In a recent episode of his podcast “Six Feet Under”, WWE Hall of Fame inductee, The Undertaker, shared some insights about his early days in the wrestling industry, starting from his backyard wrestling days.
Here are some groundbreaking points from his podcast discussion:
When asked about his origin story as a backyard wrestler, The Undertaker began, “My wrestling journey started in the confines of backyard wrestling. Compared to the guys I wrestled with, I looked like a clone of Andre the Giant. They were mostly fellas with no hopes of making it big. They would have been big shots today, considering the smaller wrestling base. You’d find these miniature guys and then there was me, at a towering 6’8″ with a weight of 320 pounds. I appeared like a behemoth, a true Andre amidst the rest. However, back in those days, whenever an opportunity came to wrestle, we seized it.”
On the topic of his initial moniker, he revealed, “I was known as ‘Powerhouse.’ Furthermore, as a part of living up to the name, I even possessed a Powerhouse Gym t-shirt. The amusing part was that it was pink, a color I hadn’t mellowed down to yet.”
He went on to discuss the Attitude Era’s significant impact on wrestling, driving it mainstream, “It’s astonishing, really. Wrestling got an unexpected boost during the Attitude Era. It was a period when I started noticing wrestling t-shirts in public spaces frequently. Previously, you’d typically see these shirts at events or with die-hard fans, not unlike concert t-shirts. Seeing people wearing Austin 3:16 or other popular wrestling shirts out in the open- that was a different feeling. It made a statement about wrestling’s penetration into mainstream culture.”