Original subtitles

Hell is in Pittsburgh tonight, in this match!

[Narrator] On June 28th, 1998,

at WWF's King Of The Ring Pay Per View,

one match would earn its place as one of

the most shocking in wrestling history:

Undertaker versus Mankind, in Hell In A Cell.

Hell In A Cell hit you like a mallet to the consciousness.

Oh, here we go!

I know it's going to be crazy,

but I didn't know it's gonna be that crazy!

Look at this! It broke through!

You had two talents out there that liked to really

push that envelope until it fell over the edge.

Oh!

[Indistinct shouting & screaming]

"Oh, wrestling's fake."

Well, you can't fake gravity.

[Cheering]

I've been frightened by a lot of things in pro wrestling.

Nothing frightened me as much as that did...

until later on in the match, anyway.

Oh!

What left fans stunned was the unrelenting punishment

Mick Foley endured.

Until you saw it, you didn't believe that

a person could physically do this and live.

[Groaning]

This match was real. The pain was real.

The drama was real.

I was cursing, and screaming,

and calling him an effin' idiot.

Why are you doing this?

One of wrestling's most infamous matches,

Hell In A Cell's legacy persists as both

an epic success and a cautionary tale.

I think we dodged bullets that day.

Not just one, but several.

It's really crazy to think that they would

allow someone to go unconscious, and then

just continue the match.

The collateral damage that ensued is another story.

When does it stop? When's it enough?

You pay all day long for the decisions you make

in your 15 minutes in the spotlight.

It was a dangerously crazy masterpiece...

But, all of us need to ask ourselves a question:

Was it worth it?

♪

♪

Hi! Must be 50, 60, 70 feet in the air.

Do it! Ah!

Everyone who gets into wrestling is looking for

something that they find missing in their own lives.

Oh! [Laughing]

For me... [Sighing]

Yeah, I mean, I was teased a lot.

So, I had an overwhelming need to be liked.

And to take that WWF Championship belt...

For example, I remember being

in college as a sophomore.

I took a swig of red food coloring,

and I did a super fly leap off a bed onto

a stuffed animal on a concrete floor.

And when I hit the floor,

I spit that blood concoction out.

Everybody in the dorm was there watching,

and I heard one of the girls yell out,

"That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!"

And I felt that power.

So I thought, if I can't make people love me,

perhaps I can disgust them.

I just needed to get reactions.

My name is Mick Foley.

I am known as the "Hardcore Legend,"

and I survived Hell In A Cell.

♪

I think Hell In A Cell is a perfect gateway.

So many people have said, "That's the first match

I was shown, and now I'm a huge fan,"

and my follow up question is always, like,

"Did you expect all the matches to be like that?"

It's like, because they're not.

[Screaming] Oh!

[Indistinct shouting]

A normal Mick Foley match

is quite hardcore.

Brutal. Probably blood...

Bang bang!

-Thumbtacks. -Ah!

Fire.

Oh my God, he's branding Cactus Jack!

-Barbed wire. -Agh!

Getting exploded by C-4 explosives in Japan.

Oh!

Or getting speared through a table of fire.

Taking like bumps on the concrete.

Oh, God, right on the concrete!

I mean, he just put his body through so much.

I'm Mickey Foley, and my dad is

"The Hardcore Legend" Mick Foley.

I think he just really loves getting like an,

"Oh, my god!" or, "Gross," or, "Nasty!" type of call.

Oh, my God!

I'm Noelle Foley,

and I'm the daughter of Mick Foley.

Realism was a big tool.

I didn't think I was having a good match unless

I had trouble getting back to my hotel room.

I did not enjoy the pain.

I enjoyed the fact that I could take it and

sell it in a way that was fun.

Oh no! Oh my God!

He's hung himself in the rope!

I just had to really ask myself,

do I want to get mixed up with this?

[Laughing]

I'm Colette Foley, and I've known Mick Foley

for over 35 years.

When I met Mick, I noticed his eyes.

I noticed that he was a gentle, nice person.

But his corny jokes and terrible humor,

that's what really made me fall in love with him.

Our wedding song was actually

"Beauty and the Beast."

We were a good team. She understood!

She understood my commitment, like, she really did.

