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00:00Hell is in Pittsburgh tonight, in this match.
00:04On June 28, 1998, at WWF's King of the Ring pay-per-view,
00:10one match would earn its place as one of the most shocking in wrestling history.
00:14Undertaker versus Mankind in Hell in a Cell.
00:17Hell in a Cell hits you like a mallet to the consciousness.
00:21Uh-oh, here we go.
00:22I knew it's gonna be crazy, but I didn't know it was gonna be that crazy.
00:25Look at this, it broke through.
00:28You had two talents out there that liked to really push that envelope
00:32until it fell over the edge.
00:37Oh, wrestling's fake. You can't fake gravity.
00:41I've been frightened by a lot of things in pro wrestling.
00:43Nothing frightened me as much as that did.
00:45Until later on in the match, anyway.
00:50What left fans stunned was the unrelenting punishment Mick Foley endured.
00:55Until you saw it, you didn't believe
00:57that a person could physically do this and live.
01:00No!
01:02This match was real.
01:04The pain was real.
01:05The drama was real.
01:06I was cursing and screaming and calling him an effin' idiot.
01:12Why are you doing this?
01:14One of wrestling's most infamous matches,
01:17Hell in a Cell's legacy persists as both an epic success and a cautionary tale.
01:22I think we dodged bullets that day. Not just one, but several.
01:25It's really crazy to think that they would allow someone to go unconscious and then just
01:31continue the match.
01:32The collateral damage that ensued is another story.
01:36When does it stop? When's it enough?
01:38You pay all day long for the decisions you make in your 15 minutes in the spotlight.
01:44It was a dangerously crazy masterpiece, but all of us need to ask ourselves the question,
01:50was it worth it?
02:00Hi!
02:00More of us be 50, 60, 70 feet in the air!
02:03We're doing more!
02:04Everyone who gets into wrestling is looking for something that they find missing in their own lives.
02:16For me, I mean, I was teased a lot, so I had an overwhelming need to be liked.
02:24And to take that WWF championship belt.
02:28For example, I remember being in college as a sophomore.
02:31I took a swig of red food coloring and I did a superfly leap off a bed onto a stuffed animal
02:39on a concrete floor. And when I hit the floor, I spit that blood concoction out.
02:46Everybody in the dorm was there watching.
02:48And I heard one of the girls yell out,
02:51that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. And I felt that power.
02:56So I thought, if I can't make people love me, perhaps I can disgust them.
03:00I just needed to get reactions.
03:04My name is Mick Foley. I am known as the hardcore legend and I survived Hell in a Cell.
03:12I think Hell in a Cell is a perfect gateway.
03:16So many people have said, that's the first match I was shown and now I'm a huge fan.
03:20And my follow-up question is always like, did you expect all the matches to be like that?
03:25It's like, because they're not.
03:31A normal Mick Foley match is quite hardcore, brutal, probably blood,
03:39Bump tacks, fire, barbed wire, getting exploded by C4 explosives in Japan.
03:53We're getting speared through a table of fire, taking like bumps on the concrete.
03:57Oh God, right out of the concrete!
03:59I mean, he just put his body through so much.
04:02I'm Mick Foley and my dad is the hardcore legend Mick Foley.
04:06I think he just really loves getting like an, oh my God, or gross, or nasty type of pop.
04:13Oh my God!
04:14I'm Noelle Foley and I'm the daughter of Mick Foley.
04:17Realism was a big tool. I didn't think I was having a good match unless I had trouble getting
04:23back to my hotel room. I did not enjoy the pain. I enjoyed the fact that I could take it and sell
04:30it in a way that was fun. Oh no! Oh my God! He's hung himself in the rope!
04:36I just had to really ask myself, do I want to get mixed up with this?
04:41I'm Colette Foley and I've known Mick Foley for over 35 years. When I met Mick, I noticed his eyes.
04:53I noticed that he was a gentle, nice person, but his corny jokes and terrible humor. That's what
05:03really made me fall in love with him. Our wedding song was actually Beauty and the Beast.
05:09We were a good team. She understood. She understood my commitment. Like, she really did.
05:16When that adrenaline was pumping, he just wanted people to leave talking about how great a show
05:24it was at his own risk. And that was his drive to keep going and get more crazy along the way.
