Mick Foley On What Vince McMahon Told Him After WWE Hell In A Cell Match In 1998
Mick Foley left plenty of lasting memories in his amazing career as he put his body through a human demolition derby on a nightly basis. His innovative and unique offense drove him to become a fan favorite and his spectacular storytelling mixed with a willingness to do anything to make a match special created a legend. It's hard to believe it's been twenty years since The Undertaker faced Mankind in a Hell In A Cell match at the King Of The Ring back in a day where tape trading was still king and the WWE Network was a lofty pipe dream for fans.
When Mick Foley appeared on Talk Is Jericho, he mentioned how Y2J said in his book that people look like ants while on top of theHell In A Cell structure. Performers are incredibly high off the ground while standing on the monstrous cage and for some reason, Mick Foley took a bump off the Hell In A Cell at the 1998 King Of The Ring.
Mick actually took two awful bumps off the cell that night. The first bump through the announce table is widely regarded as the most death-defying although anyone who has ever taken a bump in a WWE ring gives more respect to the second fall Foley took as he fell through the cell and went crashing to the mat below.
"I told a couple of the biggest lies of my life that day," Mick Foley told Y2J as he remembered that historic night. "You know people have speculated that I knew the cage was gonna break the second time and the truth is that's way too dangerous going through the cage on a chokeslam like that. It was supposed to tear. The big bump, the only thing is I had this image of being stuffed down a rabbit hole, it would give a little bit and then Taker was gonna push me down that hole and the big visual to me was I was gonna be hanging upside down. You know my arms are flailing and this and then the bump itself, it's just I gotta be able to rotate, land on my hands and knees. Maybe a little riskier you know your wrist, your knee but nothing real major and I got approval for that and then I said, 'hey what if I came off the top?' and Vince said: 'Absolutely not.'"
"I went into sell-mode and I went, 'if I'm gonna drop an elbow off there and someone's gonna move you would probably — I didn't say probably, 'you would let me do that, right?' You know it's leading the question and he goes, 'I guess.' I said, 'it's the same thing I'm in total control' and then Taker looked at me and said, 'you've been up there right?'"
"I said, 'absolutely' and both he and Vince said, 'you feel comfortable?' I said, 'yeah absolutely.' The truth was if I had gone on top of that cell... no way."
Foley continued as he revealed how his infamous Hell In A Cell bumps became a reality, but if he would have known how big of a fall it was going to be he probably wouldn't have pitched it in the first place.
"I don't curse much out loud, I curse in my thoughts and what I was thinking when I got up there was, 'you've gotta be f'ing kidding me.' If I could have thought of a way to climb back down without destroying my career I would've done it. I also didn't realize being a bottom-heavy guy who maxed out at like four pull-ups in sixth grade then I got considerably heavy. I had a tremendous time trying to get up that cell. Two of my fingers lost feeling for like two weeks just clinging on that thing and if you look at it my feet are just... I couldn't get a foothold. Which is why every subsequent cell match has had footholds cut out. It was bad enough trying to get up there the first time, trying to get up there that second time after I had gone through the table. I don't know how I did it."
Mick Foley said he didn't remember large chunks of the match until much later on. He did remember Vince McMahon came up to him after the show and said, "you have no idea how much I appreciate what you have just done for this company but I never wanna see anything like that again." It was certainly a night the fans will never forget which is why we're still celebrating this amazing match twenty years later.
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Talk Is Jericho with a H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcription
Source: Talk Is Jericho