Mick Foley Recalls Using The Rock’s ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ Catchphrase Against Him, Taking 10 Chair Shots in His I Quit Match

WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley recently joined Insight with Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed using getting to use The Rock’s own catchphrase, “It doesn’t matter!” against the Great One. He also reflected on his infamous I Quit Match against The Rock, which took place at the 1999 Royal Rumble.

According to Foley, the match was originally meant to only have him get hit with five chair shots. The match was also documented in the acclaimed documentary, Beyond the Mat, released in 2000. Below are some highlights:

On His Infamous I Quit Match Against The Rock featured in Beyond the Mat

“Plan was yeah, for five. But I was still in the ring at five. I didn’t realize that your body has the ability to give with a chair shot. That doesn’t make it fake. It’s just like anything. It would be like all of a sudden now, instead of having an ability to give, somebody’s punching you square in the face while your head is up against the wall, the impacts would be so much worse. This isn’t an exact analogy, but once my hands were cuffed and anyone at home could do that be like, Oh, I can see why. If you were hit in the head, it would be far more painful. So I literally could not believe how much that first chair shot hurt, more than any one I’d ever taken. And so instead of being halfway up the aisle on five, I was still in the ring. And so I wanted to do the best job I could.

“But even as I was getting there, I did not know my children were crying. The original finish, which was supposed to be the camera sees my family crying, I see my family crying, and I quit. I don’t want to do that. Now, if you go through history, it was like, within two weeks, Triple H did the same thing that I wanted to do with Chyna, but it was just done so quickly, there’s so much in wrestling you can’t digest at all, and that wasn’t something people were able to sit down and, like, really enjoy. But that was the original idea. And my worry was that I’d spent their whole lives telling them that I was just playing and that dad that couldn’t be hurt. I thought they’d come over to the kids, they’d be like, reading. I didn’t know they’d be crying, but to borrow a line from John Candy in Home Alone. Kids are resilient. They came around and started talking after a couple of weeks.”

Mick Foley on Getting The Rock With His Own Catchphrase

“I’d like to say it was his idea. I don’t know. I don’t know if I would have been bold enough to say, Can I use your catchphrase against you? But part of the fun of being with Rock is that nobody gave us a script, we went out there as the Rock and Sock Connection. So even when I started playing off his catchphrases, it worked so well because it was live, whereas if I’d said, ‘Hey, how do you feel about this?’ Maybe it would have gotten shot down. I remember I was doing a signing somewhere, and they were playing like the best of Rock and Sock Connection. And I had to remember, I’m at a signing, because I was marking out so much for our own work.

“And by the way, I only use the word mark in a positive way towards myself. I think the idea of referring to your fans in negative terms is self-defeating. You’re talking about your fans, people who like what you do, and then you’re going to give them a name based on them liking what you do? What does that make you? I consider what I do to wrestling is an art form, it really is. It’s anything you want it to be, and if you take pride in what you do, then you should not be criticizing the people who like it. So when I say marking out, I only do that in happy terms, and usually about myself.”

Mick Foley was later inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2013. As previously noted, Mick Foley also recently released a video message directed at United States President Donald Trump last month, imploring the President and fellow WWE Hall of Famer to “stop the madness” going on in the country involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).