slabinski611 Posted October 13, 2013 Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 I'm sure Foley has been discussed to death but I would like some things cleared up for me and maybe it will gather some conversation on the time frame. Vince was never interested in acknowledging someones' background. He always liked for the wwf to exist in its own world. Here are some talking points I will give. 1. What led to the sit down interview with Jim Ross and why did Vince decide to go into Foley's background with other promotions the way he did. What did you think about that at the time. 2. What did you think of the Dude Love character and what was your reaction to the debut of the character with the tag title match. 3. What was your reaction to see them use the Cactus Jack character considering Vince didn't like using gimmicks that were someone else's idea. Also, while it may be beating a dead horse, I didn't have internet access until late 1999 so I have one more question that I am sure must have been covered a ton but... 4. What were the reactions at the time to the KOTR98/Rumble 99 matches. I ordered both of those ppvs at the time. I thought both cage bumps were planned as UT wouldn't just do that but I thought Vince coming out was legit concern and the stretcher was legit until he got up. As for the I Quit match, even before I seen beyond the mat, I thought those chair shots were ugly looking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted October 13, 2013 Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 Vince was never interested in acknowledging someones' background. He always liked for the wwf to exist in its own world. Here are some talking points I will give. 1. What led to the sit down interview with Jim Ross and why did Vince decide to go into Foley's background with other promotions the way he did. What did you think about that at the time. The Mankind sit down interviews were done, because it worked so well with Goldust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted October 13, 2013 Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 Mick pulling off his multiple gimmicks was a pretty neat thing I don't think anyone else has done before or since. The only downside I can think of is that it almost made having multiple personalities a gimmick in and of itself, though it never went to Flair-in-an-asylum levels. Those chair shots in the "I Quit" match are all the more disturbing to watch now because of the awareness raised of head injuries. Funnily enough, Mick said on his Twitter last night that he just watched the PBS documentary on the NFL and gave Chris Nowinski his kudos for his continued work into these issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 Vince was never interested in acknowledging someones' background. He always liked for the wwf to exist in its own world. Here are some talking points I will give. 1. What led to the sit down interview with Jim Ross and why did Vince decide to go into Foley's background with other promotions the way he did. What did you think about that at the time. The Mankind sit down interviews were done, because it worked so well with Goldust. Also, Vince was getting his ass handed to him by WCW at the time and was very open to trying new things that weren't in his playbook. 97 is also the year they used ECW on RAW, brought in luchadores and minis from AAA, brought in Sasuka and TAKA and a bunch of other "this would never happen if Vince was in the lead" type of deals. I don't remember exactly when he let Jim Cornette go out there and cut shoot promos, but it wasn't too long after the Foley stuff 2. I thought it was brilliant at the time. "The Three Faces of Foley" was a great gimmick, and it actually made sense. Mick's crazy, and he'd been all 3 of the characters at one point. Depending on what mood he was in that day that's the guy that would show up. I loved it, it got really over, and the Dude was a funny character. 3. I was a huge Cactus Jack fan from his time in WCW, so I was thrilled they brought the character back. The pop when Mick first showed up as Cactus was HUGE and a total surprise. As far as Vince not creating the character, it didn't matter, he created Mankind and Mankind was still treated as the "base" Foley character 4. I watched both of those matches live, and I was 17-18 yrs old at the time. I loved them. The Cell match was just about the craziest shit I'd ever witnessed, I could not believe what I was seeing, and I'm sure I was jumping out of my chair hurling expletives for the duration. The Rumble match was brutal, and the Foley-Rock program was really hot......I fucking hated Rock that night, but I loved the match. When you're a 17-18 yr old wrestling fan, I was a junior in high school at the time of that match, you're not thinking about concussions or long term health consequences, at least I wasn't. I knew that it was brutal and ridiculous the number of times and how hard he was getting whacked, but I probably thought, "it's Foley, he knows what he's doing and he's the toughest SOB around". It wasn't until all the stuff came out after about how fucked up Foley was from that that I really soured on the match. And let's be honest, in 1999 in wrestling and sports and society in general brain injuries and blows to the head were not treated the way they are now. Totally different era we're in now when it comes to that stuff. As for the Cell......I still love that match. It's so f'n batshit insane and violent and brilliant.....if Foley had to destroy his body, that was the way to do it. It's an amazing spectacle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 Has Foley ever talked about how he felt after the HIAC match with HHH in 2000? While