05:34He developed a personality called Cactus Jack. You can't stop Cactus Jack!
05:39He was a wild and crazy guy. You thought he might be insane. Are you kidding me?
05:44He had charisma. You couldn't take your eyes off this guy. He was different. He was unusual.
05:50I'm Jim Cornette. And at the time of the Hell in a Cell match, I was working as an agent and a
05:55producer for the WWF. Mick was excellent with psychology in his matches. He knew that the fans
06:02liked people that were out of control. Someone who was going against the script.
06:10He could take those people on that ride with him and elicit the response that he wanted to get.
06:16Then the attention would be on him and his reputation would grow. Our bedroom furniture
06:25consisted of a mattress on the floor with a black and white television with a VCR that barely worked.
06:31And in that VCR, it was Japanese wrestling tapes. I would sometimes watch 12 hours of Japanese
06:41wrestling a day. I liked the realism, the storytelling. It's not just man versus man. You have to defeat the
06:49surroundings, you know? I thought Japan was likely to be where I made my living. They were looking for
06:57a foreigner who could feud with Terry Funk. Terry Funk was the greatest of all time for his ability to make
07:06people suspend disbelief in a second. Terry Funk became somewhat of a mentor to Mick. And they started
07:18working together in these explosive, bloody, violent, fiery death matches in Japan.
07:29I was always drawn to the wild stuff. So I would literally be on my hands and knees. And I thought
07:34that was proof that I had done something special. This is a place I can make myself stand out.
07:40So I never saw myself being a WWE guy. In WWF at the time, it wasn't a PG era. It was a G-rated era.
07:51Very bland. And for someone like Mick, his style didn't really gel
07:58He's being choked out with what WWF was selling. My name is Al Snow. I'm a former WWE superstar.
08:07I was Mick Foley's travel partner and dare I say probably his best friend. Probably his only friend.
08:16I'm just kidding. Vince McMahon did not want Mick Foley. Didn't think that he was marketable.
08:22Didn't think he was attractive. How I convinced McMahon to hire Mick was to give me a chance
08:31on my observations of talent. Because I see something in this guy. I'm Jim Ross. And at the time of the
08:38Hell in a Cell, I was vice president of talent relations. I needed to make sure that we had
08:44dancing partners for the top guys. Undertaker was one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling.
08:50Long live The Undertaker! Vince kept trying to go with giants to face The Undertaker,
08:56which was boring and dull. What you needed was a lunatic. I'd heard a story about Vince slamming his
09:04hand down on the table and said, all right, I'll bring him in. But I'm covering up his face.
09:10We don't know who he is. We don't know nothing about him. Well, he's nobody. He's nothing.
09:14That's Vince's perception of Mick Foley. Hey, everybody. I'm Gerald Briscoe,
09:19better known as Jerry Briscoe, WWE Hall of Famer and Chickasaw Nation Hall of Famer.
09:25Vince was like, man, it was like, okay, now you guys go and build a character around nothing.
09:29So we come down to mankind. What the hell is mankind?
09:35Here he comes, mankind.
09:37This bogus bullshit wouldn't have worked with anybody but Mick Foley.
09:43He's pulling his own hair out. Without a connection to the audience,
09:46without character, everything else is meaningless. I think fans can sense the commitment.
09:52My goal for Mick was that he was going to be a great opponent for The Undertaker.
09:57He was willing to try anything. As my granny would say,
10:01he didn't turn nothing down but the covers. So now I've got this big challenge to not let him kill
10:09himself. The Undertaker and I were laying quite a foundation. Seven pay-per-view matches,
10:16ten TV matches. We've been around the globe together. But my character had kind of plateaued.
10:25I knew I had to do something, something that would add to instead of detract from our legacy.
10:32For 1998's King of the Ring pay-per-view, WWF producers planned to reignite the
10:38mankind Undertaker feud with a recently developed concept, Hell in a Cell.
10:44The way that they did cage matches in the WWF was you had to either get out by either climbing
10:50over the cage or leaving through the door. I asked Vince McMahon, I said, what about if this cage match
10:56is different? What about if we put a roof on the cage? Both go in, only one's coming out. And that's
11:04where we came up with Hell in a Cell. Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had the first Hell in a Cell,
11:10and it was a mile marker. Well, the Michaels-Undertaker match, technically, to me, it's still the best one.
