One MIND-BLOWING Secret For Every WWE SummerSlam
14. 2012 | A Hardcore Rumour
This was an incredible idea conceived much too late.
At WrestleMania weekend in 2012, Mick Foley was confronted by a pre-Shield Dean Ambrose. The scene - captured by a phone - was very well-executed in that it was incredibly awkward and realistic in a way that never translates on TV. Foley seemed nonplussed and very wary as Ambrose, pressing the issue, claimed that Foley had ruined a generation of wrestlers. Ambrose and his peers were going to destroy themselves in the pursuit of living up to Foley’s legend. Ambrose, he implied with a sinister intimacy, was going to make his name at Foley’s expense instead.
The idea was inspired. Mick Foley was the greatest ever at elevating an opponent, depicting them as a true main event killer. Triple H, Randy Orton and Edge all looked like the real deal when Foley took a beating from them. The Undertaker looked like a great wrestler for the first time through Foley’s dynamic, unhinged commitment.
Debuting Ambrose against Foley, then, was an almost guaranteed means of positioning him as an immediate difference-maker. The match could have been incredible. At this point, looking back upon Foley’s output and Jon Moxley’s body of work in AEW, it is almost the impossible inter-generational hardcore dream match.
Sadly, it was also impossible in 2012; Mick Foley was a complete physical wreck, so much so that he has described his day-to-day existence as being submerged underwater. The match mooted for SummerSlam was cancelled forever.
It worked out for Ambrose. His debut and roll-out as part of the Shield was legendary. It’s incredible to think that WWE in 2012, of all years, devised two awesome ideas for one brand-new talent.