Mick Foley needs no introduction to anyone claiming to be a pro wrestling fan. Heck, he even reached non wrestling fans with his charm and wit, and we can’t forget that he’s a successful writer of both fiction and non-fiction to boot. His pro wrestling career of course speaks for itself and he is undoubtedly a pro wrestling legend and literary legend in the eyes of many, including yours truly.
To say that he and Vince McMahon have had a temperamental relationship would be putting it mildly. When the Montreal Screw Job happened back in 1997, perhaps no one on the WWE roster was as heated and upset about it as Mick Foley was.
Of course the Montreal Screw Job is an infamous incident in the realm or pro wrestling, but to review, it was a specific moment when in real life McMahon and the WWF at the time betrayed its then champion Bret Hart out of his title by calling the match before Bret ever submitted, essentially changing the agreed outcome of the match…an agreement that had been made between McMahon and Hart prior to the match.
Of course Bret Hart had no idea that the ending of that match between he and Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series in Montreal had been changed (1997).
So yeah…pretty shady for a sport that’s already self-admittedly prearranged, eh?
Regardless, it has gone down in history that Mick was not at all pleased. He once stated of the event:
“I was just upset because I was a friend of Bret Hart’s, and more importantly, he’s a guy that I respect as a champion and a person…So I walked out and didn’t show up the next night for Raw. If I had a car I would have driven home, but I didn’t, so I sat in the hotel room in Montreal. I found out that night that one really is the loneliest number when only one guy sits out…
There was a bunch of guys talking about it, but looking around the hotel I was the only one that ended up sitting out, so I said, ‘Ah, I guess it didn’t happen.’ My wife pointed out that there was something in my contract that said I would be breaching my contract and couldn’t work anywhere in the world for the next five years if I just sat home…
I came back and I was embraced, and it was never held against me – as a matter of fact, I think Mr. McMahon respected it.”
As it turns out it wasn’t the only time he and McMahon had a disagreement he recalled recently on an episode of Foley Is Pod. The angle that enraged Foley so much at that time was the Vince McMahon dies in a limo explosion angle—an idea that ended up going nowhere thankfully. Here’s some of what he had to say on that matter:
via WWE /YouTube
“I was really upset about it…I had about a 45-minute talk/shouting match with Mr. McMahon because I hated that angle because at the time I was doing quite a bit with the injured service members and I was always working with kids who are facing challenges…
He gave me 45 minutes of his time and a lot of it was telling…I remember saying, ‘You know who does think you’re dead? A child … A US Service member … These are people coming up to me asking about you,’ and he goes, ‘Mick, Vince McMahon didn’t die. Mr. McMahon died,’ and I went, ‘Do you think our fans know the difference?’ He goes, ‘Of course they do.'”