11:20I just looked at this match open-jawed. I literally can't do any of the things that these guys are doing.
11:27Shawn Michaels! Some nine months later, they're going to do it again, this time The Undertaker and
11:33Mankind. And then I asked Terry Funk, what are we going to do? And he started laughing. He went,
11:41you know, what would be funny is, what if you actually started the match on top of the cell?
11:46And what if you were thrown off? He's saying it as a joke. He stopped laughing,
11:51and I looked at them, and I said, I think I can do that. I could not get the idea out of my head.
11:58I pitched The Undertaker and Mr. McMahon the idea of being thrown off into a casual conversation.
12:05It was a great cell job. I wasn't on board, really, for throwing Mick off the cell. And,
12:13you know, he was dead set. And then, you know, we got that on board with him. And I was like,
12:18okay. I was not looking at this match as like a second act in my career. I was just looking at it
12:26as a way to try to keep my head above water. I thought, when this run is done, I am too.
12:33Did you know going into this, what Mick had planned? Yes. He told me the high spots,
12:41that he was going to be all right. Welcome, everybody, to the King of the Ring!
12:46If he can see it, he can do it. And I trust that.
12:51We have only seen one Hell in a Cell matchup in WWF history. And it was the most unbelievable match
12:56that I think I've ever witnessed, JR. I remember specifically thinking to myself,
13:01I need to come out with everything I've got, just eyes on the prize.
13:06This match has so much riding on it, JR, that the loser may not even stop at the hospital.
13:11Ah. They may go straight to the morgue.
13:14There's that old saying, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
13:19Oh, man!
13:21They've got it already! They've got it already!
13:23Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is the Hell in a Cell match!
13:32On June 28, 1998, at Pittsburgh Civic Arena, a packed house eagerly awaits the Hell in a Cell showdown
13:40between Undertaker and Mankind.
13:42Yeah, you've got to imagine the pressure that Mick's probably feeling as he's walking to the ring,
13:48you know, knowing that the last time an audience saw this match, it was Shawn and Taker.
13:56Knowing that he's got to outdo that.
13:57Poor Mick, he's not exactly the most nimble guy in the world, either.
14:02My name is Jimmy Corderas. At the time of Hell in a Cell, I was part of the ring crew and also a referee.
14:08I was backstage watching on the monitors, and Gerald Briscoe was the one who produces there.
14:14I had the best seat in the house, sat right in front of about 10 monitors watching everything.
14:20So you were like basically sitting in the captain's seat during Hell in a Cell?
14:24I was the pilot, baby.
14:26This is probably the first time in 20 years that I've watched this match.
14:30No one knew what to anticipate, and I don't think anyone could have ever imagined what they were going to see.
14:37Hello again, everybody. I'm Jim Ross, alongside Jerry the King Lawler.
14:41I was as much in the dark as a fan watching at home.
14:45I did want to start the match in a way nobody had ever started a match before,
14:49and to do something no one had ever done.
14:51Let's do that tear on top of the cage.
14:54What is he doing?
14:56Mankind is climbing.
14:58I think there's a little bit of shock on everybody's face.
15:01Like, he's going up now? He's going up at the beginning of the match?
15:05He's supposed to start out inside the cage, isn't he?
15:07What next?
15:09He's not very logical. I mean, he needs therapy.
15:12I had not been on top of the cell. I assured Mr. McMahon and the Undertaker,
15:17oh, yeah, I've been up there. It's fine. But the truth is, when I got up there,
15:20I was terrified. I'm actually not good with heights.
15:23Whoa, it's totally dark in here. He may fall off that cell.
15:27The entire time The Undertaker's music is playing, I'm thinking to myself,
15:32how can I gracefully climb down this cell without ruining my career?
15:39Wait a minute. Do you think he's daring The Undertaker to start this match up there?
15:44I thought it was a hell of a way to start.
15:46Apparently, the Hell in a Cell match is officially underway.
15:50It created a theater of the mind that one could not get past.
15:56Something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
16:00They had attached the top section of the cage with zip ties.
16:05But there's 600 pounds of human beings up there.
