Original subtitles

The legend of The Undertaker continues to grow.

The word legend is really abused.

People have lost sight of what it truly means to be a legend.

Undertaker is a legend.

I felt as if I had his respect. That was a huge feather in my cap because it's

The Undertaker.

If Randy Orton wants to take out legend, you know he's going to go after the top

one. If you kill that legend, you're untouchable.

Randy was young. Randy was hungry.

You're always hoping that somebody comes along that is trying to get to your

level. Then you factor in Randy bringing back his dad, Cowboy Bob, to help him

out. Watch out! Randy and Undertaker was a beautiful combination. You're not

just getting a straight -ahead fight.

You're getting theatrics. You're getting things from the beyond.

Isn't that part of the fun? Isn't that part of what made The Undertaker The

Undertaker? Wouldn't it be intriguing to see how Randy Orton reacts to it?

Randy, you're going with me straight to hell.

When two legends collide, their rivalry stays pinned in our minds forever.

This is where we break down the legendary stories behind the greatest

of all time.

I'm Freddie Prinze Jr., and this is WWE Rivals.

Randy Orton perhaps faces his toughest challenge tonight, Undertaker.

Today we're going to be talking about...

The Undertaker, who is a very popular subject on this show. But this time,

taking up an up -and -comer, Randy Orton.

And we're going to go back in time to the year 2005.

These are two men that are at very different points in their career.

Undertaker, top dog.

Taker was the man.

The man.

I mean, you had one person who symbolized WWE.

You had some incredible people that came along during all this time. You had

Bret Hart, who was an incredible champion. Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold,

You had Cena starting to emerge.

Taker was the one constant the entire time. He was the cornerstone that

everything that WWE was built on.

Everybody who made it to the top.

had to have a dance with the undertaker.

The other man in this equation was Randy Orton. Randy Orton, this kid is

sensational!

Randy looked the part.

He was everything you needed to be. It doesn't get any better than this.

Randy had to be able to back it up.

And people are expecting you to be as good as the people that came before you,

that paved that road for you.

Not to mention the fact that he's in there with the barometer, the measuring

stick of all pro wrestlers.

You can see somebody sometimes and you can just say, early on, early on, they

got it.

The 12 -year WWE veteran against the rookie.

My job was not only to sell tickets and pay for views and put asses in seats.

But it's also to help that next generation to come along and keep the

fresh and keep it growing.

This business is going to go on long after Steve Austin, The Undertaker,

and anybody else is here.

That's just the nature of the beast.

And our time comes and our time goes.

Everybody gets their number called sometime.

Thank you very much. Thanks, guys.

You were always going to get the best that The Undertaker had to offer, no

matter what.

If you could hang with The Undertaker.

then that lets you know that this guy has got what it takes to hang with

else.

He's going to push you to be the very best you can be.

Randy Orton being a third -generation superstar, he got put in that position

because he could be trusted.

We knew that he was a guy that could weather the storm.

It never really hit me that what my dad did for a living was pretty cool.

Cowboy Bob!

But then I realized my grandfather did the same thing.

It's probably one of the most special things I think about who I am as a WWE

superstar.

Randy Orton, he's 20 years old. He's a third generation superstar.

His father was Cowboy Bob Orton Jr. His grandfather, the legendary Bob Orton Sr.

And Randy Orton has traveled to the OVW Training Center to hone his skills.

I had been in OVW, the WWE Developmental Territory, for six months,

eight months, something like that. We used to run very small shows.

My very first big show down there, I was wrestling a Rico Constantino, but also

on the card was Dave Bautista, and he was wrestling The Undertaker.

And the first time I ever laid eyes on that man, he was standing in the back

looking tall, big, jacked, scary.

He was observing who were going to be the guys that get called up soon that I

might be able to work with.

It was evident even early on in his career that the sky would be the limit.

You're Randy Orton.

Yes, sir.

He's getting a trial match.

Debuted on WWE television in 2002.

Had a great 2003.

Went on, 2004, kept rolling.

Worked with Mick Foley, became the youngest world heavyweight champion in

history at SummerSlam.

Randy is one of the few guys, I mean, Bobbo, his grandfather, was one of the

greatest heels in the history of this business.