When that adrenaline was pumping,

he just wanted people to leave talking about

how great a show it was...

at his own risk.

And that was his drive to keep going and

get more crazy along the way.

He developed a personality called Cactus Jack.

You can't stop Cactus Jack!

He was a wild and crazy guy.

You thought he might be insane.

Are you kidding me?

He had charisma.

You couldn't take your eyes off this guy.

He was different. He was unusual.

I'm Jim Cornette, and at the time of the

Hell In A Cell match, I was working as

an agent and a producer for the WWF.

Mick was excellent with psychology in his matches.

He knew that the fans liked people that were

out of control.

He's biting him.

Someone who was going against the "script."

Cactus is going nuts!

He could take those people on that ride with him and

elicit the response that he wanted to get.

Oh, the fans are loving this!

Then the attention would be on him,

and his reputation would grow.

Our bedroom furniture consisted of a mattress

on the floor with a black and white television,

with a VCR that barely worked,

and in that VCR was Japanese wrestling tapes.

I would sometimes watch 12 hours

of Japanese wrestling a day.

I liked the realism, the storytelling.

It's not just man versus man.

You have to defeat the surroundings, you know?

[Cheering]

I thought Japan was likely to be where I made my living.

They were looking for a foreigner who could

feud with Terry Funk.

Terry Funk was the greatest of all time for his ability

to make people suspend disbelief in a second.

Ah! [Screaming]

Terry Funk became somewhat of a mentor to Mick...

and they started working together

in these explosive,

bloody, violent, fiery death matches in Japan.

[Audience shouting] Ah!

I was always drawn to the wild stuff,

so I would literally be on my hands and knees,

and I thought that was proof that

I had done something special.

This is a place I can make myself stand out.

So, I never saw myself

being a WWE guy.

In WWF at the time, it wasn't a PG era,

it was a G rated era.

Very bland.

And for someone like Mick,

his style didn't really gel...

Cactus being choked out with barbed wire!

...with what WWF was selling.

My name is Al Snow.

I'm a former WWE superstar.

I was Mick Foley's travel partner and, dare I say,

probably his best friend.

Ah, probably his only friend.

[Laughing] You know, I'm just kidding.

Vince McMahon did not want Mick Foley.

Didn't think that he was marketable.

Didn't think he was attractive.

[Indistinct cheering & shouting]

How I convinced McMahon

to hire Mick was to give me

a chance on my observations of talent,

'cause I see something in this guy.

I'm Jim Ross, and at the time of Hell In A Cell,

I was Vice President of Talent Relations.

I needed to make sure that we had dancing partners

for the top guys.

[Thunder crack]

Undertaker was one of the biggest stars

in the history of wrestling.

Long live The Undertaker!

Vince kept trying to go with giants to face

The Undertaker, which was boring and dull.

Big right hand!

What you needed was a lunatic.

I'd heard a story about Vince slamming his hand

down on the table. Vince said, "All right!

I'll bring him in, but I'm covering up his face."

We don't know who he is.

We don't know nothing about him.

He's nobody, he's nothing.

That's Vince's perception of Mick Foley.

[Chuckling]

Hey, everybody, I'm Gerald Brisco,

better known as Gerry Brisco.

WWE Hall of Famer and Chickasaw Nation

Hall of Famer.

Vince McMahon was like, "Okay,

now you guys go build a character around nothing."

So we come down, Mankind.

What the hell is Mankind?

[Popping fireworks]

Yes, here it comes. Mankind!

♪

This bogus bullshit wouldn't have worked

with anybody but Mick Foley.

He's pulling his own hair out!

Without a connection to the audience, without character,

everything else is meaningless.

I think fans can sense the commitment.

My goal for Mick was that he was going to be

a great opponent for The Undertaker.

-Here they go! -[Match bell]

He was willing to try anything.

As my granny would say,

"He didn't turn nothing down but the covers."

-Oh, my god. -Oh!

-Oh! -[Cheering]

So now I got this big challenge

to not let him kill himself.

-Uh-oh. -Oh, no!

The Undertaker and I were laying quite a foundation.

7 Pay Per View matches, 10 TV matches.

We've been around the globe together.

[Cheering]

But, my character had kind of plateaued.

