On The Jim Ross Report, Jim Ross took exception to reports that WWE officials are upset by The Undertaker’s schedule appearance at Starrcast II.
According to Ross, WWE officials need to be understanding about The Undertaker taking outside bookings, as the professional wrestling great needs to earn a living somehow and he has to look outside of WWE if the powerhouse pro wrestling promotion is not using him.
“They’re not happy in the front office, apparently,” Ross said. “How mad can you get at The Undertaker? And secondly, you’ve got a 50 year-old guy with young children, a son in college. His track record with marriages is much like mine. It takes a while sometimes to find the right one and he has. But he has got to make a living and if he’s at a point age-wise where WWE doesn’t want to use him in the ring, or if he doesn’t feel able good to compete in the ring, and you want to keep him around, then you’ve got to pay him something! But you might not pay him the same if you can’t get the one, two, three matches a year out of him.”
Pro wrestling podcaster and entrepreneur Conrad Thompson admitted that he was shocked to learn that The Undertaker was taking outside bookings. In Thompson’s view, the investment has been worthwhile just from the publicity it has garnered alone.
“It’s no secret that Undertaker started to promote himself as being available for appearances and somebody even started to report what they suspected what his rates would be based on an hourly rate,” Thompson recalled. “I already had a deal in place by that time. But yeah, I was sort of shocked when I learned he was available for stuff like that. I assumed he would be a big part of WrestleMania and a big part of the very closely guarded group and not sort of able to freelance a little bit like Ric Flair and some other guys have been over the years. And to my surprise, we were able to put together a deal with Taker’s management team and we’re super excited to have him.
“I understand how that got people talking. The publicity alone when we announced, or when we had Sports Illustrated announce that he was coming, I mean it was a worthwhile investment just for all the attention it brought our convention just because he hasn’t done anything like this before.”
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