On the latest episode of Something to Wrestle, JBL was asked about attempts to make The Undertaker break character, and revealed that during his 2004 and 2005 dark match run, the entire company was feeding him material. You can check out his comments below:
On why the dark matches existed:
“You don’t always end the TV on the hottest show, especially when you have a two or three hour show. So you always end it with your hot match. To keep the crowd there, they would bill Undertaker in a dark match at the end of the TV, after the TV went off the air. So people would wait to see the Undertaker in case they hadn’t seen him on television, or if they did, they wanted to see him in a match.”
On his role:
“A lot of times during ’04 and ’05, I was the guy that had to go out there in the dark match. The dark match really didn’t matter — just entertain the people, end up taking a tombstone at the end, or a chokeslam, whatever Taker wants to do. So I would get the microphone and just try to be entertaining.”
On it becoming a company project:
“But it became 100% a rib on Undertaker. I would get guys all during the day — and I’m talking about TV guys. Kevin Dunn, Vince — they called me and said, need to talk to you. Yeah, tell Taker this. It was like the whole show was trying to get Taker to bust at the end of the TV show. I’d get calls, I’d get texts from guys. Hey, try this, try this, try this. So this was not only a running gag, this was a consistent every-single-week gag of me trying to get Taker.”
On the closest he ever came:
“The one time that I kind of half got him, where he smirked — I saw a clip the other day about guys who came close to busting Taker, and they didn’t have me in it. Anybody who was there will tell you that I came closer than anybody. I got him smirking, and if I hadn’t popped myself, made myself laugh, I’d have had him. I’d have had him hook, line and sinker. I just didn’t set the hook.”
On Undertaker agreeing:
“And he said the same thing. It was a running company-wide rib to try to get Taker to break. That’s when he came up with the Spinaroonie — which wasn’t during mine, but during something different — and all the different stuff. Kurt kissing Taker, all the different stuff. Guys were always trying to get Taker to break. It was like the Holy Grail.”