My Mom's Basement - QUARANTINE MINI-POD: MICK FOLEY

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

"The Hardcore Legend" himself joins the From The Top Rope boys in the Basement to discuss his legendary career, friendship, and rivalry with The Undertaker in honor of Taker's 'Final Farewell' this month on the WWE Network. Oh, and don't worry - they touched on Christmas! 3Chi: Use code ROBBIE at checkout to receive 5% off at 3Chi.comYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. We've got an interview with the hardcore legend himself, Mick Foley, talking about his entire relationship, career, rivalry, feud, whatever you want to call it, with The Undertaker. His friendship, his out-of-the-ring friendship, his in-the-ring rivalry, we talked all about The Undertaker because the WWE Network is doing this thing called the Final Farewell to The Undertaker this month. And they've got a bunch of great documentaries on The Undertaker because it marks the 30th anniversary of his debut at Survivor Series. So we talked all about that. It was a really, really great interview

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These are so uncomfortable uncomfortable they hurt my mouth so bad and we're here talking about the undertaker right and he's the reason i have to wear these things so it's kind of appropriate it is appropriate we're here to talk about what the wwe network is calling the undertaker's final farewell they have been playing a series of documentaries there was a fantastic one on the rivalry he had with Randy Orton, the Legend Killer rivalry, a fantastic one on Paul Bearer. There's one on the Brothers of Destruction coming up. That's why we're here. I wanted to start by basically asking you,

I feel like as fans we've heard so many stories about the match itself, the Hell in a Cell match, right, and your overall rivalry with Taker. But what was that relationship like outside of the ring, you and Undertaker? Were you guys ever close? Were you acquaintances? was he a mentor to you at all when you came in wow um you know what i was actually uh i was pretty tight with the undertaker back when he was mark i never called mark anymore to me he was mark and then he stopped being mark uh the moment he debuted uh you know 30 years years ago at Survivor Series. So I did used to room with him, rode with him, visited his parents in Texas,

went out for Krispy Kreme donuts with his family. I don't think The Undertaker eats Krispy Kreme. So there is a definite differentiation between Mark and The Undertaker. And then I didn't see him for years but i have to believe uh that he wanted to uh he wanted to wrestle someone who could oppose him in a psychological way instead of just uh match up with him physically i think uh for a few years running uh the undertaker been matched up you know know, at, at WrestleMania and otherwise just with people who were either heavier or just as tall posed a physical threat. But, uh, I have to feel like he was, uh, instrumental in having me join the company.

And, uh, and part of the reason I kind of dove into a great role right from the beginning. So I went to, uh, one of like stand-up shows that you did at the kowloon in saugus massachusetts yeah and uh you know you were telling stories about that night from the hell in a cell match and my favorite story ever told that i've never seen appear on like a documentary or a special or an interview anywhere else you said that after he had choke slammed you through the cell and then his foot was broken at the time right yeah his ankle so he comes down uh through the cell himself and the cameras don't pick it up but you said that taker said check to see if he's

still alive that was uh hey terry funk entered the ring and he said see if he's alive he didn't know if i was still among the living and it's uh man that's a tough call to make you know these days if something like that happened that match would be stopped immediately and that's a good thing but fortunately for us that was not the call that was made that night because that was a lot of the intrigue is just seeing these guys pick up the pieces, you know, in a match. You know, any other sporting event would have been stopped when one of the participants is no longer conscious.

Right. How much of an appreciation did you have, though, for the fact that, like, the cameras didn't pick this up, the microphones didn't pick this up, and he's staying in character even with you as you're laying there motionless on the ground pretty incredible yeah and so when terry funk that's funk with an n so you guys don't get any trouble when terry funk uh he actually it looks like he's awkwardly touching me but he was actually taking my pulse and he came back and replied to the Undertaker that he's still breathing. And the Undertaker chokeslammed Terry.

And in the process, Terry's shoes came off his feet. And that's why the first thing I, you know, my first thought when I regained consciousness was, where'd those shoes come from? Because I was not aware that all of that had taken place. I've always loved that as an underrated moment in the match when the shoes come off because it's so cartoonish. It's like, you know, when Bugs Bunny will like run so fast that his eyes stay in the same place or whatever. It's one of those.