16:11The Undertaker and I all take a step, and that mesh goes down by about a foot.
16:15Oh, my gosh. Look at this. It broke through.
16:18And I literally hear zip ties springing.
16:21Boom.
16:22They're destroying the hell in the cell.
16:24When those zip ties were popping off, I thought, oh, boy, this is not good.
16:29I attempt to suplex The Undertaker on top of that mesh.
16:33He cut that off, knowing that, you know,
16:36there was a decent chance we were both going to go through it.
16:40They're throwing punches, and they got towards the edge of the cage
16:43where the announce tables were.
16:45I thought when they got close to the edge, there's just no way in hell
16:48that Nick's going to take a tumble off the top of the cage.
16:51That's too dangerous. That's too iffy.
16:55There's very little margin for error.
16:58I look at this incredibly small table, like a little dollhouse.
17:04I don't know how in the world it's going to work out.
17:07It's going to run a bell, folks, and I don't lock it a damn bit.
17:11And lo and behold, the closer they got to the edge of the cage,
17:14the more I became convinced that something big is going to happen here momentarily.
17:19And it did.
17:19Then all of a sudden,
17:25whew.
17:30Here's Jim Ross, and here's Jerry Lawler, as well as the Spanish announcers.
17:34And they're looking up, and a 300-pound human being is flung at them from almost 20 feet above them.
17:43And he's coming at them fast.
17:45As strange as it sounds, it felt like it was going by in slow motion.
17:49It also went by in the blink of an eye.
17:57All of a sudden, you hear this.
17:59God, it just crashed.
18:01Oh, my God.
18:05Holy shit, did we just see what we thought we saw?
18:08The sound of Nick going through the announcer table was scary as hell.
18:12Everyone that was in the back, we just exploded in concern.
18:17Look at that. Look at this.
18:18Give me a break.
18:19It was like witnessing a car accident.
18:23Uya Will thought he was dead.
18:25We need doctors out here.
18:27Folks, we apologize. This match has stopped.
18:29Dead in his tracks.
18:30In a business filled with crazy, strange things, nobody had ever tried to do something like this before.
18:37It blew everybody's mind.
18:41And I thought, my God, this is over.
18:43There's no way he's going to get back up.
18:44There was an audible gasp where everyone went, no!
18:55We had two young children at the time, and they didn't know what to think of it.
19:09All I kept saying was, oh, it's fake just to soothe them.
19:14Yet in the back of my mind, I'm freaking out.
19:18It's tough to know when it really, really, really is real.
19:23Someone get out of here, really!
19:25But it had to have hurt him, and it was believable.
19:29If The Undertaker threw him just a little too far or a little too short,
19:33that's falling from God knows how high onto concrete, or could have even landed on fans.
19:39The pain would come later.
19:41I'm kind of flying high on adrenaline, and I've pulled off this pretty lofty goal.
19:47I mean, going through the table could not have gone better.
19:50He saw it in his head, and in midair, he turned in such a way that he was able to land
19:57flat on that announce desk to cushion that fall and not kill him.
20:02And when it did happen, you should have heard the voices back there.
20:05Replay that.
20:07And you go into business mode where you're trying to get every great shot that you had with it.
20:11Hugo Savinovich, the Spanish commentator, bailed out of his chair instead of getting flattened.
20:17It was pretty, pretty traumatic, to be honest.
20:22Because it was my friend out there and being torn with the rule that you don't step in,
20:28you don't interfere with whatever Mick was trying to construct.
20:33The fans were literally having this guy laying at their feet.
20:38And they're looking at all the attendants and the referees.
20:41There's Terry Funk.
20:42You know, Terry Funk was the first one to get there.
20:45I asked Terry, is he conscious right there?
20:48Now we're trying to make room for Dr. Francois to get there.
20:51So I was in my medical room and suddenly I hear, right now, come right now, Mick fell from the top of the cell.
21:00And I say, what?
21:02I'm Dr. Francois Petit, aka Chien Petit.
21:04I used to be the doctor for WWF for about four and a half, five years on the road.
21:09And before that, for about eight, nine years in Los Angeles.
21:14Francois was kind of like the French army knife.
21:16Francois was a black belt in karate.
