Quick Links
Mick Foley is one of the most beloved superstars of all time. He was an important component of the Attitude Era and he never gets enough praise for the role he played. After years of death matches across the world, Foley ended up in WWE, and it didn’t take long for him to become a top superstar. He was never Vince McMahon’s favorite, but fans loved him as he was a charismatic personality, and he put his body through absolute hell, night in and night out.
RELATED: Mick Foley’s Most Painful Wrestling Injury Is Not What You Think
The hardcore legend was somehow immune to damage. He was often the recipient of some horrific and gruesome bump that would have sidelined a mere mortal, but Foley showed up the next day, all good, and wrestled the full schedule. He was thrown from the top of the cell at King of the Ring, and he endured a vicious, concussive assault from the Rock at The Royal Rumble.
Mick Foley Was One Of The Most Beloved Superstars In WWE & WCW
Beyond those spots, Foley wrestled in a number of hardcore matches, against the likes of Edge and Terry Funk, and he took a substantial amount of punishment in each of them. Additionally, Foley had a few trademark sequences that he would pull off occasionally.
The first one was when his opponent reversed his Irish whip into the steel steps and Foley would crash knees first into the hardware and get flipped over. The second sequence was the Nestea Plunge. Foley would stand on the apron, leap backward, and hit his head on the ground. Sometimes, he found concrete too.
When Mick Foley was wrestling in Memphis, he regularly took this bump, landing on the back of his head and also suffering damage to his shoulders and back. The pain from the Nestea Plunge was so bad that Foley stopped doing it for a while, but after wrestling for smaller promotions across the world, Mick ended up in WCW and he took the plunge once again.
At Clash of Champions X in 1990, Foley was set to wrestle Mil Mascaras. Iin his first book, Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, Mick went into detail about the match-up and the infamous fall.
Before the event, Jim Cornette, who was a commentator at that time, came up to Foley and informed him that he would be wrestling Mascaras. Foley was not pleased and he told Cornette that Mascaras sucked and that the match was going to bomb. Regardless, Foley accepted the match. At the event, he didn’t bother talking to his opponent and went out to the ring to just get the match over with.
RELATED: 10 Crazy WWE Bumps We Completely Forgot About
The match lasted for a total of five minutes and Foley was booked to lose. Towards the end of the match, Foley and Mascaras ended outside the ring and after dropping his opponent, Foley climbed the apron and got ready for an elbow drop.
Mick Foley's Nestea Plunge Goes Wrong In A WCW Match
While he was busy gesturing at the crowd, Mil got up, ran back inside the ring and surprised Foley with a drop-kick. The hardcore legend fell several feet backwards and the back of his head met the concrete with a sickening crack. It was a nasty fall as Foley had missed the padded section. For a few seconds, he laid dazed on the ground, but as usual, he got back inside the ring and finished match.
In his book, Foley noted that it was the same bump he took while wrestling in Dallas and Memphis, but Clash of Champions was a different event and many WCW fans had not seen this level of brutality. While Foley was trying to regain his wits, Cornette was losing his mind, claiming that no human being would have been to get up from that. Once he was back inside the ring, Mascaras pinned him and that was the end of it. Foley was highly critical of Mill Mascaras, but he was paid a little extra for his work during the match.
Six years after this, Mankind was at it again. At SummerSlam 1996, during a match with the Undertaker, Foley was knocked off the apron and he took the same bump, once again on concrete. During his appearance on Steve Austin’s podcast, he rated the pain a 7 out of 10. That's something, especially considering this is Mick Foley we are talking about.
