5 reasons why the Undertaker could've succeeded in MMA

#4 He’s willing to learn

When the Undertaker first arrived in the WWF in the early 90’s, his character was that of a zombie, for all intents and purposes.

That meant that in the ring, he was slow; his movements were all deliberate and his matches were fought at a largely glacial pace, something that was compounded by him being matched with large, usually immobile opponents.

As his character developed through the 90’s and became more human, Undertaker’s ringwork adapted. The pace picked up, the move set was expanded, he began to sell more and put on some classic matches with technical wrestlers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.

When the 90’s came to a close and the Phenom became more worn down and injury prone, his style developed into that of a brawler, focusing mainly on strikes and more power-based moves.

And when MMA took off in the early 2000’s, the Dead Man developed an MMA-influenced style complete with a myriad of submission moves, more realistic strikes, and even put on chain-wrestling style matches with Kurt Angle and grappling-oriented matches with former UFC star Ken Shamrock.

All of this shows that the Undertaker has always been willing to develop his style and change with the times, something that’s massively important in the world of MMA.

For instance, where brutal wrestlers such as Mark Coleman and Randy Couture used to love to pin their opponents into the Octagon fence for a ground-and-pound assault, nowadays ground-based fighters avoid the fence like the plague due to opponents developing ways to use it to help them to get to their feet.

As a clearly adaptable athlete, the Undertaker – had he come into MMA at a much earlier point in his career of course – could’ve been the rare type of fighter to be able to change and adjust his style with the times, rather than becoming left behind like a relic.

Due to all the changes in his in-ring style over the years, it isn’t a stretch to imagine a grappling-based Undertaker developing into a more striking-based fighter – kind of like Ken Shamrock in the early 2000’s – and thus being able to have more longevity in a potential MMA career.