Mick Foley On How He Felt Being Removed From Huge WrestleMania Match
Mick Foley has recalled the time when he was going to be in a major WrestleMania match, but then he was taken out of it due to a creative decision.
In late 1998 and the first few months of 1999, Mick Foley as Mankind was in a rivalry with The Rock over the WWE World Championship. Both men would hold the WWE Title for the first time in that period. It was fueled by the story of WWE’s boss Vince McMahon turning on Mick to support The Rock instead, which made Mankind a beloved babyface.
The Rock ultimately won the feud and walked into WrestleMania 15 in 1999 as the WWE Champion for a match against “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. That match was won by Austin, who became the WWE Champion in the main event of WrestleMania for the second year in a row.
At WrestleMania, Foley as Mankind faced the Big Show in a match to see who would referee the Austin-Rock match. Mankind won by DQ in under seven minutes and he was there in the main event to count Austin’s pinfall win.
During the final episode of Mick’s Foley is Pod podcast, he confirmed the story that Mick was going to be in the main event of WrestleMania 15, but then WWE decided to change it.
“That was the year it was supposed to be a three-way. It was supposed to be me, Rock, and Steve, and the decision was made at that time it had to be a singles. Even though in future years we would see several three-ways and really good three-ways, personally, I believe Steve and Rock was the right call. But, for me, it was really disappointing.”
A year later, Foley was added to WrestleMania 2000 which became a four-way match.
“I missed out, and that was the whole reason that Vince decided to put me in the main event the next year. Even though I didn’t think I deserved it and didn’t really want it.”
As the story goes, WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, who was out of action for about a year at this point, talked to Vince McMahon about it and said that the main event needed to be a singles match rather than a triple threat match. Vince agreed so it was changed.
Does Mick Foley Want To Have One More Match?
While speaking on his podcast, Mick Foley also spoke about how he wanted to have one more pro wrestling match when he turns 60 in 2025. Not only that, but Foley wants it to be a Deathmatch and he doesn’t want it to be WWE.
As for his opponent, Foley mentioned Jon Moxley or Matt Cardona as possibilities. Cardona replied to it making it clear that he would love to do it.