In 2016, Shane McMahon had his first WWE match in nearly seven years, but it wasn’t his idea to get back in the ring. When all was said and done at WrestleMania 32 , Shane was the loser of a Hell in a Cell Match to an iconic wrestling legend. No one thought that Shane-O Mac would ever return to the squared circle, but when The Undertaker gives you a phone call and asks you to face him, it’s hard to turn him down.
In February 2016, Shane shockingly returned to face off with his father and sister. Vince McMahon wasn’t happy about it and ended up placing his fan-favorite son in a Hell in a Cell Match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 .
If Shane won the contest, he would get control of Monday Night Raw , so it fit into current storylines at the time. Still, fans had no idea how things came to this point of having a legendary former champion taking on the son of WWE’s boss.
Shane recently spoke with ESPN , where he explained how the match came into existence. He had been out of the wrestling ring since 2009, and his three sons never saw him perform live. For quite some time, he had wanted his sons to see him wrestle.
As he waited for the right opportunity to arrive, a phone call placed it right into his hands. Shane said that The Undertaker — aka Mark Calaway in real life — called him about the match, and nothing more was necessary.
“He says, ‘What do you think?’ And I ask, ‘About what?’ And he says, ‘Me and you.’ My gut was that I didn’t want to say no, which stunned me. So I told him to run it by the boss and see what he thought. Taker called Vince. My dad called me. And the rest is history.”
Nearly half an hour into the match, Shane climbed to the top of the cell and jumped off of it. He was planning on landing on The Undertaker below, but he missed and knocked himself out. A few minutes later, Taker hit the Tombstone Piledriver for the pin and the win.
Shane would continue to perform in WWE for the next three years before getting written off of television again. He knew that his main reason for getting back in the ring was his children, but all it took was a phone call from The Undertaker to make it happen.
