Mick Foley Discusses His Early Career, Royal Rumble, Dolph Ziggler & More
Mick Foley was recently interviewed on The Slam and discussed a plethora of topics. Topics included; his early run in WWE, who he's interested in wrestling, this year's Royal Rumble and much more. Here are some of the highlights:
On the WWE's incredible rise during the 1990's: "People ask me, 'Who was the best opponent and what were the best matches?' I always bring up 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's name and I point to the times I wrestled him as Mankind. He was the good guy, I was the bad guy. And I had never even dreamt that wrestling or sports entertainment could be so popular and that someone within the industry could be so popular — though, a good argument can be made that Hulk Hogan was like Stone Cold was in the mid-80's and was at that level — certainly no one in my era. All of a sudden, I'm wrestling him and the reactions were so much bigger than I ever received that it kind of created the false perception in my mind that I was really, really good. 'Listen to these reactions! I'm really good!'
"But, things took off and they got bigger than we would have dreamed. That brings along it's own hurdles."
On the similarities between wrestling and comedy: "To me, it's the closest parallel there can be. I can't think of another business as similar to wrestling as stand-up comedy. Especially in the sense that — I mean, I'm starting out [but] I'm afforded some of the trappings. I kind of get to cut towards the front of the line. But what I like is that we've got great — I feel funny even saying support acts because having [the host] and Brendon Burns on the same night and to have Chris Brooker as a compare and to have, you know, 'Here's you're headliner, who was 27 shows to his credit.'
"I am able to jump to the front of the line, but it's the same in the sense that every show is different, you try to learn from your mistakes. You know, I sit down and I try to analyze it and think about it in the same way that I used to with pro wrestling. You wonder why something that works so well one night doesn't work the next night. Whether it was; you, the delivery, the timing. Or whether it was [the audience]."
On being in the 2012 Royal Rumble: "You know what? I was torned emotionally because everyone wants to say that their last match was a great match and I had the comfort of knowing that the match I had with Ric Flair in October of 2009 or 2010 was a really, really good match. I'm not going to have a better match after that. It's not likely that I will.
"But at the same time, I realized that if I'm going back to WWE, there's going to be that occasion. Like, the chance of getting out of this time period — however long it turns out to be — without having a match is just probably not going to happen. Somewhere along the line, it's going to happen. So I wrote am e-mail and just said, 'Look, no one man can ruin the Royal Rumble like...'" [Laughs.]
On who he'd most want to work with now: "(Dolph) Ziggler. I don't think I'll ever get to where I can physically... Unfortunately, it's not 2006 anymore."
Foley also discussed; standing up for John Cena, the difficulties of staying at the top and more.
You can watch the entire interview below.