I knew I had to do something, something that would

add to instead of detract from our legacy.

For 1998's King of the Ring Pay Per View,

WWF producers planned to reignite the

Mankind-Undertaker feud with a recently

developed concept: Hell In A Cell.

The way that they did cage matches in the WWF was

you had to either get out by either climbing

over the cage or leaving through the door.

I asked Vince McMahon, I said,

"What about if this cage match is different?"

[Drill whirring]

"What about if we put a roof on the cage?

Both go in, only one's coming out."

And that's where we came up with Hell In A Cell.

Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had the first

Hell In A Cell, and it was a mile marker.

From the top, driving the elbow!

Well, the Michaels -Undertaker match...

Technically, to me, it's still the best one.

Oh, no!

I just looked at this match open jawed.

I literally can't do any of the things that

these guys are doing.

Some nine months later, they're gonna do it again.

This time, The Undertaker and Mankind.

And then I asked Terry Funk:

"What are we going to do?"

And he started laughing, he went, "Ha-ha-ha.

You know what'd be funny is, what if you actually

started the match on top of the cell...

and what if you were thrown off?"

He's saying it as a joke.

He stopped laughing, and I looked at him,

and I said, "I think I can do that."

I could not get the idea out of my head.

I pitched The Undertaker and Mr. McMahon,

the idea being thrown off, into a casual conversation.

It was a great sell job.

I was not looking at this match as like...

a second act in my career.

I was just looking at it as a way to try to

keep my head above water.

I thought, when this run is done...

I am too.

Yes, he, he told me the high spots,

that he was gonna be all right.

[Fireworks crackling]

Welcome, everybody! To the King of the Ring!

If he can see it, he can do it.

And I trust that.

We have only seen one Hell In A Cell matchup

in WWF history.

And it was the most unbelievable match

that I think I've ever witnessed, JR.

I remember specifically thinking to myself,

I need to come out with everything I've got.

Just eyes on the prize.

This match has so much riding on it, JR,

that the loser may not even stop at the hospital.

They may go straight to the morgue.

[Mick] There's that old saying...

be careful what you wish for.

You just might get it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest...

is the Hell In A Cell match!

On June 28th, 1998,

at Pittsburgh Civic Arena,

a packed house eagerly awaits the

Hell In A Cell showdown

between Undertaker and Mankind.

Yeah, you gotta imagine the pressure that Mick's probably

feeling as he's walking to the ring, you know,

knowing that the last time an audience saw this match,

it was Shawn and Taker...

knowing that he's got to outdo that.

Poor Mick, he's not exactly the most nimble guy

in the world either.

My name is Jimmy Korderas.

At the time of Hell In A Cell,

I was part of the ring crew and also a referee.

I was backstage watching on the monitors,

and Gerald Brisco was the one who produces there.

[Gerald] I had the best seat in the house.

Sat right in front of about ten monitors,

watching everything.

I was the pilot, baby.

This is probably the first time in 20 years

that I've watched this match.

No one knew what to anticipate,

and I don't think anyone could have ever imagined

what they were going to see.

Hello again, everybody!

I'm Jim Ross alongside Jerry "The King" Lawler!

I was as much in the dark as a fan watching at home.

[Mick] I did want to start the match in a way nobody

had ever started a match before, and to do

something no one had ever done.

[JR] You see that chair on top of the cage.

What is he doing?

Mankind is climbing the cage.

I think there's a little bit of shock on everybody's face.

Like, he's going up now?

He's going up at the beginning of the match?

You're supposed to start out inside the cage, isn't he?

What next?

[Commentary] He's not very logical.

I mean, he needs therapy.

[Mick] I had not been on top of the cell.

I assured Mr. McMahon and The Undertaker,

"Oh, yeah, I've been up there. It's fine."

But the truth is, when I got up there,

I was terrified.

I'm actually not good with heights.

Oh, it's totally dark in here!

If they fall off that cell!

[Mick] The entire time The Undertaker's music

is playing, I'm thinking to myself,

how can I gracefully climb down this cell without...

ruining my career?

[Commentary] Wait a minute.

Do you, do you think he's daring The Undertaker

to start this match up there?

I thought it was a hell of a way to start.

Apparently, Hell In A Cell match is officially underway.

