The Undertaker Describes How Vince McMahon Originally Pitched His Gimmick

The Undertaker gave another rare out-of-character interview with Pastor Ed Young this week, discussing the various aspects of his professional wrestling career.

During the interview "The Deadman" described how he wound up with his legendary gimmick. After leaving WCW in 1990, Taker met with Vince McMahon in the hopes that he'd be signed to the WWF right on the spot.

"I was working for another company, and they actually told me, as I was going in to renegotiate my contract, they sat me down and went 'listen, you're a good athlete, but no one's ever going to pay money to watch you wrestle.' They said that to me. I was like 'really?' OK, that's all I needed to hear. We'll see you guys down the road, and that stuck with me," he said. I eventually get a meeting with Vince, and I was like 'I'm going to walk in here, and I'm going to blow him away. I'll get hired right on the spot.' I go to Connecticut and I meet with Vince, and at the end of it he goes, 'well, we really don't have anything right now. Maybe after Wrestlemania, we might have an opening.' And I was like 'oh wow. I already quit the other place.' I didn't figure that part in (not getting hired).

Prior to getting signed, Taker noticed the WWF was promoting a giant egg on its weekly television shows. While fans now know the egg eventually became The Gobbledy Gooker, he was worried at the time he was going to be stuck with that gimmick.

"I'm just hanging out, trying to get bookings where I can, and all of the sudden they start this promotion where they've got this giant egg on one of the stages," he said. "At that point I had short hair, and I had started growing my hair, so I started having this whole drama in my head like 'oh man, I'm going to be Eggman' or something like that. He's going to want me to shave my head and my eyebrows; I was just in a panic."

Luckily for "The Phenom," McMahon had another idea in mind.

"I'm at home one day and the phone rings, so I pick it up and [the voice says] 'Hello, is this The Undertaker?' So I put the phone down [puzzled] and think to myself 'Undertaker? I'm sure not Eggman or Egghead.' So I say 'yea, this is The Undertaker!' I was probably on the verge of an ulcer," he said. "I was so uptight about this that it took me a second to even process who this was. Vince's voice, you can distinguish it pretty quick, and I was like 'yeah, OK!' He had the character, he just needed somebody big, with no personality. 'I'm your guy!''

H/T Wrestlezone