Original subtitles

- Mankind and the Undertaker are battling for control

of the dark side.

- The only way Mankind could take on the Undertaker

was to have a really dark soul.

- Have a nice day.

- There was only one way to go with it and that was violence.

- This resembles a prison riot.

They were put on this earth to fight each other.

- This is going to be a brawl.

- It's different, it's gritty.

I loved it.

- Scalding hot coffee.

- You're going to get buried alive.

You're like, "With dirt?"

- He's alive.

- Mick and I took years off each other's careers.

- You have to admire my spunk.

- The Mankind, Undertaker story, I think that lives forever.

- Oh no.

- This rivalry has just escalated into a war.

- When two legends collide, their rivalry stays pinned

in our minds forever.

This is where we break down the legendary stories

behind the greatest rivalries of all time.

I'm Freddie Prinze Jr and this is WWE Rivals.

This is one of my favorite rivalries.

Undertaker and Mankind.

The types of matches they had were so different,

so unique and so crazy.

This rivalry, as far as the extremity of it,

can never be topped.

- Oh, my God.

Fire in the eyes.

- You got Taker who's dead.

- Literally they call him the Dead Man.

- You have the Dead Man.

You have Mick Foley who's crazier than crazy.

You can't get any crazier than Mick Foley.

- Mankind head first.

- He's dead.

- Let's talk about Undertaker in 1995 just before Mankind

comes over in '96.

- I've never seen anybody who had more respect

in any business anywhere.

There was one constant, that was Undertaker, always.

He was the barometer.

- I want to switch over to Mankind.

Paint a picture of what kind of wrestler Mankind was.

- Legitimate.

He brought a pain tolerance like no other man

that I've been around.

That's why coming into the WWE and facing the Undertaker,

it was as real as it could possibly be.

- Hi.

Don't get the car, it's bad for my image.

- Mick was a different kind of cat.

- Hi, nice to meet you.

I could tell she's a hugger.

- The man's got a really gentle nature about him.

- Oh, thank you.

You like the Backstreet Boys?

Yes?

- He just brings an energy to a room

that you enjoy being around.

Then you go out to the arena and he turns

into a complete lunatic.

- It's a story based on brutality.

- He's biting him.

- Bang, bang, bang, bang.

- I rode with Mark Calaway before he was the Undertaker.

When we were together in WCW.

I split rooms with Mark Calaway.

I stayed at Mark Calaway's parents' house,

but this guy who showed up at Survivor Series,

this was the Undertaker.

- Awesome is the only word I can think to describe

this Undertaker.

- He hits like a ton of bricks, this guy.

[bell rings]

- I'm watching the pay-per-view and I very much realize

that this is on a certain level, the same guy

that I drove with and split rooms with, but on another level

he's a completely different guy.

- Inverted piledriver that he calls the Tombstone.

- Look at this, look at the arms.

- Please.

- RIP, pal.

[bell rings]

- The almost white face, as a child I watched that

and there was a genuine fear to that character for kids.

- This guy's 6'10", he's over 300 pounds.

- Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

[Undertaker's music plays]

- Coming down the aisle with his manager, Paul Bearer.

- Oh, yes.

As my undertaker puts the final touches on your coffin.

- It really became apparent to me early on that Undertaker

and Mark Calaway, they were going to somehow

have to become the same person.

Mark Calaway got put way, way back on the back shelf

and the Undertaker is what most people most of the time saw.

You know, the spirit of the Undertaker

has been handed down throughout the centuries.

- For five or six years running Undertaker has beaten guys

who were either taller than him.

- Takes the big man down.

- He's down.

- Or bigger than him.

- Unbelievable.

[bell rings]

- People just expected me to just mow through everybody.

- Somehow he became this iconic good guy.

- The Undertaker had been a character

that conquered monsters.

What if we had somebody that, while maybe they weren't quite

as big as the Undertaker, was nuts and didn't care?

- Give it up Sting.

Part of what I brought to the game

was this reputation for wildness.

- Kept pitching and pitching Mick to Vince.