It created a fear in the mind that one could not get past.

Something's gonna happen.

What's gonna happen?

They had attached the top section of the cage

with zip ties!

[Rattling]

But there's 600 pounds of human beings up there.

The Undertaker and I both take a step,

and that mesh goes down by about a foot.

Oh, my gosh, look at this. It broke through!

And I literally hear zip ties springing, going, "bow!"

They're destroying the Hell In A Cell.

When those zip ties were popping off...

I thought, oh boy, this is not good.

I attempt to suplex The Undertaker

on top of that mesh.

He cut that off, knowing that, you know,

there was a decent chance we were both

going to go through it.

Undertaker fighting back.

They're throwing punches, and they got towards the

edge of the cage where the announce tables were.

I thought when they got close to the edge,

there's just no way in hell that Mick's gonna take

a tumble off the top of the cage.

That's too dangerous. That's too iffy.

There's very little margin for error.

I look at this incredibly small table- [Laughing]

Like a little dollhouse.

I don't know how in the world it's gonna work out.

[Indistinct commentary]

And I don't like it a damn bit!

And lo and behold,

the closer they got to the edge of the cage,

the more I became convinced that something big

is gonna happen here momentarily.

And it did.

♪

Then, all of a sudden... [Whooshing]

♪

Here's Jim Ross and here's Jerry Lawler,

as well as the Spanish announcers.

And they're looking up...

and a 300-pound human being is flung at them from almost

20 feet above 'em,

and he's coming at 'em fast!

As strange as it sounds,

I felt like it was going by in slow motion.

It also went by in the blink of an eye.

[Shouting & screaming]

They've killed him!

All of a sudden you hear this...

thud, and this crash.

As God as my witness, he is broken in half!

Holy shit, did we just see what we thought we saw?

The sound of Mick going through the announcer table

was scary as hell.

Every one of us in the back,

we just exploded in concern.

-Look at that, look at this. -Give me a break.

It was like witnessing a car accident.

Oh, yeah, we all thought he was dead.

[Commentary] We need doctors out here.

Folks, we apologize.

This match has stopped dead in its tracks.

In a business filled with crazy, strange things...

nobody had ever tried to do something like this before.

♪

It blew everybody's mind.

And I thought, my God, this, this is over.

There's no way he's gonna get back up.

There was an audible gasp where everyone went, "No!"

-No! -Oh, my!

[Screaming & shouting] God almighty!

God almighty! They've killed him!

We had two young children at the time...

and, they...

didn't know what to think of it.

All I kept saying was, "Oh, it's fake,"

just to soothe them.

Yet in the back of my mind, I'm freaking out.

[Al] It's tough to know when it really, really,

really is real.

[Commentary] Somebody get out here.

But, it had to have hurt him.

And it was believable.

[Thud]

If The Undertaker threw him just a little too far,

a little too short, that's falling from

God knows how high onto concrete,

or could have even landed on fans.

[Mick] The pain would come later.

I'm kind of flying high on adrenaline...

and I've pulled off this pretty lofty goal.

I mean, going through the table

could not have gone better.

He saw it in his head, and in midair,

he turned in such a way that he was able to

land flat on that announce desk

to cushion that fall and not kill him.

And when it did happen,

you should have heard the voices back there:

"Replay that!"

Then you go into business mode where you're trying to

get every great shot that you had with it.

Hugo Savinovich, the Spanish commentator,

bailed out of his chair instead of getting flattened.

It was, ah, pretty... [Laughing]

Pretty traumatic, to be honest,

because it was my friend out there...

and being torn with the rule that you don't step in,

you don't interfere with whatever Mick was

trying to construct.

The fans were literally having this guy laying

at their feet, and they're looking at all the attendants

and the referees.

There's Terry Funk.

I know Terry Funk was the first one to get there.

I asked Terry, "Is he conscious?" right there.

Now we're trying to make room for Doctor Francois

to get there.

So, I was in my medical room...

and suddenly I hear, "Right now!

Come right now!" [Laughing]

"Mick fell from the top of the cell."

And I said, "What?"

I'm Dr. Francois Petit, aka, Chien Petit.

I used to be the doctor for WWF,

for about four and a half, five years on the road,

and before that for about eight, nine years...

in Los Angeles.

