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The Undertaker Will Appear On ‘SmackDown’ Regularly, But He Won’t Be A Weekly Character

By Aaron Sass
Published on: 22:54 PST, Nov 16, 2016

The Undertaker made his highly-anticipated return on Tuesday’s SmackDown, and his appearance suggested that he’ll be around a lot more often. In fact, he even said as much in his promo, as he said “WrestleMania will no longer define me.”

In recent years — with the exception of last year — The Undertaker has only wrestled one match per year at WrestleMania. But, at the age of 51, “The Deadman” has decided to become a semi-regular character again. But, while he made it pretty clear during his appearance on SmackDown that he was back, he won’t be a weekly character, per Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

“There was a lot of buzz, as far as Undertaker went, and questions about what he meant and everything. It sounds like he’s gonna be on television more often — he’s not going to be a regular, or go on the road or anything like that. But, we’ll see. It’s not like he’s booked anywhere else at the present time. The impression is that he’s gonna do more than just WrestleMania.”

Meltzer also said that The Undertaker will probably end up working the Royal Rumble show, simply because WWE needs a big attraction, as they’re trying to fill a 70,000 seat venue to capacity. But, as of right now, his role on the show is unknown, although there is a rumor going around which suggests that he’ll wrestle the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, AJ Styles. Of course, there’s another rumor going around which suggests that Styles will wrestle Shawn Michaels. We’ll probably figure out which, if any, of the rumors are true in the coming weeks.

As of right now, there are two potential opponents for The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 — Randy Orton and John Cena, with the former being more likely than the latter.

Orton vs. Undertaker has happened at a WrestleMania once before, but that was over a decade ago, so, while we have seen the match before, it’ll be a fresh match because they haven’t been in the ring with each other in so long, and because both men are at different stages in their career.

Some are expecting The Undertaker to appear at this Sunday’s Survivor Series, but, as of this writing, he’s not being advertised on the show. But, that doesn’t mean that he won’t be there, although he probably won’t be. He’s also not being advertised for any of the upcoming SmackDown shows, so it’s unclear exactly when he’ll be back for good.

Before WWE announced that The Undertaker would be returning on the 900th episode of SmackDown, some were questioning if he’d ever wrestle again. Even “The Deadman” himself wasn’t sure if he’d come back. In fact, he was certain that he wasn’t going to wrestle again after his match with Shane McMahon back at WrestleMania 32, as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that he told Vince McMahon that he was “done” immediately following the contest.

During his promo on Tuesday, The Undertaker issued a stern warning to the five-man Survivor Series team, saying that if they lost to team Raw, they’d have to deal with him. So, perhaps the SmackDown team losing will prompt “The Phenom” to go after AJ Styles, and that’ll begin the build to the rumored one on one match at the Royal Rumble.

It’ll be interesting to see just how long The Undertaker is a semi-regular character on SmackDown for, and if he’ll continue on after WrestleMania 33 next April. Of course, we always hear that “The Deadman” is planning to retire following WrestleMania, and we’ll likely hear it again next year. But, will WrestleMania 33 truly be his last match? Probably not.

[Featured Image by WWE]

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