Today is the anniversary of the incredible Hell in the Cell match between Mankind and The Undertaker, which took place during the King of the Ring PPV event on the 28th June 1998 at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Rightfully so, neither man should have survived this match. Sure critics of the wacky world of wrestling will cry out "but wrastlin' is straight up fakery, yo", but those people clearly have not yet witnessed this most infamous of matches. Things were off to a sketchy start even before both men climbed atop the cage, as The Undertaker was wrestling with a broken foot that night, which you don't want supporting your 136kg person when standing almost 7 metres off the cold hard ground, meanwhile Mankind/Mick Foley had to worry about the scheduled mayhem that was to transpire that night, mayhem that led the Undertaker to say "Mick, do you want to die?" when hearing the plans for the match prior to the event.
Regardless though, both men climbed the cage, and as planned, The Undertaker threw Foley off the cage and onto the Spanish commentator's table below at about 6.7m of distance when including the angle of the throw, which he promptly smashed through. This also led to the famous JR line "As God as my witness, he is broken in half!", as the commentator, as well as most of the staff who had just witnessed the stunt, assumed Foley was dead. After carrying Foley away on a stretcher with just bruising and a dislocated shoulder to worry about, Foley then leapt from the stretcher as he reached the midpoint of the ramp, and continued the match.
Back on top of the cage, the fighting continued, and unbeknown to most, the cage was starting to give way. Allegedly the prop guy had intended to lessen the structural integrity of the cage so the fight SEEMED more dangerous than it was, however he had done too good a job, which meant metal fasteners were falling loose and causing the roof of the cage to sag noticeably. Then, when Undertaker delivered a choke slam to Foley, the cage finally gave way, resulting in Foley plummeting to the hard canvas below, head first. This led to further iconic JR and Lawler commentary, including"Good God...Good God! Will somebody stop the damn match? Enough's enough!" and "That's it. He's dead."
Miraculously however, Foley was not dead, but he was very, very fuckin' lucky. Foley would later state that he hadn't actually landed the slam properly due to exhaustion, and if he had landed it properly, he would definitely have been killed by the fall. Atop the cage The Undertaker was sure he had just seen Foley legitimately fall to his death from the unplanned fall, however he managed to stay in character and see how the situation played out. Foley had been knocked unconscious upon impact, which worried staff at the ringside who noted him laying motionless with "dead eyes" until he came round.
Famously, after being seen to by personnel who wanted to ensure Foley was in fact alive, camera crews zoomed in on Foley's face, prompting him to smile to the folks at home, revealing the severity of his injuries - his mouth and lips were oozing with blood, and a tooth had become lodged in his nose after being knocked out of his mouth when he landed on the a chair that fell through the cage with him, which had also dislocated his jaw. Undertaker would later explain how he had initially been stood on the panel that Foley had fallen through, but had moved at the last moment in order to perform the choke slam - chances are that if he had fallen through the cage along with Foley, the injuries could have been far worse.
Amazingly, despite his body being absolutely fucked by the events that had transpired, Foley not only continued the match, but he stuck to the plan and spread thumbtacks all over the ring for Undertaker to chokeslam him onto, only furthering his injuries. Shortly after Undertaker delivered the Tombstone scheduled to end the match, and it was all over.
The match went down in history as one of the most famous wrestling matches of all time, and one of the greatest matches of both men's careers, even leading to a standing ovation from the crowd upon its completion. Foley has said that he can't remember anything about the match due to his concussion, and he actually had to re-watch a taped copy to see how it all went down. For all its legendary status though the match has also garnered controversy for how dangerously high it set the bar for other wrestlers and matches, and in 2014 Foley acknowledged that in the WWE's more family-friendly orientation of current years, the match would have been called off after the first fall onto the commentator table.
Following the match and a tearful conversation with his wife on the phone, the event almost resulted in Foley retiring from professional wrestling, though in the end he opted to continue - just with, y'know, less cage falls. The story also goes that following the match backstage, Vince McMahon, who himself had broken character during the match when he was genuinely concerned for Foley's well-being as he was being carried out after the first fall, had said to Foley "You have no idea how much I appreciate what you have just done for this company, but I never want to see anything like that again." Foley had then turned to Undertaker, still delirious from his injuries, and asked "Did I use the thumbtacks?", to which Undertaker replied "Look at your arm, Mick!", which Foley did, and realised he still had a number of them lodged in his arm.
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