The Great Feuds – Mick Foley vs Triple H
The heart of professional wrestling is the feud, the conflict between two defined personae with a legitimate grudge and a definite chemistry together. It has always seemed strange to me that WWE, with their vast library of DVD releases, concentrate almost exclusively on two formats, those being the individual wrestler profile or pay per view re-releases. While there is nothing wrong with such DVDs (indeed, many are extremely entertaining) I have often thought that a more rewarding type of presentation would be one that recaps a particular feud, presenting in order the promos and matches that made it up. With that in mind, I hereby present the first in a series of articles concentrating on the feuds that I have particularly enjoyed over the years. For the first of these, I present a feud that, in many ways, paved the way for the business of today: Mick Foley versus Triple H.
Really two feuds, the first major series of interactions between these two came at the 1997 King of the Ring, when they clashed in the final. Triple H was finally escaping from the shadow of the “curtain call” incident of the previous year and he was also trying to make another transition. At this point, Triple H was still the Greenwich snob, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, but he had largely exhausted the possibilities of that gimmick. Acquiring the services of Chyna as bodyguard had been a first step in showing a new side to his character; this feud with Foley was to be the next step. Foley himself was now in his Mankind gimmick. Having been in the company for just over a year, he had already had a memorable feud with The Undertaker and wrestled Shawn Michaels for the World Wrestling Federation Championship in their classic Mind Games match. Still climbing the ladder, it is safe to say that he was a rung or two ahead of Helmsley at this point.
The King of the Ring Final pitted Mankind, the insane brawler, against the technical skills and underhanded methods of Helmsley. Mankind was a perfect opponent for the arrogant Connecticut blueblood character Helmsley was still portraying. Unrefined, slovenly and lacking in skill but brimful of honest courage and determination, he was the antithesis of the immaculately groomed, impeccably taught but ultimately untrustworthy snob. The match, however, showed Helmsley in a different light. The two men smashed each other in a brutal, near 20 minute affair, perhaps the highlight coming when Helmsley pedigreed his adversary on a table. When Helmsley finally won, he showed that he wasn’t done, attacking Foley again with the regalia of the King, the crown and sceptre. In later years, Hunter revealed that he had had no intention of wearing the crown, feeling that it just looked silly, so he smashed it repeatedly, both in the aftermath of the match and the next night on Raw to ensure that he wouldn’t have to wear it.
This match had shown to the audience that Hunter was more than just a cheating snob; he had gone toe to toe with Mankind in a gruelling brawl and come out on top. Chyna’s involvement in the match helped Foley stay strong in the eyes of the fans while the post-match attack ensured that the feud was just beginning, despite the fact that it had begun with a decisive victory. The stage was now set and, the following night on Raw things only escalated as Mankind demanded a rematch, only to be assaulted once again with the crown. The build-up continued until the next pay per view, where Mankind and Hunter Hearst Helmsley played their full part in one of the great WWE cards, Canadian Stampede.
Another brutal affair, this time their match ended indecisively. After a quarter of an hour of brutality, both men were counted out. Nevertheless, it didn’t end there. The two continued to fight, briefly interrupting the next match and then taking their fight to the backstage area before brawling right out onto the street! Once again, Hunter had proven to fans that he could be as tough as anybody, while Foley, as always, seemed to just keep coming back no matter what. This deeply personal issue needed something big to finish it and that finish came at Summerslam. Partly because of the constant interference by Chyna in their previous matches, the Summerslam clash was a steel cage match.
Something of a forgotten gem, this match proved the perfect ending to this two-month war. Kept inside the ring by the cage, the two men had to do things a little differently than they had in the previous matches. The cage did not prevent Chyna’s involvement, which almost proved critical when she slammed the door shut on Mankind’s head. The climax came when Foley was able to deliver a Jimmy Snuka-inspired dive from the top of the cage, nailing Helmsley and allowing Foley to climb out of the ring and finally get the victory over his cocky young rival. Afterwards, as he lay in a heap outside the ring, Foley’s foot began tapping rhythmically, which the announce team took as a sign the Foley’s Dude Love persona was reasserting itself. Before long, Foley was up and dancing as he left the arena to the Dude Love theme music.
If the feud had ended there, it would be remembered as an entertaining and well-booked affair that took two up-and-coming stars and helped both take another step towards the top. The change from Mankind to Dude Love effectively ended the feud and allowed Foley to move on to new things, while Triple H, now established as a guy who had taken his lumps and deserved his place, was able to shed the blueblood image and join Shawn Michaels in D-Generation X. Of course, it did not end there. Just one month later the two went at it again in a Falls Count Anywhere match on Raw. This match was notable because it saw the introduction of Cactus Jack to WWE, following the famous “Three faces of Foley” video promo, in which Dude Love and Mankind argued over which of them would face Triple H, only to reveal that, it would actually be Cactus Jack who took on this match. This match ended in victory for Jack after he drove Triple H through a table with a piledriver. The loss did nothing to hurt the momentum of Hunter, by now well established in DX but it was the perfect way to introduce Cactus Jack to the WWE audience ahead of the introduction of Terry Funk as Chainsaw Charlie.
After that the two men went in different directions. Foley feuded with The New Age Outlaws before getting embroiled in a major feud with The Undertaker while Triple H assisted Shawn Michaels before clashing with Owen Hart. By the time Foley won the first of his three championships, Triple H was a babyface, leading the DX army and they celebrated wildly with the new champ, their long ago rivalry apparently forgotten. However, with Triple H’s heel turn later in the year, things began to change again. Foley and Triple H were the two contenders to Stone Cold Steve Austin’s championship at Summerslam 1999. Lacking the brutality of their previous affairs, given that Foley was now in the gentler, comedy incarnation of Mankind, this was nevertheless an entertaining match which saw Foley triumph to take his third world title. Even so, like most Triple Threat matches, this was effectively No DQ, the only stipulation being that special referee Jesse Ventura insisted that he would only count the pinfall in the ring. After the match Triple H viciously worked over Austin’s leg with a chair, giving WWE an excuse to take the Rattlesnake off TV for a couple of weeks while he recuperated.
