The Undertaker rebranded his podcast under WWE, and added his wife, Michelle McCool, as a co-host. They put their latest out on YouTube and they made a bang by revealing a major health scare “The Deadman” had during WrestleMania 41 week.
He had to have heart surgery shortly after the event:
A transcript (via PW Insider):
Michelle McCool: The irony, like everybody’s a superstar or a superhero when they come outta the curtain. No clue what’s going on behind the curtain.
Undertaker: Yeah, now, I mean, I guess now....Now it’s out there.
McCool: Well, how I saved, I Saved your life again.
Undertaker: It’s gonna be one of those things that we get bombarded with questions. So you might as well...
McCool: ... talk about how I saved your life, and that was the second time I saved your life, by the way. ‘cause at one time you were choking on a piece of steak and I literally gave you the Heimlech Maneuver. I saved your life.
Undertaker: I’m dead.
McCool: But this is the second.
Undertaker: There’s no, there’s there, there is no mystique left.
McCool: But no, your fans should have, your fans hate me half the time just ‘cause I’m married to you. So, maybe love me because I’ve saved his life guys twice now. [Undertaker sighs] Legit.
Undertaker: Yes. You saved my life with...
McCool: You literally were choking. That was scary. Are you kidding me?
Undertaker: I would have hacked it up eventually.
McCool: No, you wouldn’t have. Clearly when I look at you and you’re going [choking noise] and had to jump up on the chair ‘cause I couldn’t reach you, and then I barely got my arms around you, and then all of a sudden...
Undertaker: You broke your thumbnail too...
McCool: Not just broke it. That whole thing tore off and ed up in your steak that you ate later.
Undertaker: I didn’t finish. I did. You did say me and I did finish the steak, but...
McCool: Yeah. I think it’s important for people to know some, they’ll have to give ‘em all the details, but I felt like when people would come up to me and congratulate me and be like, how are you doing? And I’m almost in tears or I’m okay, but they could tell I wasn’t okay, but they thought it was probably just because of the speech. No, it was because of the heart issues you had been having weeks prior, which by the grace of God, we found out just by a God thing. But it ended up being terrifying. Yeah. And the day we got home from WrestleMania the next morning at 6:00 AM we were at the hospital for a little bit of heart surgery too, those are very...
Undertaker: It was a little bit.
McCool: It’s your heart.
Undertaker: It was my heart.
McCool: Just minor...what makes you beat.
Undertaker: Yeah, so I mean there was that little kinda sidebar going on.
McCool: Sidebar for about five weeks. It was terrifying.
Undertaker: I wasn’t supposed to go to Vegas.
McCool: You weren’t supposed to go anywhere. You didn’t want me to tell anybody.
Undertaker: I really didn’t today either.
McCool: Not fair to me. Not fair.
Undertaker: I was there.
McCool: We were in the hospital for four nights, two weeks before WrestleMania. Yeah, you weren’t supposed to go. Duh. That’s that old school mentality. I’m not mad at it because I’d probably be the same patient, but it was terrifying. I couldn’t focus on anything else. All I wanted to focus on was you, your heart, getting you in with the best cardiologist, which we eventually did, but that took a lot of phone calls, several nights in the hospital, lots of doctor visits, and by the grace of God, yes, you’re here, but out of the words of the doctor himself. It could have turned out badly had we not found it that day.
Undertaker: Yeah, but now, strong like bull.
McCool: Strong like bull and thankfully you can still pretend you’re a dead man too much.
Undertaker: Instead of being one? Wow. That’s a little strong I think.
McCool: Because I saved your life.
Undertaker: Huh?
McCool: Because I saved your life.
Undertaker: Alright. You did. You made me go have a test done.
McCool: I did. I’d scheduled in January. That’s what was crazy about it, and you went to the doctor March 28th? ‘cause I’ll never forget...and then you called me and were like, they won’t run the heart exam then. Just a routine heart scan that we were gonna do.
Undertaker: I didn’t even know there was anything wrong.
McCool: That’s what I’m saying. It was just a routine thing that I took two and a half months to get into. ‘cause when you called me, I’m not gonna lie. And you’re like, my heart rate was like 140 something or whatever it was and they won’t do the test. I got mad at first. I’m like, are you kidding me? Like I scheduled about two and a half months ago. Like, they’re not going to do the test?
Undertaker: Like, how did you screw this up?