I told Vince and said, "Hey, look, if nothing else,

we bring Foley in, we give him a shot,

I talked to the Undertaker. He knows him, he likes him."

Once Vince saw Mick and the Undertaker do their thing,

he would like it.

Secondly, once Vince got to know Mick on an individual basis,

he would love the guy.

- I didn't know at the time that Mr. McMahon had not been

a big fan of mine.

Jim Ross was pushing for me.

Mr. McMahon slammed his hand down onto the table and said,

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

When Jim Ross tells me this is how you're starting, I realized,

you only have one chance to make a first impression.

- On the eighth day God created Mankind.

Why was God having such a bad day?

- When I debuted in 1996's

Mankind, that character was a tortured soul.

- You understand me, don't you, George?

You understand Mankind is in pain.

- I wanted to be a darker character because I felt like

the only way this Mankind creation could feasibly

take on the Undertaker was to have a really dark soul.

- You think you're normal.

Deep inside you are merely a mirror image

of all my atrocities.

- From the storytelling perspective,

Mick Foley is borderline genius.

- Excellent.

- April 1st, 1996, the day after WrestleMania.

- From Death Valley, weighing 328 pounds, the Undertaker.

- You have one character, in the Undertaker,

who dishes out a lot of pain to people.

That's his calling card.

Then now you have this character who just thrives on it.

- Look at this.

Mankind taking advantage of the weakened state

of the Undertaker.

- Mankind's debut, we have one person at the table here

who had a very unique perspective on this

because you happened to be in the ring with the man

he was about to have this rivalry with.

- Yes, I just remember when he came out,

I just remember rolling on the floor and thought,

"Okay, there's a bunch of carnage about to happen.

I'm just going to get out of the way."

- [chuckles]

- I'm coming out hot out of the gate with the Undertaker.

I'm not waiting in line.

I attacked the biggest dog in the yard.

- Oh, my God.

He's jamming those fingers down the esophagus.

- Now, you have this crazy character going against this

monster babyface, and then I think it was just--

I want to say a match made in heaven.

I think it was more of a match made in hell.

- The Undertaker, being manhandled by Mankind.

- This guy is not human.

- Getting in there and debuting in WWE, with the Undertaker,

that is the ultimate pressure.

- Someone like Mankind coming in being just as diabolical,

maybe even more so than the Undertaker.

- Now, we have two characters that have no parameters.

There was only one way to go about with it,

and that was violence.

[crowd cheers]

- This resembles a prison riot.

- If the Undertaker got a chance, he was going to for it,

and Foley gave him that chance.

- I've never seen Undertaker hit so fast before.

- After their first match, they had a lot of trust

for each other.

- How do you tell a story

between two supernatural-type characters?

You can't just have a regular match,

so we have the Boiler Room Brawl.

- Mankind basically lived in a boiler room

with his pet rat, George.

That was his home.

That was where Mankind felt at home.

The idea to have match

in Mankind's environment was unique.

- The way this match works is that both superstars

start the match in the boiler room.

They have to fight all the way through the arena,

get to ringside, and obtain the Undertaker's powerful

urn from Paul Bearer's hands.

- We actually had to record the boiler room brawl

the night before SummerSlam.

- Undertaker just needs a couple of minutes

to get into character.

- Being able to record in advance took away

a lot of that risk where if something didn't go

exactly as we wanted it to go, we could stop it down

and shoot it a different way.

- Here we go.

Rolling.

- Boiler Room Brawl, I was there when we recorded it.

That was brutal, man.

That was just all-out war.

- Let's do it.

Good luck.

- Open it.

- Say you're sorry before we ring the bell because

I'm going to tell you right now, I ain't holding nothing back,

I suggest you don't either.

- Mankind is in that boiler room, someplace.

No.

- Gund Arena, in Cleveland, filthy,

dirt everywhere, dust everywhere.

Anything that wasn't tied down, you were probably going

to get hit with.

- The Boiler Room Brawl allows me to utilize

everything around me.

I thought, "Here's something

that can highlight the things that I can do."

Everything that happened in that match, it was real.

I climb up that ladder, I know there's some cardboard boxes

that I'm hoping are going to break my fall.

They do, to some extent, but half of my body

doesn't land on those boxes.

I undershoot it just a little bit.

- I think Mick and I took years off each other's careers.

- You okay?

- Yeah, sorry about a couple of those "potatoes".

- [laughs]

- A potato in wrestling speak is a really stiff blow

above and beyond what we usually deliver.

Sometimes, in our urgency to have a great match,

we might serve up a couple of potatoes.

- All right.

- Take two.

[laughter]

- We get to the point where we'll pick up

from here tomorrow, at the pay-per-view.

I remember getting a cut on my elbow.

They have a doctor there, and they say,

"Hey, you want me to sew that up?"

I was like, "No, I can't sew it up.

It's got to be open tomorrow, or it's not going to match up.

Well, how in the world did I get stitches

in between this and this?"

[chuckles]

[crowd cheers]

The Boiler Room Brawl coming up next here at SummerSlam.

I remember walking backstage, on the actual day of the event,

Terri Runnels was walking behind me, and she goes,

"Do you know that every time that your arm bends,

there's blood shooting out of your elbow?"

I'm walking down the hall, and every time my arm

would come down, it's just shooting out of my arm

- Taker, he actually had to rebust open his elbow to create-

- To match.

- -some continuity.

It was a big deal.

It was-

- Wow.

- -pretty remarkable thing that he did.

- The power of the Undertaker.

- We were able to have the performers make their way out

to the arena and finish the match

in front of the live audience

- I had to come up with something because we were both

so beaten up and worn out from the Boiler Room Brawl,

the night before, and now we have

to magically appear backstage and brawl in a meaningful way.

- Look out.

Mankind way ahead on the Undertaker.

- You use your surroundings.

I see a coffee machine, "Sorry."

You apologize ahead of time.

- That's hot coffee.

- There just happened to be a big pot of coffee.

He saw it, he grabbed it.

- Oh, man.

Scalding-hot coffee.

- No one had scalding coffee on their bingo card,

but a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do

when he's up against the Phenom.

- Mankind is going to come into the arena.

- You didn't have to just get out of the boiler room

into the ring, you had to claim ownership of the urn.

- It's amazing either of these men can even stand, Whoa.

- Oh.

- Oh, my God.

Did you hear that?

- The Undertaker, the victor here tonight at SummerSlam.

Give him the urn.

Wait a minute.

Give him the urn.

Mankind shoving that mandible claw

into the gullet of the Undertaker.

- Paul Bearer's laughing.

- Oh, man, nobody thought Paul Bearer

would ever turn on the Undertaker.

- Look at this.

say it ain't so.

What has possessed Paul Bearer?

[crowd boos]

- People were --, people were upset.

- Mankind must take possession of the urn.

He has it.

He is the winner.

[bell rings]

- Wow.

- Paul Bearer was like Undertaker's dad.

He represented a father figure, to the audience.

When you think about father figure, you think about trust,

you think about respect, you think about loyalty.

When the audience feels betrayed,

it really ignites an emotional reaction.

[crowd boos]

- Now what?

- Yes.

What else can happen?

- A mass of druids.

- There is a legitimate chance you're going to see

the end of the Undertaker.

[crowd cheers]

- They told a very cinematic story with this match.

Had you ever seen anything like this before?

- No.

The company was doing things that had never been done before.

It definitely worked because we're talking about it

20 years later.

- Mankind, you will never rest in peace.

[laughs]

--.

- You get to a spot with characters,

where they're so rich, you almost need to invent

new ways for them to battle.

That's what happened with the Undertaker and Mankind.

A new match was created just for them called

the Buried Alive Match.

They explained, "Well, there is going to be

a grave plot with a six-foot hole,

and in order to win the match, you have to put

your opponent in the grave and bury them alive.

- Well, when you say, "You're going to get buried alive,"

you're like,

"With dirt?"

- All that's left to do is to fill this grave

with your rotting, maggot-infested carcass.

[crowd cheers]

- Are you ready to see someone get buried alive?

- This is the first time a match like this has happened,

and it's a constant flirtation with death.

- Somebody is literally going to be buried alive.

- If you die you lose is basically the stipulation.

- Insane.

- I remember even Vince going, "This is unsanctioned match."

- This is the first-ever an unsanctioned match.

[bell rings]

- Yes, I don't blame you.

- Whoever was on the other mic goes, "Well, yes, obviously,"

because there's no way this could happen.

- Oh my goodness.

This war continues.

- It's this match that presents all these opportunities

because whatever we're doing in and around the ring

is just a pretense to get us up there to the grave.

- They're getting closer to the grave.

- These two evil entities are battling for control

of the dark side and to tell the story that needs to be told

with these two guys.

- Look out.

- You're going to have to do something that is desperate

and it's just like Hail Mary.

- It kind of reminded me of watching

a Friday the 13th with Jason-

- I was going to say that.

- -and Michael Myers, because whenever they would get hit,

it was always that moment you thought they were down and dead,

and all of a sudden, they would rise up.

[laughter]

- Turn their head and be like, "Oh, --.

Run, get out the way.

Don't stand there, he's not dead."

- These guys are trying to kill each other.

- I end up getting choke slammed into a grave,

and then the earth starts coming down on top of me.

I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I've been through a lot,

and now a human being is throwing earth on me.

- Mankind is not moving.

- You have people thinking to themselves,

"Surely nobody is getting buried in front of our eyes."

Terry Gordy comes out as the Executioner.

He waylays the Undertaker.

- Mankind is coming back out of the grave.

- Now begins this mammoth attempt to completely fill

that grave in a few minutes without any machinery.

- Everybody wants to bury the Undertaker.

- The real story is there was a miscalculation of how long it

would take to fill up the hole once Undertaker was in there.

So, we had to send out half the roster.

- We rush out there with shovels to fill up a full grave.

Try filling in a grave with a shovel in 10 minutes

on live television.

That was the dumbest thing.

- Such a huge, wide hole.

- We didn't get a quarter of the grave filled.

Mick Foley's scraping dirt in, he's blown up from the match.

But, if you'd have seen the crowd that night,

it was horror and shock thinking that Undertaker

had actually been killed.

People were buying it.

I'm thinking, "Somebody's coming over this rail."

- The Undertaker is gone forever.

Yes.

- There are people to this day that were kids then,

that are adults now--

You don't know what that did to me.

I was freaked out.

I had to sleep with the lights on for a while.

- This one's over.

The Undertaker did not survive.

- I remember looking at the face of a father and he says,

"I can't believe I'm watching this."

Because we're watching a human being get buried.

- When that purple glove come out of the dirt, man,

it was another one of those moments that people

did not expect but gave them such hope.

- He's alive.

The Undertaker's alive.

- It's those kind of stories that let you know that

what we do means something.

We've had these incredible wars, Mankind and Undertaker.

- Oh, yes, the Undertaker is gone forever.

Yes, he's gone forever.

- I haven't fared that great.

[chuckles]

- I would get this lightning strike

and the whole crowd gasps.

[gasp]

His hand busts through, still gloved, and we're left

with that lasting image.

- It actually worked because you had the right ingredients

to make it work.

- All that's important is the set-up for what's coming next.

- To get to the match that you remember everything.

- That's right because you're setting up something great.

- Yes.

- This is a Mankind preppy look, just in time for Summer.

- What we had to wait for was the second

Hell in a Cell match ever.

- A Hell in a Cell match is a match in which you compete

inside of a ring that is completely covered

by a solid steel cage.

The structure itself is intimidating.

The first Hell in a Cell match, they were looking to do

something spectacular.

Mankind was looking to, "I've got to do something bigger."

- If that's not enough, I can guarantee that Mankind

will have a surprise for everyone

that you will not soon forget

- I had a lot of concerns going into that Hell in a Cell match

with The Undertaker.

- Have a nice day.

- The challenge for me was not trying to reach the bar

that Shawn Michaels and the the Undertaker had set

in October of 1997,

it was to just do some kind of justice to it.

Terry Funk and I visited the WWE offices.