Bob Orton Jr.

was one of the greatest workers in the history of this business.

He's got some great moves, Cowboy Bob Orton. He can really take it to his

opponent. Randy came along and had unrealistically high expectations, and

exceeded them.

And you can watch him in the ring and realize that he was just a natural.

He really was.

And he learned and he prospered it. He went on to be great.

OK, Randy Orton.

Legend killer. The legend killer idea came up and I love that idea.

What? What? Oh, my God.

Oh, I don't believe you just did that.

The legend killer persona, Randy would go around and basically kill legends.

And there is no bigger legend, really, when you think about it

than The Undertaker.

Randy, being a third -generation wrestler, you see him and you're like,

this is going to be good. This kid has got it.

Undertaker always looked at talent as, is there somebody out there that is on

the precipice that I can push over the edge and make them not just a star but a

superstar? So Undertaker looked at Randy and said, yeah, that could be the next

guy.

And I remember the office. It was creative. It might have been Bruce

even. But they came to me and they said,

Listen, kid, Undertaker wants to work with you. With me?

I'm about to do what no other man has done. At WrestleMania 21, I will defeat

The Undertaker.

The idea was to be able to go back and try and find a lot of legends in our

past to come back.

What a way to start a war with Jake the Snake Roberts here.

So using Jake the Snake and people like that was something that could easily

display and let people know, first of all, how Randy viewed the legends, but

was giving him self -confidence to be able to step into the ring with The

Undertaker. And at WrestleMania, when I end Undertaker's winning streak, I will

have made a bigger impact than you have made your entire career.

Randy Orton is given a golden ticket. He gets the Undertaker. But he has a

unique perspective on why he wants to face him. He sort of is the first one to

recognize the streak, which we all know now so famously, of Undertaker not

losing at WrestleMania.

Orton brings this to the forefront of the conversation and very arrogantly

claims that he's going to be the one to end this streak.

RKO!

Just RKO'd another legend!

Randy's a natural bad guy.

Randy's a cocky, arrogant kid.

Undertaker, you're 12 -0 at WrestleMania.

You're undefeated at WrestleMania.

The Undertaker's streak, his winning streak at WrestleMania, it wasn't a

yet. He was 12 -0.

And I went into WrestleMania as the legend killer telling everybody I was

to be The Undertaker's very first loss.

But look into my eyes when I say this.

Soon, very soon, you will

be 12 and 1.

Being a prick, being a bad guy.

being a heel in the wrestling business.

It's what I've always felt the most comfortable doing, obviously.

Not a lot of people have the nerve to slap The Undertaker.

It had to be a great slap.

That slap is what's going to set this whole thing off.

You want to miss it?

He sent a message to The Undertaker. Look at The Undertaker's response.

We are live in Hollywood.

And this is WrestleMania.

Randy was working at being a top heel in this company.

But you have to be prepared for opportunities as they come your way.

Receiving The Undertaker as an opportunity is pretty big.

This is sink or swim. You got the dead man at WrestleMania.

And everything's going to be, spotlight's going to be on you. Every

you do. This is either you're going to make your career or you're going to be

gone soon.

So it's open to The Undertaker one -on -one.

And we call Orton Brass, we call him cocky. Just look at his action to the

few weeks.

Everybody's nervous.

Everybody's nervous at WrestleMania.

You put this incredible amount of pressure on yourself to go out there and

to steal the show.

For even a young guy, he was so poised.

To step into the ring in a match with The Undertaker at WrestleMania,

that's a career achievement.

For Randy Orton, who at the time was admittedly a kid, can you imagine that?

All these men going punch for punch here, and there is The Undertaker! I

believe that he's trading blows on The Undertaker!

At WrestleMania 21, we had a little surprise. If you remember WrestleMania

if you remember Cowboy Bob Orton, then you know that my father had a cast

on his arm.

Cowboy Bob Orton is an iconic, legendary WWE villain.

Cowboy Bob started wearing a cast on his arm, complaining of an injury.

But he would always find a way in matches to use the cast as a weapon.

What was special about that, for me, was that I got to work

with my dad.

My dad and I worked a little bit together when I first started, and then

to be in there with Randy, I was blessed.

Cowboy Bob Orton, a legend. I mean, one of the greatest heels of all time.