Francois was kind of like the French army knife.

Francois was a black belt in karate.

He was, Sub-Zero in the first Mortal Kombat movie.

[Shattering]

He's probably a secret agent and, you know,

investment banker. Francois was what they-

I think they call 'em bone crackers.

He could fix you.

You probably wouldn't enjoy it. [Laughing]

But he could, he could put you back in place.

-Here we go! -[Beep]! Wow.

No matter what the malady was, he,

"Ah, bebe, I fix you. I fix you, bebe.

It'll be okay."

It's okay, bebe. I'm gonna have to put it back.

Mick Foley, of course,

he was my number one patient,

if I can say something like that.

Dr. Francois Petit...

is out here.

Well, hell, this is nuts, what he did.

He fell on his back, badly.

And on top of that, on a dislocated shoulder.

The EMT people have no idea

how to get the gurney down there.

And it turns out the gurney wouldn't fit,

so now they've gotta raise the cell with

The Undertaker on it.

Is he gonna jump down here?

He was put on that gurney, like, that was real.

They were gonna take him to the hospital.

We thought the damn thing was over with.

I mean, what else can they do, you know?

But we found out, you know.

I realized that the longer I'm on there...

the more fully the audience is engaged.

I've never seen anything like that in my life.

Well, I'm not- yeah.

But, ah, I've got a feeling that

I'm going to be able to continue.

[Laughing]

-What? -[Gasps]

Everybody was trying to tell him, "No, Mick,

you're done. Stop!"

You're kidding me!

How in the hell is he standing?

Oh, my god.

What are you doing? Where are you going?

Why are you doing this? Just stay down.

And notice, he's got a smile on his face,

for God's sakes.

Holy shit! He's coming back for more?

Are you kidding me?

Mankind is going back up!

No way! And so is The Undertaker!

No way!

I'm thinking, this has got to be the craziest,

dumbest SOB in our business.

How can he climb? How can his body...?

[Mick] At this point, I do not know

how I'm going to do this and live.

But I have pledged to do it, and I'm going to do it.

[Commentary] This is absolutely amazing.

Absolutely amazing here.

I'm thinking to myself, you're insane.

You're an idiot.

But at the same time that I'm thinking that,

I'm thinking that was the moment that

really made him a star.

By then, backstage was packed,

because they know shit's going on.

[Laughing]

I stayed back where I was because I knew

something else is going to happen. I knew.

I guess at the end of the day...

I'm glad that they went back up because

it created another moment.

It added to the storyline.

But sometimes you can storyline yourself

right to the hospital.

The next spot in the storyline pitched by

Mick Foley was far less concerning.

Head butt by The Undertaker, and a run in.

At least at first.

We had already agreed on the one chokeslam,

which we thought would cause the mesh to gradually

give way, and the big visual was going to be

Undertaker, like, stuffing me down.

But that did not happen.

He throws him up on the other side.

-Oh! Good God! -[Cheering]

And now, Houston, we got a problem.

That's it, he's dead.

I thought that the destruction of

the Foley body...

was well in hand.

Well, somebody stop the damn match!

Enough's enough!

It was a completely different situation than

when he got thrown off the top.

You just, you just know.

I'm screaming at the TV set.

I am cursing.

I was like, trying to get the company on the phone.

[Phone ringing]

And I couldn't get through to anybody.

I couldn't get through to anybody.

How do you tell your children,

"Oh, Daddy's acting"? Laying there lifeless.

Motionless. This was not expected at all.

I thought that was the end of him.

[Cheering]

If he throws him up on the other side- Ah!

[Cheering]

Good God!

When he hit that solid...

mat...

That ring is like concrete!

"Mat" doesn't do it justice.

It's more like hitting the cement.

As he's falling, that metal, heavy,

solid folding chair,

came right behind him.

You can see, when he lands, that chair...

Boom, there's the chair on his face, boom.

He could have very easily died.

I mean, my mom thought he was dead also.

I was shocked. I was screaming.

I was furious...

because I thought he betrayed me by not

telling me the truth that there was another spot.

There we go. Chokeslam. Oh!

That was the first time in his career that

he'd been legitimately knocked out cold.