We watched the first cell match in its entirety.

After about a minute of odd silence, I said to Terry,

"What am I going to do?"

Then he starts to laugh, and he starts riffing about

being thrown off the top of the cell, and he keeps laughing.

I look at him and I said, "I think I could do that."

Everyday I would approach the Undertaker with the idea of

starting the match on top of the cell,

and every single day he shot it down.

- He persisted, he really wanted to take that bump because

he felt like it needed it, and I end up asking him,

"Mick, why do you want to kill yourself?"

and it was a serious moment.

It got to the point, I think it was the day of,

I'm a firm no.

Somehow he got to Vince and convinced Vince

that it was okay and then they double-teamed me.

Vince is like, "Mark, he's pretty sure

that he can take that bump."

I'm like, "No, I don't think we need it."

They kept on, I'm like, "Look, fine,

if that's what you want to do then we'll do it."

- We have only seen one Hell in a Cell matchup in WWE history.

- It was the most unbelievable match that I

I think I've ever witnessed, JR.

- It is a perverse, vile, diabolical structure.

- Satanic, hellish.

- It will absolutely be unforgiving

as this night progresses.

- We know we got some fireworks, we know we're going to do

something no one's ever thought to do before.

The Undertaker has a broken foot.

We think the worst part of his night physically

is going to be that journey up to the top of the cell.

- Undertaker in a very precarious position.

Nothing between the Undertaker and the concrete floor

but imagination.

Audience Member: Don't fall on me.

- He's there.

- Apparently, the Hell in a Cell match is officially underway,

in the most God-awful of both cases.

- Oh, my gosh.

Look at Mick.

- Mankind is using--

- Oh my gosh, look at this, it broke through.

- That's a lot of weight, there's 200-300

pounders up there.

Undertaker fighting back.

I don't like the look of it, folks, I don't like it

a damn bit.

- Oh, God.

Oh, no.

- Good God Almighty.

Good God Almighty.

They killed him.

- Oh, my God.

- As God is my witness, he is broken in half.

- I can see myself standing there watching him fall.

He ain't getting up from this.

I'm thinking in my head, "Just move, Mick. Move."

- You know when he grabs me by the collar and the waistband,

bam, off I go.

That flight didn't seem like it was ever going to end.

- Mankind went off the cage, everybody in the arena,

I, no doubt, would think they would've thought

that this thing is over.

When we really put that in perspective, Mankind could have

died that day.

This was a guy that was willing to die

in the middle of that ring, to go out there

and get his point across.

- It was so surreal that I thought that maybe

I was having an aneurism or something.

As God is my witness, he is broken in half.

I wasn't really seeing what I was seeing.

I genuinely felt that he was dead.

This match may be over, I'm telling you.

- Why is the cage raising?

Do they realize the Undertaker is still on top of the cage?

- Man, the EMTs now are bringing a stretcher here.

He was fallen through a wood table

that was sitting on a concrete floor.

There was no padding under the table.

It was Foley's body hitting wood, hitting concrete.

In my mind's eye, I'm thinking an average

human being cannot live through that ordeal.

Obviously Mick Foley was far from being

an average human being.

- He landed through the table right at my feet

and I'm looking down at him and he opened his eyes

and he smiled.

- Then he started moving around and I'm like,

"That's the toughest son of a bitch right there

I have ever seen in my life.

[crowd chants "Undertaker"]

- The Undertaker is a legend.

Probably the biggest one in our business.

I'll admit that when I was lying underneath the wreckage of that

table and half my body was sticking out into the crowd

and they were chanting the Undertaker's name,

there was part of me thinking,

"Maybe you guys are cheering for the wrong guy."

- Wait, now the cage is coming back down.

I guess they got to get the Undertaker

off of the top of this cage somehow.

Look out.

- The Undertaker is coming down--

- He's climbing down before the cage

is even on the ground.

- Now I'm thinking, "Boy, we're really screwed,"

because this is early in the match, really early.

How in the hell are we going to finish?

Again, if this match has ended, we apologize.

- I have never-- Why do you apologize for that?

