Shane McMahon reveals the creation of The Undertaker was due to a passing comment made by the late Paul Bearer to Vince McMahon.
Shane was Stone Cold Steve Austin's guest on Austin's podcast and said Bearer, who's ring name before the Paul Bearer persona was Percy Pringle, mentioned his brief time as a mortician to Vince which gave him the idea of The Undertaker and his manager Paul Bearer.
“It actually came through interviewing Percy because Vince [McMahon] and Pat [Patterson] specifically were talking like, ‘well, give us something. We’re thinking about different characters. Like what have you done in the past?’ And Percy said he had done a couple of other things and he had done this and he mentioned he was a mortician and all of a sudden my dad just locked in on that. He said, ‘you were a mortician? That’s it! He’s The Undertaker. You are Paul Bearer.’ And it was born. That was it,” Shane said.
The Undertaker would then be created for Mark Calaway and had since become one of the biggest names in the history of WWE, having recently wrestled in the main event of WrestleMania 33, capping off a WWE career that has lasted more than two decades, with seven world title reigns. Shane had fought The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania 32, a match in which Undertaker won.