We all flooded the cage.

Doctor Francois, Terry Funk.

The guys that went out there were thinking

this might be the end.

He was really not responsive at that point.

♪

I turn around and look at Undertaker.

And I say, "Okay, that's enough."

Because I saw his eyes not answering.

The Undertaker, he looked at Terry and said,

"See if he's alive."

Terry reports back: "He's still breathing."

There were so many times when I'd seen stars,

but I'd never been out for more than a couple seconds.

And this time there's 42 seconds that I don't recall.

The Undertaker, stop him!

Terry Funk took it into his own hands and walked up

to Undertaker, and said, "Hit me."

Terry Funk trying to help Mick Foley!

So, he could take the focus away from Mick a little bit

so everybody could tend to him.

It's all ad lib, it's all at the moment.

[Cheering]

And Terry gets a chokeslam for his trouble!

If I've ever seen a match that should have

been stopped, that was probably the one.

But...

you just didn't do it back then.

He just got choke slammed out of his shoes.

We didn't stop matches. We bought time.

And, I needed every second that I could get.

♪

When I came to, what I immediately saw,

Terry Funk's shoes.

I then realize I'm in this match,

and that's where I try to stand.

How is he still standing up?

I don't have a damn clue.

Oh my God, he is...

a freaking mess.

It's really crazy to think that they would

allow this to happen.

Just let someone go unconscious

and then continue the match.

As the clouds began to clear, I was all about

trying to create an image for TV.

I've got a massive wound underneath my lip,

and if I can find a way to take my tongue,

stick it through that massive wound,

it's going to make for a great TV moment.

Oh, my. Oh, and he's smiling.

There's the tooth, there's the tooth.

How do you get hit in the face with a chair,

and it knocks your tooth out

and it ends up in your nostril?

One of the doctors said that it went into his throat,

but because he was breathing so heavily,

that he had sucked it up the other way,

and it came down through his nasal passage.

What is that sticking out of his nose?

Maybe a tooth?

This match was real. The pain was real.

The drama was real.

The expressions on everybody's face were real.

Real concern.

-What is that? -Thumb tacks.

-[Audience shouting] -Uh-uh.

[Raspy sighing]

[Mick] This was their first appearance in WWE.

I felt like I should be the guy to bring 'em over.

He's near those tacks! Don't tell me!

Wait a minute! No!

[Crowd shouting]

And Mick's purposely rolling around,

make sure he gets all the thumb tacks on him

as much as possible.

-[Grunting] -No!

Agh!

When the adrenaline is taking over,

you don't realize the pain anymore.

You're part of the pain. You're pushing so far

you don't even know you're doing it.

Mick is very big about come hell or high water,

whatever it is...

he will see it through.

[Commentary] And there's the Tombstone!

Finally, the 17-minute match comes to an end...

with The Undertaker defeating Mankind.

[Cheering & match bell]

What a spectacle it was...

in that Pittsburgh Civic Arena.

16,000 people.

We've never seen anything like this before.

They brought the stretcher up because

we thought it was needed, for sure.

But, he waved it off.

And that crowd went absolutely insane.

[Applauding]

This was real as a heart attack.

And the people could tell.

That puts the fans

in the corner of this guy

who just cannot be stopped.

And that's the kind of shit that gets over.

[Crowd chanting] Foley! Foley! Foley!

An audience has invested their time, their money,

and their effort in one single thing,

and that is the belief in you.

He knew and understood that risking his well-being

allows them to more thoroughly believe in,

in him, and the experience.

Thank God this is over.

We kept taking these chances,

and another chance, and another chance.

And for, why? Why?

As long as I live, I will never forget...

what we just witnessed right there, folks.

He would always call and check in with me,

let me know that he's okay.

And now here comes the one Pay Per View where she

really needs to know, and there's no phone call.

I had to wait and wait and wait.

It made me worry.

And, that anger came back.

And a few hours later, Mick calls me.

She was screaming at me.

"Your children thought you were dead."

[Exhaling sharply]

I think prior to the sell,

she prepared by trusting that I wasn't going to

do anything to jeopardize the family.

Standing ovation.

After that... it became a big concern.