McCool: Can you ask for a different nurse? Does she know what she’s doing? And then I was like, okay, Michelle ran it back like something. Anyway, got you into another one. About an hour later they had one appointment open. And come to find out you had been in chronic AFib for who knows how long, but the scariest part was that you didn’t feel any symptoms, so we didn’t know. You came in a few times, out of breath and I’d bust your balls. Dude, you were just throwing the ball with the dog. Why are you so out of breath? Or going up the stairs, like to pray with the kids. Like what? Why are you out of breath not thinking it was an actual heart issue? So medicines didn’t work and we ended up in the ER on a Friday. Of course you wouldn’t stay the night at the end of I think Kaya’s flag football. All day Saturday, you looked at me and you’re like, I’m still in AFib, because you’re doing it with the watch and everything else. I was like, okay, if you’re not out of AFib, when we’re getting ready to go to church tomorrow morning, we’re going to the hospital, and thankfully you agreed. So we went to the hospital, numbers were out of whack. Heartbeat was out of whack. Tour ejection fracture of the blood, of how it was pumping or whatever. Was it 30%? I think it was?
Undertaker: Yeah, it wasn’t much.
McCool: Yeah, it wasn’t much. It was supposed to be a hundred obviously. We ended up staying in the hospital for four nights where they actually had to cardiovert you and shock you back to a normal rhythm that sadly lasted what, 24 hours? Literally? Maybe 48?
Undertaker: Maybe 48?
McCool: Yeah, maybe 48. So after about four days, we go home. Two days later, you’re back in AFib, and man, I was stressed.
Undertaker: I do remember that.
McCool: See, I do love you. I was stressed out.
Undertaker: You just have a funny way of showing it sometimes.
McCool: That’s a lie. But nothing was working. Nothing was working. You kept telling me I’m fine. I feel fine. You wanted to fly to the first week of [WWE] LFG to tape, two days out of the hospital, and I’m like, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Could be wrong...
Undertaker: Yeah, no one else did either.
McCool: Nobody did, and your blood pressure was like 80 over 50 and your heart rate was 140 one second, 120, the next 103. That it was just wild. So...
Undertaker: That’s the old school mentality.
McCool: Yeah. That’s all I could focus on. Literally, even at WrestleMania weekend, the entire weekend was, I was just worried about you, but...
Undertaker: I appreciate it.
McCool: You’re good.
Undertaker: No more sympathy for me.
McCool: Sympathy gone.
Undertaker: All the other health issues and everything aside. You did...You really did get to enjoy.
McCool: Yeah, I did,
Undertaker: Not everybody is in the Hall of Fame.
McCool: I know.
Undertaker: ...and you needed, I hope you got to enjoy that a little bit.
McCool: I did. I’ve struggled sometimes with imposter syndrome because everybody just sees me as Undertaker’s wife. So it was nice to be recognized for my achievements that often I feel like people have forgotten. So despite what was going on, it was hard to focus on a speech. It was hard to focus on anything whatsoever, and I knew that was my big night. That was when one night had so many family and friends there to share it with. Couldn’t be more blessed.
Undertaker: All those damn McCools.
McCool: all those McCools everywhere, every seat. But it was so weird, as nervous as I was about the speech and whether people would like it or whether people would accept it, or whether I would even remember any of it, because I was worried about you. When we got to the theater, and I know this sounds crazy, but we walked into this beautiful room.
Undertaker: This is your dressing room?
McCool: Yeah, the dressing room. This beautiful dressing room that had. Blue camo wallpaper all around it, and I think I said to you, I’m like, this was meant to be. It was meant to be.
Undertaker: Yeah.
McCool: This was meant to be. I’d already mentioned, like what a class, Triple H, Steve, Lex, Stone Cold.
Undertaker: Strong Class.
McCool: Strong class! With some upgraded rings, but we’ll get to that in another episode, cause I don’t wanna get you hot, when I walked into the camo room, I literally looked at you and I was like, it was meant to be, and I had this calmness. I don’t even think I sat in the room and rehearsed or anything. Like I just had this calmness, you know. This is it. Like I prayed, God, speak through me. Like just go out here and you were super calming after the induction. We had a little moment and you said, enjoy the moment and I was never good at that in the past, but I really did enjoy that moment. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. I felt loved. I felt appreciated. I felt seen.
Undertaker: Yeah, and you were, and you deserve to be and yeah, regardless of what was going on behind the scenes....it was....I think I was more nervous doing your induction than I was giving my own speech.
McCool: Really?
Undertaker: Yeah.
McCool: Even though you still went out there and talked about how I chased you? On my Hall of Fame night....
Undertaker: I can’t change, I can’t change history.
McCool: Okay. Okay. But it was nice. It was start to finish from the package they put together. Just makes you feel super special.
Undertaker: Those packages would make anybody feel like...
McCool: Crazy.
Undertaker: Yeah.
McCool: Then, backstage getting photos of family and friends. It’s just, it was hard. Like I said, it was hard to enjoy. Done. I’m glad I have the pictures to remember who all was there. But I did enjoy it. I really did.
He has continued working with WWE in the meantime, and all seems to be well now. There don’t appear to be any plans to slow down either, with his work with LFG and random appearances for the company.
Thankfully he’s able to continue to do so.
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