Ask 411 Wrestling: Did Undertaker and Mankind Wrestle After Hell in a Cell?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling.

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Tyler from Winnipeg is coming to us live from the boiler room:

Did the Undertaker and Mick Foley have any kind of match after Hell in a Cell?

Oh yeah. They faced each other tons of times after their most infamous encounter.

Of course, that HIAC bout occurred on June 28, 1998 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on that year’s King of the Ring pay per view.

Foley and the Undertaker actually wrestled each other just two nights later on June 30 in State College, PA in a match that was taped to air on the July 6 Monday Night Raw. That bout involved a somewhat well-remembered angle from the time, as it was announced as a match between Kane and Mankind to crown a new number one contender to the WWF Championship, but “Kane” peeled off his mask after winning to reveal that he had been the Undertaker all along.

After that, the two men continued a tag team program that they had been involved in before KOTR that saw Taker teaming with Steve Austin and Mankind with Kane. House show tag team matches featuring those pairings occurred on July 10 and July 15, 1998, and in between there was a six man tag on July 12 with Vader joining the face team and the Rock joining the heel team. This all rolled in to the July 28 Fully Loaded pay per view, where Austin and Taker defeated Kane and Mankind to become the WWF Tag Team Champions. Kane and Foley won the belts back in Omaha, Nebraska on August 10 in a four-way match that also involved the New Age Outlaws and the Nation of Domination team of the Rock and D-Lo Brown.

This morphed from the tag team program involving the four men into a series of fatal four way matches that saw Austin defend his WWF Championship (at least initially) against the Undertaker, Mankind, and Kane. These matches occurred throughout the fall of 1998, including September 11, 12, 13, 19, 19, twice in one day on September 20, as well as October 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 23, 24, 30, 31, and November 7 and 8. The match also headlined the UK-exclusive Capital Carnage pay per view on December 6. The championship did get held up in September and was ultimately won by the Rock in November, but the four-ways between these men continued regardless. Many of them involved Sgt. Slaughter, Pat Patterson, or Gerald Brisco acting as a guest referee to continue the television storyline that the fix was in against Austin.

In between those house show matches, Foley and Taker continued to meet on other cards in other bouts as well. They fought to a no contest in a no disqualification match (somehow) on the September 14, 1998 episode of Monday Night Raw, and, two weeks later on Raw, Mankind teamed with Ken Shamrock and the Rock to defeat the Brothers of Destruction in a three-on-two handicap match. The two were also in singles action against each other on the December 6, 1998 episode of Sunday Night Heat (taped November 30), which saw Mankind pick up a disqualification victory against his rival. The next night on Raw, Mankind and Steve Austin teamed to defeat the Rock and the Undertaker in New Haven, Connecticut.

Of course, on December 29, 1998, Mankind became the WWF Champion for the first time, and this changed up what had been his longstanding house show program. Mankind had three house show title defenses in four-ways that involved the Rock, the Undertaker, and, oddly, the Big Bossman. These occurred on January 30, 1999 in Pittsburgh, a second time on January 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, and on January 31 in Philadelphia.

Mankind and the Undertaker were once again in singles competition against each other on the March 1, 1999 episode of Monday Night Raw back in Cleveland, a match that Foley won by count out.

Later the next month, there was an unusual house show program, which saw Mankind team with Ken Shamrock against the Undertaker and Mideon. On reading that lineup, I’d have thought that Mideon was in the match to eat the pinfall, but actually his team won all three matches, which occurred on April 22, 1999 in South Bend, Indiana, April 23 in Toronto, Ontario, and April 24 in Madison Square Garden.

From there, Mankind and the Undertaker were not programmed against each other regularly, but they continued to have sporadic in-ring encounters. On a July 29, 1999 house show in Baltimore, Maryland, Mankind teamed with Kane and X-Pac to defeat the Undertaker, Triple H, and the Big Show, and on August 11 of ’99, the audience for a non-televised event saw a three-way tag team match between the Rock n’ Sock Connection, the Big Show & the Undertaker, and Triple H & Billy Gunn which ended in a no contest.

Speaking of the Rock n’ Sock Connection, they became the WWF Tag Team Champions by defeating the Undertaker and Mankind on the August 30, 1999 Monday Nigh Raw in Boston, though they lost the titles back to Taker and Show on the fourth-ever episode of Smackdown, which was taped in Albany, New York on Sepember 7, 1999 to air on September 9.

