The Undertaker underwent heart surgery shortly after WWE WrestleMania 41

While speaking on the Six Feet Under podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Michelle McCool revealed that her husband The Undertaker (Mark Calaway) had a health scare leading up to WrestleMania 41 and underwent heart surgery after the event…

“I think it’s important for people to know some of the details. I felt that when people would come up to congratulate me and ask how I was doing, I was almost in tears. I would say I’m okay, but they could tell I wasn’t. They thought it was probably just because of the speech, but it was because of the heart issues you had been having weeks prior, which we found out by the grace of God. It ended up being terrifying. The day we got home from Wrestlemania, the next morning at 6 a.m., we were at the hospital for heart surgery.”

“You weren’t supposed to go anywhere. You didn’t want me to tell anybody. I really didn’t fair to me. Not fair to me. Not fair. We were in the hospital for four nights, two weeks before WrestleMania. Yeah, you weren’t supposed to go. That’s that old school mentality. I’m not mad at it, because I’d probably be the same patient, but it was terrifying. I couldn’t focus on anything else. All I wanted to focus on was you, your heart, getting you in with the best cardiologist, which we eventually did, but that took a lot of phone calls, several nights in the hospital, lots of doctor visits, and by the grace of God, yes, you were here, but out of the words of the doctor himself, it could have turned out badly, have we not found it that day.” (quotes courtesy of WrestlingNews.co)

Undertaker, unaware of any health issues, underwent a routine heart scan in March, scheduled by McCool in January. During the visit, the test was initially refused despite his heart rate being alarmingly high at around 140, prompting McCool to make another appointment. Tests revealed he had been in chronic atrial fibrillation (AFib) for an unknown period, with no noticeable symptoms except occasional breathlessness, which was dismissed as minor. Medications failed, leading to an ER visit where his heart’s ejection fraction was dangerously low at 30%. After a four-night hospital stay and cardioversion to restore normal rhythm, the fix was short-lived, with AFib returning within days. Despite his insistence on feeling fine and wanting to work, his unstable heart rate and low blood pressure raised concerns, especially during WrestleMania weekend, though McCool noted he is now doing well.