10 Things We Learned From Mick Foley On Stone Cold’s Broken Skull Sessions Podcast
7. HBK & Mick Intentionally Botched A Spot
Prepare to watch IYH: Mind Games with fresh knowledge.
There's a spot midway though the match that see Shawn Michaels leap up onto the middle turnbuckle. He then jumps down when Mankind doesn't run over too, and appears to pepper Mick with several stiff shots in the corner. There it was - another HBK temper tantrum.
Or not.
According to Foley, that moment was intentional. They planned out a botch, and it fooled everybody who noticed Shawn's anger. Later, Tommy Dreamer asked Foley how he'd managed to keep his cool when Shawn started shooting. That's just it: Michaels wasn't.
Mick didn't go into details about this, but there's a chance that the spot was designed to mimic Shawn's very real outburst during a match with Vader at SummerSlam '96 a month or so before Mind Games. Even Austin couldn't believe that they'd get so meta during such an important pay-per-view clash.