he did take that dumb throwaway bump off the side of the cage earlier on, they gimmicked the ring for the finish and I've always wondered just how "safe" it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fakeplastictrees Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 At the time I thought all of it was cool. The Mankind interview was great and something WWE did really well to EXPLAIN the two most bizarre characters in WWE at the time. It was ingenious as it was designed to turn them both face. The Dude Love debut is still one of my favorite things to watch on Youtube (granted, I do not watch it everyday but I have seen it at least twice in the last 8 months). It all worked and I thought it all progressed in an interesting way and logical way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidebottom Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 The Dude Love debut was indeed great, it should come up more often in the conversation of great debuts. In context, you had Mankind for weeks lobbying to be Austin's tag parter and the fans wanted to see it. When the Dude came down and won the match with Austin, it was a true feel good moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efrim Posted October 17, 2013 Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 Really it speaks so well of Foley that both the "debuts" of Dude Love and Cactus Jack were such perfectly executed moments. I remember reading about the Cactus death matches and watching some of his run in ECW and just being hyped to the point of near heart attack when he came out on Raw. There was a wonderfully lurid spread in WWF magazine about Cactus Jack in Japan well before his WWF debut. That combined with the JR interview laid some perfect groundwork for me to think of Cactus as this mythic figure prior to his debut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted October 17, 2013 Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 The debut of Cactus Jack in the WWF was so perfect because you'd had Mankind, who at this point was going through a character change and more vulnerable and less of a monster than originally presented as, getting beat 2 on 1 by HHH and Chyna. Then wildman Cactus Jack shows up to even the score and pick up the ball for the weakened Mankind/Dude Love. It was brilliant, and I don't know if anyone but Foley could have pulled that off It's really annoying how HHH doesn't give Foley credit for getting him over these days. This program in 97, and Foley bringing back Cactus Jack to put him over in early 2000 were both huge in establishing HHH as legit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradhindsight Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 The debut of Cactus Jack in the WWF was so perfect because you'd had Mankind, who at this point was going through a character change and more vulnerable and less of a monster than originally presented as, getting beat 2 on 1 by HHH and Chyna. Then wildman Cactus Jack shows up to even the score and pick up the ball for the weakened Mankind/Dude Love. It was brilliant, and I don't know if anyone but Foley could have pulled that off It's really annoying how HHH doesn't give Foley credit for getting him over these days. This program in 97, and Foley bringing back Cactus Jack to put him over in early 2000 were both huge in establishing HHH as legit. Interestingly enough, on his new DVD HHH does mention the Foley stuff from 1997. They either cut (for time reasons) out or he ignored the 2000 stuff. He talked about how they both helped get each other over in '97 with that long-running feud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 He talked about how they both helped get each other over in '97 with that long-running feud. Holy shit. Mankind was already over like a mother when he was main eventing against Michaels in 96 and during his feud with Taker. Helped *each other* get over, for fuck sake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradhindsight Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 He talked about how they both helped get each other over in '97 with that long-running feud. Holy shit. Mankind was already over like a mother when he was main eventing against Michaels in 96 and during his feud with Taker. Helped *each other* get over, for fuck sake. The context may have been more about a push towards the main event, although Mick talks about how they pushed each other also. Definitely agree that Mick had a leg up going into that feud (but it was pretty good nonetheless). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigelow34 Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 I did not like Dude Love initially because I really wanted him to be Cactus Jack, but the Dude quickly won me over. Once I got on board with it, I really grew to appreciate the talent he had to make all three work as well as they did and seem like completely different entities. His debut was a perfect payoff to the build, with Austin finally accepting him as his partner and Dude being "cool". Funk made a good point above about how 1997 was completely abnormal for Vince because he was so desperate and was chucking anything and everything at the wall, hoping something would stick and be successful. It was a surreal year to watch unfold live because every week was completely different outside of the big angles. Late 1997 was even more jarring as things just got ramped up and there was tons of anger, shoot comments and blurred heel/face lines after Summerslam. The Cornette stuff started in October, I think. I remember one of his first rants was about Age in the Cage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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