The Undertaker: "I Stayed In My Room In The Dark For 2 Weeks" After Brock Lesnar WrestleMania Match
During the Bill Simmons Podcast, The Undertaker talked about the night Brock Lesnar became the one to defeat his undefeated WrestleMania streak and the reaction from the fans in the arena.
"From watching it back, it was like boom, all the air got taken out of the arena," Taker said.
Taker said that nobody knew he was concussed or injured during the match to make sure that everyone understood that the decision to end the streak wasn't an audible during the match and that it was always the original plan.
"No one even knew," Undertaker said. "Brock got hyper nervous about it but you could tell, maybe for the casual fan you couldn't tell but anyone who follows our business could tell. My memory of that day stops at about 3:30 in the afternoon, that's the last memory I have. My wife had come backstage as she normally does before I start going through my process, I had told her what was going to happen and calmed her down and that was it. I have no recollection of the match, it was 4 in the morning before I even knew what my name was."
Undertaker talked about how long it took after that match for him to feel back to normal.
"I basically stayed in my room in the dark for 2 weeks," he said. "I've been concussed before, but never to that level. I've never had the lingering headache and sensitivity to the light, that had never happened to that extreme before. It was strange. Not being able to remember, I had been concussed a few times and been able to finish the match and know when it happened but not that time."
He also mentioned how he's watched the match back multiple times to try and pinpoint the exact moment where he got concussed and can't.
"I can't," Taker says. "I've watched that match so close and picked it apart and I just can't tell. There's nothing that really stands out, sometimes you can tell by the way your head hits something but I've watched it back and can't pinpoint where it happened. I can get in the area because I can tell where my body language and pacing stops but there's nothing that should have caused a concussion."
Taker said losing the match to Lesnar was a passing of the torch moment for Lesnar. He compared it to Hulk Hogan defeating Andre the Giant at WrestleMania 3.
"I remember Hogan beating Andre and from where the industry was at the time, you still think man that's Andre," Taker said. "Hulk was getting that super mega push and the face of wrestling but you still said man that's Andre the Giant, how are they going to do this? When it happened you were like 'Wow okay', and it was the same with Brock. A lot of people were upset about it, a lot of people felt he didn't need it or it could have been somebody else but business is business."
Taker also mentioned the moment he and the company started to realize that the Streak was a big deal.
"I think it was versus [Ric] Flair in Toronto," Undertaker said. "At the end of that, I held up the fingers and counted them out. Before that somebody had said to me 'You know you're undefeated right?' and I said 'Oh really', I had no clue.
"We were so in the groove, 300 days a year, at that time you don't think about your win loss record and all that. And then it took on a life of its own. That's just unheard of to be 10-0 at WrestleMania and then it went to 21 before Brock beat me."
Taker noted how at many different meetings over the years that somebody would've been positioned to beat the streak and other people in the office would convince Vince to keep it intact.
"There were some creative meetings where it came up about various different people beating the streak and I think it was one of those rare occasions where a lot of people just said 'Vince, you can't do that, we have something here.' There was whoever the main event was and who ever was going to try and beat the streak that year. It was a double main event."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Bill Simmons Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.