21:19He was Sub-Zero in the first Mortal Kombat movie.
21:23Probably a secret agent and, you know, investment banker.
21:28Francois was what they, I think they call them bone crackers.
21:31He could fix you. You probably wouldn't enjoy it.
21:35But he could, he could put you back in place.
21:40No matter what the malady was.
21:41Hey, ah, baby, I fix you. I fix you, baby. It'll be okay.
21:46You're gonna have to put it back mid-40, of course.
21:49He was my number one patient, if I can say something like that.
21:57Well, hell, this is not what he did.
22:00He fell on his back badly. And on top of that, on the dislocated shoulder.
22:06The EMT people have no idea how to get the gurney down there.
22:10And it turns out the gurney wouldn't fit.
22:12So now they've got to raise the cell with the undertaker on it.
22:15Is he gonna jump down here?
22:17He was put on that gurney like that was real.
22:20They were gonna take him to the hospital.
22:22We thought the damn thing was over with.
22:24I mean, what else can they do, you know?
22:26But we found out, you know?
22:28I realized that the longer I'm on there, the more fully the audience is engaged.
22:36I've never seen anything like that in my life.
22:38Well, I'm not, yeah.
22:39But, uh, I've got a feeling that I'm going to be able to continue.
22:49Everybody was trying to tell him, no, Nick, you're done. Stop.
22:52You're kidding me.
22:53How in the hell is he standing? Oh my God.
22:55What are you doing? Where are you going? Why are you doing this? Just stay down.
23:00He's got a smile on his face for God's sake.
23:04Holy shit. He's coming back for more.
23:06Are you kidding me?
23:08The entire is going back now.
23:10No way. And so is the Undertaker.
23:12No way.
23:12I'm thinking this gotta be the crazy, dumbest SOB in our business.
23:17How can he climb? How can his body?
23:19At this point, I do not know how I'm going to do this and live.
23:22But I have pledged to do it and I'm going to do it.
23:26This is absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing here.
23:31I'm thinking to myself, you're insane. You're an idiot.
23:33But at the same time that I'm thinking that, I'm thinking that was the moment
23:37that really made him a star.
23:40By then, backstage was packed because they know shit's going on.
23:45I stayed back where I was because I knew something else is going to happen. I knew.
23:49I guess at the end of the day, I'm glad that they went back up because it created another moment.
23:55It added to the storyline.
23:58But sometimes you can storyline yourself right to the hospital.
24:02The next spot in the storyline pitched by Nick Foley was far less concerned.
24:07A headbutt by the Undertaker and a right hand.
24:10At least at first.
24:12We had already agreed on the one chokeslam, which we thought would cause the mash to gradually give way.
24:19And the big visual was going to be Undertaker like stuffing me down.
24:24But that did not happen.
24:26He throws him off on the other side.
24:32And now, Houston, we got a problem.
24:34I thought that the destruction of the Foley body was well in hand.
24:46It was a completely different situation than when he got thrown off the top.
24:50You just, you just know.
24:53I'm screaming at the TV set.
24:56I am cursing.
24:58I was like trying to get the company on the phone.
25:03And I couldn't get through to anybody.
25:04I couldn't get through to anybody.
25:07How do you tell your children, oh, daddy's acting?
25:10Laying there lifeless, motionless.
25:13This was not expected at all.
25:17I thought that was the end of him.
25:25If he throws him off on the other side, there's...
25:26When he hit that solid mat...
25:35The mat doesn't do it justice.
25:41It's more like hitting the cement.
25:42As he's falling, that metal, heavy, solid, folding chair came right behind him.
25:52You could see when he lands that chair, boom, there's a chair on his face. Boom.
25:57He could have very easily died.
25:59I mean, my mom thought he was dead also.
26:02I was shocked.
26:03I was screaming.
26:04I was furious.
26:07Because I thought he betrayed me by not telling me the truth that there was another spot.
26:14There we go.
26:14Choke slam.
26:15Oh.
26:17That was the first time in his career that he had been legitimately knocked out cold.
26:21We all flooded the cage.
26:22Dr. Francois, uh, Terry Funk.
26:25The guys that went out there were thinking this might be the end.
26:28He was really not responsive at that point.
26:32I turned around and looked at Undertaker.