Less than a week later, those four men and Kane were booked in a five-way match for the number one contendership to the WWF Title on the September 13 Monday Night Raw, which emanated from the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California. It ended in a no contest. On the episode of Smackdown that was taped the next night in Las Vegas to air the following Friday, the same five men rematched in a mini Royal Rumble with the Undertaker emerging as the victor.

That was the last time these two rivals would be involved in the same match for many years. To see them involved in the same bout again, you have to fast forward to January 27, 2008 and that year’s Royal Rumble pay per view in Madison Square Garden, where both men entered the Rumble match itself. Though they were in the ring at the same time for a period in the match, they really did not interact at all, which was a missed opportunity in my opinion. If I were laying out the match, I would have at the very least set things up so that they could do a staredown and get a big nostalgia pop as soon as Foley made his entrance.

So, there you have it . . . the post Heck on a Deck history of the Undertaker and Mick Foley.

Jon is seeking approval from the crowd before shaking my hand:

What would be your top five shocking turns in wrestling history that actually make total sense with the storylines and characters involved? Face to heel or vice versa.

Unpopular opinion time:

I don’t have a top five list, because shocking turns suck.

These sorts of things should be built up so that the audience wants them and/or can see them coming just a bit before they actually happen. That’s good storytelling.

There are people who go crazy for surprises in wrestling, but, in my view, it is very rare that a true surprise is better than something that has been teased and built up properly.

Brendan can name all the U.S. presidents in order:

For some reason, I’m really interested in WWF just before Vince and Hulkamania took over. And it seems that the WWF was already becoming even more of a “gimmick” driven territory just before Hogan jumped ship from the AWA. One example is Bob Backlund. He always had the good guy all American gimmick, but it was subtle. But by 1983 he was wearing a singlet and he seemed to be more stereotypical. My question, was this an intentional change to his character or just small changes that were just coincidental?

I’m not sure that I agree with your assessment. I went back and watched a few 1983 Backlund promos as part of preparing to answer this question, and I didn’t see a noticeable difference between that year and what he was doing in the years before. For example, take a look at this interview headed into a fateful championship defense against the Iron Sheik:

It’s just normal, run of the mill Backlund stuff.

If anything, I wouldn’t think that the promotion would be ramping up Backlund’s babyface all-American nature, because the longstanding rumor was that, after Hulk Hogan’s title win, Backlund was intended to turn heel and he didn’t like the idea, ultimately leaving the promotion over it. However, even though that’s something I’ve heard for years, the former NCAA Champion did a shoot interview with noted piece of shit Hannibal in 2022 and said that he does not recall the heel turn proposal at all and instead left the WWF for new challenges in new territories.

David is chomping on a cigar:

I was watching some old Monday Night Raws from 1997, and one of the big feuds was between Goldust, Marlena, and Brian Pillman. Pillman had won Marlena’s services for thirty days, and they were saying that once that was over that Goldust and Marlena would renew their wedding vows. Unfortunately, in real life Brian Pillman passed away just as that angle was ending. Was there supposed to be any follow up involving Pillman or was the angle just delayed where Goldust left Marlena as few weeks after?

According to a shoot interview that Terri “Marlena” Runnels did with Highspots back in 2008, the Goldust/Marlena vow renewal was supposed to occur on Monday Night Raw, with Pillman attacking Goldie during the ceremony and spilling Mr. Runnels’ blood all over his wife’s white wedding gown. After this, Marlena was going to turn on her hubby and align with Pillman, with the idea being that he had shifted her towards his side during the thirty days of servitude.

Instead, we wound up getting the inverse of the angle, as Goldust turned on Marlena as opposed to the other way around.

I’ve received a lot of similar questions about the WWE Hall of Fame lately, so let’s knock all those out in one go. First, here’s Daniel‘s version of the question:

With Triple H fingerprints well and truly on the WWE product and for the most part, a lot of positive changes with storylines, in-ring action and the roster, my question is do you expect this to extend to the annual Hall of Fame inductions? HHH is notorious for mending plenty of fences and appears to respect the history of the WWE and those who come before him. Surely he will do something about Demolition, Mike Rotundo and Rick Martel (glaring obvious) being inducted sooner than later?

