WWE legend and future Hall of Famer Mark ‘The Undertaker’ Calaway recently appeared as a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast where he spent over 2 hours talking about his career, among other topics.
But the soundbyte that is generating the most buzz is the Undertaker’s assessment of the current WWE product, which seems to echo the consensus view of fans.
Undertaker was asked if he still watched the WWE product and was a fan of the product, and gave the following response.
“I try…it’s tough right now, for me” Calaway said. “The product has changed so much, and it’s kinda soft, you know” he continued.
Rogan than asked Calaway if he was going to get in trouble for saying what he said.
“Probably” he responded. “I’ll probably piss a lot of people off, but they need to hear it. It is what it is. But, to the young guys it’s ‘he’s a bitter old guy’. I’m not bitter, I did my time, I’m good. I walked away when I wanted to walk away. I just think that the product is a little bit soft.”
“There’s guys here and there that have a little bit of an edge to them.” Calaway said. “But there’s too much pretty and not enough substance, I think right now.”
It’s an honest assessment of WWE’s product, which has seen dwindling ratings due to lack of consistency in story-lines, and failure to listen to fans who seem to gravitate to their NXT product, but tune out of RAW and, to a lesser extent, SmackDown.
With WrestleMania 37 on the horizon, WWE may need to change gears, especially as more competition has come through the door in the form of AEW, in recent years.
