June 28th marks the 25th anniversary of Mick Foley’s iconic match with The Undertaker inside the Hell In A Cell structure.
Foley and ‘Taker fought inside the steel structure at King Of The Ring 1998 on June 28, 1998. During the match, Foley took two of the most famous bumps in the history of professional wrestling when The Undertaker threw him off the top of the cell through the announce table. Foley then climbed back up only to be chokeslammed again through the ceiling to the ring.
On the latest edition of his “Foley is Pod” show, Foley revealed the original plan for the second bump.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the original plan for the cagetop bump: “The idea was that Undertaker, this is the big visual I was looking for, Undertaker’s going to chokeslam me, and a corner of that cell, of that panel, would just give way. And he’s eventually going to stuff me down, headfirst. So the visual I thought was ‘I’m going to be upside down, flailing my arms around, and eventually he’ll let go of my knees, where he’d be kind of holding me, and I would just have to take my own bump into the ring, just doing a semi-turn. It would be a big height, but I thought I could do it. And it was only during the course of the day that I said ‘Hey, how about you throw me off the top of that thing?’ going back to what Terry Funk said.”
While the table spot went off without a hitch, the chokeslam spot would deviate from the original plan, with Foley stating he believed Undertaker would have to chokeslam him several times before the mesh would give way, leading to Undertaker dropping him into the ring. Instead, the first chokeslam sent Foley through the cell, leading to a hard landing in the ring, as well as a chair atop the cell falling on his face, knocking several teeth out. As Foley tells it, it was not till he and Undertaker got atop the cell did they realize that it wasn’t as structurally sound as expected, being held together with twist ties and zip ties. Foley now recalls seeing those things breaking apart as he and Undertaker battled atop the cell, prior to his flight off.
On realizing that the cell wasn’t as sound as they thought: “We can actually see these little things … shooting off the cell. And I remember thinking ‘I don’t know there being twist ties in that match with the Undertaker and Shawn.’ At first, I thought ‘I’m like 70, 80 lbs heavier than Shawn, but that shouldn’t be enough for this thing to be giving way.’ There’s this moment where I attempt to … suplex the Undertaker on top on the cell, and brother, he shot that s**t down in a hurry. Just cut me off, and the next thing I know, I’m taking flight. He just said ‘Are you ready?’ I said ‘Yup.’ And off we went.”
