I think we all know that one person in our lives, that one insufferable person who loves Christmas just a bit much. That person in this story is Mick Foley, whose love of Christmas is well documented. This video isn’t going to be a deep dive of Mick Foley and Christmas, because I’m pretty sure it’d take me until Easter to research that alone. In this video I wanted to talk about a specific match that took place on the December 20th ‘99 episode of Raw. Why it happened and what happened next. It’s a not often talked about part of the long and violent history between all three of Mick’s wrestling personas, and one of his most fierce rivals, Triple H, and I also wanted to go over the feud to that point, as in my opinion, it’s overlooked when we talk about long running WWE rivalries.
Prior to late ‘99, Foley and Triple H had feuded through the summer of 1997. That time their dispute stemmed from the King of the Ring finals that year, where Triple H would finally get his win that he was meant to have the year prior. As I’ve talked about in an early video on this channel, Triple H has said over the years since that he hated being King of the Ring, more specifically, he hated wearing the oversized gaudy looking crown, and would break it whenever possible. Usually by hitting Mankind with it. The still blue blooded Hunter Hearst Helmsley would take the crown with the help of Chyna, and their grudge would lead to a steel cage match at Summerslam ‘97. This match took place in Madison Square Garden, where Mick famously hitchhiked to, to see Jimmy Snukka jump off the cage onto Don Muraco, and so Mankind paid tribute to this by dropping an almighty elbow onto Helmsley.
The feud would perhaps peak with a very famous Monday night Raw moment, which also took place in Madison Square Garden. On September 22nd ‘97, one of Micks other personas Dude Love Triple was supposed to face Triple H in a hardcore match, but Dude instead appeared on the titan tron. He explained that hardcore matches aren’t really his thing, and so would introduce Mankind. Foley would actually interview himself on the screen through editing magic, but neither of them wanted the match with Helmsley. They would finally introduce to WWE audiences, Cactus Jack, and Triple H would react like he’d just been told he was being sent back to development. Cactus and Triple H would then have a belter of a hardcore match, ending with a vicious looking piledriver on the stage. I wonder if thats where Triple H’s aversion to them comes from nowadays?
Foley and the Game would meet more over the coming years, such as in August ‘99, where Mankind would win the WWE title in a triple threat match with he and Steve Austin at Summerslam. On the next night, Triple H would threaten to break the arm of Jim Ross unless he was given a title shot against Mankind, which he would win later that night to earn his first world title. It would be at the end of the year though that their feud would really get heated again, starting with Santa Claus, kind of.
On an episode of Foley is Pod talking about his match at the 2000 Royal Rumble with Triple H, Mick Foley detailed that around this time his active career was coming to an end, but he didn’t yet know when or how. He notes that he had a meeting with Vince McMahon in early November where he described how his body was wearing down, and how he couldn’t even play sports with his kids. McMahon wanted him to retire right away. There is a world where realistically, Mick Foley’s last match could have been Mankind and Al Snow versus Hardcore and Crash Holly from the November 4th 99 Smackdown. Not exactly Sting’s retirement at Revolution is it? Better than Flair’s though.
By this time we were in McMahon-Helmsley era, which took over WWE in late ‘99 into the year 2000. On screen Triple H and Stephanie McMahon Helmsley were in charge, and they took great glee in punishing anyone who defied them, especially Mankind. They also took a great deal of joy in punishing us the viewers, as the regime seemed to come out on top week after week. Earlier in the night, Mick had come out to save Jim Ross, who Triple H was again threatening in the ring, much like he did in August. Mankind tells Triple H and Stephanie that the McMahon Helmsley era quote “kinda sucks”, then tells Stephanie off for disparaging the good name of Santa Claus by wearing a Santa hat. Instead of fighting Mankind himself, Triple H books him in a boiler room match, but doesn’t tell him who his opponent will be. Mick would find out who his opponent was moments before heading into the boiler room for the match.
Prior to late ‘99, Foley and Triple H had feuded through the summer of 1997. That time their dispute stemmed from the King of the Ring finals that year, where Triple H would finally get his win that he was meant to have the year prior. As I’ve talked about in an early video on this channel, Triple H has said over the years since that he hated being King of the Ring, more specifically, he hated wearing the oversized gaudy looking crown, and would break it whenever possible. Usually by hitting Mankind with it. The still blue blooded Hunter Hearst Helmsley would take the crown with the help of Chyna, and their grudge would lead to a steel cage match at Summerslam ‘97. This match took place in Madison Square Garden, where Mick famously hitchhiked to, to see Jimmy Snukka jump off the cage onto Don Muraco, and so Mankind paid tribute to this by dropping an almighty elbow onto Helmsley.