When Mick came back through the curtain, I mean,

everybody rushed up and wanted to check on him

and make sure he was...

as okay as he could possibly be.

One of the first people to greet Mick at the curtain

was Vince McMahon. He said, "Mick,

I want to thank you for what you've done for my company,

and I want you to promise me that you will never

do anything like it again.

And pull those thumbtacks out of him!"

I'm going backstage, and I overheard Mick say to Taker,

"Did we do the thumbtack spot?"

He doesn't realize that the doctors are

just plucking them out of him right now?

When you love somebody and you respect them as much as

I did Mick, my first thought was,

"Are you okay? Are you really okay?"

I don't think he truly anticipated

how severe that was going to be.

Like that night, I had to help him get

undressed and then into bed.

You know, he was, he was messed up on that one.

I think it was 15 stitches underneath the lip.

Lost these two teeth.

I don't even know if I was treated for a concussion.

I had a bruised kidney for about six weeks.

My jaw was dislocated.

I can't remember which shoulder was dislocated.

But you know what?

That match changed the way people felt about me.

And that's what really sparked

the career renaissance.

With what you did...

at Hell In A Cell, I want to publicly thank you.

Going from...

Vince not wanting to see him in...

a WWF ring, to six months after that match,

he was world champion.

Oh, hell, yeah!

The reaction, the pop, the adrenaline, the rush,

the more he did, the more risks he took.

It made me worry.

The bar kept just going up because

it was never good enough.

I think he felt like he had to live up to being the

Hardcore Legend, continuing things that

he probably shouldn't have.

Oh!

Mick, at that point, was about,

what are the limits of physical human endurance?

He felt like he owed it to the guy he was working with.

He owed it to the people to do something that

they hadn't seen before.

Oh, that's about concussion number nine tonight!

I remember giving, not a scolding,

but a warning: If you continue to try to do these

type things, it's gonna catch up with you.

He understood...

but he didn't agree with me.

Just seven months later,

Mick Foley again pushes his limits,

this time in a brutal showdown with The Rock

in the infamous "I Quit" match.

No stopping the match...

for excessive blood loss.

[Cheering]

I told Mick, "That's a horrible idea."

But, he was gonna do what he needed to do,

and what he wanted to do.

I mean, he's riding the big tidal waves.

Well, I also think it had something to do with

my way of making it seem like everything

is gonna be all right.

It was one of the worst days of my life.

And the I Quit match is underway!

I had both children with me.

It was super brutal from the beginning.

Oh, man!

I got carried away with The Rock.

I had told him, "Lay it in."

Mick Foley is barely moving.

And now The Rock has handcuffs.

What the hell is he gonna do now?

He did.

[Commentary] No! [Mick] But, um...

Instead of taking five shots, I took eleven shots.

No!

What the hell is Mick Foley doing?

His kids were not

old enough at that point to really...

ascertain what was fact and what was fiction.

But also, in the middle of this fiction,

it was a fact.

He got brain damage for a

----ing wrestling angle on television.

Oh!

Where does it end?

What does it take now to put you down?

Please, Mick, say, "I quit."

So this sounds pretty bizarre,

but I don't have one singular memory of

my dad ever wrestling.

Part of me thinks it's because

it was very traumatic to me.

Like, how could these 11 shots

change my dad's health?

[Voice breaking] Like, if you were to get 11 head shots-

A normal person probably could have died.

It's sickening, honestly.

I really, really hate the "I Quit" match.

Mick always wanted to overdeliver.

And somewhere down the road...

all of us need to ask ourselves a question:

Was it worth it?

No!

I understood that the style I chose was gonna

result in great discomfort.

Oh!

There were so many times when I could have

made a move less painful...

but chose not to because I thought it would look better.

Agh!

There were a handful of doctors saying that,

"You need to stop now.

If you continue wrestling, you'll wind up crippled."

Do you think that stopped him?

I still thought I had one good match left in me.

-Stay down. -Stay down!

And so I set about trying to delay...

the inevitable.

Take a look at this, take a look! Ah!

There were times when

he should not have been wrestling,

and he shouldn't have been cleared.

He'd drive around,

and not remember where he lived.

It's concussion, on top of concussion...

on top of concussion.

My appointment with the WWE neurologist

had not gone particularly well.

