WWE Rivals (TV Series)

Triple H vs. Mick Foley (2022)

Freddie Prinze Jr.: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : What makes the street fight different is that it often goes other places. Street fights can go anywhere.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Physically, they're incredibly demanding. The mental game, you have to be a little bit off your rocker to wanna do a lot of stuff in 'em. But people enjoy it.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : After this suplex on this wooden pallet, that Triple H is just pouring blood down his calf and into his boot.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : I remember looking down and seeing a piece of wood sticking out of my leg. I knew that was a pivotal moment for me.

  Bruce Prichard - WWE Executive Director : Through those moments, no matter what you think of him, you see things like that and you see the toughness. You gotta respect the hell out of him.

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : This guy went out there and didn't call for the medics. They didn't call for the doctor. Nowadays, you would probably do all of that, or the doctor would call on you.

  Self - Host : Yeah, they'd make him stop.

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : They would make you stop. It-it's kind of, also, this rite of passage. You know, eventually you're gonna work hurt. And when you do, it's just part of... it's part of the game.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : If there are doubters out there, I don't think anybody ever questioned his toughness again.

• Self - Host : All rivalries come to a point. This one came to... a retirement match. It's gotta be easier if you know that going in, but I feel like as a part of that storyline, no matter how scripted it is, it has to be painful, but it also has to feel great.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I thought going into the Royal Rumble that was going to be my final match. I think I talked to Mr. McMahon. I brought up the idea of a loser must retire. But now we're going to put a sense of finality to it.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : What more can you do as a heel than take a loveable character, like you force him to then retire?

  [a clip is shown of Cactus challenging Hunter to a Hell in a Cell match] 

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : At that point in time, the Hell in a Cell match was mythical. And they'd gone from the classic that 'Taker had and Shawn had. And then you have 'Taker and Foley.

  [a clip of Undertaker throwing Mankind off the top of the cell is shown] 

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : How do you begin to follow that?

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : Guys like Mick Foley are a rare breed. I mean, that's really cool to say, "All of my career, everything I've done, I'm going to give it all to you tonight."

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I had the legend of the cell to my name. But I said, "Okay, let us take that ball and run with it as far as we can." I-It's quite a task to get ready for something like Hell in a Cell. I more or less have to metamorphosize into a different human being. Generally, I needed just some type of jolt with something big. And once there was a big move...

  [a clip of Triple H throwing the steel ring stairs at Cactus is shown] 

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I would be jolted into that alternative reality.

  Becky Lynch - WWE Superstar : I remember watching this match and everything that Mick went through and how hard he fought, thinking "He has to win this. This can't be the last Mick Foley match ever."

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : I have to do my part to make sure that this is as epic as it deserves to be for him.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : [clips of the match are shown]  We've had an exciting match, and we just have to find a way to create a memory. Well, there's an art to presenting your toys, and so you're not rushing it. You want people to enjoy what is essentially an hors d'oeuvres of violence.

  [a clip is shown of Cactus lighting a barbed-wire 2x4 on fire and preparing to piledrive Hunter onto it] 

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Once I let go of him, I have no control.

  [a clip is shown of Hunter countering the move; as he backdrops Cactus onto the cell, a panel breaks and a portion of the ring collapses as Mick lands] 

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : If you were looking for the polar opposite of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, look no further than Mankind. When I debuted in 1996 as Mankind, that character was kind of a tortured soul along the lines of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

  Undertaker - WWE Hall of Famer : Mankind was demented. There were no limits to what he would do to himself to inflict pain on his opponent. He was just maniacal. I remember having a match with him; he was legit pulling his own hair out. I remember him taking a stick and jabbing it in his leg over and over and over again. I mean, that's just another level of dedication to making a character viable. It was nuts. But you believed him.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Those of us familiar with who this guy was knew that he had lived in existence as Cactus Jack before he got to WWE. The scars on his body from his life as Cactus Jack was very real. Then he does this interview on TV.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : The death match stuff, that got Cactus into the game, perhaps, but the sit-down interview with Jim Ross, th-that actually got him into the end zone.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : The Jim Ross thing really touched base 'cause that was something that... you know, I remember watching it. And, to me, it was like, when they showed his senior-year picture, that... that looks like anybody.

  Self - Host : Yeah.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : Yeah. And now we've got... we-we've got this... this heap of humanity that's pulling his hair out. I mean, like, what torturous life has this soul had?

