In what will likely prove to be the biggest revenue grossing pro wrestling event in history, Steve Austin regained the WWF title at Wrestlemania XV, a show far more notable for production and booking than for any of the wrestling.
The basic consensus seemed to be a mild thumbs up for the show, although the reaction to this one was all across the board as there were people who thought it was the best show in years and many who thought it was terrible. If a wrestling show is constituted by the quality of the matches from start-to-finish than this was a thumbs down show with only two good matches tops out of ten. If it’s based on surprises, booking and angles, it’s a thumbs up. If it’s based on crowd reaction to either and both, it wouldn’t be a thumbs up since only the main event had good heat and that’s with a super hype job going in. If it’s based on presenting well produced television, it would be the best wrestling PPV of the year.
With the deluge of media publicity, including a cover story in USA Today, a two-part series on “Inside Edition” and even being the topic of conversation on the TV show “Politically Incorrect” and with an ESPN “Outside the Lines” segment scheduled for later this month, both WWF and WCW have taken separate directions that will no doubt determine the future of the wrestling industry in the United States.
This live special goes into Mick’s career, and explores his life on the road while also providing him an outlet to highlight younger talent and plug his family’s new WWE Network show: Foley, Foley.
The podcast begins from Axxess with the podcast set in mid-ring for the first time ever. Stone Cold comes out and gets a ring introduction in Texas – including posing on the ropes and the screen going black when he flipped the bird. Austin cuts a what-filled promo on Mick Foley’s history with him. Mick comes in and gets a “holy shit” chant that is unmuted, while Austin’s utterance gets muted.
Mick takes a while to get his cheap pop and he talks about seeing Steve train with Chris Adams in WCCW and feeling he had “it”. Steve compliments Mick on looking good now and he says that they used to go the gym – which makes Mick happy since it proved he’s been in one. Mick is down 50 pounds and credits it to a better diet and DDP Yoga. Mick was told that there was no hope for his spine, but the yoga helps alongside swimming and he’s at his lightest since 2004. Mick credits Bronco Lubich and Skandar Akbar lecturing him to save his money. Mick shares a story about making a bet with Owen on who could last the longest on $20 – and Owen tapped out at two weeks.
Mick says he was more comfortable as a youth dressing like Dude Love, but it wouldn’t work in the ring first, so he made Cactus Jack as an homage to his dad. Mick talks about showing up in Memphis after paying for some photos and then coming in looking like he had a tiny bit of muscle under the flab. Steve says that when Mick was in Dallas, he met a girl, and Mick says his youngest son is in the front row. He wondered if he should tell her he was Mick Foley and not Cactus Jack – but he liked her, and decided to just be Cactus Jack with her and it helped him build his character. Whether in or out of character, he was cheap though and asked her kids to just have water when eating out.
Mick talks about learning wrestling much like language – you start with letters, then words, paragraphs, chapters, and books. Eric Embry gave him creative freedom, while Akbar told him to just do whatever worked and was different. Mick talks about Dynamite Kid knocking his jaw out of alignment for a year with a stiff lariat and learning to be a softer worker from that. Mick says he didn’t like pain, but was driven by it and there was a time when there wasn’t a huge difference between himself and Cactus Jack.
Mick wants to talk about Dean, but Steve derails things into talking about his poor pay in Japan. Mick says that he told his wife about that like the last time he had a good news/bad news talk it was good news – he was coming home early, but the bad news was he was now missing an ear. Steve asks Mick about a WWE Network project with his family, and he introduces Noelle. Noelle now has theme music and a pink version of Mick’s flannel graphic and Mankind mask. Steve says she’s beautiful and you’d never guess she was Mick’s daughter. Their show will be called Foley, Foley.
Mick says that Vince loved the chemistry Mick had with Noelle, and the show will cover Noelle’s modeling and wrestling training. Mick was surprised that the way he walks would deter her, but it didn’t. Mick says she’ll be trained the right way and Noelle says she loved going on the road with Mick and her brothers. Noelle says she was fine with Mick missing events because they knew he did the best he could to get home. Foley Foley will start filming in two weeks. Noelle says that they’re a weird-normal family and Mick says they’re like the Munsters. Noelle says she’s about as frugal as her dad and will buy nice things – but get the best deals, and their show hits the Network in August.
