Former Undertaker podcast co-host details removal from Six Feet Under
Matthew Lyda — the original co-host of The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast — has detailed his removal from the show.
When Undertaker first launched a Patreon page and podcast in 2023/2024, it was in collaboration with his friend Lyda while WWE had no involvement in the project. But the podcast went on an abrupt hiatus in March of this year. It returned in June, but the show was now part of the WWE & Fanatics podcast network. It also had a new co-host, with Undertaker’s wife Michelle McCool replacing Lyda without any explanation as to why he was gone.
Lyda has now opened up about the situation for the first time, speaking on a new video put out by former WWE wrestler Maven. Lyda said Undertaker first broke the news to him after they recorded a batch of episodes for Six Feet Under that turned out to be their last.
“He goes, ‘Ahh, I really want to talk to you about some stuff.’ I thought that he was about to tell me, ‘I’m done.’ I thought he was just going to be like, ‘Hey man, [WWE] LFG, everything else. I’m done. You know, too much on my plate.’ He was like, ‘Hey, you know, the podcast is going to be taken over by WWE. We’re moving in that direction,'” Lyda said.
“And I looked at him, I was like, ‘So I’m assuming that this is the end of my run on this?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, unfortunately.'”
The conversation made Lyda feel like he had just been broken up with or fired, but he knows that — because of their friendship — Undertaker probably kept the show going 6-8 months longer than he would have liked to.
While Lyda is disappointed that he doesn’t get to do the podcast anymore, Undertaker is still one of his closest friends and they would never let business get in the way of that.
“He and I talked for a little bit more,” Lyda said. “I go outside with him, he’s at his truck, he just looked at me and goes, ‘We good?’ I said, ‘Mark, we said something a long time ago, we were at a hotel [in Savannah, Georgia], and we shook hands and we said — if money ever comes in between us, we’re going to shut the whole thing down, we’re going to go to the woods, and we’re going to go hunting. And we’ll forget about all of it.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, there’s nothing business-wise that on my end would ever come between you and I. I was like, ‘This is a podcast, man.'”
Lyda expressed optimism that the power of WWE — with the company’s ability to get so many big-name guests — could help make Six Feet Under better than ever. But he hopes the original essence of the show isn’t lost, which was Undertaker sitting around with his friends and telling stories about their careers.
“I helped create a channel and I helped create a podcast that has the WWE logo on it now,” Lyda said. “That’s pretty damn cool, in my opinion.”
Lyda is an executive for Nine Line Apparel, a clothing company that says its mission is to “reinvigorate the sense of patriotism and national pride that is disappearing” in the United States. He and Undertaker became friends after Undertaker was seen wearing a Nine Line shirt.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.