As the Undertaker prepares to return to the ring once again for the WWE Super Show-Down, it makes sense that he’d be nostalgic for his early days in wrestling. In a recent interview with Pastor Ed Young (via The Sun), Taker talked about his friendship with Andre the Giant, who was in his declining years by the time the Undertaker arrived in the WWF in 1990.
I never got the chance to wrestle Andre. By the time that I got there, his health was really in decline. He wrestled a few times and it was funny because Andre was really old school. Andre didn’t like big guys either — he loved me, thank goodness. But for most big guys he thought they were arrogant or bullies or whatnot, but he had his way with a lot of guys that you would be like,”Oh that’s a pretty tough guy,” [but] Andre would set him straight.
According to Taker, Andre not only wanted to wrestle him eventually, but had a plan for how to make it happen. Unfortunately, Andre would take that plan to his grave, never even telling the Undertaker what it was.
Anyway, he liked me and, you know, I guess we always think we got one [match] left in us you know. He’d come in, he’s Andre The Giant. Biggest star that’s ever [been] at that time in wrestling. Worldwide phenomenon, he was always the first guy in the locker room. He was always there, he would love to sit there and play Cribbage and I’d come in and say, “Hey boss, how you doing today?” [He’d say], “Good. You know one day kid, me and you. I have this idea.” ”Oh really boss? Tell me about it.” And he’d never tell me.
He was old school in that because he didn’t want anyone else to do it because he thought he was going to get to a point where he could get back in the ring and we could do something that would be a big deal. No one knows what it was, but you know he ended up passing away and he never let me know. I wonder to this day, ‘Man, I bet it was good.
It’s really a shame that Andre the Giant’s health was too poor for him to wrestle a good match by the ’90s, because a face-off between two such legendary big men would have been a match for the ages. Of course at the time, nobody could have known what a legend the Undertaker would become over the coming decades, but it’s hard not to wonder if Andre suspected it.
