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'Element of magic in the air'...pro wrestling legend Mick Foley in Saskatoon 20 years after Hell in the Cell

Posted: Aug 30th 2018 By: Dave Deibert

After a pro wrestling career that spanned three decades and included thousands of shows with hundreds of performers for dozens of promoters, it’s a one-second fall that Mick Foley is asked about more than anything else.

For wrestling fans, the moment is ingrained: Foley being thrown by The Undertaker from the roof of an enclosed cage known as Hell in the Cell and onto the announcer’s table 16 feet below. (“As God as my witness, he’s broken in half!” yelled colour commentator Jim Ross.) If that wasn’t enough, Foley climbed back atop the cage only to get choke slammed by Undertaker through a section of the roof that was supposed to — but didn’t — support his weight, and plummeted to the mat below.

(For non-wrestling fans, imagine climbing to the roof of your house to put up Christmas lights, and then your neighbour throws you off the roof onto a table below. Then, you climb back up to the roof to finish the lights, only to have your neighbour shove you through the ceiling onto the kitchen floor.)

As part of his North American tour, Foley relives that night and more on Saturday at Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon with his ‘Mick Foley: 20 Years of Hell’ show. Foley, who also appears Friday for an autograph signing at Regina’s Callie Curling Club as part of High Impact Wrestling’s live event, said in a recent interview that when he looked into “all the surreal qualities” around that June 1998 World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view, “that’s part of the fun of this show is finding humour in the most unlikely of places.”

• Foley, on why Hell in the Cell is still remembered:

“Part of it was that it grew on an organic level. There wasn’t social media so it didn’t trend for three days and then disappear. It traveled by word of mouth. It was brutal but it was also surreal so that it wasn’t difficult to watch in a way like the January 1999 match I had with The Rock was. (Foley took 11 chair shots to the head with his wife and two young children — captured in the critically-acclaimed documentary Beyond The Mat — watching in tears at ringside.) It stands up to repeated viewings. It doesn’t feel like watching a snuff film (laughs). I sometimes talk at these shows about the element of magic in the air. I think it was alive that night.”

• Foley, on being asked about Hell in the Cell more than anything else:

“There’s nothing that’s even close. Running a distant second is my tag team with The Rock. They don’t recall specific matches. They just recall the chemistry and how much fun they had watching us.”

• Foley, on winning his first WWE title. The victory over The Rock, which aired on Jan. 4, 1999, came as the feud between ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Vince McMahon was in full force, while Foley, The Rock and Triple H were becoming megastars. The crowd provided two of the loudest reactions in WWE history: first, when Austin’s music blasted and he assisted Foley, and, second, when Foley pinned The Rock:

“It’s funny that the largest pop I ever received was only the second-largest of that match (laughs). Steve’s music had everyone up standing. That was an incredible night.”

• Foley, on his memories of Saskatoon. (His only in-ring appearance in the Bridge City came on Aug. 31, 1997 against the British Bulldog):

“I know that Ric Flair lost the title to Bret Hart in Saskatoon (in October 1992). Those four years I was on the road full-time with WWE tend to be a blur. I remember specifically Curt Hennig, who was Ric Flair’s second, yelling out ‘Saskatoon?! Saskatoon?!’”

• Foley, on bunny hugs. (Like most people not from Saskatchewan, he didn’t know what a bunny hug was. When it was described to him, he shared a two-degrees-of-separation story involving Elvis Presley.):

“I did a little movie called Dixieland which co-starred Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough. In between takes, they were giving her a very uncomfortable looking robe to wear. I had this XXXL Santa Claus hooded sweatshirt. ‘Would you like to wear this instead?’ So between every take, The King’s granddaughter wore my red hooded sweatshirt.”

• Foley, on learning to perform as a stand-up comedian and one-man show:

“I’ve worked really hard at it: many off-nights, work for free, open mic nights in front of 10 or 12 people. But it’s very much like wrestling. The more you do it, the harder you work, the better you get.”

• Foley, on the crowds who come to see his shows:

“I was born and raised in Long Island, went to events in New York City, where crowds are really difficult. Crowds are at their best when they’re happy to see you and want you to do well. There are crowds that want you to fail but they’re not my crowd. I think the further out you go, and the less often people see you, the more excited they are.”

Mankind. Have A Nice Day

• Foley, on being a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author for Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, and his follow-up, Foley Is Good: And The Real World is Faker Than Wrestling:

“It just seemed so ridiculous. I do gravitate to the surreal. It’s surreal and somewhat telling that (Have a Nice Day!) hit No. 1 at the same time the U.S. presidential candidates had their books out. With the exception of Sen. Bill Bradley, none of them had actually written their own book. So when you have a wrestler who is writing his own memoire, and people running for the highest office in the land who are not, it’s not a good sign for the country (laughs).”

Mick Foley: 20 Years of Hell; Broadway Theatre, Saturday, 8 p.m.; $30 general admission, $75 VIP