Trivia / Mick Foley

• Acting for Two: Invoked during the pre-match promo for his match with Triple H on the 22nd of September 1997's episode of RAW. Prior to the match, Dude Love and Mankind sat opposite each other discussing who should face Hunter in a street fight. Dude mentions that a street fight isn't his bag and Mankind notes that while he'd relish the chance to tear Triple H apart, there is someone who would be better suited to the job. Enter Cactus Jack. Foley would also enter the 1998 Royal Rumble with all three personas, although obviously not at the same time.
• Breakup Breakout: Has achieved far more than such past tag partners as Maxx Payne and Kevin Sullivan.
• Corpsing: Mick is a professional, and even when he thinks something funny or silly is going on can keep it together...but one time, at a house show, he was unable to stop himself from laughing at the mental image of the gag he and the Rock had put together for their promo, resulting in him, Rock, Stone Cold and Kane standing in the ring giggling. The audience (perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not), loved it (Mick theorized that the fans really do like to see evidence that they're performers and coworkers who get along as opposed to believing them to be mortal enemies).
• Creator Backlash:
  • Foley acknowledges that his old Fire Chair stunt was "unbelievably stupid." The trick came very close to killing Terry Funk, after which Foley permanently removed it from his repertoire.
  • He says that he regrets how his "I Quit" match with The Rock went, which Foley himself came up with, and didn't expect it go the way it did, especially when he realized it was harder to prepare for the blows with the handcuffs on. He says it's one match he'll forgive fans of his for skipping.
  • He's also regretful about his participation in the four way match at Wrestlemania 2000. He didn't want be part of it in the first place since it came not long after his highly publicized retirement match and he knew that he wasn't in any condition to deliver a decent performance, but Vince talked him into it.
  • Mick is not especially fond of how his tag match with the Rock against Evolution at Wrestlemania XX turned out. This motivated his drive towards making sure his match with Randy Orton the next month could compensate, a match Foley considers to be the greatest he’s ever had.
• Enforced Method Acting: Foley's response to taunts from Bubba the Love Sponge was a very real punch to the face. Considering that Foley is well-known for his charity work and being an overall Nice Guy, and Bubba is well-known for making racist remarks about Haitians immediately after the 2009 earthquake, one can hardly blame him.
• Follow the Leader: Since Have A Nice Day was released, almost every popular wrestler has a book out now. Many of which directly reference Foley's books or even have a foreword written by Foley.
• On-Set Injury: Foley has some absolutely ridiculous bumps to his name, such as being thrown off the Hell in a Cell in 1998 or the entirety of his "I Quit" match in 1999 against The Rock (where he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and took over ten chairshots directly to his head in what is considered one of the most violent displays WWE has ever allowed). Sadly his dedication to this style of bumping probably harmed him later in life (as neurologists eventually forced him to retire for fear of permanent brain damage). Considering that many other wrestlers have been forced to retire at a young age due to injuries, it's more of a wonder that Mick Foley managed to last as long as he did and still retain his mental faculties.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jimmy Snuka's epic leap off of a steel cage inspired Foley to eventually enter the industry.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: As detailed in Foley's second book, Mankind's transition into a more comedy-focused "human muppet" was kind of a necessity by that point since Mick's body was starting to break down from all the injuries he accumulated over the years and could no longer perform on the same level as before. The greater emphasis on humor helped hide some of these deficiencies.
• Real Song Theme Tune:
  • (In Herb Abrams' UWF): Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle"
  • (in ECW and later in IWC and ROH): Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild"
  • (in ECW): AC/DC's "Back in Black"
  • (in IWA Japan): Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction"
  • (in Early WCW): "Funeral March"
• Throw It In!: According to Have a Nice Day, he came up with his "BANG BANG!" catchphrase by accident. Tommy Rich and Ranger Ross had defeated Cactus Jack and "Nasty" Ned Brady on the December 30 (taped December 10), 1989 episode of World Championship Wrestling. After the match, Jack sent Brady to the floor and jumped off the apron to drop the big elbow on Brady. When Jack landed, the camera was right on his face and The B-52s' "Love Shack" was in his head. He then pointed his fingers like guns and did the "Bang bang bang on the door baby" part to the camera.
