The Monday Night War Review: Episode Five – ‘Have a Nice Day’

The Monday Night War: Episode Five- ‘Have a Nice Day’
-Back at it again and this time we get an episode focusing on Mick Foley. Much like DX, and the n.W.o, Foley has had several DVD releases so we will probably get a lot of repeated material.

-Bad ass Monday Night War Opening welcomes us as usual.

-The talking heads discuss wrestling on Turner in the 1980s and on that roster was a young man going by the name of Cactus Jack. Foley developed a daredevil style in WCW and it helped separate him from everyone else. Ron Simmons mentions that he thought Mick was out of his mind and they prove Ron’s point by showing some of the crazy ass bumps taken by Mick.

-Despite Cactus’ best efforts, WCW was going in a different direction when Bischoff took over. This gives everyone a chance to bury WCW for missing the boat on Cactus. WCW moved ahead without Foley’s talents and tried to do what they could to get out of the shadow of the WWF.

-In 1994 while everything was great in the WWF with RAW on Monday Night, Foley was in an upstart promotion called ECW. They show some stuff from his ECW run and they mention that his style wasn’t as unique in ECW because everyone was Hardcore. Heyman says Foley wanted to do more in ECW and wanted to do something that would really get the fans talking. That leads to his awesome Anti-Hardcore character and some of the greatest interviews you will ever see. Stuff is just genius as he would do headlocks and armbars to piss off the blood thirsty ECW crowd. Heyman mentions that it was a risk on Mick’s part as there would be no turning back.

-In September of 1995 WCW launched Nitro in direct competition with RAW and they were trading victories heading into Jan of 1996. The WWF had to find new talent to compete and Vince admits he wasn’t sold on Foley as he felt he could only fall down. JR brokered the deal and Mick was signed to be part of WWF.

-They recycle shit from an earlier episode now as once again they harp on the WWF insulting their fans with cartoon characters. In keeping with this they show early designs of the costume Foley would be wearing in the WWF as Mason The Mutilator. Foley hated it and pitched the idea of being Mankind and sold Vince on the idea. They show some of the early vignettes and they were fucking awesome. I am a huge mark for the early Mankind character and it is easily my favorite Face of Foley.

-Beth Phoenix discusses being afraid of the Mankind character and Jesse James says that Foley dove head first into the character. That leads us to the Boiler Room Brawl with Taker at SummerSlam 96 and really I have no clue what that had to do with anything as they quickly skip over it. Vince wasn’t a fan of the character and Foley knew he had to win him over.

-Over in WCW they were hitting homeruns with the n.W.o because they were former WWF stars (take a drink) and had reality based storylines (take a drink). By the spring of 1997 WCW was kicking the shit out of the WWF in the ratings and to answer the WWF started getting more reality based. They bring up the speech Vince gave to the talent to turn things up.

-Mankind had a sit down interview with Jim Ross that basically saved and made the character. It finally gave the gimmick a character behind it and developed him into a sympathetic person for a lot of people. Bryan says it best when he mentions that the interviews made Mankind human and Miz talks about how they showed tape of Mick jumping off his roof. JR says they used it because it fit the character though they didn’t want to make it seem like jumping off a roof would get you a job in the WWF. They discuss the Dude Love character from those home movies and Foley says that is the ideal character he wanted to portray when he dreamed of being in wrestling. The sit down interview was broken up over 5 RAWs and at the end he put JR in the mandible claw after punching himself in the face to show people that he really doesn’t love pain (as JR would indicate on commentary). Foley says he was turned into a face with those interviews without doing anything himself to turn. The interviews also sold Vince on Mick and what he could do in the business.

-In July of 1997 Vince makes the call to have Mick portray Dude Love and his debut was awesome if only for the look on Austin’s face. Barrett shows up and mentions that it was cool to see Foley live out a dream he had as a kid and Kofi puts over the range Foley had in playing these different characters.

-In September of 1997 the 3rd Face of Foley made his WWF debut on RAW during a Falls Count Anywhere Match with HHH during their feud. The backstage segment with Dude interviewing Mankind and then introducing Cactus Jack was fucking brilliant and MSG exploded for it. HHH sold that shit for all it was worth and it lead to a kick ass match as well. Great stuff all around with that one! Apparently Vince had his reservations as he didn’t know how many people would know Cactus Jack, but the reaction from the crowd made Vince realize he did miss the boat on the popularity of the Cactus character.

-The Attitude Era was taking off and by the spring of 1998 RAW finally ended Nitro’s winning streak and then they kept trading victories. By the middle of 1998, Foley had bounced between all 3 Faces and started to fade in the background as Mankind. Things were about to change come June of 1998.