26:36And I said, okay, that's enough.
26:38Because I saw his eyes not answering.
26:42Man, he landed in such a funky way.
26:45I didn't know that he was going to get up.
26:48I was legit scared for what the results were going to be.
26:51The Undertaker, he looked at Terry and said, see if he's alive.
26:57Terry reports back, he's still breathing.
27:00There were so many times when I'd seen stars.
27:03But I'd never been out for more than a couple seconds.
27:06And this time, there's 42 seconds that I don't recall.
27:09Undertaker coming, stop him!
27:11Terry Funk took it into his own hands and walked up to Undertaker and said, hit me.
27:15Terry Funk trying to help Mick fall.
27:17So you could take the focus away from Mick a little bit so everybody could tend to him.
27:20Let's go!
27:21It's all ad lib.
27:22It's all at the moment.
27:28If I'd ever seen a match that should have been stopped, that was probably the one.
27:33But you just didn't do it back then.
27:36He just got choked slammed out of his shoes.
27:38We didn't stop matches.
27:39We bought time.
27:41And I needed every second that I could get.
27:45When I came to and I immediately saw Terry Funk's shoes,
27:49I then realized I'm in this match.
27:51And that's where I try to stand.
27:53How is he still standing up?
27:55I don't have a damn clue.
27:56Oh my God, he is a freaking mess.
28:01It's really crazy to think that they would allow this to happen.
28:05Just like someone go unconscious and then continue the match.
28:10As the clouds began to clear, I was all about trying to create an image for TV.
28:16I've got a massive wound underneath my lip.
28:18And if I can find a way to take my tongue, stick it through that massive wound,
28:23it's going to make for a great TV moment.
28:26Oh my.
28:27And he's smiling.
28:28There's the tooth.
28:30There's the tooth.
28:31How do you get hit in the face with a chair and it knocks your tooth out and it ends up in your nostril?
28:37One of the doctors said that it went into his throat, but because he was breathing so heavily
28:42that he had sucked it up the other way and came down through his nasal passage.
28:46What's that sticking out of his nose?
28:47Maybe a tooth?
28:48This match was real.
28:49The pain was real.
28:50The drama was real.
28:51The expressions on everybody's face were real.
28:54Real concern.
28:56You could look in his eyes and tell you there was nobody home.
28:59And I'm trying to talk to him.
29:02All he wanted to do is we've got to get to the tacks.
29:13This was their first appearance in WWE.
29:16I felt like I should be the guy to bring him over.
29:19There goes the tacks.
29:21Don't kill me.
29:22Wait a minute.
29:23No!
29:24No!
29:24No!
29:25No!
29:25And Mick's purposely rolling around to make sure he gets all the thumbtacks on him as much as possible.
29:30Hey guys!
29:31No!
29:32No!
29:33No!
29:34When the adrenaline is taking over, you don't realize the pain anymore.
29:38You're part of the pain.
29:39You're pushing so far, you don't even know you're doing it.
29:43Mick is very big about come hell or high water, whatever it is, he will see it through.
29:48And there's the pistol!
29:51Finally, the 17-minute match comes to an end with The Undertaker defeating mankind.
29:59What a spectacle it was.
30:01In that Pittsburgh Civic Arena, 16,000 people.
30:05We've never seen anything like this before.
30:09They brought the stretcher up because we thought it was needed for sure.
30:12But he waved it off, and that crowd went absolutely insane.
30:20This was real as a heart attack, and the people could tell.
30:25That puts the fans in the corner of this guy who just cannot be stopped.
30:31And that's the kind of shit that gets over.
30:33The audience has invested their time, their money, and their effort in one single thing,
30:41and that is the belief in you.
30:44He knew and understood that risking his well-being allows them to more thoroughly believe in him
30:52and the experience.
30:54Thank God this is over.
30:56We kept taking these chances, and another chance, and another chance, and for why.
31:02As long as I live, I will never forget what we just witnessed right there, folks.
31:07He would always call and check in with me, let me know that he's okay.
31:11And now here comes the one pay-per-view where she really needs to know,
31:15and there's no phone call.
31:16I had to wait and wait and wait.
31:20It made me worry, and that anger came back.
31:24And a few hours later, Mick calls me.
