Marty Elias, a former WWE referee, spoke on Talk Is Jericho to discuss a variety of topics. During it, he revealed that the Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak almost came to an end when he wrestled Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 25 in 2009, and that Taker advised Elias that if there was ever a time when he needed to execute a shoot count-out, he should do it.
“At WrestleMania 25, when I did my counts on Taker after the dive, that count was a shoot count (When Taker went for the dive, didn’t get caught, and landed on his head). The only instruction I ever got out of that match was from Taker. He said, ‘If I don’t get back in, you shoot count me out’, and we came very, very close to counting him out. But if you go back and look at that, I was drawing my counts out, and I was drawing 74,000 people in with my counts. I took my time because I was still selling because they had bumped me earlier. So I was still selling that. But at the same time, I was still dramatizing it and I was elongating that count. So I was getting the people behind me. I was looking at Taker, and Taker and I didn’t make eye contact until nine on the 10 count. So that streak almost ended at WrestleMania 25 on a count out. He was concussed. He had a broken collarbone. He broke his ring finger. So yeah, he was pretty fu*ked up.”
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