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Mick Foley is often regarded as the Hardcore Legend of professional wrestling, and despite having a short wrestling career, he will always remain one of the most famous names in the wrestling world. He is mostly famous for his Hardcore matches and the extreme moments he provided during almost all of his matches.
One such match had been the WWE title match between him and The Rock from the Royal Rumble 1999. Mick Foley defended the WWE Championship in an I Quit match, and it is still remembered as one of the most brutal matches in both of their professional wrestling careers. The Rock was the top heel of WWE during that time, and Foley was one of the hottest babyfaces.
Mick Foley talks about his iconic I Quit match against The Rock
Foley won the World Championship just 26 days before the Royal Rumble, but The Rock had the backing of the Authority, which helped him regain the championship at the Royal Rumble. Since it was an I Quit match, Foley was supposed to say I Quit in order to lose the match. But Foley never said it. When The Rock held the mic in front of Foley's mouth, a pre-recorded voice was played, and The Rock was declared the winner.
It had been nearly 27 years, and it is still remembered as one of the most entertaining matches of all time. Mick Foley recently remembered this legendary match while speaking with Chris Van Vliet on the Insight Podcast, where he shared insights about this iconic match. Here is what the WWE Hall of Fame has to say about it;
Mick Foley defended the WWE Championship against The Rock at the Royal Rumble 1999
“Plan was yeah, for five. But I was still in the ring at five. I didn’t realize that your body has the ability to give with a chair shot. That doesn’t make it fake. It’s just like anything.
"It would be like all of a sudden now, instead of having an ability to give, somebody’s punching you square in the face while your head is up against the wall, the impacts would be so much worse. This isn’t an exact analogy, but once my hands were cuffed and anyone at home could do that be like, Oh, I can see why.
"If you were hit in the head, it would be far more painful. So I literally could not believe how much that first chair shot hurt, more than any one I’d ever taken. And so instead of being halfway up the aisle on five, I was still in the ring. And so I wanted to do the best job I could. But even as I was getting there, I did not know my children were crying. The original finish, which was supposed to be the camera sees my family crying, I see my family crying, and I quit.
The Rock defeated Mick Foley in this match to win the WWE title
"I don’t want to do that. Now, if you go through history, it was like, within two weeks, Triple H did the same thing that I wanted to do with Chyna, but it was just done so quickly, there’s so much in wrestling you can’t digest at all, and that wasn’t something people were able to sit down and, like, really enjoy. But that was the original idea.
"And my worry was that I’d spent their whole lives telling them that I was just playing and that dad that couldn’t be hurt. I thought they’d come over to the kids, they’d be like, reading. I didn’t know they’d be crying, but to borrow a line from John Candy in Home Alone. Kids are resilient. They came around and started talking after a couple of weeks.” said Mick Foley.
