Undertaker reflects on his moment with Rhea Ripley during the debut of Monday Night Raw on Netflix and explains why he doesn't want to make too many appearances like that on WWE television.
On the January 6 episode of Monday Night Raw, the debut episode on Netflix, Rhea Ripley celebrated her Women's World Championship victory over Liv Morgan by sharing a moment of solidarity and respect with the Undertaker as the legend rode his motorcycle down the ramp for a quick appearance inside the Intuit Dome before congratulating the new champion.
On the latest episode of his Six Feet Under podcast, Undertaker reveals that he had initially been penciled in to take part in a brief promo segment. When plans changed and the idea came up for him to share the stage with Ripley, he'd turned it down because he feared taking the attention off her.
"Originally, I was going to do an entrance and an interview. Which would have been fine," he said. "They had somebody that was going to interview me, and then they just thought that that would make that, that whole thing, even bigger for her. When they told me at first, I was like, 'I don't think so. Dude, that's her moment. I don't want to take away, I don't want to step on any part of that.' I mean, this is the payoff to a very long storyline. I said, 'I sure don't want to come out and step on her moment.' They basically explained, 'She's gonna have a moment in the ring. She's gonna have this moment where you two will cross paths.' I was like, 'Okay, well, now, if it's like that, it's pretty cool.' Not that our characters are similar, but they are a little bit, and, it was just like me dabbing her up there a little bit, and good job, and giving her that OG rub."
Undertaker was then asked if he would be open to doing more with Rhea Ripley on camera. He candidly said he doesn't know how it would help anybody but he would be open to something if a very strong storyline was presented his way.
"I don't know how that helps anybody. I mean, it would have to be a really, really good story. It would have to be a really strong story."
"The Phenom," who has seen many legends return to WWE as part of various nostalgia-driven one-off episodes of WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown in the past, said he never wanted to be viewed in that light and wants his appearances to be very sparing and have meaning.
"I mean, if there was something really, really good, I would consider it," he said. "Again, there needs to be less of there needs to be less of me moving forward and more focus on the talent roster that we have. That's the way I look at I think that was perfect, what we did. That was a nice rub, but the less you see of my generation, the better. I mean, some people are gonna look both ways at that. 'Like, dude, you've been around for 30-plus years. It's only gonna help.' Well, yeah, it helps, but it's also a distraction sometimes. I think it's time. There's always gonna be that moment, that special moment. I just don't want them to be too often, so that reaction that we got the other night is always there.
"I had that kind of a little bit of a little conversation with Paul [Triple H] about that. I don't want to do this too many times," he continued. "For me, too, I don't want to be that old-timer. Again, that moment was so cool, but it's almost at that point now, there's no one really left in that era that I work with. Roman and maybe CM Punk... [these appearances would be better if they were only] every so often. You know how they used to do those shows sometimes and there'd be old-timers backstage doing shit? I never want to be in that deal. So it needs to be, in my opinion, every couple of years, if that, and there's only a couple of those left, probably, that would make sense to do."
Fans can check out Rhea Ripley's response to her brief interaction with Undertaker here.
The Rock also had kind words for Ripley recently. Check out his remarks about her carrying the company here.
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