Mick Foley recently talked about a wide range of topics on his Foley is Pod, available via AdFreeShows,
During it, he recalled his WrestleMania 20 match in 2004 where he teamed up with The Rock against Randy Orton, Batista, and Ric Flair:
“WrestleMania gives me a chance to team up with the Rock, gives me a chance to be a part of a huge show. But it also gives me the chance to fail myself, so that the next month is a very much a personal redemption story. I really felt like I failed at that time. I felt like I had to experience it to really fully appreciate it, I had to have that valley to appreciate the peak.”
Foley prayed before the match that he wouldn’t suck in the match. Foley used a baseball analogy to explain that he didn’t suck, but didn’t hit a home run either:
“So, you alluded to the home run. I’m going out there just looking to fly out to centre field so I don’t strike out and embarrass myself, and you don’t get into the Hall of Fame that way, hoping to not suck, and I didn’t suck. No, but I wasn’t swinging for the fences.”
“I would have rather struck out knowing that I was taking my swings than to go out there and do what I did. I can’t watch the match. Ric Flair, he feels like it was a really good match. I’m like, ‘Ric, I can’t watch it. I can’t watch it.’ He says, ‘No, you were great, you were great.’”
“But when I was in the ring, and it’s Rock and Ric starting, and Ric is one of only two people – the other one being Terry Funk – who had it every single time they walked into that ring, like there was no place they would rather be than in that ring performing for you that night.”
“Given the chance of any other option, no, I would not want to be in that ring that night. That’s not a knock on anyone else, but those are the two guys I felt like came alive every single night every single time. And now I’m getting to see Ric do this in front of me in a match that I’m in and I’m getting the and he’s mimicking The Rock, you know, with the People’s Elbow, it’s just great stuff.”
Foley lost all confidence after seeing Flair and The Rock in the ring.
“Now I feel almost like I felt when Les Thorton, the man of 1000 holds, is working so well with The Bulldogs in the second match and I lose all my confidence. I go from being this guy who had been the three-time world champion, and I just become somebody who in my mind doesn’t belong out there. And it is what it is. If you guys say it was very good, I’ll trust you to say it was very good, but I can’t bring myself to watch that match. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 90 seconds of it at a time.”
H/T to Inside The Ropes for the transcription