PCO Says Undertaker Was Not Given A Proper Retirement

Former Ring of Honor Champion PCO was on a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily. On social media, PCO is known for his "Monday Night PCO & Destro" series, and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked PCO about the development of the PCO character.

"I got a pretty good win – loss record at Ring of Honor. PCO, it's not his fault, but he's going to a darker world now," PCO teased. "Every Monday night, you'll see a lot the alter ego of PCO, which is me talking to you, or doing a podcast [or] training, but once a month, when Destro's got his monster, then it's another ball game. So three weeks of, let's say, Clark Kent but one week of Superman. It's hard nowadays, like Taker.

"I don't know how long it was without doing podcasts and things like that to preserve the character, but now that we're talking about the business openly, we're talking about the character openly, it's kind of a little bit tougher to build heels or faces because you see everybody on social media, and you see them as they are. And I think the good thing with a character like mine, you have two dimensions to the character. You got Carl Ouellet, and you got PCO."

PCO has hoped in the past for a big match against The Undertaker. This looks like it may not happen with Undertaker's "Final Farewell" at Survivor Series, and PCO had some thoughts on the way Undertaker retired.

"I'm very disappointed by this because I think I could have gave him a hell of a match for his retirement match," PCO stated. "I think I could dig deep down, and I've got the resources to really steal the show with him being as over as he is. I think, in my mind, if you're going to retire as Undertaker, I think he had to be burned down and put in the urn and go back in a casket, because you want to see Undertaker's debut all the way to the end.

"You want to close that chapter. You want people to cry, over 80,000 people crying, sharing their love for the fact that they cared for what Taker has done. You want to sell entertainment and especially a lot of feelings. I think that's the proper retirement for Undertaker, not during a pandemic with a cinematic match. That's the way I see it, but that's only my opinion."

PCO had been away from wrestling for 10 months due to the pandemic. He described what it was like to take bumps again after a long layoff.

"It feels like like 20 years ago. I'm as crazy as before, didn't change," PCO jokingly said. "You can't compare me with anyone else because I love bumping. It's one of the things that I like to do. I like being tough on me, and and for me taking any kind of bump, it's fun. It's not against my will. It's something that makes me cringe. It hurts me, or I guess because I have a high tolerance to pain. That's the only reason I can explain that."

ROH have implemented a bubble system for their TV tapings similar to what the NBA did for the playoffs. PCO talked about the precautions ROH have taken during the pandemic.

"We're so protected," PCO noted. "It's so healthy. I think it's the safest company out there. Don't want to take anything away from everyone else. I'm sure everybody's super safe but just the fact that since the beginning of the pandemic, we have no cases on location. Maybe some cases at home, but in The Bubble itself, we're at zero cases since the beginning of everything. We're, for two or three days, getting tested and can't get out until we have the first negative test, and from then, you're getting tested all the time all the way through the end of the day.

"Sometimes nine days – ten days altogether every time we do tapings. We do a lot. We work hard while there. It's just more condensed. That's the way to attack the pandemic. It's looking good out there. It's looking good in the United States. Vaccination rates are good, and a lot of states are almost back to normal. So hopefully we're looking at the summer to be able to have crowds."

You can follow PCO on Twitter @PCOisNotHuman. You can find the full audio and video from PCO's interview below: