WWE Rivals (TV Series)

Triple H vs. Mick Foley (2022)

Shawn Michaels: Self - WWE Hall of Famer

Quotes 

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : King of the Ring is kind of tailor-made to be something that gives someone credibility or says to the viewer, "That's a top guy."

  [clips of Triple H's victory over Mankind are shown] 

  Bruce Prichard - WWE Executive Director : The snob won, and the snob had to cheat.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : To be able to do it with Mick, he was a great opponent for me for that, and it helped put me at a different level.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Triple H gets to be the King of the Ring. And the sympathy I gathered, not only from losing the match but from suffering that beatdown after the match, this was like, "That's uncalled for. That's... that was unprovoked. We like that guy." And it just became this great study in contrasts.

  Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : It was a story that, as time went on, you just continued to enjoy. 'Cause you knew they were gonna take it places you'd never seen before.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : We had this really great chemistry together, neither one of us being top-tier main-event guys at that point in time, but being able to create something special. He was willing to do anything and take any bump and do anything crazy and put his body on the line. He liked it when it came back the other way. I don't think he got to work with that many guys that were that way.

  Self - WWE Analyst : When you've got these two superstars having battles that are spilling all over arenas, there's only one logical thing to do. Lock 'em in a cage.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : [clips of his and Hunter's steel-cage match at SummerSlam are shown]  The fans, they were, like, kind of yearning for this bright spot in this dark character of Mankind. They loved this guy. They wanted to see that transformation.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : We would have that match, and it would sort of be the culmination of that storyline, but also a start of Foley and Dude Love.

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Mr. McMahon caught wind of this fictional character I'd created named Dude Love. Well, I created him when I was 18 years old, made a couple of home movies.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Not only did Mankind used to be Cactus Jack, but as a kid, he didn't have aspirations on-on being this mutilator. He had aspirations to be a heartthrob.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Mr. McMahon wanted our universe to see this guy, wanted that dream to come to fruition.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : Mick was never gonna go anywhere further than mid-card if he didn't have those layers.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : For that time period, I remember Vince McMahon saying, "Dude Love makes people feel good." Dude Love was an unqualified hit. But there's that other guy. He grew in legend in WWE where he becomes almost like that mythical creature.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : Dude Love was kind of like the comedy character. Mankind, he was kind of always on the end of the ass-kicking. Cactus Jack was a psycho.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : A lot of credit goes to Triple H, who sells it as if it's a ghost from wrestling past. It becomes the biggest response I've ever received.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : To simultaneously be able to pull off three different characters at the same time, that's really difficult to do.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : When he shifts his personality into that guy, it's a whole different world.

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Even though Mankind was crazy, Cactus Jack was always the one like, oh, this is a problem. And Triple H made it clear through his actions that Cactus Jack was on another level.

• Peter Rosenberg - WWE Analyst : What makes the street fight different is that it often goes other places. Street fights can go anywhere.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Physically, they're incredibly demanding. The mental game, you have to be a little bit off your rocker to wanna do a lot of stuff in 'em. But people enjoy it.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : After this suplex on this wooden pallet, that Triple H is just pouring blood down his calf and into his boot.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : I remember looking down and seeing a piece of wood sticking out of my leg. I knew that was a pivotal moment for me.

  Bruce Prichard - WWE Executive Director : Through those moments, no matter what you think of him, you see things like that and you see the toughness. You gotta respect the hell out of him.

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : This guy went out there and didn't call for the medics. They didn't call for the doctor. Nowadays, you would probably do all of that, or the doctor would call on you.

  Self - Host : Yeah, they'd make him stop.

  John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Hall of Famer : They would make you stop. It-it's kind of, also, this rite of passage. You know, eventually you're gonna work hurt. And when you do, it's just part of... it's part of the game.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : If there are doubters out there, I don't think anybody ever questioned his toughness again.

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : If you were looking for the polar opposite of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, look no further than Mankind. When I debuted in 1996 as Mankind, that character was kind of a tortured soul along the lines of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

  Undertaker - WWE Hall of Famer : Mankind was demented. There were no limits to what he would do to himself to inflict pain on his opponent. He was just maniacal. I remember having a match with him; he was legit pulling his own hair out. I remember him taking a stick and jabbing it in his leg over and over and over again. I mean, that's just another level of dedication to making a character viable. It was nuts. But you believed him.

  Self - WWE Analyst : Those of us familiar with who this guy was knew that he had lived in existence as Cactus Jack before he got to WWE. The scars on his body from his life as Cactus Jack was very real. Then he does this interview on TV.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : The death match stuff, that got Cactus into the game, perhaps, but the sit-down interview with Jim Ross, th-that actually got him into the end zone.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : The Jim Ross thing really touched base 'cause that was something that... you know, I remember watching it. And, to me, it was like, when they showed his senior-year picture, that... that looks like anybody.

  Self - Host : Yeah.

  Kevin Nash - WWE Hall of Famer : Yeah. And now we've got... we-we've got this... this heap of humanity that's pulling his hair out. I mean, like, what torturous life has this soul had?

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : I'm not sure I've ever been that on as I was that night as I brought this character to life and created an enormous amount of empathy just by being 100% honest.

  Beth Phoenix - WWE Hall of Famer : We got to know Mrs. Foley's baby boy. We got to know... we got to see the home footage of Mick jumping off his garage onto a mattress. And all of us were doing the same thing off of our couches, you know?

  Paul Heyman - WWE Manager : It felt intimate, and it struck a chord, and it endeared Mick Foley to a worldwide audience.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : We can be a line of work that everyone knows is entertainment, but you can still connect and-and-and be a character that resonates with people where they go, "I understand that. I get that."

  Kevin Owens - WWE Superstar : Once he started breaking out of that shell of the original Mankind character, he was different than everybody else because he was a lot more like the people watching than everybody else in the ring with him.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : As soon as I did these interviews, without actually turning in a classic way, I didn't apologize for my misgivings, I was just the same guy, and every single week, more and more people were cheering me. I don't think a change has ever come about that organically.

  Cody Rhodes - WWE Superstar : He didn't fit, but he made himself fit. And it makes for a great rivalry when you have someone who doesn't fit against the most "I fit" guy there is in a Triple H.

• Self - WWE Hall of Famer : Hunter Hearst Helmsley was sort of built on the northeastern Connecticut snob, the very proper, you know, American former Englishman.

  Kane - WWE Hall of Famer : It was a bit of a cartoonish character. And it had some good dimensions to it, uh, but in the end, he was defined by the character.

  Self - WWE Hall of Famer : That was Hunter's character to get in the door, I think. And it was something that he did well, but that character kind of had a ceiling on it. And... and he offered so much more.

  Triple H - WWE Hall of Famer : You have to have a backstory. You have to have a personality. You have to have something that makes you resonate with people. Otherwise, why do they... they can watch anybody wrestle.