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I'm not sure I've ever been that on as I was that night as I brought this character to life and created an enormous amount of empathy just by being 100% honest.

  Beth Phoenix - WWE Hall of Famer : We got to know Mrs. Foley's baby boy. We got to know... we got to see the home footage of Mick jumping off his garage onto a mattress. And all of us were doing the same thing off of our couches, you know?

  Paul Heyman - WWE Manager : It felt intimate, and it struck a chord, and it endeared Mick Foley to a worldwide audience.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : We can be a line of work that everyone knows is entertainment, but you can still connect and-and-and be a character that resonates with people where they go, "I understand that. I get that."

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Once he started breaking out of that shell of the original Mankind character, he was different than everybody else because he was a lot more like the people watching than everybody else in the ring with him.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : As soon as I did these interviews, without actually turning in a classic way, I didn't apologize for my misgivings, I was just the same guy, and every single week, more and more people were cheering me. I don't think a change has ever come about that organically.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : He didn't fit, but he made himself fit. And it makes for a great rivalry when you have someone who doesn't fit against the most "I fit" guy there is in a Triple H.

• Beth Phoenix - WWE Hall of Famer : The best rivalries across history involve a protagonist and an antagonist. That-that's what we understand more than anything.

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : Foley was one of these guys that once you give your body for so long, fans start appreciating you.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : [a clip is shown of him winning the match]  I think it was important for him to go out in the biggest way possible. For me, the fact that he was willing to do that for me on the way out was incredible and something that I can never forget.

  Becky Lynch - WWE Superstar : I remembered just being in tears, in tears at the thought that that was the last Mick Foley match that we were gonna see in WWE.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I turn around, and it's the classic blood, sweat, and tears. It's there on my face, plain as day. Blood mixed with sweat, tear in my eye. Triple H allowed me to ride off into the sunset with my head held high. He allowed me the type of exit that, uh, you know, most people can only dream about. I went to a much nicer hotel than I otherwise would have stayed in, had a nice room service meal. Sat on my bed and cried like a baby, because it was over.

  Self - Host : He felt like one of us by the time that story was done, and everybody loved him. And it was heartbreaking to see him go. And the respect that he earned comes out in that moment more than any because we know it's the last time. It's that final standing ovation. And so that's how I'm gonna remember this rivalry from now on.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : There's a time, I feel like, for every fan of wrestling when they finally, "That's my guy. That's my girl. That's... I-I gotta watch this." And that was for me for when I really went all-in on Triple H. Hunter did look the part, did work the part. But if he didn't have someone to beat the piss out of, if he didn't have somebody to sell, sell Triple H, and it's not Triple H to do that. It's the opponent. If he didn't have that, it doesn't work. And Mick's humanization and all that doesn't come out unless he's got a bully.

• Self - Host : [discussing the evolution of Triple H's character]  What was that moment like watching the transformation to the promo of "I am the Game," which is what we all know him as today, the modern fan, anyway?

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : There is the difference between just a wrestling promo and, I guess, a piece of art. There's a lot of good wrestling promos, and then there's things that you don't ever forget.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Especially as a bad guy, your "why" has to carry some believability and some reality to it, even if it's warped. There's gotta be truth in there. And to be able to sit down and have that kind of interview where you can emote that passion, you know, it's-it's a mission statement.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : When it's real, it's hard to beat. It's hard to top. And-and veering that way always is... is the best, and it worked out incredibly for Triple H.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Didn't plan it ahead of time, it just came out. But the next week when I walked out, I would start seeing signs everywhere. So you do something that clicks, you run with it.

  [clips of him beating Mankind for the title are shown] 

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : The guys inside the business will joke about it, like there's a moment when you win that title for the first time where it's all real. And you sort of get that feeling, which was, you know, certainly a validation level of reaching the top. I was determined, 'cause I wanted to be the most hated guy there'd ever been.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : He's on the precipice of greatness, but he still hadn't had that one decisive moment. A signal to everyone watching, this is someone to be reckoned with.

• Self - Host : Triple H versus Mick Foley, a man of many faces. We know him as Dude Love, we know him as Cactus Jack, we know him as Mankind, and he even gave us the pleasure in this rivalry of giving us all three characters at once. Can the blueblood Triple H be as tough as Mick Foley?