The Undertaker Shoots Down Rumors About WWE Trying to Book Him With Sting

Even though fans campaigned for the match to happen for years, The Undertaker and Sting never faced off against each other inside of a WWE ring throughout their historic careers. Prior to his retirement announcement on Sunday, Mark Calaway sat down with ComicBook.com and addressed the fans who still held out hope for the match. By the time Sting finally arrived in WWE in late 2014 Undertaker had already severely cut back his annual wrestling schedule, and the only time the two were ever on the same WWE card was WrestleMania 31.

“Well, in this world, you never say never, but I think as great as it sounds on paper… And it does, I mean obviously that is a super marquee match, right?” Calaway said. “But where I kind of differ from a lot of people is I look past the marquee value and I look on the ability to deliver. So like you said, there’s so many people that are clamoring for that match that I just don’t know that the match could deliver on the people’s expectations.

“And the only reason I say that, I’ll take full [responsibility], I don’t have the mobility or the same skill set that I once did that I would need to make that match great. So there’s just certain things, it’s better left to the theater of the mind to actually put it out there,” he continued. “And then with the expectations being so high and the match not delivering, it would be a bigger disappointment than the match never happening at all. It’s different, but in the same sense of like who’s the greatest: [Michael] Jordan or LeBron [James]? I mean, you’re never going to know because they’re never going to have the opportunity to play against each other.

He concluded — “And it’s the same thing. That’s a great match, but 10 years ago I think it could still happen and it could still be a stellar match. I’m just not sure at this point that it could deliver on the hype.”

Many fans will recall rumors of the match happening at WrestleMania XXVII when Sting reportedly came close to signing with WWE over TNA back in 2011. However, Calaway said nobody in the WWE ever approached him about the match.

“Not to my knowledge,” he said. “I know the temperature got turned up on that I don’t remember which Mania it was, but Sting and I were on the same flight after a Mania. It was well after 27, but anyway we were standing in line together talking and someone obviously in this day and age, everybody has a camera and someone snapped a picture as we were just having a casual conversation. … No one ever approached me with any serious like, ‘Hey, what do you think about Sting at this?’ or it’s never been presented to me other than by our fans.”