The Undertaker rejected epic WWE moment before changing his mind, Mick Foley recalls
The Undertaker was one of WWE's top stars throughout his 30-year in-ring career with the company. Mick Foley, a legendary rival of The Deadman, recently told a behind-the-scenes story about their iconic Hell in a Cell match.
At King of the Ring 1998, The Undertaker threw Foley off the top of the cell through an announce desk. Minutes later, he inflicted more punishment on his opponent by Chokeslamming him through a cell panel into the ring.
Foley said on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast that The Phenom initially refused to climb the Hell in a Cell structure at the start of the match:
"Undertaker, for a better part of 10 days to two weeks, just shooting down this idea of me starting this match on top of the cell. I've had people say, 'Well, why did you have to ask him?' And I go, 'This is live TV. If I climb up there and he doesn't follow me, you're looking at the worst match in the history of wrestling,' so I needed his approval." [19:25 – 19:50]
Many consider Foley and The Undertaker's Hell in a Cell match to be one of the greatest battles in WWE history. Foley suffered multiple gruesome injuries that day, including a dislocated jaw and shoulder. He also lost several teeth.
Mick Foley explains how he changed The Undertaker's mind
Almost nine months before King of the Ring 1998, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker fought in the first Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood 1997. The 30-minute bout received rave reviews and featured Kane's WWE debut.
Looking back, Mick Foley thinks he finally persuaded The Undertaker to go along with his idea after discussing their characters' storied history:
"The last time I saw 'Taker before we showed up in Pittsburgh, he just said, 'Why are you so intent on killing yourself?' And then I told him, 'I can't do what you and Shawn did.' If it had just been me and 'Taker and we'd never had a match, it might have been different, but we had this legacy. We'd had, I think, 10 televised matches, six or seven pay-per-view matches, and we had wrestled all over the country and parts of the world, and I didn't want to embarrass what we had done." [19:57 – 20:26]
In the same interview, Foley addressed a major issue with modern-day WWE that should be changed.
Please credit No-Contest Wrestling and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
