The latter was a horrible mess of a match. The reason for
this stemmed from the real life dislike the two men had for one another,
exacerbated by the Vince Russo-esque worked-shoot nature of their feud. Even
though they’d both been around long enough to know better they each took
statements made in promos (so basically things that were said to advance the
story rather than reflect genuine feelings or emotions) personally and so the
match was disastrous.
By contrast the street fight was very good. It probably
helped that ‘The Hardcore Legend’ was facing a man younger and more athletic
than Flair who had been taking better care of himself and was willing to work
with Foley to get the match, himself, and Foley, over. While Foley wasn’t a
passenger in that match I think Orton, then a hungry ‘Legend Killer’ eager to
make a name for himself, did more to make the match memorable than Foley.
Mick’s time in TNA and ROH produced similarly mixed
results. A relatively lengthy feud with Samoa Joe took place in Ring of Honor.
The original plan was apparently for Foley and Joe to wrestle one another but
it didn’t happen because Foley didn’t feel he was in good enough shape to
wrestle what would have been a very physical match. It’s almost certainly one
of the biggest missed opportunities in ROH history: a match pitting a legendary
figure like Foley against then company figurehead Samoa Joe when he was at his
peak would have sold a lot of DVDs.
 |
| This did not lead anywhere good |
Despite being in worse shape than he’d been in when
appearing for ROH Foley also wrestled for TNA. Many of his matches were
forgettable tag and six man outings with and against the likes of AJ Styles,
Sting, Billy ‘Cute Kip’ Gunn, and Devon. Probably the most memorable match of
his TNA stint was another encounter with ‘The Nature Boy’. They were getting on
better by then so the match flowed a little better, but both were older and in
worse shape than during their WWE clash so it was another dud.
What’s frustrating is that after Foley entered
semi-retirement in 2000 he appeared for companies other than WWE while they
were popular and he retained his characteristic attitude of trying to help and
raise the profile of everyone he interacted with. Had he taken better care of
himself and focused on keeping his waistline trim (or as close to trim as he ever
was) he could have had that ROH match with Samoa Joe and he could have represented
himself better in his TNA outings. Perhaps WWE and TNA would have been more
inclined to use him for singles matches and we’d have seen him take on guys like
John Morrison, AJ Styles and CM Punk in matches worthy of his status.
We’ll never know for sure how different the last decade
and a half could have been for Mick Foley. But I think it could have been
significantly better. With a bit of work he could have had the final send-off
he deserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment