According to a March 6 report from Yahoo! Sports, William Moody, the real-life undertaker who became famous by portraying Paul Bearer, a mortician who managed WWE superstar The Undertaker, died on March 6 at 58 in a Mobile, Ala., hospital.
No cause of Moody's death has been announced.
"Vince is laughing like, 'Ho ho ho ho!' You know, that trademark Vince McMahon laugh," Moody explained in a recent Yahoo! interview, regarding how he originally received the opportunity for The Undertaker managerial job. "So that moment there when we all realized that they were looking for a manager for Taker and that I was a real mortician. … It was a moment in time that I will never forget and I will take to my grave with me."
While Moody's death sent shockwaves through the wrestling community, the news of his passing also hit home for MMA fans.
Unlike most wrestling superstars, Moody and The Undertaker have close ties to the MMA game.
The Undertaker regularly made appearances at UFC events when Brock Lesnar was competing inside the cage, and he even told MMA Fighting reporter Ariel Helwani that he would have been an MMA fighter instead of a wrestler if mixed martial arts was as big as wrestling in the early-90s.
The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar exchanged words when the wrestling legend was sitting cageside at UFC 121 in 2010.
In a post-fight interview with UFC reporter Ariel Helwani, the Undertaker was asked if he would have considered joining the UFC when he first got his career started if the sport was as popular as it is today. "Safe bet," he responded. "Real safe bet. It's a little late in the game for me to start now, but twenty years ago I'd be all over it."
If the Undertaker would have been an MMA star, there's a good chance Bearer would have tasted MMA fame right along with him.
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