He was the classic tough guy, chicken shield.

I got to see my dad smile in a way that I hadn't really ever seen him smile

before because he was doing what he loved better than most anybody.

Whoever I was working with, it would take forever for them to get me down.

Everything that they've done and they've battled, I've finally done enough to

stop it.

And they take that moment.

They leave me there and they try to catch their breath.

That character sets up.

Everybody.

And their mother and their grandmother was like, oh, now you've done it now.

Oh, you let him set up.

That's your ass now. Oh, he's coming for you.

Can I believe that The Undertaker just sat up?

I've got this move, the RKO.

He goes to choke slam me. Now, this is one of those moves not everybody kicks

out of.

This match really let Randy just shine and how he literally was able to deliver

this finisher from nowhere or from everywhere or from anywhere.

And it was the first time that I remember seeing him reverse someone

moon, which was the choke slam, and he turned it into his finisher, which was

the RKO.

I was there when they had the match at WrestleMania.

In the arena in LA, I was probably one of the very few that hoped Randy would

beat Undertaker.

To me, it just felt like Randy Orton, his whole thing with the Legend Killer,

which I think added to that match because you probably thought, oh, he

actually be the one to do it.

He's not going to Tombstone! He's going for the Tombstone!

That's the Undertaker's finishing move!

It was like water off a duck's back with Randy. He stepped up and delivered.

And Undertaker reverses!

We talk about Randy not breaking the streak. Sometimes you win even in your

losses. Randy was one of those guys that wanted to go out there and make his

losses just as great as his wins. And I think that's the beauty of Randy Orton.

Well, to build on that, their story doesn't end at WrestleMania, which is

usually an end point in a storyline.

This was the beginning.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the sold -out MCI Center for the 18th annual

SummerSlam.

So SummerSlam, to me, it was natural.

Randy not accepting the loss, not accepting the fact that The Undertaker

defeated him at WrestleMania on the grandest stage of all, and now you have

new reason for Randy to want to go after The Undertaker.

Creative says, you know, you had your dad at WrestleMania.

Maybe we have him come back. We could have him sit in the crowd.

Someone had an idea then.

So at SummerSlam,

Cowboy Bob Orton was there as a distraction, but I don't think we were

to know it was Cowboy Bob.

He was in the crowd pretending to be a typical fan, and he had makeup on so we

didn't see his iconic face.

This was clearly

Cowboy Bob with makeup, luckily for Randy.

That's still a distraction.

The match goes down.

My dad comes out, causes the distraction.

One,

two, three, I win.

You pull the makeup off bit by bit, and it's just like I could have done a

better job. My daughter could have done a better job making up my father to not

look like my father. It made my dad look like my dad.

That's Bob Randy on his dad.

That's Cowboy Bob. What the hell is going on?

Just brand new stuff for me. It was like being in the movies, I guess. It was

just a great experience.

Fortunately, we've come a long way in special effects and the way we do things

now.

It was awful. It really was.

They better get the hell out of Dodge.

I'll tell you that right now.

The one thing about Taker, which I think we can all agree on, is that Taker, he

made everybody step up. And I think that was a real turning point, a real

catalyst for Randy to have that kind of integrity as a performer.

After I killed your legend at SummerSlam.

We figured you'd crawl back to Death Valley and never show your face again.

And seeing as you're here today, I will do as I said. I have a gift to present

to you, Undertaker. If I could get some help from the back, please bring out

Undertaker's gift.

Undertaker, let me present to you your retirement fund in the amount of $1

,416.

The Undertaker has special powers that he can do things.

Undertaker can set things on fire.

Undertaker has lightning bolts coming from his hands.

You play on the fears and the psyche of someone's head to get in there and

really mess with them.

versus The Undertaker.

Randy shines so bright that this continued and we started getting into

creative matches, which when you have someone like Undertaker, you get more

latitude and freedom to do.

Oh, no.

What's going on?

Oh, no.

Look at the size of that casket.

So Undertaker generally brings a lot to the table that really sparks your

imagination. The casket made for two.

Someone is going to be buried alive Sunday at No Mercy in that castle.

You have Randy Orton, the legend killer, who's just taking out one person after

another and seems really pretty unstoppable.