- Lo and behold, somehow, Mick knowing that

he's got to deliver for this audience

and for the Undertaker,

he wills himself back into this match,

and that's what it was.

- Look.

What?

- Look at--

- You are kidding me.

- How in the hell is he standing?

- Oh, my God.

- Look at this, he's got a smile on his face.

For God's sakes, are you kidding me?

- That sucker, man, he got off of that gurney

and he started back up the cell and I'm like, "Good night."

- He wants to go back up.

Mankind is going back up.

- No way.

- So is the Undertaker.

- No way.

- When I start climbing up and the fans in the Civic Arena

realize this thing's not over, they respond with a type

of energy that could have lit that city up for a week.

I get the goosebumps thinking of it.

- This is absolutely amazing.

- I've suffered a lot from that fall,

so when I get up to the top, I don't have much

left in the tank, and I'm thinking in my head,

"At least the worst part of my night is over."

I would stand corrected because things are about

to get a lot worse.

- He throws him up on the other side.

Oh

- Good God. Good God.

- That's it.

He's dead.

- Will somebody stop the damn match?

Enough is enough.

The poor son of a--

He's broken in half.

- When Mick hit that panel and the panel just broke way,

and was just such a violent and just at a whole other level of

violent bump that he took.

He rotates another few inches, he don't get up.

- Well, I think enough is enough.

The Undertaker likes it.

- From that one night, for whatever reason,

my feet never left the mesh, and it's a godsend

they did not because when I hit that mesh and it just zoom

like a hot knife through butter.

- Oh, my God.

Somebody get out here, really.

- There was a chair up on top of of that cell structure that

I'd had the wisdom and foresight to bring up there with me

and when the undertaker choke slammed me and I go through,

that chair follows me down every foot of the way.

It smashes into my face.

To this day, still missing those teeth, and one of them ends up

lodged in my nostril.

- I just knew he was through.

I looked down at him and I said--

I turned around to the referee and said,

"He's out. He's gone. It's over. He's not going to get up."

I was scared to death for him.

- The ring fills up with people to check on me.

Well, it looks like Terry haphazardly touching my face.

He wasn't just touching my face, he was taking my pulse.

Stands up, says to the Undertaker,

"He's still breathing."

- No.

- Now Terry Funk trying to help Mick Foley and Terry

gets a chokeslam for his troubles.

Terry Funk, he just got choke slammed out

of his shoes it looked like.

- I roll over to my stomach and my head goes like this.

The reason my head bobbed is because my first conscious

thought was, "Where'd those shoes come from?"

- How is he still standing up?

- I don't have a damn clue.

Oh my.

He's smiling.

He's got a tooth in a nose.

He's got a perverse smile on his face like, "I'm not dead yet.

You may think I'm done, but I'm not done."

- [indistinct]

The steel right into the shoulder.

- I'm punching him and trying to create time so that he can get

his thoughts back together again, and every time I hit him,

I'm just saying just, "Mick, stay down.

Just stay down."

I went into the match with a broken ankle.

I'm questioning my manhood like,

"I ain't saying -- about my ankle after this."

- Mankind going for a piledriver.

Did you hear the crack of the Undertaker's skull

on that chair?

- To watch Mankind and the Undertaker create that magic

in such a dangerous situation, to have that on your mind

and still be able to perform at the highest level,

that's what true pros do.

That's what professionals do.

- Just the spectacle of trying to watch two human beings

limp over the finish line.

By God, we didn't cut the match short.

- Steel just ramming and jamming into the flesh of the Undertaker

There's a cover.

- That's it.

That's got to be it.

- Tell me it's over.

- Got him.

- No, it's not over.

- The Undertaker he had that long mane of dark red hair,

and he leaned over and he said the words, "Go home."

- What's he got now?

Uh-oh.

- He went out of the ring to get something.

What is it?

A sack.

- Some sort of bag or something.

- What's he got in that?

Oh, God, it's--

- What is that?

- Thumb tacks.

- Uh-uh.

- Thumb tacks.

My God.

- He has to finish.

He had to get to the tacks.

- He got him.

