Tattoo Artist Talks About Working with The Undertaker

Above is video of legendary tattoo artist Paul Booth talking more to Loudwire about a crazy time he had with The Undertaker at a tattoo convention in the early 1990s.

Booth first told the story in 2018, for a YouTube video released by Inked magazine. Booth was working a tattoo convention and happened to be in a hotel room giving The Dead Man some ink. Booth said they did the work in his own hotel room so fans wouldn’t bother Taker. Booth’s manager came up from the convention floor and said some “metalhead kids” were dying to meet him, and they had a special gift for him. The fans were brought up to Booth’s hotel room and they said, “Yeah, we got a head for you. … We were partying in a cemetery the other night after it rained and there was a mudslide, and we found a head in the mud. We thought you should have it.” Booth left to go with the fans to get the head out of the car but Taker did not go because he was “kind of freaked out by the whole thing,” according to Booth.

In the Loudwire video above, Booth talked about what it was like meeting Taker for the first time.

“Very quiet guy, very in-character. Quiet and big, menacing guy. He had to duck and turn sideways to walk into the hotel room,” Booth recalled. “I remember that and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, this guy is huge.’ I tattooed his bicep and the demon I drew on him was inspired by him because the way he would come into his victim [for the pin]. So, I did this tattoo of a demon kind of lurching forward. Not him but inspired by him. And I remember his arm was so huge, it was like doing a back piece. Couldn’t wrap my hand around it.”

Booth talked more about the demeanor of The Dead Man. He continued, “He’s a quiet guy. The Undertaker’s a guy that really only speaks when he has something to say, as I remember it. But we’ve had great conversations, very polite guy, very serious guy. But very friendly. You could see him being The Undertaker in real life. He still has that vibe, it’s very genuine.”