Mick Foley is a name that needs no introduction. The work of the WWE Hall of Famer puts him in the class of legends that never knew when to say no or put an end to when to stop during a match. Mick would put on brutal matches with legends and during his podcast ‘Foley Is Pod’ he was asked if he ever wanted to return to the WWE after his TNA run.
TNA is an exceptional promotion, but things were different when Foley was a part of the promotion. The promotion was struggling to make a mark for itself. Thankfully, it moved over from that phase and is now a serious competition. Talking about his return to WWE from TNA and the meeting with John Laurinaitis, Foley said:
He said, ‘We were wondering if you would like to come back.’ He almost opened up a menu and said just select items to do whatever I wanted. ‘Do you want to host shows? Do you want to be a producer?’ I said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to work that hands on with Vince.’ I knew I was going to be an ambassador as well.
Mick was aware that things aren’t looking good for him. He had wrestled matches of a different level and that includes matches where he put his body on the line. The word he received concurred with those feelings and the response confirms what went down. Mick said:
Literally a day, maybe two, after I talked to Dr. Cantu, it’s a day or two after the first meeting. I got a call from John Laurinaitis. He said, ‘There’s an issue with your impact test.’ So I did go back to that doctor as well, who also told me I should never wrestle again. So I’m thinking, that’s it. It’s not a knee. I walk around better than I used to because I had my hip replaced and my knee replaced. There’s no brain replacements. This is not something I wanted to toy around with.
Mick Foley was involved in the famous infamous match involving The Undertaker. The match was brutal and being thrown from the top of the Hell in a Cell means a big deal for everyone including the wrestlers. Mick was ready to risk himself for the fans. His sheer dedication is exceptional, but he doesn’t want to return to the WWE or the ring.
Mick said he went to get neurological work on his spine when he realized he was 3 inches shorter than he once was:
“He said, ‘We’ve been looking over your MRIs and your X-rays. You’ve got too many issues. You got muscular, neurological, skeletal, and even if we are able to help from a neurological standpoint, there’s nothing we can do with those other things.’ I’m looking at all these things I did during the course of my career and I mean, I’m paying a steeper price than I thought imaginable. I thought oh, yeah, of course my hips are going to be sore, my knees are going to be hurting, I’m going to be arthritic, but now I’m curved around like this, you know? I know saying tough times are relative. There’s other people who say, ‘I would trade lives with you. I’m getting up at 6am. I’m working two jobs to make ends meet.’ Nonetheless, this was pretty devastating for me and so I was going back to WWE in a really tough, dark place. It was a tough time for me. The concussions. Seeing the fallout. Seeing how much I lost in height.”
“The doctor said, ‘We got your MRIs back.’ This is before they even decided not to do the surgery. I said, ‘How is it?’ He goes, ‘It’s a bad MRI’, and I went, ‘How bad?’ and He proceeded to talk like five different discs, all things that I kind of knew, but it still stings when you actually see the proof. Now I find out it’s not just the discs, it’s the spine itself.”
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