I said so many things in that match were surreal. From the table breaking and half my body ending up outside know outside in the audience something that wouldn't happen today because our barricades are different than that um but that added to the allure uh no one had figured on i you know how a gurney we might get out there so they had to lift the cage to the south and so it starts ascending towards the heavens with the undertaker on top of it there were just so many eerie, like I said, surreal moments. And I'm going to go with surreal as opposed to cartoonish when Terry's shoes came off.

Yeah. But it certainly was like something out of a movie. It was absolutely crazy. So another thing we hear a lot about The Undertaker is his role as sort of a locker room leader over the years. Did you sense that in the moment when The Undertaker was a locker room leader for the WWF? Was it known if you come in, you sort of report to him or you show him respect? Or was that something that was kind of recognized after the fact when everyone said, oh, yeah, The Undertaker really did lead us back then?

Well, you know, for a lot of that time, I wasn't in WWE. I left in 2000. I had my little run as a commissioner in 2000. I was well aware he was a locker room leader, but I think I was only in one wrestler's court where The Undertaker presided. But to give you an idea over the type of influence he had and the respect he had, Al Snow and I had this ongoing joking relationship, right? And Al got a lot of heat from the guys for not properly selling a

chair shot, right? And Al said he didn't sell it because he was knocked out. And I was like, yeah, that's what I did when I was knocked out. I started laughing and acting like a fool. And so I started joking around with Al like, hey, Al, you know, you and I should team up as the sellers, best seller or no seller. You know, I was in no cell. You were in no cell in a cell. And I said, oh, that's funny. I'm going to tell Taker that.

And Al went, no, no, please don't tell Taker. And I looked at him and I said, for real? He goes, please don't. I said, okay. I respected that. Like, uh, yeah, it usually went without being said that, uh, you know, you present your best self, uh, when the undertaker is around. Right. And, and I think one of the, like the funniest images from like the last year or so was Vince throwing

himself off that platform because he wanted Gronk to do the spot. And like the big thing is that Vince won't ask anyone to do that. He wouldn't do himself. Right. So, I mean, I feel like you've kind of, you gotta be like, Hey Vince, um, remember that time that I went off to the cell? Like you never, you never did that. So I feel like, you know, if you, if an eye for an eye here, I feel like you kind of have to throw yourself off the hell in a cell if you're going to be that guy that says, I wouldn't ask my guys to do anything that I wouldn't do. Well, I think his son Shane comes forward.

That's true. Good point. By launching himself off of a cell structure that was even higher than the one that I was thrown off of. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess, yeah, he kind of like like, picked one up for Vince there. But that would actually be hilarious if Vince was like, you know what? Damn it, you're right. I didn't do it.

Well, Vince wanted to go off in the dumpster that Terry Funk and I went off the stage. He wanted to do that. And I was like, Vince, first of all, it's crazy because, you know, you're the boss here. You could be hurt. And I said, second of all, like, you're going to kill my gimmick. I respect that.

Yeah, no doubt about it. He's not going to ask anybody to do anything he's not willing to do himself. The last time we spoke was over three years ago on this podcast, or it was actually kind of a different form of this podcast. But you actually mentioned that Vince had recently at that time actually reached out to you and said, I feel like we don't have as good a relationship as we should have. What has your relationship been with Vince since then? Well, it was really good. And then I abandoned my phone for a year. So I just, I took it out of my car put it behind the wheel i drove over it

five times uh and slammed it i just got tired of being beholden to a phone so i went a year without any contact with vince and then i have several months back it was funny when wwe officials you know i know one of the joe villa from wwe is listening in that they like the thing would be like okay how do we get in touch with them and the idea the thing would be like, okay, how do we get in touch with them? And the, I, the answer would be like, you can't phone. Like, what do you mean? He doesn't have a phone. Yeah. He doesn't have a phone. So that was a good period of time for me. So I did go a year or so without talking to Vince, but I just recently did something with him on an upcoming show that I don't

know if I'm at liberty to talk about, but it involved some balloons and a sock puppet and, and the return of mankind kind of a celebration that we had me and Stephanie through a little celebration for her dad. Wow. What a tease that is. That's a big tease. Yeah. I've always been that way yeah what was that like being off the grid like i feel like yeah i envy you so much i know i'm fascinated but