All of a sudden, up against someone who he cannot intimidate. Someone

who he really can't play games with mentally.

The Undertaker.

He's the only guy that can pull this off.

I mean, you think about it. You've got a dead man who's dead, but he's not

really dead. Then you've got a guy who's been buried alive. You've got all this

different stuff. Nobody's going to buy that, except for the fact it's The

Undertaker. Right. And this takes us to the casket match at No Mercy.

The match that favors The Undertaker. It is a casket match.

The match that The Undertaker has made famous.

They're fun because it gives you a whole different element of the out, the end,

the finish.

And so it begins.

Not only do you have to incapacitate your opponent, you have to incapacitate

them enough so that you can roll them into a casket and shut the lid.

I hadn't been in many casket matches at this point in my career.

Actually, I had never been in a casket match.

But I was in there with the man.

When it comes to casket matches, The Undertaker.

But we threw him a curveball.

It's the first ever handicap casket match.

Both those men got to go in the casket. The Undertaker will be victorious.

You know, not only am I dealing with Randy, I'm dealing with his dad who's

interjected himself time and time and time and time again. So it made sense.

So now it's cool. Like, all right, two on one.

Are they going to be able to?

put Undertaker in a casket, or is Undertaker going to have to put both of

guys in a casket?

Undertaker up to the top. Watch out. And Randy Orton cut the Undertaker off. And

this could be the opening of the Orton scene.

Undertaker up top.

Maybe here. Can he do it? A super pass by the Orton's to the Undertaker.

Cowboy Bob Orton to his feet. Here we go. Here we go.

And Cowboy Bob did it to the casket. And now Randy's got to be delivered.

As a kid, you strive to make your dad proud, but when your dad's a bad guy,

maybe that is making him proud of being bad.

Undertaker's going to throw Randy in. Open it up!

Here we go!

What the hell?

Cowboy Bob with a fire extinguisher!

I remember going wild with that fire extinguisher.

Couldn't see anything but smoke.

No, no, no!

Undertaker's in the casket! Come on, Taker!

Oh, the proverbial numbers game! Oh, my God!

They're locking it.

Now the Orton symbolically wheeling the casket, which contains the Undertaker

inside, out of the Toyota scanner.

No. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on now.

What the hell is Orton doing?

Pull, pull, stop, stop, pull.

Oh, my God.

No.

Oh, my God. Come on. No. There's a man in there. Enough with this.

My adrenaline's pumping. I'm about to set a casket on fire with The Undertaker

in it, so I'm not thinking necessarily about my safety.

So I'm dumping all this kerosene all over this casket, and it's dripping

everywhere, and it's splashing, and it's hitting me, and it's on my boots, and I

didn't even realize it, but my boots up to my knees were soaked in kerosene.

I lighted on fire. As I did that, I stepped back just in the nick of time

you saw the fire take over the casket.

And I think it missed the tips of my

toes by like this much.

Those are the kind of moments that people remember forever.

But most of those people...

They're in tune with what's been going on, and they know one thing about that

Gumsier character is he's going to come out of that casket eventually.

And when he does, there's going to be hell to pay.

After the casket match, Taker disappeared for a few weeks. I went on a

Series.

The Survivor Series is where you have a team, four or five people on each side,

and as people lose, they are eliminated from the match. And the idea is to be

the last person to survive that match.

Randy at the highest of highs, being sole survivor in Survivor Series and

on top of the world.

Take a look at him, guys. Randy Orton right there.

And then I heard it.

It's just so well set up. Everything in this whole storyline arc was perfectly

done.

There's pops, and then there's rumbles.

That rumble there is just that energy, that anticipation of what is about to

happen.

It worked against me a little bit because, like, I'm in the inside. I can

the crowd.

I'm juiced up. I'm ready to go.

So I hit that door.

It was just for a second, but, I mean, I could feel it.

Big ball of fire.

And then I had to take a little half second there to assess, like, I wonder

there's anything on me on fire right now.

I really hope not because it would really spoil this.

Come on!

We get the perfect entrance from the undertaker through the flaming casket,

which is such a beautiful way for him to show Randy that nothing you've done so

far is enough to beat me.

It's the dead man.

