On a recent edition of his “Six Feet Under” podcast, The Undertaker praised the storytelling of Roman Reigns as the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion and The Bloodline’s Head of the Table.
The Deadman said, “There was a lot of really emotional moments backstage, as you can imagine. Roman coming back after, what an amazing run as champion. If you look at it and put it in today’s market, what a phenomenal run. It’s not going to go down in the record books as the longest world title run, but when you look at it in actuality, with as much coverage, as much media, as much exposure as you have now. Backlund’s run and Hogan’s early run, they didn’t have social media. They didn’t have as much live TV. (They wrestled jobbers) or didn’t wrestle at all on TV. The biggest part about that is to be able to maintain and keep the people’s interest in that storyline, for that long. There were so many layers to it. Kudos to him and everybody that worked on all that. It’s really difficult to do and difficult to do well. There was some really good storytelling involved in that.”
The Undertaker says he also got heat from some fans for inducting Muhammad Ali into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2024. He said,
“I got a little heat from part of the veteran community. Muhammad Ali refused to go into [military service]. He didn’t want to go to Vietnam. He didn’t see why [he should] go 6,000 miles from home and fight somebody he had no [problem with]. It was like, ‘I thought Undertaker was a patriot.’ Man, kiss my patriot ass.”
Ali was convicted in 1967 of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction unanimously on the grounds that Ali’s appeal board gave no reason denying Ali a conscientious objector exemption. ‘Taker said that he doesn’t support avoiding military service but noted that while he resented Ali for many years over the matter, Ali had strong personal conviction to do so and it had ramifications for his career.
In the main event of WrestleMania 40 (Night Two), Cody Rhodes ended Reigns’ historic 1,316-day title reign by pinning him to win the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
