Predicting Undertaker's Next Appearance on WWE Programming

Undertaker will sink back into the darkness until it's time for WWE to start generating hype for WrestleMania 33.

The Deadman once again followed his WrestleMania match with discussion of retirement, but history says that he is not yet done. Besides, there is a dream match still awaiting him. And stepping away after a slogging, underwhelming contest propped up by an insane stunt does not befit a legend.

Expect him to rest and recover, hibernating until The Showcase of the Immortals is set to return.

WrestleMania 32 threatened to be his last bout at the marquee event. The stipulation of his Hell in a Cell match with Shane McMahon dictated that if he lost to the chairman's son, The Phenom could never compete at WWE's biggest show ever again.

After a match that saw the 51-year-old Undertaker smash Shane-O-Mac through the Cell's wall, collapse onto a table and crash onto ring steps, the future Hall of Famer apparently had the end of his career on his mind.

On F4WOnline, Dave Meltzer reported, "Undertaker was selling people that last night was his final match." As Meltzer noted, this is a common occurrence for The Deadman. 

But after months of allowing his body to heal, WWE will approach him with an offer. Undertaker has become, in many ways, the face of WrestleMania. The company won't want to give that up until it absolutely has to.

Expect WWE to pitch him a WrestleMania showdown with John Cena.

It's a match that is already on fans' minds. Before Cena's shoulder injury, many expected the match to happen this year. Some fans composed their own custom promos in anticipation:

Daily DDT projected that this will be the bout WWE goes with for WrestleMania 33:

Zeroes on the paycheck and the allure of how special that match could be might well invigorate Undertaker. That's a masterpiece waiting to be painted. The Phenom will pine to paint his half.

But could he come back before that? That's no safe bet. Although he stepped into the ring in 2015 far more than in recent years, Undertaker's history has been to save himself for The Show of Shows:

Year	Total Matches	PPV Matches outside of WrestleMania
2011	1	0
2012	1	0
2013	4	0
2014	1	0
2015	7	3
2016	1	0

Note, too, that after wrestling more than usual in 2013, he went right back down to a single showing the next year.

Age and the accumulative effect of a career's worth of injuries will see him lighten his schedule again. He may even consider retirement more seriously than before, but a far better send-off awaits him. That has to appeal to his sense of the dramatic.

For such a storied career to end with the spotlight on Shane on a stretcher is far from fitting. A real retirement match is in the works.

And we won't see Undertaker back on WWE TV until it's time to promote that very bout.