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Hell in a Cell (1998)

On that same episode of Raw, Foley then reverted to his Mankind character, who began wearing an untucked shirt with a loose necktie and started the feud with The Undertaker. At King of the Ring, the two competed in the third Hell in a Cell match in June, 1998 at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Before this match, Foley and Terry Funk were discussing the previous year's Hell in a Cell (Bad Blood match) that featured the Undertaker backdropping and slamming Shawn Michaels onto the chain-link ceiling of the cage. Foley and Funk were brainstorming ideas about how to top that match when Funk "said, laughing, 'maybe you should let him throw you off the top of the cage.'" Foley:

"Yeah," I shot back, "then I could climb back up – and he could throw me off again." Man, that was a good one, and we were having a good time thinking completely ludicrous things to do inside, outside, and on top of the cage. After a while I got serious and said quietly to Terry, "I think I can do it."[39]


In one of the most famous matches in professional wrestling history, Foley received numerous injuries and took two dangerous and highly influential bumps. The first one came as both wrestlers were brawling on top of the cell, and the Undertaker threw Mankind from the top of the cage from a height of 16 feet (4.9 m); (22 ft if including angle of the fall)[40] and sent him crashing through the Spanish announcers' table, which triggered announcer Jim Ross to famously shout, "Good God almighty! Good God almighty! That killed him! As God as my witness, he is broken in half!".

Foley remained motionless underneath debris, while the Undertaker remained on top of the cell staring down. Terry Funk was the first person on the scene, followed by WWE's resident doctor, Dr. François Petit, and various others, including a concerned-looking Vince McMahon. Foley was placed on a stretcher and began to be wheeled out to the arena.

Moments later, there was commotion on the entrance ramp as Foley got up from the stretcher and proceeded to make his way back to the cage, climbing to the top of the cell, with the Undertaker doing likewise (this time they both climbed the cage surprisingly quickly despite Foley having suffered a dislocated shoulder due to the fall, and the Undertaker wrestling with a broken foot that night)[35] With both men back on the top of the cell the match resumed.

Earlier as both were walking on the chain-link mesh which comprised the cell's ceiling, the metal fasteners were popping off causing the roof to sag and partially give way under their combined weight. According to Terry Funk, the prop guy had purposely designed it that way, except it was never meant to give way completely.[41] In the second huge bump of the night, the Undertaker chokeslammed Mankind atop the chain-link mesh cage, causing a panel to give way completely, resulting in Foley falling through and hitting the ring canvas hard below. In response, announcer Jim Ross shouted, "Good God, Good God! Will somebody stop the damn match? Enough's enough!". Color commentator Jerry Lawler then famously retorted, "That's it. He's dead."

The cage giving way completely was a surprise to both Foley and the Undertaker[42][43] The Undertaker later said that he thought Foley was dead following the second fall.[44] Foley was genuinely knocked unconscious for a few moments from the impact, but was able to come around. Terry Funk wrote in his autobiography, "Watching from the back, I thought he was dead. I ran out here and looked down at him, still lying in the ring where he'd landed. His eyes weren't rolled back in his head, but they looked totally glazed over, like a dead fish's eyes."[45]

Some time after getting up and being attended to again by the aforementioned personnel, TV cameras showed a lingering shot of Foley smiling through his profusely bleeding mouth and lips, with a loose tooth hanging beneath his nose; the tooth having been knocked out due to being struck by the chair which had fallen through the cage and landed on his face, dislocating his jaw. In reality, though, Foley was trying to show the camera the hole in his bottom lip by sticking his tongue through it but couldn't be seen because of his facial hair.[46]

The match continued for a while longer, ending with Foley receiving the Tombstone Piledriver after being slammed by the Undertaker onto hundreds of thumbtacks, which Foley himself had strewn onto the ring canvas. Although Foley lost, both wrestlers received a standing ovation for the match, and the event is often said to have jump-started Foley's main event career (Foley has said that although this match grew in legend, the reality was that his career remained "somewhat sluggish" for sometime afterwards until Foley further developed the Mankind character, and fans began to catch on).[47]

Many future matches attempted to replicate some of the spots from this match. In his autobiography Have a Nice Day! A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks, Foley wrote that he could not remember much of what happened, and he had to watch a tape of the match to write about it. The match was voted Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Match of the Year for 1998. Although many fans regard the match as a classic, it has generated controversy as well.[citation needed] Critics charge that the falls in the match were so extreme and they set the bar for further bumps so high that the inevitable attempts to equal or surpass them would be very dangerous for any wrestlers involved.

Foley said in his first book that his wife cried during a post match phone conversation between the two, and this made Foley strongly consider retiring from wrestling.[48] He also said that after the match, Vince McMahon thanked him for all he had done for the company, but made Foley promise to "never do anything like that again."[48] He also made mention in the book of a rather humorous exchange he and Undertaker had while being checked out more thoroughly by Dr. Pettit in the backstage area. Foley, still somewhat dazed from the concussion he sustained, turned to the Undertaker and asked "Did I use the thumbtacks?", which was a staple of a number of Foley's early matches. The Undertaker looked at him and rather sternly replied "Look at your arm, Mick!", at which point Foley discovered a significant number of thumbtacks still lodged in his arm.