Mick talks about the origins of Mankind being Mason the Mutilator. Vince had the mask made for Taker, and wanted to use it for his opponent – but didn’t want Mick in the company. Jim Ross bugged Vince enough to give him a shot, but he’d only hire him if he could cover up his face. Mick says that on April 1, 19996 he debuted in the company against the Undertaker. Well, it would be pretty fitting to have them interact at WM.
Mick talks about getting into the Mankind character by spending time in boiler rooms and under the ring, which Austin praises him for doing since it’s basically like being a method actor. Mick credits the multi-part Jim Ross interview with breaking him out of the pack in 1997. During the shoot, he heard Vince say “This it outstanding!” and it won him over. Mick talks about how Terry Funk helped create the map for the Cell with Taker.
They talk about the fall off the Cell being bad, and it getting worse with the chokeslam. Mick says that he hugged Stephanie all bloodied up, and hugging Pat due to him experiencing a loss in his life. Mick then went out for the main event of that show to attack Steve with a chair in the first blood match. Mick looks at the footage and has no memory of any of this.
Mick finally talks about Dean and says that he doesn’t care about how often he’s back, that he wants to do something that has impact. Mick says that he was too concerned with making waves, and realized that his job was to portray Dean in the best light, he told the writer that the skit was too funny and not serious enough. He wasn’t sure how to structure a backstage promo, but he just let things roll when the cameras did and he loved the line about him being Mick Foley and Dean being Dean Ambrose. Mick says that he’ll never look at doing a backstage promo the same way again because he used to think it was a throw-away bit, but he realized that it could be an effective tool to use.
Mick talks about the Freebirds and his history with the team – including him helping Buddy move in ’87. He loved Stan Hansen, and Mick almost named his son Mickey Stan. Mick says that the journey to a match isn’t as important as the destination and he was getting ready to work a tag with Stan, and he wanted to work spots only to have Stan tell him “I don’t work spots”. Mick says that the main eventers are expected to steal the show, but the divas could do it – and Charlotte will usher in a new era in front of 100,000 fans.
Mick closes the show with a Vince impression about WrestleMania being bigger, better, and better while Austin gets in a dig about not being a fan of WrestleMania being free. This was a fun little show – but not a must-watch. To see all the screens for it, just click here.
With the recent spate of bounced checks, questions are being asked about the future and current financial condition of Extreme Championship Wrestling.
Paul Heyman, the group’s owner, is somewhat responsible for many of the concepts that ushered in the current era of pro wrestling. For the most part Heyman and ECW have been unable to share in the financial rewards and media publicity garnered by WWF and WCW as they took his ideas to reverse their financially money losing enterprises into very profitable businesses.
In an episode basically lifted from a fairly unknown movie “Swimming with Sharks,” Steve Austin took Vince McMahon hostage on the live Raw on 10/19 and spent most of the show teasing that he was going to kill him before shooting him with a pop gun, resulting in McMahon supposedly peeing in his pants.
Between the ridiculously bad overacting by McMahon, the silly storyline that has potentially scary repercussions seeing 13,000 people enthusiastically rooting for Austin to pull the trigger on McMahon, and one of the worst main events in Raw history with an Undertaker vs. Kane casket match that was actually worse than their PPV match the previous night and ended in a chorus of boos when both simply walked to the dressing room for a non-finish, it was generally, but not universally considered the worst episode of Raw in a long time.
