Mark Henry defends The Undertaker/Goldberg Match
Mark Henry was none too pleased by the way Goldberg and Undertaker were mocked for their match at WWE Super ShowDown. Henry discussed the situation on Busted Open Radio, taking umbrage at the way fans criticized Taker and Goldberg online for the match. Some highlights are below:
On fans unfairly judging the two: “Both of those guys deserve the respect and admiration from our fans and from us. You can’t judge ’em on their primes, guys. It is almost sacrilege to expect a man in his 50s to be the man that they were at 35. You live for the moment, don’t live for the past … you gotta live in the now in pro wrestling. We talk about it all the time. Why you rushing it? Let it build! Enjoy the story. But we didn’t do that. And I was aggravated as hell about it.”
On the match continuing after Goldberg getting his bell rung: “The Undertaker deserves the respect that he deserves. Goldberg deserves the respect that he has earned. The guy went in and busted his face open. He finished that match. How about saying, [claps] ‘Thank you, for not tapping out.’ He could have easily said ‘Hey, I can’t see, I rung my bell,’ and whey went into a series of chokeslams and 1,2,3 and it’s over. Could have done it, didn’t do it. They went through it for you.”
On the reaction online to the match: “But yet, the Twitter fingers, the people that can’t run a mile in under a day. The people that can’t lift their own body weight, do one pull-up. The people that can’t their families in order and get all of their life in order. People don’t have a belief beyond anything but their own nose. Those are the people that came on social media and berated the Undertaker and Goldberg, when it was a travesty to the wrestling business because they deserve better than that. Dammit, they deserve better than that. And anybody that sent a tweet like that, you should be ashamed of yourself. Everybody that knows you, should look at you differently.”
On the criticism affecting him personally: “I’m sorry, it’s too close and maybe I’m being a little bit emotional about it, because I know both those guys very well. And I’ll be dammed if I’m going to let somebody tarnish their memory, and their existence in this business and what they gave to me personally, because they got the ability to communicate with millions of people with sending a tweet.”
On Undertaker and Goldberg’s careers: “It’s about respect. It’s about loyalty, too. They have given a lot to us as fans. Like, I think about every moment I heard the gong since ’94. I think about the walks that Goldberg made 100 times without a loss. All the fights with the security guards and all the times that great wrestlers went to the ring and got Jackhammered. There’s a lot that goes into that build. Years and years of build for those two individuals. And we have people that can’t lace their own shoes, chew bubble gum at the same time trying to tear them down in a second, over a tweet. It’s brutal to me.”