The next night, on Raw is War, Triple H forced Foley to give him a title shot by the expedient of threatening Foley’s friend, announcer Jim Ross, until Foley gave in. That night, Triple H claimed his first World Championship. Foley’s star was beginning to fade now as the battered warrior began contemplating retirement, so their interaction once again became somewhat sporadic. Nevertheless, both men took part in the six-man match at Unforgiven that year, which saw Hunter claim his second world championship. Once again, it looked as if the feud might be over. Fate, however, had other ideas. As 1999 ended, Austin finally had to take time out for neck surgery to repair the damage done by Owen Hart’s piledriver on him at Summerslam 1997. At the same time, The Undertaker also had to take an extended break, leaving the main event a little sparsely populated. Consequently, Foley was persuaded to put his pending retirement on hold a little longer, which allowed him to go out in a spectacular fashion.
As the year 2000 began, Triple H found himself in control of the entire World Wrestling Federation. He and his bride Stephanie McMahon (at this point, married in storyline only) inaugurated the McMahon-Helmsley era and their chief use of their power was to humiliate Hunter’s main rivals – Kane, Mankind and The Rock. Foley found himself ignominiously fired by the twosome when they forced him to wrestle The Rock in the first ever “Pink-slip on a Pole match”, the loser being fired. Soon after, however, The Rock organised a revolt against the corrupt leaders. He managed to persuade the entire WWE roster, apart from Triple H and his DX cohorts, to threaten to walk out on the company if Triple H and Stephanie did not meet all of their demands. Chief among those demands were the reinstatement of Mick Foley, the granting to him of a title match with Triple H at the upcoming Royal Rumble, the stipulations of which he would name later.
Foley chose for his match a Street Fight but, in the weeks that followed, Triple H and DX beat him down repeatedly. Finally, Foley confessed that he just wasn’t ready to face Triple H in a Street Fight, drawing smiles from The Game. However, Foley continued, he knew a man who was. The announcement of this man’s identity quickly wiped the smile off of Triple H’s face – none other than Cactus Jack! Hunter’s reaction made sense. The last time he had wrestled Cactus Jack he had been piledriven through a table! Nevertheless, he promised Jack that he would regret this. Hunter was going to be more brutal and more sadistic than Jack could ever imagine – and he would love every second of it.
In the event, the match was a classic, and has passed into wrestling lore as being one of the high points of both men’s careers. Using everything from chairs and handcuffs to thumbtacks, the two men beat each other mercilessly. Finally, Triple H was victorious but he still left the arena on a stretcher and, even then, was attacked again by Cactus Jack. The ending left the window open for a re-match but, this time, Hunter demanded that Cactus put his career on the line. If he lost, he would be gone and that meant for good – no sneaky changing back to Mankind or Dude Love to get around the stipulation. Jack agreed but he had a stipulation in mind. There was only one way to up the ante on their brutal Street Fight – this match would have to be a Hell in a Cell match. It was, in a little historical note, the first time that such a match would take place without the involvement of The Undertaker (Kane and Mankind had once had such a match but ‘Taker interfered in it so much he might as well have taken part). It also marked the beginning of Triple H’s long association with this match type, an association that was to be as close as The Undertaker’s own.
Following their Street Fight would be no easy task but the two men proved up to it. Give Foley’s legendary reputation in these matches, Triple H had the door padlocked to stop Foley getting out of the cell. The two brawled wildly in and out of the ring before Foley broke a hole in the cell wall after diving off the top rope to the outside of the ring with a chair. The two men then continued to brawl on the outside before Hunter decided to head for higher ground. Cactus pursued him, with his trademark barbed wire two by four, only for Hunter to take the vicious weapon and use it to send Jack flying off of the cage and into a table. The match could have ended there but Jack eventually got back on top of the cell where the fight continued. The already awestruck crowd were further shocked when Jack lit his barbed wire two by four on fire! Attempting to piledrive Hunter onto the burning implement proved to be his downfall, however, as Triple H back-dropped him to counter the move. The impact sent Jack crashing right through the cell ceiling and into the ring, which broke under his weight! Even then, Jack shocked Hunter further by getting up one more time before the pedigree finally ended the match and, officially, Mick Foley’s career.
Although many prefer the Street Fight, for me, this was the absolute highlight of the long war between these two greats. Effectively, their feud was now over, although they would meet one last time at Wrestle Mania 2000, when Linda McMahon reinstated Foley for one night only. This epitomised exactly what a great wrestling feud should be. At different stages in their careers, both men were able to elevate their opponent as well as improving their own standing. The brawler and the technician were very different wrestlers, yet their styles meshed perfectly to create a series of classic matches that ended in one of the best of all time. Many have pointed this feud, particularly the later part in early 2000, as essential in getting Triple H to be seriously established as a main-event player in WWE but, in fairness, the feud did almost as much for Foley. Both men played instrumental roles in the other becoming WWE Champion and, while the feud certainly set the scene for Triple H’s incredible success over the following decade, it also proved a fitting swansong to the regular active career of Mick Foley.
I hope you enjoyed this look back at a great feud. I would be interested to know of any other feuds that you have particularly enjoyed, or would especially like me to look at. The theme of brawler versus technical wrestler is certainly one that I shall return to, as it seems to be the common element in a number of my favourite feuds. Nevertheless, as we shall see, it is by no means the only theme that one can build a great feud around.
Marshall Law 