My wildest dreams and the goals that I set for myself, I never imagined the success that I've been blessed with, and believe me, I feel blessed.
The Undertaker
Regardless of anything, I'm gonna write my own story and my own ending.
I am and have been the reaper of wayward souls for a long time.
You either have to make people love you or you have to make them hate you, it doesn't really matter either way. If you can't bring that emotion out of your audience then you're not going to have them for long.
With the abuse, and wear and tear the body takes in this career, it's ridiculous to put in that time and effort and have nothing to show for it.
I believe in God, but I wasn't living my life for God.
Wrestling and sports entertainment is not about the moves, it really isn't. It's about being able to evoke emotion in one facet or another.
I've always been fascinated with death and darkness, and I still am.
I learned really late. I started leasing a tour bus, which I wish I had done a lot sooner.
Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, man - brilliant mind.
Everything is happening for a reason, it's preparing you for bigger things.
The old-school Undertaker is my legacy. It's probably what I'm going to be remembered for.
I never tried to put myself in situations where I had to be anything other than what people saw on TV.
I've been concussed I don't know how many times, yeah it's taken a pretty good toll on the body.
I was living in my truck, bouncing in bars - a 20-year-old kid trying to break up all these red neck fights. But hey, I did what I had to do to survive.
Sometimes you have to set the angle within the match, but you gotta give a reason for one guy to be loved and one guy to be hated.
Back in the old days, you had to work. If you didn't work, you didn't get paid.
At the end of the day, whatever you're doing in the ring, you want it to look real, and genuine, and authentic.
When I was on the road full-time, there was about an eight, nine year stretch where I averaged, conservatively, 250 days a year out on the road. That's basically you fly into a town, you get a Rent-A-Car, find a hotel, go to the gym, you eat, you go to the arena, go back to the hotel, you wake up, go to the airport and go somewhere else.
If you see me out on the street, you would see me in jeans and cut-off shirt riding a motorcycle.
I've had both my eye sockets crushed, I've been set on fire, uh, that was not fun, I've torn a pec, torn biceps.
Both hips have had a form of hip replacement.
We use wrestling moves to tell a story but it boils down to the character and being able to bring either love or hate out of your crowd.
Just taking a piece of dirt and envisioning the building you'd like to put on it - it's an amazing process.
Kane, my gosh, Kane is just incredibly strong.
I always felt like, if I started feeling stale, my audience is probably feeling it before me.
In the past I led such a mysterious life. I didn't give interviews.
My biggest fear is becoming a parody of myself. That's something I struggle with.
I evaluate myself at the end of every year.
WWE is my domain, my yard.
Your transgressions will be punished. Dr. DisRespect, you will rest in peace.
As long as I can compete with the 20-somethings out there... I have a burning passion to do what I do. Financially, I don't need to wrestle anymore. I do it because I enjoy it.
You have to want it and put the work in to be great.
I've never put a lot into being a celebrity, that just flies over my head because that's not really who I am. But as you can imagine, you get exposed to a lot of different things because of what you do and I lived a pretty excessive lifestyle.
I always told guys you don't date people you work with, it's not going to work. I said it for years and then I broke my own motto.
I've had several joint surgeries just to get floating bone chips and different things removed.
Roman Reigns never asked me for my help, that's not who he is.
Even when the business took a real nose-dive, you're thinking, 'OK, how are we gonna get out of this? What we gonna do? We can work harder.'
Everybody's calling, they want to backflip off this and into that. Once you do that a couple of times, it's like, 'OK, what do you got now?' Well, now I gotta do two flips into that, then two and a half. When they get used to that, what do you do?
When I started out, I was a basketball player at Texas Wesleyan University.
For me, I didn't have anyone in the wrestling world... trying to get my foot in the door was virtually impossible.
You know, obviously I've been around for a while, so I've got a little sweat and blood equity built up.
I never, like, once I got to the WWE and then, I kind of started to realize that we have something special with that character, I was never satisfied. I was like, 'we're here and we're getting a great reaction, but what's next?'
I'm always looking down the road. Like, 'okay, I need something. I've got to bring something new to the table, but I have to stay true to what my fanbase and my audience, what they've accepted and this is what they want.'
For years there, I sort of lived the character.
I hate, and I hate using that word, that's twice, but people that will do the old take the camera out and do the sneak pic. Like, the guys that are afraid to come up to you, so they'll like try to video you.
I think I'm a little tougher than I am smart.