-King of the Ring 1998 (Pittsburgh, PA) had Mankind in a Hell in a Cell Match against Taker and Foley says he wasn’t sure if he deserved that spot, but he was going to make the most of it. Foley says he told Vince he was going to be on top and that he was comfortable with it, so Vince okayed it. Bryan says that he thought it would be cool if someone fell off, but didn’t think it would ever happen. How wrong was he as we get Foley taking the now famous dive off the top of the cell and Miz does a horrible JR impression. Man that sucked! JR mentions he had no clue Mick was coming off the Cell and Lawler thought he was dead. Vince actually broke character by coming down to check on Mick after the first fall, but the shit was only starting as he climbs back up the Cell. Tim White calls him insane and I don’t think you will find anyone to argue that point. Foley says that his biggest mistake was thinking the worst part of his night was over when he went through the table. Sadly he gets right fucked when he takes the second (and more dangerous) bump through the cell and hits with a sickening splat in the ring. Henry says everyone in the back was glued to the monitor as they were worried if Mick was able to move. Just absolutely brutal and I honestly believe they reached a line on commentary where JR legit wanted someone to “stop the damn match.” Somehow they continue the match and Foley eats a chokeslam into thumbtacks and a tombstone finishes one of the most famous matches in wrestling history.

-Kevin Sullivan shows up and says that when he saw Foley come off the Cell he told everyone that WCW’s run was over as nothing was going to top that. DDP says he watched it at least a thousand times and is still blown away. Larry Zbyszko shows up as a talking head as well and echoes Sullivan’s comments that nothing was going to top it. Well we finally got a group of WCW guys and they used them to put over something in the WWF. Nice!

-Vince told Foley he appreciated what he had done and never wanted to see anything like it again. Mick evolved his character and toned things down due to his health problems and also because everyone else during the Attitude Era was getting more hardcore. So he decided to go the opposite way and rely more on comedy and while hilarious, I missed the original Mankind character. The transition was made easy as he was paired with Vince McMahon and the stuff they did was gold. Vince Russo chuckles over being in the room while they did the segment with Vince playing Twister with Mankind.

-One night on RAW Mankind shows up to Vince’s hospital room to cheer him up and that leads to the debut of Mr. Socko. The sock was supposed to be a onetime deal, but the thing got over huge with the crowd and Mick had to bring it to every arena. This all lead to Foley being pushed into the Main Event picture and he was paired with the golden boy of the WWF, The Rock.

-This all leads to one of the biggest nights in the history of the War: Jan 4, 1999. Mankind challenges for the WWF Title and Sandow mentions that he was there in the crowd that night. Awesome! The pop for Austin when he heads to the ring is one of the loudest you will every here and it only got louder when he cracked the Rock in the skull with a chair and reached its zenith when Foley pinned the Rock to win the WWF Title. I actually have a smile on my face right now watching it again. Lawler says that the fans felt like they had won the title (sound familiar, Daniel Bryan).

-The title win aired on Jan 4, 1999, but was taped a week earlier, so those bastards down south (complete with evil music to show you how evil they really were) wanted to rain on poor Mick’s parade. Schiavone shows up and says he did what he was told, but he did come up with the “butt in seats” line off the top of his head. Bischoff defends doing it, and you can tell it really bothered Foley. The ratings for the night were RAW: 5.7 and Nitro 5.0 and over half a million people turned over to RAW to see the title win because WCW basically advertised for RAW. Schiavone says a lot of it had to do with Foley and also to do with the fact that they basically told the fans a World Title was changing hands on the other show. My take on it is that WCW was only doing what they had always been doing and while sure, it probably sucked for Mick, but fuck it Bischoff was doing what he felt he needed to do. It backfired on him in the end, and that should be what is remembered. I don’t think it was a personal shot against Mick as much as it was Eric going back to what he did before WCW seized control in the battle.

-RAW was kicking ass week after week now and they decided to pair Foley and The Rock together as partners leading to the Rock and Sock Connection. Their pairing was fantastic as they played off each other perfectly. Things with the two kept growing and peaked with the famous “This is Your Life” segment. Rock calls it one of the greatest nights ever and yes, it was awesome. They went out with no real plan and Mick says that they were doing things off the cuff and it was running a lot longer than Vince wanted. Russo knew what they were doing was great and McMahon says he knew it was good, but he didn’t think it was that good. The next day the ratings showed that over 9 million people (8.4 rating…DAMN) had watched the This is Your Life segment making it one of the highest rated in RAW history.

-The battles finally caught up to Mick and he had to retire (HA HA) in early 2000. The stuff Foley did helped the WWF win the War as they bought out WCW in March of 2001. We wrap things up with the talking heads (Punk , Cena, HHH, and Austin) putting over how awesome Foley is and how he always gave everything he had. Hayes gets in a final shot by saying WCW didn’t have anyone like that on their roster. Mick says he doesn’t think he would have pushed himself as much if there wasn’t a Monday Night War. He does say he wasn’t a leading man in the War, but he was a supporting actor (an important one though).

-The next episode focuses on the Bret Hart (The Hart of War) and that should prove interesting.

Additional Thoughts: There really wasn’t too much here new as expected. They continue to harp on WCW stealing WWF stars (though when WWF signed Mankind it was only because Bischoff wasn’t using him right) and the WWF sucking in the early 90s with cartoon gimmicks. All of the Foley stuff will seem familiar to anyone who has seen any of his previous DVD releases or read his books. Once again little bit of new stuff we got from the WCW guys was the most interesting. Especially getting to finally hear things from Schiavone’s point of view on the spoiled title change controversy.