31:27She was screaming at me, your children thought you were dead.
31:34I think prior to the cell, she prepared by trusting that I wasn't going to do anything
31:40to jeopardize the family.
31:42After that, she became a big concern.
31:46When Mick came back through the curtain, I mean, everybody rushed up and wanted to check on him
31:57and make sure he was as okay as he could possibly be.
32:02One of the first people to greet Mick at the curtain was Vince McMahon.
32:07He said, Mick, I want to thank you for what you've done for my company,
32:10and I want you to promise me that you will never do anything like it again.
32:14And pull those thumbtacks out of him.
32:16I'm going backstage and I overheard Mick say to Taker,
32:21did we do the thumbtack spot?
32:23He doesn't realize that the doctor is just plucking him out of him right now.
32:26When you love somebody and you respect him as much as I did Mick,
32:30my first thought was, are you okay?
32:33Are you really okay?
32:34I don't think he truly anticipated how severe that was going to be like that night.
32:41I had to help him get undressed and then into bed.
32:45You know, he was, he was messed up on that one.
32:49I think it was 15 stitches underneath the lip.
32:52Lost these two teeth.
32:54I don't even know if I was treated for a concussion.
32:57I had a bruised kidney for about six weeks.
32:59My jaw was dislocated.
33:01I can't remember which shoulder was dislocated.
33:04But you know what?
33:06That match changed the way people felt about me.
33:10And that's what really sparked the career renaissance.
33:14With what you did at Hell in the Cell,
33:18now I want to publicly thank you.
33:20Going from Vince not wanting to see him in a WWF ring,
33:27to six months after that match, he was world champion.
33:30Oh, hell yeah!
33:32The reaction, the pop, the adrenaline, the rush, the more he did, the more risks he took,
33:38it made me worry.
33:39The bar kept just going up because it was never good enough.
33:43I think he felt like he had to live up to being the hardcore legend, continuing things that he probably shouldn't have.
33:52Mick at that point was about what are the limits of physical human endurance.
33:57He felt like he owed it to the guy he was working with.
34:01He owed it to the people to do something that they hadn't seen before.
34:06I remember not a scolding, but a warning.
34:12If you continue to try to do these type things, it's going to catch up with you.
34:16He understood, but he didn't agree with me.
34:21Just seven months later, Mick Foley again pushes his limits, this time in a brutal showdown with The Rock,
34:29in the infamous I Quit match.
34:31No stopping the match for excessive blood loss.
34:39I told Mick, that's a horrible idea, but he was going to do what he needed to do and what he wanted to do.
34:46I mean, he's riding the big tidal waves.
34:50Well, I also think it had something to do with my way of making it seem like everything was going to be all right.
34:56He was one of the worst days of my life.
34:58And the I Quit match is underway.
35:01I had both children with me.
35:03It was super brutal from the beginning.
35:07I got carried away with The Rock.
35:09I had told him, lay it in.
35:11Mick Foley is barely moving, and now The Rock has handcuffs.
35:14What the hell is he going to do now?
35:16He did.
35:19But instead of taking five shots, I took 11 shots.
35:27His kids were not old enough at that point to really ascertain what was fact and what was fiction.
35:36But also, in the middle of this fiction, it was a fact.
35:40He got brain damage for a fucking wrestling angle on television.
35:43So this sounds pretty bizarre, but I don't have one singular memory
35:58of my dad ever wrestling.
36:00Part of me thinks it's because it was very traumatic to me.
36:05Like, how could these 11 shots change my dad's health?
36:11Like, if you were to get 11 headshots, a normal person probably could have died.
36:18It's sickening, honestly.
36:20I really, really hate the I quit match.
36:23Mick always wanted to over-deliver.
36:26And somewhere down the road, all of us need to ask ourselves the question, was it worth it?
36:31I understood that the style I chose was going to result in great discomfort.
36:40There were so many times when I could have made a move less painful.
36:45But I chose not to because I thought it would look better.
36:50There were a handful of doctors saying that you need to stop now.
36:54If you continue wrestling, you'll wind up crippled.
36:57Do you think that stopped him?
37:00I still thought I had one good match left in me.
37:02Stay down!
37:05And so I set about trying to delay the inevitable.
