Former WWE manager Paul Bearer comments on how he was paired with Undertaker, managing Taker before he was given the gimmick, interviewing Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair on The Funeral Parlor

Ring The Bell Radio with Paul Bearer
Hosts Matt and J.D.
Full audio available at RingTheBellRadio.com.

Paul Bearer (Percy Pringle) recently sat down with Matt and JD from Ring The Bell Radio for an interview. During the interview Paul discusses how he started as a manager, his "Funeral Parlor" segments; his thoughts on the Undertaker, his upcoming role in Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 along with many other topics. Below are some highlights. You can listen to the full interview at: www.RingTheBellRadio.com on the home page or in the archive section.

Paul Bearer on how he got into the business: "It’s a long story….I fell in love with wrestling as a kid, like most of us. I started going to shows a kid in highschool and sat front row for about 7 years. I would help set the ring up and carry the boy’s bags. I then started taking pictures at ringside for the wrestling office and started kind of easing my foot into the back door. Then a couple of my friend and myself started to train to be wrestlers….I did have a couple matches, I was so horrible. So the great Frankie Kane (The Great Mephisto) was the booker at the time, and I’ll never forget he said to me, 'Percy….you ever think about managing? I think you should.' So I started managing and here we are, the rest is pretty much history."



Managing The Undertaker before he was The Undertaker: "I had a 15 year career before coming to the WWF. About 1987 we had a big red headed kid coming through Dallas named Mark Calloway. He wanted to be a wrestler so we gave him a try. He was training with Buzz Sawyer at the time, if you call what Buzz did training. He more or less took Mark’s money. But one night we put him in the ring under a mask, called him Texas Red. Bruiser Brody asked me to go to the ring with him as his manager. So I managed The Undertaker in his very first match in Dallas and that was 3 or 4 years before his debut as The Undertaker in the WWF. So we certainly have a history that goes back a long long time and we still remain dear friends…he’s one of the best friends I’ve got in the world."

How He Was Paired With The Undertaker in the WWF: "I made a decision to come back to Mobile, Alabama once World Class Wrestling shut down. I had to put food on the table for my young family. But Rick Rude called me that day. I told him what my deal was and told him I was thinking about moving back to Alabama, and he (Rick Rude) said, 'No,no,no, I’ll give you a call right back.'

"So he called back and asked me if I had a pencil handy, I told him yeah and he told me to write this number down. So I wrote it down and said, who’s number is this? He said "Vince McMahon and he wants you to call him." So I picked up the phone with my shaky hands and made the call. I went up to Titan Towers and had a meeting with Vince, J.J Dillon and Pat Paterson. I didn’t know he was looking for a manager for The Undertaker and Vince didn’t know that I was a real mortician. He called me back a few weeks later and in January 1991 I started managing The Undertaker."

The Highlight of The Funeral Parlor: "I would have to say my favorite of all is when I had Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair on the Funeral Parlor at the same time. I have a picture here hanging on the wall in my office. I remember thinking to myself while I was interview those guys, 'where do I go from here?' Because I was certainly at the top of the mountain at that point."