The Undertaker is giving people a peek behind the curtain more than ever these days, and he finally provided an answer to a decade-old mystery.
During an interview with MMA reporter Ariel Helwani at UFC 121 in 2010, Undertaker stared down Brock Lesnar as Lesnar walked by following a loss to Cain Velasquez and uttered four words that sent the MMA and wrestling worlds into a frenzy.
“You wanna do it?”
Speculation ran rampant. Was there a legit beef between the two? Was it a “work,” in wrestling parlance? According to the Undertaker, it was all about getting Lesnar back to WWE, where he performed from 2002-04.
“I was there to pick a fight,” Undertaker, real name Mark Calaway, told Helwani on Wednesday. “Yeah, I was sent there personally to pick a fight. I was unaware that (UFC president) Dana (White) had no clue what was gonna happen, which I felt horrible about after the fact. I thought there had been some kind of discussion between him and Vince (McMahon). At that time, Brock was so hot in the MMA world, so obviously, it’s like, ‘You know what? Why not try it.’ There was no personal animosity really, but it was basically me saying, ‘All right, you left our world, I’m gonna come into your world and I’m gonna call you out,’ and that was it.
“Obviously it was a huge media storm, and it’s all your fault,” Calaway deadpanned to Helwani.
Lesnar, an NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion, became a star in WWE. He left in 2004 for a failed run at making the NFL. He then wrestled in Japan before transitioning to MMA and eventually won the UFC heavyweight title.
“Obviously there was such a history there because of his run with WWE, and then his success with UFC — this is huge if we could make it happen. That’s what it was all about,” Calaway said.
Lesnar knew Undertaker was going to be at the event, but likely didn’t know what he planned to do. Helwani said he heard Undertaker was planning on crashing the post-fight press conference, but Calaway said he wasn’t credentialed.
“I was hoping I was in the right place at the right time, and everything lined up, man,” he said.
Undertaker, who is now revealing all in “The Last Ride” documentary series on the WWE Network, eventually had his famed 21-0 WrestleMania streak snapped by Lesnar at WrestleMania 30. It shocked fans so much that reactions quickly became memes. Many wondered if it was the right call, but Undertaker says he always put business first and did what McMahon wanted him to do.
“I knew someday it probably would (end),” Undertaker said of the streak. “In our industry, you don’t walk away like Floyd (Mayweather) retiring undefeated or Rocky Marciano. It just doesn’t happen that way in wrestling.
“Most of my peers and people that I worked with thought it was a horrible decision. I just asked Vince, I said, ‘Are you sure? Is this what you want?’ He was like, ‘If it’s not Brock, who can beat you?'”