It's the Undertaker. We've seen him rise out of the rubbish before. We've seen

him come out of things like that. You can put the axe, you can put gasoline,

blow it up. Dead man's coming back.

As

a

fan, you realize how big a story is sometimes with the amount of production

that's put into it.

And you saw that with The Undertaker and Randy Orton.

Oh, wait a minute. Oh, my.

That man sat up.

Now we needed to up the ante. Now we needed to do some wild stunt.

Take Taker.

I hit him with the tire iron, and he falls on the back of the lowrider. Now,

we're parked at the bottom of the ramp. Now, back then, we taped SmackDown.

People at home didn't see this. But for the live crowd, I get in this car.

I got to start it up.

Well, I flood the engine.

I was in that car what felt like minutes flooding the out of the engine.

Finally, I get it to start. Now, I've got an undertaker in the back that I got

to drop off somewhere.

What do I do?

Probably one of the craziest stunts I've ever been involved in.

Oh, my God.

The wild part about it, and I can't do it justice explaining it, but I had just

a couple inches on each side of that set that I had to run that

lowrider.

Had a few angels with me that day. So did Taker.

Any kind of reservation that you have about doing anything, it goes out the

window when you're live.

You just stop thinking about anything bad happening, and you think about

a moment.

If you've got people talking, if there's a stir, like, whoa, did you see last

night? He was in the car, and he drove to the set.

He beat him with a tire. Did you see that?

Makes all the pains go away. Makes everything good.

And unfortunately for Randy Orton,

It wasn't enough to keep The Undertaker down.

Oh, my.

Wait a minute.

It can't be. No, it can't be.

Hello, Randy.

Randy, you're going with me.

Straight to hell.

Hell in a Cell.

Oh, my.

Oh, my God.

Hell in a Cell.

The most dangerous structure in sports entertainment history.

It ends careers and it alters lives.

Sometimes revenge is greater than glory. Let's talk about Hell in a Cell, which

is the perfect place.

for The Undertaker to exact the perfect revenge on a young man that has shown no

respect, and now there's no running away.

You're in a cage. You're not getting out, and you have to deal with this man.

The Deadman coming.

This is a moment for Randy.

Knowing that you're getting ready to go through something that you've never been

through before.

From Death Valley, weighing in at 305 pounds,

The Undertaker!

I was in a hell in a cell with The Undertaker.

Me being stuck in a cage with a dead man?

That was enough of a story to keep people tuned in.

So it's come down to this. At WrestleMania, Undertaker won. At

Orton picked up a victory.

And tonight's scores will be settled inside Hell in a Cell.

You're always competing against your opponent.

Like I would never say it at the time, but internally I'm thinking, like, I'm

not letting this kid get over on me.

Now he, on the other side, is looking at me. He's like, yeah, this has been your

yard for a long time.

I'm going to show this old -timer what I got and who I am and where I'm taking

the business.

You can't be content with where you're at.

You always got to be reaching for the brass ring.

Sometimes that's what makes matches so great is that internal competition.

It's hell in the bell.

The violence had to be violent.

People were ready to see the undertaker,

Randy Orton, at Hell in a Cell.

And no one would leave that cell until one of us was the last man standing.

Hell in a Cell is probably the most dangerous structure we have in our

Hell in a Cell takes years.

Not just our careers, but our lives.

And when you got two guys beating the crap out of each other, chances are

somebody's going to be bleeding.

Talk about an adrenaline rush. Talk about living in the moment. Talk about

feeling invincible.

Feeling the roar of the crowd.

Feeling that warm blood drip down your face. There's nothing quite like it. I

might sound like a lunatic right now saying all this, but...

Any of the boys in the back, you know what I'm talking about.

You talk about being

bruised, battered, torn.

You talk about being bloodied up. That's something I know going into this match,

and it's something that I'm willing to do because I'm willing to prove to you,

The Undertaker, that I'm worthy to be in the ring with you.

And that's the mark of a true champion.

From having

wrestled for years and years and years, you know, and then to be off them years

and then to come back with your son. I mean, God, it just don't get any better

than that.

Attending and then Patrick.

Cowboy Bob Horton Jr., you could tell he was having fun.

