Dave Meltzer and Chris Jericho Recall Owen Hart and Mick Foley Trying to Have a Negative-Star Match

– On the latest Talk is Jericho, Dave Meltzer and Chris Jericho recalled the story of Owen Hart and Mick Foley having a bad match on purpose to try and get a negative-star rating from Meltzer. Foley wrote about the infamous match in his book, saying that they oversold everything in order to have the worst match possible while Steve Austin watched the whole thing.

Meltzer recalled the match, which took place on a San Jose house show, as getting over with the crowd for how ridiculous it was and that the match ended up being fun and getting over with the crowd despite how bad Hart and Foley tried to make it be.

“The story I heard later from Mick is, they knew I was there, and they wanted to have like, the worst match possible,” Meltzer recalled. “Like, a negative star match just for their own fun. And okay, so here’s the thing. I didn’t know that they were doing this. I did watch the match and they took bags of popcorn and they would hit each other with bags of popcorn, and sell it like crazy. And it was absolutely preposterous. But it also got over.”

He continued, “And also, even those guys trying to be bad, they were still, like it really wasn’t what I would call a bad [match]. It was a ridiculous match. It was like, watching two guys do a comedy match, but they’re talented guys. It really wasn’t anything resembling a negative star horrible match. It was just a comedy match that got over with the crowd.”

Foley recalled in his book that when they got to the back, Austin was the special enforcer for the match and was unable to stay in character. Meltzer recalled that story, saying, “”I remember, the way I heard the story, I think Mick wrote it, they went to the back. And Austin was just like, ‘That was the worst piece of s**t match.’ And they were just happy that Austin said it, they didn’t care at that point. ‘If Austin said it was terrible, that was good enough for us. Who cares what Dave says?’ But yeah, I remember them completely overselling hitting each other with bags of popcorn, going, ‘This is so ridiculous.'”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk is Jericho with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.