The Undertaker Reflects On First Working With Paul Bearer and Bruiser Brody

Posted By: Ben Jordan Kerin on Jul 16, 2022

The Undertaker and Paul Bearer were once the most formidable wrestler/manager duos in all of professional wrestling. Sadly Bearer died in 2013 and during a recent interview with Peter Rosenberg for A&E, Taker explained what it was like to be managed by Bearer for the first time and also his experience working with Bruiser Brody. Check excerpts from the interview below:

On working with Bruiser Brody:

“When you’re green, I was always a very respectful person. But you get caught up sometimes in the moment. Bruiser Brody has always had that bigger-than-life personality. Everybody knows him for the wars he had in Japan and everything else. I’m just excited, this is my chance, this is my opportunity. Well, I get into the ring with him, and my dumb 21 or 22 year old self is looking at him and I’m going, ‘I’m bigger than Bruiser Brody.’ That’s the beginning of it going downhill, right? Then, just being nervous. He really did educate me really fast on where my place was at the time. I tell you what, I’ve never been hit harder than I was with that chair shot he hit me with. That chair just kind of exploded across my back, and that’s where I learned how to swing a chair. If you’re gonna swing a chair, you swing a chair. Two, I learned exactly where my place was at the time. He actually stood up for me after that match and was trying to convey to Gary Hart, who was the booker at the time, that you should keep this kid and get rid of some of these other guys around here. That’s not the way it worked out, but it meant the world to me that somebody the stature of Bruiser Brody was impressed with what I did.”

“I was Texas Red, they’ve got me under the hood and tell me to go to the ring. At that point, I had no clue that Percy was gonna come out with me. This is my first match. I know what my job is, I’m out there to get Brody a win and get him ready for Abdullah and all that, so it’s gonna be a pretty quick deal. I’m walking down to the ring, and all of a sudden, I turn around and here comes Percy Pringle. He gets up there and goes, ‘Yeah, Gary [Hart] told me to come out and be your manager.’ I joked afterwards, I said I think they set you out there, because Brody beat me up so bad, to make sure I didn’t find my way back to the dressing room [laughs].”