- Mankind's got the mandible claw on the Undertaker.

- He's going to try to throw the Undertaker right

onto those tacks.

- Some of the things that seemed like good ideas

at the time have not aged well.

- The Undertaker has the Mankind back on his back now.

Wait a minute.

It's no use.

He's near those tacks.

Don't tell me.

No, no.

Oh, God.

- I think you have to admire my spunk.

- Don't tell me.

No.

- They weren't even done yet.

- No.

- Because, "Oh, yes, it's Mick Foley,

so let's bring in thumb tacks."

- Oh, God.

Oh, my God, he threw him in those thumb tacks.

- I'm trying to reason with a man who's just cheated

death twice, "Mick, we're good. Just stay down."

"I got to get to the tacks, brother."

I'm like, "Mick, we don't need the tacks, man.

We don't need the tacks."

We got to the tacks.

He didn't like the way the tacks worked the first time.

We did it twice.

- A chokeslam.

- No way.

- What a sadistic thing.

A chokeslam on the tacks.

Good God Almighty, he's a human pin cushion.

What else can be done?

What else will the Undertaker do?

There's a Tombstone.

Tombstone.

- On his back.

[crowd: "one, two, three"]

[bell rings]

[Undertaker's music plays]

- Mercifully, this is over.

- Here is your winner, the Undertaker.

- I think they both have tacks sticking--

- I'll tell you what,

folks, in 25 years, I have never witnessed anything

that even closely resembles what we have just witnessed.

- Referee Mike Chioda, he wasn't the match referee,

but he came out and he said,

"We're bringing a stretcher out for you."

I ask him this question, I say,

"Have I already been on a stretcher tonight?"

He informed me that I had, and I just said,

"I can't be on two stretchers in one night."

- Look at Mankind.

It's almost as if he doesn't want-

- You are kidding.

- -to leave on a stretcher.

- That tells you everything you need to know about Mick Foley,

the sports entertainer, that he was willing to put it

all on the line so that he could have that match that he wanted.

He wanted it for me and he wanted it for the fans.

He's always been like that.

That match, that's just next-level stuff that most

people don't have inside of them.

It really is incredible.

- It's a beautiful art of violence.

That level of sacrifice, commitment is something

that I think will forever be remembered by the fans

and why those two men will forever be respected.

- We didn't watch it, we believed it.

- I had a hard time dealing with the aftermath of the Cell.

I'm talking about for years to follow.

Nothing I would ever do from that moment on would make fans

forget how we had made them feel in that moment of time.

I could get pretty cantankerous about it.

It was a bad night, but I've got a lot of publicity

off of it over the last two years.

Every day I'm asked about the same match,

the same question, did it hurt?

I was tired of it.

It wasn't until the Undertaker came to see me

doing one of my storytelling shows

and he said these words to me.

He said, "You know, Jack, what you

and I did that night will outlive us both.

People will be talking about that match

when we're both dead and gone."

When I drove home that night, I felt like a giant weight

had been lifted off my shoulders because I felt free to embrace

it and free to celebrate it, and free to talk about it.

Now, the last person I'd like to mention without whom

none of this would have happened.

I might be here on this very night,

but I'd be out there watching it

instead of up here being inducted

and the person in question is the Undertaker.

[crowd cheers]

- Over the years I have often wondered where

my life would've gone had the Undertaker and I not crossed

paths when we did in April 1996.

I'm not in the WWE Hall of Fame without the Undertaker.

I'm not in a position where I can continue to wear

sweatpants and a fanny pack in public.

I'm not in a position where I can be a guy with one ear

who doesn't care what other people think about him.

I look back at that moment in time and I'm just so grateful

that our lives were entwined.

- Very rarely do we talk business.

It's a more of a how are you, how's the family,

how you feeling?

We have our history.

No one's going to take that away and we have a very prominent

piece of history in the WWE legacy.

The story of Undertaker and Mankind

it'll last the annals of time.

- My life would not be the same without you

and that's the truth.

Thank you, man.

- I don't say that to boast.

It is what it is.

It's a great story that was told by two guys

that are still here to tell it.