There’s always been a debate over whether the rivalries in pro-wrestling exist outside of the ring, but it seems The Undertaker’s infamous discord with Brock Lesnar seemed very much real.
At UFC 121 in 2010, eight-time WWE champion Lesnar had just lost his heavyweight title belts to Cain Velasquez via a first-round TKO.
But it was the altercation with The Undertaker after the bout that made the headlines, with The Deadman proceeding to call out the former UFC heavyweight champion moments after Lesnar had stepped out of the Octagon.
The Undertaker, who was watching the fight in the crowd, was being interviewed by reporter Ariel Helwani at the time, when he momentarily stepped away from the camera to glare at The Beast Incarnate as he walked past, before saying: “You wanna do it?”
It seemed there was an edge to the confrontation, with Lesnar turning to meet The Undertaker’s eyes, almost snarling back at his nemesis.
Ariel Helwani then asked The Undertaker whether the pair ‘were cool’, and the wrestler said: “It’s personal.
“I’ve got background with Brock, but that just showed you something right there.”
Ten years on from the incident, we now finally have an answer to what ignited that feud, after Helwani confronted The Undertaker on what he was trying to do when he called out Lesnar.
Speaking in 2020, just before he announced his retirement, The Undertaker said to Helwani on an ESPN MMA video interview: “I was there to pick a fight.
“I was sent there personally to pick a fight. And I was unaware that Dana [White] had no clue what was going to happen, which I felt terrible about after.
“I was there to pick a wrestling fight, bring him back to our world.”
The Undertaker, who was 46 at the time, knew the only way he could fight the UFC heavyweight was in a wrestling ring and confirmed that Lesnar knew he was going to be there.
“I’m pretty gutsy,” he said. “But my days of getting in an Octagon had well passed me! I am smart enough to realise that.
“He [Lesnar] knew I was going to be there, I don’t know how much he knew about what I was going to do.
“It worked out, we got really lucky that he walked by us because he could have gone another way. If you watch it back, my wife, Michelle [McCool] she kind of nudged me like ‘here he comes’ and I don’t know if I would have even done the interview had I been in the right spot.
“And it worked out perfectly for you, perfectly for me. He came right by me, I said ‘you wanna do this’ and it blew up. You were in the right place at the right time!”