10 Crippling Times Wrestlers Worked Themselves Into A Shoot
8. Mick Foley
An honourable man in a dishonourable industry (provided you ignore the creepy love letter to Melina that was his third autobiography), Mick Foley is something of a sensitive and principled soul. He refused to appear for the WWF in the wake of the 1997 Montreal Screwjob, before Bret Hart convinced him otherwise.
He returned to and starred in a company riddled with ‘Attitude’. Foley, who had changed the industry with his method approach to terrifying ultra-violence, wrestled on programming that brazenly promoted incest, date rape, castration, fake miscarriages concocted by those scheming women, and total non-stop misogyny. Foley, however, drew the line at simulated necrophilia that, for all its ugliness, was merely a parody of an absurd, false accusation Triple H levelled at Kane for heat.
Foley claimed subsequently that he was embarrassed by it all, and “done” with WWE. This sort of grandstanding, no matter how well-intentioned, didn’t do much for Foley’s perception with management. In the years since, despite an on/off association with the company, Foley was never portrayed with the same reverence as his fellow Attitude Era alumni.
Foley also penned a lengthy Facebook post raging against the booking of the 2014 Royal Rumble match—another well-intentioned missive that hardly helped his strained, complicated relationship with Vince McMahon.