i'm fascinated by this year off the grid yeah what did you do what did you see i did i did have a tablet but um so i could check in on my emails and social media and whatnot. But it was nice. You know, a plane would land, and every single person would go to their phone except me. You know, I'd be in a restaurant, and, you know, I wouldn't be on my phone. The only – the biggest difficulty was, you know, I just recently moved from Long Island. And when you're on Long Island, you know, the parking is so expensive that it behooves you to get a car service. And it turns out it's pretty difficult to get your car service when you have no communication with them. So yeah, yeah, it's, I'd say it had its pluses and

minuses. But all in all, it was a good experiment. Yeah. I actually I was thinking about this randomly during during quarantine because i mean i've seen it a billion times but the last time i re-watched it was probably like march or april beyond the mat yeah you have you watched that with noel as like as an adult or with her as an adult now no i it's on uh netflix now and i really want my younger children to watch it with us so they have some appreciation of what the old man did but we have not watched it in many many years. I showed it to our roommate who isn't really a wrestling fan but it gave him like a new appreciation for wrestling he kind of

realized what the business was like. Yeah I you know first of all Mr. McMahon hates the movie, so we probably should move off it pretty quickly. But I'll tell you, Al Snow and I were at a world premiere for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The End of Days. We were at the after party, and there was a group of about 20 women talking and pointing and looking at me. And then one of them came over and said, we not wrestling fans but we work for universal so we uh were we watched a pre-screening of your movie and we all think you're a great father so it was interesting to get perspective from non-fans and i think the best things that we do hold up for non-fans as well i mean i know this is supposed to be about the undertaker here but uh i know when i do my shows you know the one man show i try to

make it accessible to non-fans and uh i think a good movie uh or documentary lends itself to the non-fans as well even though we fully recognize you know where our bread and butter is right i mean like the the hell in a cell match would would have been your bread and butter that's your uh defining career moment did you have a favorite undertaker moment whether it be um it could be a promo it could have been a match that you guys had just any angle that you worked that had nothing to do with the hell in a cell you know what i'd say it wasn't one moment it was a series of like 80 moments where every time that music would start, Paul Bearer would look at me and he'd roll up his shirt sleeves and his hair would be standing on end.

I've got hairy forearms, so I would show him mine and they'd be standing on end. And it was just this understanding that it was always an honor to be out there. It was never something you took for granted. And honestly, had it not been for The Undertaker in 1996, granted, it was the 1998 match that everybody remembers, but we started our feud two years earlier. And had it not been for The Undertaker, right out of the gate,

I think there's very little chance you guys are talking to me today. I think there's very little chance that I can get away with, you know, growing a beard out all year and wearing a shirt that says son of a nutcracker public because, you know, that feud allowed, you know, paved the way for all the other things that happened to me in WWE. Right. It's such an amazing feud. I remember Stone Cold Steve Austin actually saying when he initially told the design team what he wanted for the Austin 316 shirt, and he said, I want a skull on the back.

They were like, well, you're gonna have to clear that with Taker that, you know, death and all the dark arts, that's kind of his thing. When you started having that feud, and you were obviously, I mean, with Paul Barra, diving deep into that, was there any sense of that? or was it like, no, this is what we're doing. So go for it. Oh, they were very protective. You know, when I came in, I'd always worn black and then they said, you know, black is undertaker. That's why they dressed me up from head to toe and Brown. Yeah. Give me Brown. And then I watched us during the attitude. There were probably like 10 other guys who wore black. And I was like, I think Mr. McMahon just wanted to dress me up like a ups truck uh

but i made it work anyway you said you moved recently uh does that mean that it does the new place have a christmas room in it or no it does not why it does. It just doesn't lend itself to having a Christmas room. So I'll wear Christmas on my person and in my heart all year long. I was actually going to wish you a happy holidays because we are around that time, but it's 24-7 for you. If I see you in July, is it still happy holidays? Yeah, well, it's Christmas in July. You should know that, man.

Oh, man, that was a real slip up. I should have named any other month than that. I think with all this Undertaker documentary footage coming out, and he's kind of, you know, coming forward with Mark, as you said, I would love to see you guys in a Christmas special, just enjoying, like, cookies and milk, talking about the cell batch. That would be amazing. You never know. I don't know if you guys know this this is a big scoop here uh when i had my hip and my uh knee replaced my hip in april of 2017 my uh knee in um september i worked on my handwriting until i could channel santa's handwriting and now i write letters because he can't be everywhere and there's not enough time to write letters because he can't be everywhere.

There's not enough time to write letters. He has to have surrogates. I write letters to some of the WWE superstars' children. Here. The Callaways will have a letter from jolly old Saint Mick.

