] led them."
Sullivan openly questioned whether WWE would have been successful without the Undertaker.
"I've often said the Undertaker has drawn more money than anybody in our business for the longest time. When I say the biggest money, I mean because he has been up there with that machine for 23 years, okay? I wonder what kind of shape they would've been in if the Undertaker never came along."
Sullivan also discussed Ricky Steamboat not getting the credit he deserves while discussing the WrestleWar 1989 main event match between Steamboat and Ric Flair.
"It all seems to be Ric and Steamboat. To me, it was Steamboat and Ric. Steamboat brought out the best in Flair."
On the topic of Steamboat vs. Flair at WrestleWar 1989, Sullivan revealed that he booked the hour-long match with special guest judges Terry Funk, Pat O'Connor, and Lou Thesz as a way of setting up an angle between Flair and Funk.
"So, we had negotiated with Terry to come in and Terry wanted to work with Flair and we were saying to ourselves, 'well, how are we going to get Terry involved?'," Sullivan said. "So, I said to Terry, 'what if we did this?' I said, 'we'll have [an] hour match, but rather than just going Broadway, we'll have three judges' and I may be wrong on the exact three, but one of them was Harley [Race]. I believe the other one was Dory [Funk] and the third one was Terry, okay? And I said, 'at the end of the match, I gave my idea and he loved it, Flair loved it, Steamboat loved it, because it didn't hurt anybody and it made Terry instantaneously. It reminded people how evil Terry was."
At the conclusion of the match, Funk changed his tie breaking vote from Flair to Steamboat. Flair objected and Funk delivered a piledriver to Flair through a table and the angle was off and running.
You can check out the premiere episode of Sullivan's podcast, "Sullivan's Slaughterhouse," on our audio channel below. You can also download the episode directly by clicking here. If you want to subscribe to the Wrestling Inc. audio channel, you can do so through iTunes as well as our RSS feed, which you can use to subscribe through any podcast app.