WWE Rivals (TV Series)

Triple H vs. Mick Foley (2022)

Sam Roberts: Self - WWE Analyst

Quotes 

• Self - WWE Analyst : King of the Ring at the time was an annual WWE tradition that was a single-elimination, eight-man tournament. A lot of times, the finals of the King of the Ring would be two different superstars that were on the cusp of maybe getting to that next level.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : We had the fans. They're ready to react, but they need something to react to.

  Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : Two longtime superstars who'd been grinding forever. King of the Ring set off the rivalry between Triple H and Mick Foley.

• Bruce Prichard - WWE Executive Director : Mick Foley was the underdog. Mick was the ultimate underdog, because you had seen how tough and how durable Mick Foley was, and go through hell, and get up and come back.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Throughout the late '90s, Mick Foley continued to flip from one character to another. Three characters that talk differently, act differently, and fought differently.

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Mankind, Cactus Jack, Dude Love, it didn't matter which character he was portraying, you had a level of Mick Foley in all of them.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : You have to be willing to adapt and to create something new, that evolution of who you are and what you do.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I never realized what a big deal it was until I actually had the WWE Championship in my hands.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Seeing him successfully shift himself out of those characters was definitely inspiring. At the same point in time, Rock and Austin have these moments and do all this stuff. As that's happening, I'm thinking, like, "We need a Darth Vader here."

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : Hunter had everything you need. Really smart guy and a terrific wrestler, but he knew he had to transform himself. And I think at the time if you had talked to him, he would probably know "This is my coming of age. This is my rite of passage. This is what I have to go through to be that guy."

  [a clip of Hunter's "I am The Game" sit-down interview with J.R. is shown] 

  Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : Who knew in that moment that just those words would change him and take him to an entirely different level?

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : King of the Ring is kind of tailor-made to be something that gives someone credibility or says to the viewer, "That's a top guy."

  [clips of Triple H's victory over Mankind are shown] 

  Bruce Prichard - WWE Executive Director : The snob won, and the snob had to cheat.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : To be able to do it with Mick, he was a great opponent for me for that, and it helped put me at a different level.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Triple H gets to be the King of the Ring. And the sympathy I gathered, not only from losing the match but from suffering that beatdown after the match, this was like, "That's uncalled for. That's... that was unprovoked. We like that guy." And it just became this great study in contrasts.

  Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : It was a story that, as time went on, you just continued to enjoy. 'Cause you knew they were gonna take it places you'd never seen before.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : We had this really great chemistry together, neither one of us being top-tier main-event guys at that point in time, but being able to create something special. He was willing to do anything and take any bump and do anything crazy and put his body on the line. He liked it when it came back the other way. I don't think he got to work with that many guys that were that way.

  Self - WWE Analyst : When you've got these two superstars having battles that are spilling all over arenas, there's only one logical thing to do. Lock 'em in a cage.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : [clips of his and Hunter's steel-cage match at SummerSlam are shown]  The fans, they were, like, kind of yearning for this bright spot in this dark character of Mankind. They loved this guy. They wanted to see that transformation.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : We would have that match, and it would sort of be the culmination of that storyline, but also a start of Foley and Dude Love.

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Mr. McMahon caught wind of this fictional character I'd created named Dude Love. Well, I created him when I was 18 years old, made a couple of home movies.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Not only did Mankind used to be Cactus Jack, but as a kid, he didn't have aspirations on-on being this mutilator. He had aspirations to be a heartthrob.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Mr. McMahon wanted our universe to see this guy, wanted that dream to come to fruition.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : Mick was never gonna go anywhere further than mid-card if he didn't have those layers.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : For that time period, I remember Vince McMahon saying, "Dude Love makes people feel good." Dude Love was an unqualified hit. But there's that other guy. He grew in legend in WWE where he becomes almost like that mythical creature.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Dude Love was kind of like the comedy character. Mankind, he was kind of always on the end of the ass-kicking. Cactus Jack was a psycho.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : A lot of credit goes to Triple H, who sells it as if it's a ghost from wrestling past. It becomes the biggest response I've ever received.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : To simultaneously be able to pull off three different characters at the same time, that's really difficult to do.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : When he shifts his personality into that guy, it's a whole different world.

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Even though Mankind was crazy, Cactus Jack was always the one like, oh, this is a problem. And Triple H made it clear through his actions that Cactus Jack was on another level.

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : If you were looking for the polar opposite of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, look no further than Mankind. When I debuted in 1996 as Mankind, that character was kind of a tortured soul along the lines of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

  Undertaker - WWE Hall of Famer : Mankind was demented. There were no limits to what he would do to himself to inflict pain on his opponent. He was just maniacal. I remember having a match with him; he was legit pulling his own hair out. I remember him taking a stick and jabbing it in his leg over and over and over again. I mean, that's just another level of dedication to making a character viable. It was nuts. But you believed him.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Those of us familiar with who this guy was knew that he had lived in existence as Cactus Jack before he got to WWE. The scars on his body from his life as Cactus Jack was very real. Then he does this interview on TV.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : The death match stuff, that got Cactus into the game, perhaps, but the sit-down interview with Jim Ross, th-that actually got him into the end zone.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : The Jim Ross thing really touched base 'cause that was something that... you know, I remember watching it. And, to me, it was like, when they showed his senior-year picture, that... that looks like anybody.

  Self - Host : Yeah.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : Yeah. And now we've got... we-we've got this... this heap of humanity that's pulling his hair out. I mean, like, what torturous life has this soul had?

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I'm not sure I've ever been that on as I was that night as I brought this character to life and created an enormous amount of empathy just by being 100% honest.

  Beth Phoenix - WWE Hall of Famer : We got to know Mrs. Foley's baby boy. We got to know... we got to see the home footage of Mick jumping off his garage onto a mattress. And all of us were doing the same thing off of our couches, you know?

  Paul Heyman - WWE Manager : It felt intimate, and it struck a chord, and it endeared Mick Foley to a worldwide audience.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : We can be a line of work that everyone knows is entertainment, but you can still connect and-and-and be a character that resonates with people where they go, "I understand that. I get that."

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Once he started breaking out of that shell of the original Mankind character, he was different than everybody else because he was a lot more like the people watching than everybody else in the ring with him.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : As soon as I did these interviews, without actually turning in a classic way, I didn't apologize for my misgivings, I was just the same guy, and every single week, more and more people were cheering me. I don't think a change has ever come about that organically.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : He didn't fit, but he made himself fit. And it makes for a great rivalry when you have someone who doesn't fit against the most "I fit" guy there is in a Triple H.