Chapter 1: Who is The Undertaker and what is his wrestling legacy?
Hello, it's the American Nightmare, Cody Rhodes. Welcome to What Do You Want to Talk About? A Fanatics and WWE original production. Today, my guest is a Hall of Famer. It's the phenom. It's the dead man. It's the judge. It's one of wrestling's Mount Rushmore. He also has a podcast on this wonderful Fanatics channel.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome everything champion, multi-time everything champion, Cody Rhodes. The Undertaker.
I appreciate the introduction. I don't know if I'm going to live up to all that.
Well, we should tell them, too. This is technically, unless we just have nothing. Right. This is technically supposed to be part one. Yeah, right. We're going to do a home and home. Yeah. Off-site home and home, but yeah. And then I'll be coming to your pod. Mm-hmm. How are you enjoying hosting a podcast? Oh, it sucks.
Could you try again? He said. Oh my gosh, is that you? He said. He said, how do you like doing a podcast? That's off. I don't know why that. Oh, big pop for I didn't get that.
Who's Alexa's rocking? Just throw it in a chair. I will say it almost feels mystical in a sense that I ask you a question and then a voice just... Just started randomly speaking from my pocket. Part of the lore and the mythos. As I was asking, do you enjoy doing the podcast?
It has its moments. Yeah? Yeah, it really does. You know, when you enter... discussion or you're in a conversation and you're hitting it off and you know, that's always fun. But man, sometimes when you get that guest that doesn't want to talk or is not a storyteller, right? You want to name names? I don't want to name names, but you know, it can be like pulling a tooth.
And so, yeah, when, you know, when this was, you know, brought to me, like, well, you can do home and home. I was like, yeah, because I always, you're a great storyteller. Thank you. Yeah, no, really.
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Chapter 2: What insights does The Undertaker share about the WWE locker room culture?
Thank you. I enjoy, like, I don't follow, you know, I don't follow much other podcasts or listening, but I always kind of catch you because you're very detail-oriented in your stories. And that's such a key part of... bringing somebody into what you do. Sure. So, uh, and you've mastered that and it's, uh, you gotta take them on the ride. You gotta take them on the ride.
You gotta put them in the, yeah, you gotta put them in the, in the scenario.
So yeah, there's, I'm sure you saw it. And if I asked anyone else who's coming on this podcast, I actually am doubtful they would, you've seen the man who shot Liberty Valance, right?
Chapter 3: How does The Undertaker feel about hosting a podcast?
What is the, is it the Jimmy Stewart quote? Uh, when the fact becomes legend, print the legend. Exactly. So my whole thought, I've been labeled by some of my peers as what comes up as a Cody lie, an exaggeration, a bit of a hyperbole. To me, it's just a legend. Right. I don't need, you know, like, let's give them the sexiest version of the story. Exactly. Which is fun. You mentioned...
hitting it off with people. We, we tend to have something that helps in a sense. This podcast is a Wheatley American vodka. I have the Wheatley American mule. I know you have something special. What do you have? This is the dead man's draft. Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, cheers for that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Part one in the spirit of that toast.
I have a question that I don't think you would think that I would ask you, but I have to know because I've, Gotten an answer from Sina, and I've talked to others about it, but why on earth, why on earth the tradition of gargling whiskey, and where did this come from? And to set this up, to set this up.
If you got called to the bar, this is when I first came on board, 2008, 2009, 10, whatever it may be, and you got the call, hey, Taker would like to see you, you got up and you went to the bar, and there would be a thing of whiskey and just a shot glass, and you would be, you know, hey, this is part of your kind of indoctrination into the crew and into the team, but you would have to gargle it, which ā
Again, I do it, and it's now, I am expecting it of others, but what are the origins of gargling whiskey?
So you may be a little disappointed in all this. Okay. And I've not won... I'm not one to make someone gargle. That's my deal. I take the shot. I drink the shot. In fairness, you didn't make anything happen. Right. No, you're invited over. It is a welcome, but that's a big misnomer. Like, oh, man, Taker told me to come over and drink. I had to drink. No, it's not that.
I don't ever make anybody do anything they don't want to do. But it was kind of a, hey, kid. Come on in here. You know, you're proving yourself. And if you want to drink with us, that's fine. If you don't, you know, you don't have to. The gargling happened. So we go back to when business wasn't quite so good. Okay. All right. And I've been on both ends of the spectrum.
And so for me, gargling happened because the guys on top, when you go to the bar, those guys were making a little bit more money than everybody else was, right? And there was a struggle. So a lot of times, you want to be part of it, but you don't want to drink all that whiskey because whiskey is tough, right? So what would end up happening is a lot of people would...
they would quick shot her, they'd throw it, pour it on the floor and then act like they're drinking, right? And you know, that's money, right?
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Chapter 4: What is the tradition of gargling whiskey among wrestlers?
That's people's money. You had to choose whether or not like, all right, I'm gonna go to the bar and have drinks tonight knowing that it's gonna affect your everyday life really, right? So there was a lot of people that were like tossing shots and they got busted for it. So then it kind of became a deal where, all right, you gotta gargle so that you know that you've had this shot.
