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• The Undertaker Did Not Have An Easy Road To WWE

• The Future Undertaker And Godfather Were Friends Before Their WWE Days

• The Undertaker And The Godfather Almost Came To Blows

The Undertaker did not have an easy road to superstardom. When Mark Calaway started his career in 1986 and his teacher was Bruce Alan Woyan, more popularly known as Buzz Sawyer. Calaway was brought over to the wrestling world upon the insistence of a gym buddy and to pay for the training, he had to sell everything he owned. He got enough money to pay for training and then went over to Buzz Sawyer.

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Long story short, Calaway learned little about the business, and one day, he came to practice to find out that his mentor left to another territory without a word. Dejected and frustrated, Calaway started sitting in the lobby of World Class Championship Wrestling in Dallas, hoping that he would run into a booker and get a match scheduled. This continued for about 8 months and then Calaway finally got a tryout match against Bruiser Brody. It went well and Calaway started getting booked. After working in Dallas for a little bit, the future Undertaker moved over to the Memphis territory in 1989.

The Undertaker Did Not Have An Easy Road To WWE

One day, Calaway and his crew drove from Nashville to Memphis as they had a show booked, and all hell broke loose. It was an awful day to wrestle and during a car ride, Calaway almost got into a fistfight with Charles Wright, more popularly known as the Godfather.

So, the story begins with Calaway, Wright, Tony Anthony and his girlfriend, Kim, all in one car, driving from Nashville to Memphis. They got there and found out that the show was cancelled due to a rather brutal snowstorm. With nothing else to do, the crew was left with no other choice but to drive back to Nashville. There was one problem; the entire place was caked in snow and the folks inside the car were already a little bit on edge, with the show being cancelled and all.

The Future Undertaker And Godfather Were Friends Before Their WWE Days

Mark Calaway was the one driving and was going at about five miles per hour. The snow wasn’t letting up but little by little, they drove back to Nashville. A quick stop for the restroom led to the Charles Wright taking the steering wheel. This led to a little back and forth between Calaway and Wright, with the former claiming that he was okay with driving, but Wright told Calaway that the car belonged to him and therefore, he would be the one to drive back to Nashville. The conversation got a little heated, and it almost came to a fistfight but in the end, he backed off as the car did belong to Wright. The Godfather started driving and the bad luck continued.

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Literally 10 feet of distance later, and Wright drove the car into a ditch. Undertaker glanced over at his friends and Wright snapped back at him, telling Calaway that he didn’t want to hear it. That did it. Even when he was narrating this story on Steve Ausin’s podcast, the normally calm and collected Undertaker was visibly ticked off. He had brought them so close to Nashville, but Godfather took over and drove them into a ditch. He described it as Wright trying to take the glory away from him and then botching it by driving into a ditch.

The Undertaker And The Godfather Almost Came To Blows

With the car teetering, the guys got out and fortunately, a highway patrolman came their way. He took them to a hotel nearby where they were finally able to rest up, and with the car rescued, Calaway and crew finally drove back to Nashville, rested up for a bit, then drove to Louisville to perform on the next show. Just another day in the life of a pro wrestler.

At the end of this story, Undertaker admitted that whenever the story gets brought up, he instantly gets hot. And for the right reason. It was a bad day, the show was cancelled, it was a complete whiteout, and for the cherry on top, his good friend, Charles Wright, drove 10 feet and drove into a ditch, at 4 in the morning.

All that being said, despite fighting in the middle of a snow storm, Calaway and Wright were good friends and remain as such to this day.