 |
| source// wwe.com |
In many ways, Mick Foley’s legendary professional wrestling career is the greatest story in the game. He was the real people’s champion, the guy we saw on our TV screens that made us think it could be possible. He wasn’t a bodybuilder, he wasn’t built like an adonis, he wasn’t really larger-than-life. He was the professional wrestler we so desperately needed.
He also got more character development than most during his time in WWF/E. He entered as Mankind, but also performed as Dude Love, Cactus Jack and just good old Mick Foley. He won championships and was involved in some of the most memorable moments in professional wrestling history. I would wager that his infamous Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker is still many people’s go-to match when trying to introduce new people to this wonderful sport.
Which makes it all the more surprising that Foley’s WrestleMania career comes wth little fanfare. He only took part in six Manias, three of which were tag matches. He appeared in the main event of the Showcase of the Immortals, but even that was a four-way battle. Truthfully, his WrestleMania moment didn’t come until long after his best days had gone.
Even so, Mick Foley is as important a professional wrestler as there has been, and his WrestleMania back catalogue deserves a look at.
6. Vs. The Big Show – WrestleMania XV
Despite Mankind and Big Show being two of the most legendary names in modern professional wrestling, their middle of the card battle at WrestleMania XV existed purely to further the story for the main event. The winner of this match would get the privilege of going on to referee the top match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock.
As it transpired, neither man would receive that most illustrious of awards. Mankind won the match via disqualification, after Big Show chokeslammed him through a pair of chairs. This was a pretty dumb move, and Vince McMahon came out to berate Show and his stupidity. This led to Mr. McMahon getting knocked out for his troubles.
As the match itself only mattered in relation to the main event, there was absolutely nothing of any note to the bout. Two men worked within themselves in order to get to the finish, the extremely dumb finish, to advance a different story. If you missed this match, you missed nothing.
5. W/Vader Vs. Owen Hart & The British Bulldog – WrestleMania 13
For a while, it seemed like Owen Hart & The British Bulldog were going to be WWF Tag Team Champions forever. They held the belts for almost 300 days, an absolute lifetime to an 11-year-old fan. The tag team cupboard was fairly bare at the time, meaning their challengers at the biggest show of the year in 1997 were the fairly ramshackle team of Mankind and Vader.
It’s indicative of how poorly these two legends of WCW (at the time) were thrown into a tag team title match at WrestleMania when The Sultan and Ahmed Johnson received actual story-driven matches. The whole thing wasn’t helped at all by the fact that all four men were heels too. Would Rocky Maivia not have benefited more from defending his IC title against Mankind or Vader?
Anyway, booking questions aside, the match was absolutely fine. The bout ends in a double countout, fairly usual nothingness booking of the times in an attempt to ‘protect’ everyone. The match did get Mankind over as a hell for leather brawler though, and in some way may have worked towards his eventual acceptance as a super babyface. The stiffness of Foley and Vader mean the match is pretty hard-hitting and fun, but the inherent pointlessness of it drags it down.
4. Vs. Triple H Vs. The Rock Vs. Big Show – WrestleMania 2000
The first WrestleMania of the new millennium saw Mick Foley make his one and only appearance in the main event of wrestling’s biggest show. For most this would come with a great deal of celebration and adulation, but Foley’s appearance leaves something of a confused, mixed taste in the mouth.
You see, he had been retired a month earlier by Triple H. Now of course, this is professional wrestling and the word ‘retirement’ rarely has any meaning, but most tend to leave it longer than a month before returning to the ring. This cheap feeling was exacerbated by the overriding belief that Foley was in the match for the benefit or the McMahon family and wrestling’s constant obsession with symmetry. Foley allowed Linda to get involved, and suddenly there was a McMahon in every corner.
All of which sounds like an argument against Foley being in a WrestleMania main event, a claim that could not be further from the truth. Out of the four men involved, nobody deserved it more than Mick Foley, and he was a performer that professional wrestling !*$% well needed in a WrestleMania main event. It’s just a shame that it came in these circumstances.
The match itself was a lot of fun, with Triple H retaining the title due to McMahon shenanigans. Has anyone used the term McMahonigans to describe that yet?
3. W/Chainsaw Charlie Vs. New Age Outlaws – WrestleMania XIV
I was hugely into this feud as a teenager. The introduction of Cactus Jack was a big turning point for me as a Foley fan, and for a long time Cactus was my favourite wrestler in the entire world. When the New Age Outlaws tossed Cactus and Chainsaw Charlie off the stage as they lay prone in a dumpster, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what had happened to my heroes.
All of this led to a Dumpster Match between the two teams at WrestleMania XIV, with the tag team titles on the line. Looking back, it was this feud that gave the Outlaws the credibility that they needed at the time. Foley and Funk were willing to bump big time for BA Billy Gunn and the Road Dogg, making them look legitimate in the process.
The match between the two teams at WrestleMania XIV certainly wasn’t a technical classic, but neither did it need to be. It was a violent plunderfest typical of the time, with two of the all-time greats going up against two young upstarts. Cactus and Charlie pulled out the win in the end, but their joy was shortlived as the Outlaws regained the titles the next night on RAW. 12-year-old me was gutted.
2. W/The Rock Vs. Ric Flair, Randy Orton & Batista – WrestleMania XX
Foley returned to the big stage for the first time in four years at WrestleMania XX, lining up alongside The Rock (back for the first time in a year) to take on Ric Flair, Randy Orton and Batista. This match was a vehicle for the blossoming Orton/Foley feud, one which would truly put Orton on the map. It was this feud that gave birth to the Legend Killer.
Foley and Orton would put on some great matches, but in many ways it is the novelty factors at play in this bout that made it as fun as it was. In Foley, Flair and Rock you have three legitimate all-time greats, and Orton and Batista were clearly on their way to being major players in the company at this time. Has there ever been a WrestleMania match in the middle of the card with more world championships within it?
Foley would eat the loss here, taking an RKO from Orton to continue their beef. Considering the ring rust on his team and the relative inexperience of the opposition (minus Flair of course), this match exceeded all expectations.
1. Vs. Edge – WrestleMania 22
Professional wrestling is a strange thing. By WrestleMania 22 Mick Foley had retired and returned on a number of occasions, but it seemed that he was done. His involvement was limited to authority angles and special guest referee spots by this point. It would be one of the latter that would lead to him finally getting his WrestleMania moment.
Edge had cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase on John Cena to finally win his first world title, only to lose it in the rematch, only for Edge to lose his subsequent rematch. The ref for that match? Mick Foley. Sure, it wasn’t the most creative way to spark a WrestleMania feud, but both men were determined to steal the show and steal the show they did.
As far as plunderfests go, this had it all. Both men were busted open, thumb tacks were introduced and slammed into, ol’ Barbie got an airing and the whole thing ended with a flaming table and an apron spear. Only in wrestling can an iconic moment involve two men going through a table that is up in flames.
One of the great things about the match is that the spots made sense. There was no plunder for plunder’s sake, with both men giving the crowd a reason to care about the violence outside of the mere existence of the violence. In many ways, this is an underrated exercise in professional wrestling psychology, something that Foley was without doubt a master of.
This was also far and away Mick Foley’s finest WrestleMania match.
share one of yours in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment