Mick Foley Was Disappointed With WrestleMania Match He Was Part Of
Mick Foley has explained why he was disappointed with his performance during a huge WrestleMania tag team match.
It was 20 years ago when WrestleMania 20 took place at the World’s Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden. It was the last WrestleMania to take place at MSG, which was the home of the first WrestleMania. Considering that WrestleMania is now a stadium show over two nights, the possibility of MSG hosting WrestleMania again seems unlikely.
One of the big matches that took place at WrestleMania 20 saw Evolution’s Ric Flair, Randy Orton & Batista face off against former WWE Tag Team Champions Mick Foley & The Rock. The story was that Foley had issues with the Evolution guys, especially Orton, for several months, so he called on an old friend The Rock to team up with him here.
The Rock returning at WrestleMania 20 was a big deal because it was his first WWE match since SummerSlam 2002 nearly two years earlier.
Unfortunately for Foley & Rock, they lost the match when Orton dropped Foley with an RKO for the pinfall win. That would set up Mick Foley against Randy Orton in a terrific match at Backlash 2004 one month later.
While speaking on the final episode of his Foley Is Pod podcast with Conrad Thompson, Mick revealed that he didn’t like his performance at WrestleMania 20 due to getting winded so quickly even though he lost a lot of weight before the match. Foley explained why he wasn’t thrilled with the match.
“Only because I didn’t dig down deep. Only because I set my sights on having a good match and not messing up. There was a ton of pressure on me, and then when I walked out to the Garden, I felt overwhelmed. I’m walking there with The Rock, who at that point was one of the biggest stars in the world. Now he’s the biggest star, but 20 years ago he was certainly one of the biggest stars. Then you have the Nature Boy who’s always feeling it. He’s on and I just felt suddenly overwhelmed.”
“It’s Madison Square Garden. I haven’t wrestled in five months. I had worked for six months to drop 70 pounds, but I was blown up in ungodly fast fashion when I faced off against Randy. I remember thinking, like, as we’re slugging away, I’m like, how could I possibly be, you know, gassed out as hard as I work, you know, night in and night out going to the Gold’s Gym at 1 AM in the freezing cold.”
“I’ve thought, Okay, I’m ready, you know, and from the standpoint of being on the bike or the elliptical, I felt like I was ready and then you get in there and it’s a whole different ball game.”
Will Mick Foley Wrestle Again?
Mick Foley has been retired from wrestling for decades, but on the same podcast, he spoke about wanting to have one more match around his 60th birthday in 2025. Foley wants to have a bloody Hardcore Match with somebody like Matt Cardona or Jon Moxley.
Whether Foley actually has one more match is unknown, but he did say part of the reason he wanted to do it was to be motivated to lose 100 pounds before the match. Good luck to Mick if he decides to do it.