That was the original origins of it. And then I think it just carried on through the years as like, you know, so then it kind of became a machismo thing too where, You know, so I was never I never gargled and I never made anybody gargle or, you know, it's like here. You want this shot? Have the shot.
When I when I went down because you brought up that you never made anyone drink or anything like that. And I can double down on the fact that it was actually you didn't do anything. You were there sitting next to it. It was everyone else. Oh, yeah. Who's all right. This is how you do it. You go up there. You're going to take the shot. And then maybe have a conversation.
It was almost like you're meeting a foreign dignitary. You're going to go up there. But then also it was like once you did it, you go float around. You hang out. See what's going on. It was always much more fun not to bury this person, but it was always much more fun
When you got the call from you, or you got to have that moment with you, especially during that time in my career, versus when it was over, because when it was over, God bless it, you'd be over with Kyoto, and Kyoto, the same level of energy, like, let's get more to drink, but also... it starts to get a little dangerous. You're not necessarily learning about wrestling anymore.
It's more you're just figuring out how to get out of this.
Survival.
Yeah. And I thought, because I went to South Africa, the first tour I did with the company, and I didn't do anything right. I didn't sleep on the plane. I didn't know what to do on the way over. We did the show, and I went down to the bar because I just thought that was okay. Everybody will be down there. So I'll go to the bar.
I went down to the bar, and it was actually just like this, but it was Sandman. And I... Always had a good relationship with Sandman. Very nice man to me. But I asked him, I go, oh, well, I should ask him what he wants, right? I should get him a drink. That's the exchange here. I asked him what he wants, and I'll never forget. He just, ow, I'll get four vodkas. Cool, all right. Four vodkas.
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Chapter 5: What were The Undertaker's experiences touring internationally?
So during the gist of my run, I was on the road with those guys more than I was home.
Yeah.
And so, one, you have to have a set of guys that, one, you can hang with, one that doesn't get on your nerves. Because a 17-day loop in Europe ā and you're in a different city, most times different countries every day, it doesn't take much. It doesn't take much to put you on edge. But, you know, so you needed to have that camaraderie. But, man.
We had a few in the group that would get a little loose sometimes. Yeah. We'd have to have a little bit of come to Jesus like, hey, we're going to have a good time. Yeah. Yeah, we got to cut the bullshit out. You can't come anymore. Yeah, yeah. Hey, there's been more than one guy that's got grounded, right? It's like, hey, no, no.
No, you can't do that. Talking about the tours, I wanted to ask you, because there's a specific question about a tour I was going to bring up, but in general for you, throughout all the times you've been overseas, did you have a favorite place overseas to wrestle?
I loved Australia. I love going over there. I love the people over there. And again, I remember, I think this was the last time that I was championed. and I was doing both shows. And so we had done, I think we did San Diego Monday, then we did Tuesday, we did SmackDown on Tuesdays then. LA, So L.A. was Monday. Tuesday was San Diego. Then we had to drive back after the show, back to L.A.
to catch a flight to fly to Australia to do three, four live events and then make it back to California to do Monday Night Raw again. It was brutal. It was brutal. Sounds it, yeah. And so, you know, we do that. We fly. We fly all night. We get to Australia. Now, this is what... To mid, maybe around 2008, 2009, somewhere in there.
Somebody, I'm sure, will fact check that and let me know your dates. Your dates are off, but the actual tour did happen. And we get to Australia. I think it was Sydney. Sydney. And it is like, it is packed. It's a million dollar house then, which is, I mean, I know you guys are like, yeah, y'all fall asleep on a million dollar house now. But back then, back then it was big. No, of course.
This is a live event. This is a non-televised live event. And there's over a million dollar house in there. And I'm sitting there watching the matches, man, and it's just like match after match. Everybody's tired. You know what that is. I mean, I'm jet lagged. I'm tired. I've worked two days, and I got on a plane, and I would say 80% of the matches were just dog shit. Sure. And...
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Chapter 6: How did The Undertaker's character evolve throughout his career?
and Germany. I mean, all those towns, because they only got us once or twice a year. They always seem, you know, those towns were just incredible. They had so much energy, so much fun.
Yeah. You mentioned the Million Dollar House, the fact that people weren't appreciating it. Here's some really inside baseball. Keep this in, please, but it's quite funny. Now, lately, they've been putting largest gate in history, and it's on the sheet that I have access to.
If they don't write that, though, no matter if it was an amazing house, no matter if the number's amazing, John Davis is kind of like, eh. What happened? Bro, what do you mean? It's still a great, like, what are we talking about? But that was that little line, just largest in company history is a thing. It's very exciting when you get to see that. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash Cody. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Cody. I wanted to ask you about your favorite place because we wrestled on, I don't know if you remember because you've been over and done this so many times. Do you remember the Honey Monster Tour? The Honey Monster tour? Help me. That may not be the best way to describe.
It was an overseas tour in the UK where you and Triple H wrestled against me, Randy, and Teddy Biasi each night. There was a cereal sponsor called the Honey Monster. And it was just like a wampa looking, kind of like a mascot. He got all kinds of heat with the boys because he was on the massage table.
That's right.
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Chapter 7: What lessons did The Undertaker learn from working with Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart?
That was all it was for me. I never worked that way anywhere else. It didn't work for my character to work like that. And back then, you're not thinking that someone is... In my head, I'm not thinking, okay, we're in Austria or wherever that was at.
Yeah.
I'm not thinking of someone recording it. So I'm thinking that I'm getting away with being able to teach this moment. And what I'm teaching, I can sit here and talk with someone and I can talk psychology and why I do this and why I do that. And as I talk to you about it, you're listening and you're visualizing in your head what I'm talking about, right? And then you get out in a match and
And you do absolutely nothing the way that I was describing it. For my vision, your vision was something completely different. So I've got two guys. I've got Randy, who's an established guy. But then you and Ted are young guys coming up. So that's the best way for me to teach is to let you experience what that hot tag should be like. Oh, man.
That's all that was was just a teaching moment because I didn't get those very often. We got to do some creative things in the live events over there with tags and three-on-twos and all that. Those were all teachable moments. I mean, I don't know if you remember the hyena effect. I don't know if we talked about that, is throwing somebody out, throwing somebody out of the ring.
And then the other guy taking the referee, and then the other guy jumping on him. And then, you know, as the baby face on the heel, on the apron comes down to make the save, then you throw that guy back in. So now you're just, you know, those were all things that I was trying to get ā to lay on you and lay on even Randy. But that was all it was, was just me trying to teach.
That makes the moment so much different for me, thinking about it that way. Because I had thought, I knew you didn't do that on TV. It was not the Undertaker we'd see on TV. But I also thought, It's kind of his way of having an intimate moment with this crowd, which it was. But also, I'm sure you've been around so many people who talk psychology, and it sounds great.
And it's, oh, yeah, he's got it. They talk about the structure of an angle. They talk about building a match. But then in the ring, it's not there at all. That's just a ā I'm honored that that got to ā be the thing we did. Did I ever tell you what happened when I tried? Because there was another spot you did that I always thought this was so clever.
And again, for being so big and you being able to do it, but you'd pop a chair up to make the noise so that everyone knew, hey, weapon. And then you'd come after the bad guys if we were doing hyena stuff on the floor, actually. So- I was in Denver, and it was a great house in Denver, and this was right before WrestleMania 39. I forget. It was a six-man.
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Chapter 8: What future plans does The Undertaker have for wrestling and storytelling?
That's your play. You know what? You guys now are so athletic and you guys can do so many things. There's just certain things that are so basic like that that resonate because I don't think our audience sees it anymore. And it makes such sense, right? You're trying to create advantages in the match, right? Where your heels have got an advantage on your baby faces.
The way a spot's supposed to run is... They're double teaming your guy on the outside. You chase them off. You throw the other guy, you know, it's, oh, that's the hyena. Like the lion will come in and chase these two hyenas off. The other two hyenas come back in and try to steal the prey. So yeah, it's simple. But it just like, oh, people, you know, it resonates with me.
Oh, man, he hits him with that chair. And then they get so excited because now you're out there chasing this guy with a chair while the other guy's beating the crap out of the guy. You just went and it's just fun.
Yeah. It's the difference between the psychology, the application. I remember we used to hear that a lot in my first run with WDB is great that someone's telling me this. You have to apply it. None of this works unless you're applying. And that's where I really appreciated just the general, you mentioned fit. Fit's somebody that nobody wants to come back and get the... Tell me something.
Unless it's to the Shawn Michaels moment of, no, it was that good. You already know that. And that's so rare anyways. But the fact that we had, I saw you and Bailey talking about just the general being at the live events. And I've said it on this podcast, and I know it gets me in trouble with my peers and I don't care. I miss them so much. I miss the live events for the rhythm of wrestling.
I feel like it helped actually prevent injuries. I feel like it helped a general just, not just a camaraderie, but the other thing is being part of the team. If you're only here like once or twice a week, it doesn't feel like you're, what team are you on? Versus no, this is our crew. We run, we run Saturday, we run Sunday. And I know
It's a different time and the way the company works, it has its own difficulties and challenges today that are different. But I miss it. And I miss it was those things. Just, yeah, try this. Hey, did you hear that? Literally things that you could not put in a lab and replicate. Just a general excited fan. Just, I miss it. But maybe it was a moment in time. You know, I don't know.
Well, but the live events, too, were ā where do you ā you know, you're sitting at home on your couch and you're watching TV and you think it's like, oh, man. A spot comes into your head, right? Well, that's pretty ā it's pretty delicate or that's pretty intricate. Yeah. Like, Oh, do I want to try that on Monday night raw with world watching? Or do I want to try it in Poughkeepsie?
You know, at a small, that's one of the things too, about the live events. Yeah. One, I think there is like we grinded, maybe we grinded too hard. Right. Right. Uh, But there is a line there. There is a balance that you need. You need the reps to stay sharp. And then you also need a place to try new stuff. Because there's nothing, you're going to get instant feedback.
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