Booker T has shared his take on The Undertaker's return to Raw and whether it was a good move on WWE's part in terms of its timing.
The legendary superstar returned to the show on Monday night and his appearance helped take the ratings up. But, given that his Super ShowDown match in Saudi Arabia didn't quite go according to plan, with execution a painful sore point, the criticism had been rife.
Many called on both Taker and his opponent Goldberg to retire, while a notion of him returning too soon after that fight was possibly floating around.
Booker, however, thinks the timing is perfect.
“I think that’s the perfect way to bring Undertaker into the fold," he said on his The Hall of Fame podcast (h/t 411Mania). "Because Roman Reigns been having a whole lot of trouble with Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre, and what better way to sell this [than to] bring someone in to back [Reigns] up. And who’s bigger? What bigger name we gonna get in the business than the Undertaker? So I say, come back out, go out there, wash that dirt off. And give the people what they wanna see more than anything.”
The Hall of Famer also reckons that a few good performances could make fans forget the Super ShowDown, claiming that it would never be the way to have the Dead Man go out.
“If they see Undertaker’s last match, that’s the one thing. If it is the last match, you don’t want it to be like it was at Super ShowDown," he added. "That’s not what you want. You don’t want that for yourself, you don’t want that for your kids, you don’t want that for your legacy. So you say, ‘Hey, man. I gotta go out here and get a redo.’ And I think that’s what this is. Undertaker saying, ‘Hey man, let me go out here and redo this thing all over again, give the people what they wanna see: the Undertaker the way they are used to seeing him and the way they want to see him.”
We can all probably all agree that Taker's last match should not be the awful botched one we witnessed at the Super Showdown. He deserves much better.
Of course, people are hardly going to remember him as the man who could not give the fans a good show at a massive PPV, but it's worth considering that there are many young kids out there who have no idea how big of a legend The Undertaker really is and could remember him as exactly that.