The Undertaker Gives His Review of Edge vs. Randy Orton From WWE Backlash

The Undertaker was the guest on this week's After The Bell podcast, where he gave his honest thoughts on WWE's current product. "The Deadman" admitted that while the athleticism of modern-day wrestlers has reached super hero status, he's concerned that there isn't enough focus on characters. But then he brought up the match between Edge and Randy Orton from Backlash this past Sunday, giving it a glowing review.

"I think on the grand scale of everyone, the athletes of today are like comic book stuff, super hero stuff on what they can do," Undertaker said (h/t WrestlingNews.co for transcript). "But, I think they rely too much on that aspect of their performance and not enough on their character and their willingness to sell and to make things mean something. Prime example, last night at Backlash. Edge and Randy, honestly, it almost brought a tear to my eye because I haven't seen that type of wrestling match in so long. That is what professional wrestling is, or what it's supposed to be, in my opinion.

"It's great being able to be as athletic as all these guys are," he continued. "But, at the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything because when you rely on all that athleticism and rely only on that athleticism, you continually push the envelope on our audience. They are going to get desensitized to the double backflip off the top to somebody on the floor. They are going to see it a couple times and then go, ok, I've seen that, now what do you have for me. So now you have to continually push the envelope athletically and it puts you at a higher risk for injury. It's self preservation. You have to work smart to make this last."

Throughout the documentary series Undertaker: The Last Ride, Taker has been struggling with the concept of retiring. The penultimate episode ended with him telling Vince McMahon that he felt he was done after the 2019 Extreme Rules pay-per-view (where he teamed with Roman Reigns to beat Drew McIntyre and Shane McMahon). But as we all know, he came back for his feud with AJ Styles that culminated in a Boneyard Match at WrestleMania 36. He has yet to indicate whether or not he has retired following that match, though fans will likely find out when the finale drops on the WWE Network on Sunday.