  • Also, the infamous Hell in a Cell match is probably the biggest instance of this in wrestling history. Foley falling 16 feet from the top of the cell was scripted, the Undertaker chokeslamming him through the roof and landing hard on the ring was very much not scripted. ^note  The roof was planned to give way just enough for Mick to grab on and dangle from the edge for several seconds, before making a much shorter, much safer and planned fall to the ring. Obviously, it broke too early and too much. Taker even broke character for a split second, as he said later that he thought he had actually killed him.
  • Notably averted, much to his chagrin, when it comes to his lost ear. He lost the ear while wrestling Vader for WCW in an infamous match where he was nearly strangled to death thanks to the ring ropes. However he pressed on not just to finish the match (which is how he lost the ear, which was severely damaged during the aforementioned strangling spot and eventually torn off as he continued to wrestle) but other shows later in that same European tour (which he did instead of getting the ear reattached while it was still viable). Foley says his troubles were ultimately not worth it thanks to the fact WCW never used the ear incident in their canon, despite being a wellspring of writing material between him and Vader.
• What Could Have Been: According to his second book, WrestleMania XV was booked to have Mankind involved in the main event as part of a triple threat match with The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Reportedly, Shawn Michaels convinced the writers that the WrestleMania main event MUST be two wrestlers and two wrestlers only. Though Michaels was lobbying for it to be Stone Cold vs. Mankind, Foley was the wrestler who got removed from the main event.
  • Next year, he managed to get into the main event by getting in a FOUR Way Match with The Rock, Triple H, and The Big Show.
  • The street fight the following year at WrestleMania X-Seven was supposed to have been Mick vs. Vince McMahon, as revenge for Mick's firing as Commissioner at the hands of Vince. Mick didn't feel confident enough in himself to do the match so the angle went to Shane McMahon, about Shane claiming to have "bought" WCW, leading to the horribly botched InVasion/Alliance angle, and Mick acted as special guest ref instead.
  • Despite their incredible feud, Foley and The Undertaker never squared off at WrestleMania.
    • However, if Mankind had been put over by Undertaker at WrestleMania (and it's very likely that it could have happened), we would not have The Streak that was an instrumental part of a lot of WrestleManias.
  • Also, Mick was supposed to be the Higher Power that the Ministry of Darkness answered to, but he didn't think he could put on a good match or feud with Austin in his current condition and declined the role.
  • Early in his career, he had a chance to wrestle one of his idols, Bruiser Brody, but there was a change in plans and he faced Tony Atlas instead.
  • Possibly the biggest What Could Have Been moment of Mick's career was after the infamous 1999 Royal Rumble (11 unprotected chair shots to the head) match. The Rock by this point had just become a face, and Mick devised a method of going heel by getting The Rock to like him, then turning on him out of nowhere, using that match as an excuse to bring back Cactus Jack (the old, WCW/ECW style Cactus, not the slightly sanitized version that would show up in the WWF later). The Rock, however, was so new to working babyface that nerves completely shut down any of Foley's attempts, and when he heard that Foley's turn would be based on the Rumble match, he got so upset about it that Mick decided not to pursue the angle further.
  • Prior to the formation of The Shield, Mick and Dean Ambrose were setting up a feud by having Dean insult his family on Twitter. This abruptly stopped after WWE's medical team finally refused to clear him to wrestle again due to his cumulative injuries.
  • Mankind and Vader were booked to win the WWF Tag Team Titles at Wrestlemania XIII, but Bret Hart convinced management that they should stay with Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart for the upcoming Hart Foundation storyline.
  • The original design for Mankind that was pitched to Foley by Vince was that he would be a man wearing a mask and chainmail armor under the name "Mason the Mutilator". Foley was into it, but he requested a different name, "Mankind", which thankfully Vince liked more. While the chainmail idea was gonna go through, it was dropped as they felt it could cause too much interference in the ring, and Foley suggested a more "battered modern wrestler" clothing look, leading to the Mankind outfit that would come to be.
  • Foley has stated that he got cold feet and considered climbing down before The Undertaker got to the ring in their legendary Hell in a Cell match but worried it would kill his career. The last few years of Foley’s career would likely be very different without those bumps.

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