The movie this was based on was about a man fired from his job in an ad agency who takes his boss hostage in his boss’ home. Many of the spots from the movie were re-created in the television angle which was teased from the start of the show. McMahon, acting ballsy, got all the wrestlers in the ring and said firing Austin was better than sex and claimed he could fire any of them at any time. Austin appeared on the TitanTron in the parking lot with a .38 special. Two police officers (Milwaukee indie wrestlers) instead of arresting him, were asking him for autographs while McMahon cried to Gerald Brisco, Pat Patterson and Sgt. Slaughter. Earlier a police officer with the guard dog gimmick from last week walked out tired of McMahon’s browbeating. In a lame excuse to get Brisco, Patterson and Slaughter out of the picture, all three left 35 minutes into the show to get coffee and were never seen again. At the start of the second hour, McMahon got a phone call in his office from Austin, and tried to escape in his limo, but Austin was waiting and kidnapped McMahon and held him hostage the rest of the show as he constantly pulled out weapons such as a knife and bow & arrow and teased he was going to kill McMahon at the end while McMahon cried, and even oinked like a pig.
Figure Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm returns today with tons to talk about including details on Tyler Breeze and his Smackdown debut, the daughter of a famous wrestling personality training with Lance, Raw from Monday and 19 years ago this week, Nitro thoughts, and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today to talk all the news in wrestling and MMA including tons of notes from Raw, WWE Hell in a Cell preview, the Brock Lesnar podcast, John Cena’s upcoming open challenge and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer returns today to talk all the news in wrestling and MMA including tons of thoughts on Raw from Monday, the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast, where Randy Orton is at, CM Punk’s injury, UFC cuts, questions and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
The Steve Austin Podcast with Brock Lesnar was interesting. It was an interview that made Lesnar come across as a blue collar guy who, at the same time, is also a smart businessperson while also being somewhat introverted. He said in the interview that he clocks in, clocks out and doesn’t go out of his way to make friends or politic. When going out to cook his favorite food, steak (the first fifteen minutes of the interview was off topic), he likes to see his land, and not any of his neighbors. It’s easy to see why Lesnar doesn’t do these kinds of interviews, so when he does it’s very interesting to see him in this light.
He talked about his early days, watching Little House on the Prairie on TV (no, really) and working on his parent’s farm in South Dakota. They talked about his wrestling days at University of Minnesota and assorted junior colleges. Lesnar talked about how Brad Rheingans broke him into the business once WWE were interested and how Curt Hennig and Big Boss Man taught him the business while on the road. They talk about his first run in the WWE, working with The Rock. In an interesting line, Lesnar said that it was The Rock that taught him to be selfish, and that it was a give and take business. He also mentioned that he was pressured into taking that shooting star press at WrestleMania XIX. Just because he could do something athletic, doesn’t mean he actually wanted to do it.
They talk briefly about the terrible WrestleMania XX match between him and Goldberg. Lesnar said they both wanted out and “didn’t give a shit”. Lesnar flat out said he used the NFL as a scapegoat to leave WWE. After skirting a question concerning the 2005 lawsuit between him and WWE (it’s all water under the bridge) they go into his UFC run for a bit. Lesnar said he met with Dana after entering the Octagon as a spectator after a Gonzaga/Couture match and said he wanted in. That seems like a bit of a stretch. He said he might be still fighting today in the Octagon if it wasn’t for the diverticulitis. He talked about getting sick in Canada and travelling back to the states to see a doctor.
They capped it off by talking about current WWE topics. Austin mentions breaking the streak and Lesnar said that some people didn’t like that, but did anyone else have the credentials to beat Undertaker? He’s not good at promos, but that’s what Heyman is there for – he’s gotta feed the Jew (his words, not mine). Austin asks about Hell in a Cell and Lesnar goes into kind of worked shoot mode, saying he has gripes with the Undertaker and didn’t like how their last match turned out, so he promises carnage at Hell in the Cell.
There were a few other topics discussing, including comparing Dana and Vince (which Lesnar really doesn’t do because Austin went to the next question rather quickly), a rant on millennials, getting sick in Canada and nearly requiring surgery, Austin’s walkout in 2002 and how that was maybe a two way street deal, and his fights with Heath Herring and Randy Couture. Again, a pretty interesting interview that’s worth your time. If you don’t like off topic banter, though, I recommend skipping the first 15 minutes or so.