So, I booked an appointment independent of WWE.

I'll never forget what he told me, he said,

"Mr. Foley, if you want to try to find another

neurologist to clear you, that's up to you.

But I'm telling you,

you should never wrestle again."

[Al] If you push those physical limits

like Mick has, yeah,

you're definitely going to pay a price and,

sadly, Mick is paying that price right now.

Somebody get out here, really, I mean it.

Back then, we didn't know the

long-term effects of concussions.

When guys take a bump,

they have an impact in the brain.

-Oof! -Hey!

Similar to experiencing a 25 mph car accident.

Oh! Good grief!

I can only imagine the type of pain that

Mick has to live with.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

The referee's calling for help.

He's paid the price for all this fame.

Mick is very special.

And he's lucky he's still with us.

He's done, he's gone.

CTE is a very scary disease

that is a long-term effect of

repetitive concussions and brain trauma.

We don't really know how my dad will be doing

in 10, 20 years or so.

If you're wondering if I'm worried about that-

yeah, yeah. Ah, yeah, really worried.

Every day I worry about that.

The fallout from what I've done...

I honestly, I don't see a way out of it.

That's one of the most respected and

beloved men to ever compete in our business.

But I'm gonna fight it.

I'm going to try to be someone who continues

to get sharper as they get older.

And so I have these spoken word shows.

It's like mental gymnastics, for my mind.

And I hear the crowd chanting...

-"Undertaker." -[Laughing]

Putting on a show...

having that stimulation from people,

that keeps him going.

I can either appreciate what I have,

or I could live in complete fear about the unknown,

so I'm going to continue to enjoy myself.

[Cheering & applauding]

He lived his dream. He made his dream.

He needs to feel accepted,

especially around his legacy.

I tell him, "Go. Do the things you like to do.

But, don't push your luck."

Colette knew that I was kind of my own worst enemy

when I was in the ring.

We dress up in wild costumes,

and engage in a fantasy form of combat that leaves a

lot of us in worse condition than we arrived at.

And we do it to earn the...

acceptance of total strangers.

[Indistinct commentary] No! Oh!

For me, it was all about reactions,

the eyes lighting up.

My desire to be authentic.

I, ah, I definitely wanted to be...

loved.

All the sacrifices you put your...

physique through just for the roar...

of them.

[Cheering]

I like that roar.

You can't say that's a fault,

without also admitting that it's responsible

for my success.

[Cheering]

Mick Foley is known for many things.

He's a multiple time champion.

He's donated time and energies to charities.

But what he's known for is Hell In A Cell.

♪

For years, I really harbored some resentment

for that match...

because it was the only thing that I was known for.

I was in a dark place for a while.

On one hand, I knew I'd done a lot in wrestling.

On the other hand, I felt like

I'd accomplished nothing at all.

How you doing, man?

The Undertaker and I, we were reminiscing,

and he says, "You know, Jack,

what we did that night will outlive us both."

That was a major step in embracing...

that moment.

That's what I got into wrestling for,

to try to create moments like that.

Mankind is climbing the cage!

I think fans are gonna remember him as a guy

who gave his heart and soul to this business,

and appreciate him immensely for it.

The audience is coming to be in awe...

because few people in the world can put you in awe.

And those people do!

This is the beauty of it.

[Crowd shouting]

♪

[Creaking]

♪

Me and my dad, we were at the WWE warehouse,

and we came across the cell.

♪

My dad certainly wasn't expecting to see it.

He touched it.

And he just...

started tearing up and started crying.

♪

I've never seen my dad cry.

For something to make him cry,

must have been...

really important...

and life changing.

And also probably pretty scary.

Like, this could have...

this could have been it.

[Sighing]

I'm lucky I'm here after that.

There's no reward

big enough to cover that risk.

How can he... how can he stand?

We did not know nearly as much

about head injuries as we do now,

but I can't tell you with certainty that

I would have done things different if I had known that.

I felt like the world had offered me this canvas to...

create surreal, sublime performance art.

And there were some bumps in the road,

but it was a pretty magical way to make a living.

On certain nights when things were really good...

it was one of the most powerful feelings

in the world.

[Crowd chanting] Foley! Foley!

[Commentary] Unbelievable.