The feud would perhaps peak with a very famous Monday night Raw moment, which also took place in Madison Square Garden. On September 22nd ‘97, one of Micks other personas Dude Love Triple was supposed to face Triple H in a hardcore match, but Dude instead appeared on the titan tron. He explained that hardcore matches aren’t really his thing, and so would introduce Mankind. Foley would actually interview himself on the screen through editing magic, but neither of them wanted the match with Helmsley. They would finally introduce to WWE audiences, Cactus Jack, and Triple H would react like he’d just been told he was being sent back to development. Cactus and Triple H would then have a belter of a hardcore match, ending with a vicious looking piledriver on the stage. I wonder if thats where Triple H’s aversion to them comes from nowadays?
Foley and the Game would meet more over the coming years, such as in August ‘99, where Mankind would win the WWE title in a triple threat match with he and Steve Austin at Summerslam. On the next night, Triple H would threaten to break the arm of Jim Ross unless he was given a title shot against Mankind, which he would win later that night to earn his first world title. It would be at the end of the year though that their feud would really get heated again, starting with Santa Claus, kind of.
On an episode of Foley is Pod talking about his match at the 2000 Royal Rumble with Triple H, Mick Foley detailed that around this time his active career was coming to an end, but he didn’t yet know when or how. He notes that he had a meeting with Vince McMahon in early November where he described how his body was wearing down, and how he couldn’t even play sports with his kids. McMahon wanted him to retire right away. There is a world where realistically, Mick Foley’s last match could have been Mankind and Al Snow versus Hardcore and Crash Holly from the November 4th 99 Smackdown. Not exactly Sting’s retirement at Revolution is it? Better than Flair’s though.
By this time we were in McMahon-Helmsley era, which took over WWE in late ‘99 into the year 2000. On screen Triple H and Stephanie McMahon Helmsley were in charge, and they took great glee in punishing anyone who defied them, especially Mankind. They also took a great deal of joy in punishing us the viewers, as the regime seemed to come out on top week after week. Earlier in the night, Mick had come out to save Jim Ross, who Triple H was again threatening in the ring, much like he did in August. Mankind tells Triple H and Stephanie that the McMahon Helmsley era quote “kinda sucks”, then tells Stephanie off for disparaging the good name of Santa Claus by wearing a Santa hat. Instead of fighting Mankind himself, Triple H books him in a boiler room match, but doesn’t tell him who his opponent will be. Mick would find out who his opponent was moments before heading into the boiler room for the match.
To this point, this would only be the fourth boiler room brawl match, and Mankind had a winning record in them. In the first one he defeated the Undertaker at Summerslam 1996. In that match the two fought out of the boiler room, and took part in the slowest chase scene in history on their way to the ring. To win, they had to enter the ring and take the symbolic urn from Paul Bearer, but when Undertaker dramatically posed for Bearer to hand the urn over, he turned around, literally turning his back on him. Paul would laugh as Mankind applied the mandible claw, then hit ‘Taker with the urn, cementing his turn to the dark side. No pun intended there.
In the second boiler room brawl Mankind would defeat the Big Show, in a very violent match where Mankind would bleed profusely out of his hand, after smashing a glass frame over Show’s head. As you might expect from a hardcore match between these two, Mankind took an absolute beating, coming back with clever use of weapons, like hitting a pipe to make steam shoot out a Show, and in the end burying him under a stack of metal pipes. This might be my favourite of the boiler room brawls, because someone actually thought to turn the lights on.
Boiler room match three would take place on the September 23rd ‘99 edition of Smackdown, episode number six of over one thousand three hundred to this point. In this one Mankind would lose to Triple H, who was taking part in a five matches in one night, to try and earn his spot in the WWE championship six pack challenge at Unforgiven, a match he would win for his second world title. Being the fourth of five Triple H matches one a two hour show, and the second Mankind match as he would lose the tag team titles with the Rock earlier in the night to the New age Outlaws, this one is very short at just under five minutes. At the end Mankind wanted to dive off a roof, much like he did in the cage match against triple H at Summerslam, but a pipe would knock him off and through tables and debris, allowing Triple H to leave the boiler room and win the match. It was never explained who pushed mankind, but there are many theories, such as it was the same mysterious figure who raised the briefcase in Steve Austin’s ladder match for control of the company at King of the Ring ‘99, though I’m pretty sure this was explained to be the Big Bossman.