Early on, he didn't want to step on Randy's toes, but as the story went on

as he became more and more involved in it, I think he loosened up along the

Here's the cover. One, two, and Bob Horton just caught the referee out. He

tracked the referee.

really started letting the real cowboy Bob Horton Jr. out.

I was just happy to be there.

Being able to come back and get involved in something that was so high caliber

was just great.

Shoot, I was in hog heaven.

We had all these things to play with, but there's one thing that didn't get

reversed a lot. When Taker picked you up for a pile driver, chances are you

were, getting a piledriver.

Randy Orton doesn't realize what's going on.

Undertaker! Randy Orton in trouble!

Undertaker! Going for the, going for that tombstone! And look at this! Randy

Orton telling the tombstone! He told the tombstone! I've never seen anyone do

that! Are you kidding me?

Tombstone piledriver!

Tombstone piledriver!

It's strange when someone gives me my finish because it's an unnatural

feeling because obviously all these years i haven't taken very many of them

was like

you know that's what you feel oh you should have done that you should have

on the undertaker it's gonna be bad news brother

My thing is, with Randy taking on The Undertaker, there's no way, there's no

Randy would have been in that position if it wasn't for someone like The

Undertaker saying, hey, I want that kid, and I want to see exactly how good he

really is.

The legend continues.

Here's your winner, the Undertaker.

And Undertaker just tossed the urn on top of the bell.

It was just like I was feeling it. I knew we'd just blown off a great story.

We just had an awesome Hell in a Cell match, and it was just me.

feeding off of not only the story, the match, and the reception from the

audience. It was just like, all right, I'm going up. I'm going up, and this is

going to be the icing on the cake.

This is the exclamation point at the end of the sentence right here.

Darkness prevailed me in.

At this moment in time, Randy Orton was the picture -perfect example.

of what the new generation of superstars was going to be like. And The

Undertaker showed everyone he can still hang with anybody.

Anybody who comes along and makes it to become legendary status like Randy Orton

has become had to go through this rite of passage.

And I thought this was it for Randy Orton. This set Randy's career off on

right foot.

It was a complete story that...

I've always felt kept the top guy the top guy and at the same time gave the

opportunity to the best young wrestler on the way up who then has somehow

exceeded every single expectation regardless of how big it was and then

Randy Orton.

One of the most memorable things for me in my career was being able to be on the

road with my father working with The Undertaker.

It's really amazing when you think about it. And the older I get, the more I

look back and realize, man, I was lucky.

I was very lucky.

When I look at Randy, I just think here's somebody who's done very well,

he's just a good, good person, always has been.

Randy is the ultimate locker room leader.

And he wasn't always that. Like, I think he'll be the first to say that in his

younger years.

He's probably a real idiot sometimes.

But now he's matured into this just great human being. He loves wrestling.

He loves his family.

And he loves being in the locker room with the guys.

When I'm in the locker room and when I'm talking to the young guys and girls in

the back and trying to teach them.

About the little things, I always go back to where I started, and I knew that

it wasn't for Undertaker, none of this would have ever happened.

I got a little side story. It doesn't really show me in the best light, but

let's face it, I was 24, and I was a little bit of a prick back then.

So, we have the Hall of Fame, and we have WrestleMania.

The day of the Hall of Fame, that morning,

We had rehearsal.

Let's just say I got into a little bit of trouble, didn't get much sleep, just

in case my kids are watching.

Now, keep in mind, this is my second WrestleMania.

I'm 24.

I'm being given the world.

My dad is there.

Haker's there. I got down there just as they were finishing up, and they were

walking out.

I worked with The Undertaker for a year, and it all started off with me missing

rehearsal.

A lot of people may have opinions about me earlier in my career, but nobody

considers myself more of an asshole than I do.

So, take, if you're watching, thank you for not bitching me out, cursing me out,

or chokeslamming my ass to hell after I missed that rehearsal.

That's probably one of my biggest regrets in the business, letting you men

that night.

I was told before I come to WWE that no one would ever pay money to see me

wrestle. I've wrestled men.

I've wrestled their sons.

I mean, how blessed can you be to do something that you enjoy so much?

For so long.

And still be here and able to talk about it.

Knowing where Randy went from there, his craft has only gotten better.

It's one of those things that I'm really fond of.

And I take nothing for granted.