Big Al also asks more or less the same general question but then puts some specific twists on it:

Now that HHH is in charge of WWE, is it his decision who goes into the HOF? I’ve noticed over the last few years they’ve put a LOT of big names that should have been in there many years ago. Other than still active performers and not including the Undertaker (who most certainly will go in) who do you feel are the biggest snubs still? I believe Demolition is.

Also, now that HHH is in charge of WWE, is it possible that Martha Hart will give her blessing to put Owen Hart in the HOF? What I mean is her issue with WWE as a whole? Or was it just with Vince McMahon? Also, was there any known animosity between Martha and Bret when Bret came back to the WWE in 2010?

It was recently stated that the reason that Demolition is not in the HOF is because of some beef they had with Vince McMahon and the WWE. However, I remember an article on 411 a couple of years ago where Demolition said they wanted $100,000 to join. Which one is correct? Or are they both correct? If it’s just the money is $100,000 too much to ask? I don’t know what HOF recipients and those who sign “legends” deal receive but Demolition is one of the great tag teams of all time.

All right. Taking Daniel and Big Al’s questions together, there’s quite a lot to unpack here. Let’s see if we can’t take things one at a time.

Regarding the general concept of Triple H controlling who does and who doesn’t go into the WWE Hall of Fame, it’s apparent from reports on how recent shows have been handled that even though Trips and his crew may be the ones initially doing creative and talent relations work, Vince McMahon has still enjoyed a certain degree of veto power ever since he reinserted himself into the promotion’s corporate hierarchy. This means at the end of the day, these calls are still going to have to pass Vinne Mac’s muster – though he has shown willingness to go along with HHH’s plans in the past if they make business sense, such as Trips being the one to lobby for and ultimately coordinate Bruno Sammartino’s Hall of Fame induction back in 2013.

Moving on to the specific names mentioned, Rick Martel probably doesn’t want to go into the Hall of Fame. I answered a question specifically about Martel and the HOF back in 2021 and noted that Bruce Prichard on his podcast said Martel is basically just done with wrestling.

As to Mike Rotunda, that one is a bit of a head scratcher for me, because he was employed by the company as an agent for many years and presumably could have filled out an Hall of Fame class at any point during that time. To my knowledge, neither side has really commented on why there hasn’t been an induction. If I had to speculate, this is either a situation in which Rotunda, like Martel, simply doesn’t want the induction or one in which he has wanted to wait until a point where his sons can participate, which wouldn’t have made sense given Bray Wyatt’s character most of the time he was associated with WWE.

On the subject of Demolition, Big Al is right that there was a headline circulating four years ago stating that they wanted $100,000 to be inducted into the Hall. That is a statement that Ax and Smash made. Specifically, they made it on an episode of Sean Mooney’s podcast. I don’t know how serious they were when they made it, because the conversation had the tone of some old friends bullshitting, but that is what they said. They also said WWE had contacted them about going into the HOF (for a payoff of $5,000 to $6,000), so it doesn’t appear that the holdup was on the company’s end – or at least it wasn’t at the time. I would say that their $100k price tag is ridiculous. The bar has been set so low for WWE Hall of Famers that Demolition can easily walk over it given their history with the promotion, but they’re not worth twenty times the going rate for the appearance, assuming the $5,000 number they gave is accurate.

However, there is part of me that wonders whether, in the meantime, Demolition’s participation as plaintiffs in the concussion lawsuit against WWE may have torpedoed any invitation the E may otherwise have made. That lawsuit was pretty bitterly contested, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bridge was burned there.

Now we move on to Owen Hart. No, I don’t believe he’ll be going into the WWE Hall of Fame during either his wife’s lifetime or his children’s lifetimes. They don’t want the company that caused the death of their husband and father profiting off his image. That is totally reasonable, and I would feel the same way if I were in their position. Besides, at least at present, they have an arrangement with AEW that they seem to be completely happy with.

Finally, Al also asked me who I think the biggest remaining snubs are. The most obvious answer to that question is the Rock. I don’t think it’s an active “snub,” because WWE would no doubt fall all over themselves to get him in. However, Rocky himself in an interview earlier this year said he has not gone in because he wants to consider himself fully retired before he does so, and he is not yet at that point. I would still categorize him as the most deserving individual who has not yet received his induction, though.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.