Right before the ad break before the match, Triple H would announce from his locker room, that Mankind’s opponent for the fourth boiler room match would be none other than Santa Claus. Though it’s been common knowledge for many years at this point, Mick’s fascination with Christmas was first made public in his first autobiography, Have a Nice Day. Back then the concept of a wrestler writing a book, never mind hand writing it himself, was so novel that it was even factored into WWE storylines. Michael Cole even noted this as he interviewed Mankind right before his match. To make sure that the reluctant Mankind entered the boiler room, the Mean Street Posse would attack him, and throw him into the room to start the match. That could quite possibly be the first and only time the Posse got the upper hand on anyone, and Mankind even quips this once in the room. Mankind, still not wanting to fight Santa attempts to reason with his hero, suggesting that he should just walk out of the door and win. Mankind’s attempt to convince Santa Claus are interrupted when he is attacked by three more Santa’s. It’s not clear who these are, though the wig of one of them kept falling off. Mankind made quick work of all three before being attacked by two more Santas, thats six now if you’re keeping count. Unline the last three, these two Santa’s had some pretty distinct mannerisms. At one point the beard of one slips, relieving Billy Gunn underneath, and the other moves a lot like Road Dogg. Despite them putting Mankind through a table, the New Age Out-Clauses are beaten up by Mankind, who picks up a frame with glass in it. As he goes to attack one of the Santas, a seventh and final Santa appears, swinging his sack and smashing the glass into Makainds face. Not a sentence I thought I’d ever write. The final boss of Santa’s starts berating Mankind, and from his voice it is clearly Triple H. He leaves the room and referee Teddy Long announces Santa to be the winner. The next time we see Triple H in his locker room with Stephanie, he is still wearing part of the Santa costume, just in case you didn’t recognise himah from his voicah, earliah.
This might shock you, but the Wrestling Observer nor the Torch covered Mankind’s match with Santa Claus in much more detail than recapping what happened on screen. Reading between the lines while listening to Foley talk about this time in his Podcast, and looking at the story between he and Triple H leading to the Royal Rumble, a lot of story was told outside the ring. In the Santa match Foley never actually leaves his feet until getting clobbered by Triple H at the end, and while he has twenty five matches between November and the Royal Rumble, they are all either tag matches with he Rock, or short singles matches. On Foley is Pod Mick also noted that “Triple H was operating with somebody in me, my self confidence had been eroded a little bit. I did my part to get into much better shape… …but I still needed somebody to push me, and thats what Triple H does”
Following the boiler room brawl, the McMahon Helmsley regime weren’t done messing with Mick Foley. On the December 27th episode of Raw, Mankind would be booked in a match with the Rock, a man who he had entered 1999 engaged in a bitter feud over the WWE title with, but since then a friendship had grown. An odd and sometimes turbulent friendship, but one nonetheless. This wouldn’t be an ordinary match though, as the two would be forced to battle in the first and hopefully last ‘pink slip on a pole match’ where the winner would retrieve the pink slip and keep their job, while the loser would be fired. Right after Christmas mind, thats a Vince idea if ever I heard one. While both fought hard to keep their spot, it would be the Rock who would keep his, and Mankind who would be fired.
In the coming weeks, the McMahon Helmsley regime would continue to humiliate Mick Foley, by hiring Mideon as a fake Mankind to make him look completely pathetic. On the January 6th 2000 Smackdown, this fake Foley, which I just learned was actually played by Mideon, thankfully with his clothes on, would sulk around Universal Studios Florida, while lamenting his life. In one particularly sad segment, Mideon is sat on the Jaws ride ranting about how he used to be someone when the Undertaker threw him off the Hell in a Cell, while the park visitors around him either look bemused or ignore him completely. If you've ever been on the Jaws ride as I did as a kid, you like me must have been wondering where the tour guide was. At least Jaws did make a cameo, looking more real that he did in the 1975 film.
While the fake Mankind was moping around Universal Studios, at Smackdown which was also in Orlando that night, police were stationed at the arena entrance in case the real Mankind showed up. Little did they plan for Mick Foley's well documented love of theme parks, as he actually showed up late in the episode at Universal to beat down Mideon. Foley destroys his doppleganger outside the Back to the Future ride, which by the way is sadly no longer there. Can you tell I have fond memories of Universal Studios? Sorry for the plug I have a video about wrestling at Universal Studios too by the way.
The December 20th Raw would really heat up Triple H’s feud with Mankind, and would eventually lead to one of the greatest Smackdown moments ever, when Mankind would become Cactus Jack again, but also one of the greatest matches in the history of the Royal Rumble, though I’m a bit biased as it’s one of my favourites of all time. The feud would come to an end at No Way Out 2000, where Cactus Jack would lose a title versus career match. Speaking of favourites, the Jim Ross call to close the show has stuck with me all these years. “Goodbye my friend, thanks for the great memories buddy.” Mick Foley would wrestle again a month later but forget that for a minut- Admittedly, this video strayed quite a long way from originally being about Christmas. Still, Happy Christmas from me, and happy new year.
Sources:
Summerslam 1997,
Raw September 22nd 1997,
Smackdown September 23rd 1999,
Raw December 20th 1999,
Raw December 27th 1999,
Smackdown January 6th 2000,
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