6 Wrestlers That Visibly Hated Working For ECW
4. Mick Foley
Just because Mick Foley was a perfect spiritual fit for ECW, that doesn’t mean he was overjoyed to work there all of the time.
There were incredible moments, sure. His feud with Terry Funk was legendary; the famed moment in which chairs were thrown into the ring a staple of every highlight reel. His partnership with Mikey Whipwreck was a charming glimpse of the wholesome quality with which Foley would connect with WWE fans at the main event level. He didn’t just wrestle Triple H and Randy Orton in career-best efforts; in January 1995, Cactus Jack worked his magic with the Sandman, who could never hope to do anything that great again.
Foley was a hardcore legend. He sacrificed his body and took that masochistic role very seriously. His minimum expectation was to be respected for his efforts. On two gross landmark occasions, he almost fell out of love with the sport forever.
At Wrestlepalooza 1995, JT Smith’s face collided with exposed concrete after a dive gone awry; in response to this medical emergency, the ECW fans shouted “You f*cked up!”
Foley was revolted by this response. He was sickened enough as an empathetic individual; he really showed his incendiary disgust when spotting a sign in the crowd that urged the Sandman to ‘Cane Dewey’. It was personal now. Dewey was his toddler-aged child. Foley, in response, cut the most real and impassioned promo in wrestling history. Foley turned this into a gimmick - in his defence, he was a professional wrestler - but for those several minutes, the man was in the midst of a red mist-fuelled philosophical crisis.
Foley and the ECW faithful forgave one another at the last minute, but “visibly hated” almost under-sells the haunting intensity of that iconic promo.