37:11There were times when he should not have been wrestling.
37:15He shouldn't have been cleared.
37:18He'd drive around and not remember where he lived.
37:24It's concussion on top of concussion on top of concussion.
37:27My appointment with the WWE neurologist had not gone particularly well.
37:34So I booked an appointment independent of WWE.
37:37I'll never forget what he told me.
37:38He said, Mr. Foley, if you want to try to find another neurologist to clear you, that's up to you.
37:43But I'm telling you, you should never wrestle again.
37:48If you've pushed those physical limits like Mick has, yeah, you're definitely going to pay a price.
37:54And sadly, Mick is paying that price right now.
38:06Back then, we didn't know the long-term effects of concussions.
38:10When guys take a bump, they have an impact in the ring.
38:15Similar to experiencing a 25-mile-per-hour car accident.
38:19I can only imagine the type of pain that Mick has to live with.
38:27He's paid the price for all this fame.
38:30Mick is very special, and he's lucky he's still with us.
38:34CTE is a very scary disease.
38:38That is a long-term effect of repetitive concussions and brain trauma.
38:45We don't really know how my dad will be doing in 10, 20 years or so.
38:51If you're wondering if I'm worried about that, yeah, yeah, yeah, really worried.
38:56Every day, I worry about that.
38:59The fallout from what I've done, I honestly, I don't see a way out of it.
39:04That's one of the most respected and beloved men to ever compete in our business.
39:10But I'm going to fight it. I'm going to try to be someone who continues to get sharper as they get older.
39:17And so I have these spoken word shows.
39:20It's like mental gymnastics for my mind.
39:22And I hear the crowd chanting,
39:24Undertaker.
39:28Putting on a show, having that stimulation from people, that keeps them going.
39:34I can either appreciate what I have, or I could live in complete fear about the unknown.
39:40So I'm going to continue to enjoy myself.
39:45He lived his dream. He made his dream.
39:48He needs to feel accepted, especially around his legacy.
39:56I tell him, go, do the things you like to do, but don't push your luck.
40:02Colette knew that I was kind of my own worst enemy when I was in the ring.
40:08We dress up in wild costumes and engage in a fantasy form of combat that leaves a lot of us
40:15in worse condition than we arrived at. And we do it to earn the acceptance of total strangers.
40:25For me, it was all about three actions. The eyes lighting up, my desire to be authentic.
40:32I definitely wanted to be loved.
40:37All the sacrifices you put your physique through just for the roar of them.
40:46I like that roar.
40:48You can't say that's a fault without also admitting that it's responsible for my success.
40:54Nick Foley is known for many things. He's a multiple-time champion. He's donated time and
41:02energies to charities. But what he's known for is Hell in a Cell.
41:07For years, I really harbored some resentment for that match.
41:17Because it was the only thing that I was known for.
41:21I was in a dark place for a while. On one hand, I knew I'd done a lot in wrestling. On the other hand,
41:27I felt like I'd accomplished nothing at all.
41:31The Undertaker and I, we were reminiscing and he says, you know, Jack,
41:34what we did that night will outlive us both. That was a major step in embracing
41:40that moment. I mean, that's what I got into wrestling for, to try to create moments like that.
41:45Mankind is climbing.
41:47I think fans are going to remember him as a guy who gave his heart and soul to this business
41:53and appreciate him immensely for it. The audience is coming to be in awe.
42:00Because few people in the world can put you in awe. And those people do. This is the beauty of it.
42:06It's the beauty of it.
42:17Me and my dad, we were at the WWE warehouse and we came across the cell.
42:26My dad certainly wasn't expecting to see it. He touched it and he just
42:33started tearing up and started crying.
42:40I've never seen my dad cry. For something to make him cry must have been really important
42:51and life-changing and also probably pretty scary. Like this could have, this could have been it.
42:59I'm lucky I'm here after that. There's no reward big enough to cover that risk.
43:10We did not know nearly as much about head injuries as we do now. But I can't tell you with certainty
43:17that I would have done things different if I had known that. I felt like the world had offered me this
43:24canvas to create surreal sublime performance art. There were some bumps in the road, but it was a
43:32pretty magical way to make a living. On certain nights when things were really good, it was one of the
43:39most powerful feelings in the world.
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