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Mick Foley Talk TNA Victory Road PPV Coming to Orlando This Sunday

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 By: CMBurnham

It's been ten months since Mick Foley joined up with TNA Wrestling after years of working for the WWE, Originally, he signed a short-term deal with the company but things are going really well for for him.

In fact, things are going so well that he is back in the ring more than he had been in years with him winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship which he held for several months. You can tell that the Hardcore Legend is once again having fun with wrestling.

This coming Sunday night, TNA will have its Victory Road pay-per-view here in Orlando at Universal Studios Soundstage 21. (The show begins at 8:00p ET) Then the following three days, the group will tape the next month's worth of its "Impact!" television show (airing Thursday nights at 9:00p ET on Spike TV) at Universal. Both events are free for wrestling fans - just get their early if you want to attend, especially for Sunday's show.

The main event for Victory Road will see Foley challenge Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Title. Last night, Foley was a guest on my Between The Ropes radio show (heard Tuesday nights from 6:00-8:00p ET on ESPN 1080) to talk about the big match. Below is a portion of that conversation

When was the last time you faced Kurt one-on-one in a match?

I don?t think I?ve ever had a one-on-one match with Kurt.

Really?

I?m trying to think? I don?t think outside of being the commissioner (while with WWE) and in the ring with him in that sense I've never had a match with him until the tag-team of me and Jeff Jarrett against Kurt Angle and Sting, the one where I kind of accidentally hit Sting with a chair.

That wasn?t very nice by the way.

Nah! That wasn?t a very nice thing to do. But the only matches I?ve had with Kurt have been the ones recently and none of them have been singles. This is kind of the one I?ve been dreading for a while.

How many years has it been since you?ve seen Kurt with hair?

(laughing) You call that hair?

How about stubble?

I was on the road in Syracuse and I said that this was a big match because we each had something the other one wanted. Kurt had the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and I had hair.

All things considered, you came out ahead.

(laughing) Yeah! Win or lose, I?ll still have a better head of hair. I think he was growing it specifically for a movie role. I think he realized that?he kind of tapped out to Mother Nature at a certain point. Everyone does best to realize their limitations; mine are cardiovascular and Kurt?s are follicle.

With this being a huge match for you and for the TNA World Heavyweight Title ? you don?t do many singles matches. How do you think you will fair cardiovascular-wise? How are you going to hang with Kurt?

That?s the thing. It?s a big question mark and I was even thinking in the pre-match promo of being honest and being the one guy that has severe doubts. Of course, right now, they?re all performance-related and they?re not concerning wins and losses so I?ll tweak that a little bit. I?ve talked to athletes who will admit after contests that they were very apprehensive or maybe even a little fearful but their never allowed to say that. So it might be breaking a rule. I?m sure some people will be like ?you can?t promote a match by saying you can?t win?. But it?s going to be really tough. Kurt is still in the cardio shape he was, more or less, when he won the gold medal and I?m not. I?ve been having, I think, some pretty good matches with some smoke and mirrors and guts. But I don?t know, this is going to be a big test. I?m confident that we?re going to have a good match. It will definitely be different and, who knows, maybe we?ll end up surprising a lot of people and have something really good or you may just see ? speaking of Mother Nature ? Mother Nature and Father Time kind of do a double team on me that I?ll never forget.

I know you?re a master of changing your game. When you had to go hardcore, you went hardcore. When you had to go technical, you went technical. It?s going to be interesting to see you go out there and go against one of the guy considered the best technical wrestlers that has been around in the last 20 years to see how you?re going to keep up and do what you have to do to get the win or put on a good match.

One of the things I used to pride myself on was that I could have a good match with people of varying styles. So I always had the feeling of a Cactus Jack or Mankind match but even looking back years later - Shawn Michaels was thinking about the match we had in 1996 and he kind of liked the element that he thought was added to his game after we had wrestled a couple of big matches. And Kurt is the same way in that he?s a technical wrestler but he?s had incredible matches with people of all different styles. It?s really going to be interesting. People think I?m joking when I say I?m going to do a little bit of technical wrestling but I do have a few things up my sleeve. Sometimes, I?m surprised when I go back and watch old matches at how many various things I used to do and, to tell you the truth, in these comeback matches over the last several years, you kind of rely on what?s comfortable. I realized I can do more than just the ten forearms and the knee in the corner, the double-armed DDT and the sock. So we?ll see how it goes but I?d be lying if I said I was supremely confident about how this was going to turn out.

I think one of the things that has stood out during your time with TNA is that you?re having a lot of fun. Can you compare the time you?ve had with TNA to the last few years you had with the WWE?

I swear this isn?t a cheap plug because the book won?t come out for at least another year ? I think it?s early fall 2010. But I?m writing about those last couple of years and I think what happens is all it takes is one or two guys to decide that your time is up and that?s pretty much it. So when I was at WWE and did that last thing in the ring with Edge and I was fortunate ? I wrote about that ? I was really fortunate that my last time in the WWE was one of my best times to do that promo and have people that had forgotten and, quite honestly, maybe didn?t have the background that a lot of your fans do in watching. They heard that and they were like ?wow where did that come from?? And it had been really two years since I had been able to cut a real promo, an honest to goodness, microphone in hand, having a point promo. I had been an announcer and I had been a judge on Raw Idol, little things like that. But it had been so long since I had a chance to do something meaningful and now with TNA I feel I get to do that just about every week and that?s one of the things I like to do and my ideas are respected. If I feel like picking up a guitar and singing ?Tweak It?, I?ve got the freedom to do that as well. So it has been fun and people have remarked to me, They?ve said ?you?ve gotta be having fun because no one is that good an actor?.

Later in the interview, Mick brought up the point of the audiences here in Orlando for the Impact tapings.

It would be nice to get some support in the community. You don?t ever want to sound like you?re begging people to come but? Sometimes when I would go speak at colleges a few years ago I?d have like 3500 people jammed into an auditorium at a community college in upper peninsula of Michigan and then I?d go to the University of Alabama and have like 120 people at this huge university. I?d come out after my talk and there?d be three or four members of the University of Alabama football team saying ?we really wanted to me you, we were waiting?. So I said what did you think of the talk and ?oh, we didn?t want to go in?. Well, why not? It was like it wasn?t a cool thing to do. And I think in the community not enough people know about it. Clearly, Orlando supports wrestling because I?ve been a part of some big crowds there. One of the big drawbacks in taping in studio is that you get a combination of theme park patrons and some fans who?ve seen just about everything and it?s hard for them to get as excited and act as naturally as fan who aren?t there. Don?t get me wrong ? we appreciate the people who come every few weeks - but, man, they?ve seen just about it all by now. I just want to put it out there that it?s a product that?s available and it?s free and we would love to see more people in the community give it a try.