For at least the last year, we’ve been hearing the rumor that WWE legend The Undertaker was going to retire following this April’s WrestleMania 32 in his home state of Texas. Many of the rumors suggested that “The Phenom’s” final weekend with WWE would be similar to Ric Flair’s in 2008, where Flair was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame the night before WrestleMania , wrestled his final match at WrestleMania , and was met with a big sendoff on the following night’s RAW .
According to Cageside Seats , Undertaker isn’t planning on retiring after he wrestles at AT&T Stadium this coming spring.
Undertaker, who will turn 51 prior to WrestleMania 32 , has wrestled significantly more over the last 12 months than he has in previous years, which is sign that he is feeling great physically.
Leading up to WrestleMania 30 in 2014, which is where Undertaker’s legendary streak was broken by Brock Lesnar, the belief among WWE management was that Undertaker would never wrestle again after the event, which is one of the major reasons why the call was made to have Lesnar break the streak.
Of course, another major reason was that WWE was looking to build Lesnar up, only to have him defeated by Roman Reigns at the following year’s WrestleMania 31 , as they thought that if Reigns defeated Lesnar, who had just ended the streak, then he’d be the hottest babyface in the company. However, they were wrong, and they’re still in the process of figuring out how to get the WWE fans to love Reigns.
After Undertaker’s loss at WrestleMania 30 , he was kept off of WWE television for a year before he returned to action at WrestleMania 31 , where he defeated Bray Wyatt.
When the rumor that Undertaker was going to retire following WrestleMania 32 began to pick up steam, people began throwing around ideas on how WWE could book the end of Undertaker’s career, and the most common idea was that they’d have him defeat Brock Lesnar in Dallas, and then retire the very next night. But it’s now pretty safe to assume that Undertaker will not be facing Lesnar in April, as it’s looking like “The Deadman” will be going one on one with the Wyatt Family’s Braun Strowman.
Another rumor that was going around was that WWE was going to induct Undertaker into the Hall of Fame this year because WrestleMania is in Texas. But that doesn’t seem likely, as Sting will be the headline act at this year’s Hall of Fame ceremony.
There are plenty of new and fresh opponents out there for Undertaker if he does decide to continue on after WrestleMania 32 ; guys like Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Roman Reigns are all guys that “The Deadman” has yet to step into the ring with in a one-on-one situation.
John Cena is also someone who could be a future opponent for The Undertaker, as the two of them haven’t faced off all that much over the years.
As of this writing, Undertaker isn’t scheduled to be back on WWE television until the RAW after the WWE Fastlane show in February. It’s unclear who he’ll interact with upon his return, but again, it does seem likely that he’ll be facing Braun Strowman at WrestleMania 32 , which means that he’ll be involved with the Wyatt Family yet again.
The last time we saw Undertaker, he and Kane destroyed all four members of the Wyatt Family at Survivor Series . So to follow that up with just a regular one-on-one match between Undertaker and Braun Strowman is pretty nonsensical. But other than Kevin Owens, who will likely be wrestling AJ Styles at the event, there really isn’t anyone else available to face Undertaker on WWE’s grandest stage, so the decision to have Undertaker take on Strowman may just be a result of a lack of manpower on the main roster due to injury.
(Featured image via WWE )