Well kept secret. The Foley handwriting. It is Santa's like if you saw it you would believe you'd be like I know now it's a secret I want to see it's like the secret sauce well your secret's safe with us we won't tell anyone this is all just all right yeah I'm curious now like uh when you had when you had your one year away from your phone, have you still had guys reach out to you for advice or like, hey, I'm trying to work on this new character. I'm trying to go on this different avenue. And have you been consulted at all by anyone that's performing currently?

Yeah, I do get it. I like to be asked questions. Just another exclusive. While we were talking, a little text message popped up from the man, Becky Lynch. Oh, gotta love the man. So I'm not saying she's asking for advice, but I do stay in touch with some of the men and women. And like I said, I wasn't exactly off the grid. I could still go on my tablet.

I was still, yeah, check emails. I was still on social media, although I'm taking a little vacation until December for a while. But, yeah, I do get asked sometimes for advice, and I try to do my best to give the best advice I can. Do you have a favorite dark match? Like a match where it was just like man I wish that that was on a pay-per-view or yeah yeah had two of them two that I wish that had uh been filmed for posterity one was against Bret Hart in either Manchester or Birmingham UK I can't remember which one where we just started like from the ending with the urn to the

head. And then we just, we worked almost backwards, but it was so different. It was really unique. And then I had a house match with Shawn Michaels. That was just dynamite at Madison Square Garden that I wish that I had been filmed. Speaking of Birmingham or Manchester, whichever place was not where I wrestled Brett was where I wrestled Leon White in WCW. And somebody said to me just like a year or two ago, they said, I was at a house show in, you know, they mentioned the name of the city. It's you and Vader. And I couldn't believe what you guys were doing to each other at a house

show. I said, it's funny you say that. That's exactly what I was what you guys were doing to each other uh at a house show I said it's funny you say that that's exactly what I was thinking while we were doing the match I can't believe we're doing this at a house show definitely like not just a pay-per-view but one of the most brutal pay-per-view matches you could ever see and it was a non-televised house show oh man yeah but you guys will always have that memory and especially everyone in the building some of my best wrestling memories are from house shows that I've attended, you know, that only me and the person next to me have. Before we get you out of here, this is a hard-hitting question. This is going to make headlines.

People are going to try to clickbait your response out of this one. Can you rank top five Christmas foods for us? Christmas foods? Any food that you would associate with Christmas that you'd be like, I got to have that on Christmas. Could be a candy. You could say eggnog is a Christmas food

if that's your thing. Whatever it may be. Christmas food, drink. Okay, let me go with... I know my number one. I'm going to work backwards almost like it was that match with Bret Hart in the UK.

I'm going with uh mince pie tarts that they sell like the walkers tarts or a good bakery mince pie mince pie at number five number four let's go with pumpkin pie it's uh october through december i still think that's accessible for the holidays number Number three, my mother's Yorkshire pudding. Outstanding. Oh, I've never had Yorkshire pudding like that before or since.

So that's at number three. Number two. Oh, man, let me see. Number two, number two. Oh, candy canes from the Candyman, Orient, New York, on the very tip of Long Island. There's like different kinds of Candy Cane's? It's not just like a standard thing?

No. What? What? You cut me to the quick. That's like saying every wrestler's the same. No, Candy Cane's homemade, brother. They've been doing it for a long time yeah uh that's where santa santa gets his stuff in my north pole background everybody's got to have

their own north pole background and number one waffle jelly cakes uh they were the fictional treat that uh tiny tim long for in the mr ma Magoo version of Christmas Carol. And although no actual- With Razzleberry dressing. With Razzleberry, yes, yes. How good, Paul. Yes. And so my son actually,

we used to go to Santa's Village every year and they called it a raspberry scrumption. When my kids were little, I indoctrinated them. So they would walk up and ask for the waffle jelly cake and i would point to the i would point to the snack to the confused uh woman behind the counter but they go yes yes okay here you go and then my son ewing made them for me a couple years ago and i told him this year like i don't want any presents i just want waffle jelly cake that's all i I want. So those are my five foods. Amazing.

Amazing. Mick, thank you very much. This has been great. Everyone make sure to check out all of the Undertaker content on the WWE Network all this month and Survivor Series coming up as well. It's the farewell to the Undertaker, the final farewell. So check it out. All this stuff is available on the WWE Network as always. Mick, thank you very much.