This post is about Rock vs Mankind for the WWF title at the 1999 Royal Rumble. As I’ve been doing this past week, I’m still watching WWF Raws from the 1990s through Peacock. I wanted to make this it’s own post because it didn’t really “fit” with the other feelings I had about the 1999 Royal Rumble

So I finally watched this match (or I watched all of it except for the chairshots to the head).  Mankind aka Mick Foley was apparently planning this match for a month, telling people it was going to be his magnum opus, and in a way it was but not for the reasons he may have intended.

So this Mankind vs the Rock feud was incredibly hot. Mankind, the deformed now good guy with a heart of gold was against the Rock, the self-proclaimed “people’s champion” that the people loved to hate. The WWF title was on the line with the stipulation was that either Mankind or the Rock had to say “I quit” for the match to end.  No pinfalls, no passing out due to blood loss, the match will not stop until someone verbally submits.  I’ve seen versions of this match type that kind of sucked (Roddy Piper murdered the Bret Hart vs Backlund version of this match), but Rock and Mankind did a very smart job in putting together this one.  There’s a microphone in the match at all times because they have to say “I quit” into the microphone, and Rock and Mankind would frequently grab the mic to taunt each other, which worked really well because they are both great talkers and storytellers. 

I also noticed that although Mankind took a lot of the punishment, Rock didn’t get away scot free.  At the beginning of the match Rock wouldn’t quit so Mankind beat him over the head with the microphone and kept asking him after each beating.  It was especially vicious because you could hear the impact of the microphone hitting Rock’s head from the microphone’s audio, and I’m sure it hurt Rock to take those shots. 

They also knew that Mankind had a reputation for taking devastating punishment and they worked that reputation into the match in a *safe* way prior to the chairshots.  They were fighting on scaffolding and Rock threw Mankind off of the scaffolding and onto some wiring, and when Mankind landed a bunch of sparks were lit up and the announcers said Mankind had been electrocuted.  Now in reality this was probably an easy, safe spot where Mankind jumped into some non-electrical wires and padding that broke his fall. The sparks were just pyrotechnics, and so a little smoke and mirrors made something safe look like something dangerous, and it worked in really well for the match.

But then of course the ending, which I just couldn’t watch it so I skipped it.  Rock handcuffs Mankind and then hits him multiple times in the head with a chair.  Now as everyone knows wrestling is scripted and the two performers work together to put on a good match and the backstage story is that Mankind was supposed to tell Rock when to stop hitting and end the match. Because of this, Mankind was supposed to be in total control over how many chair shots to the head he took, but of course chair shots to the head concussed his brain and it seems he forgot or didn’t tell Rock the right time to stop. After many many many chair shots to the head, the ending finally happens with Mankind lying unconscious on the mat (looking back you pray he wasn’t unconscious for real) and the Rock plays an audio recording of Mankind saying “I quit” in order to get the illegal victory. This ending was I guess the only way they could end the match, but it is another amazing example of the writers not all being on the same page because prior to the match several announcers had claimed Mankind was refusing to ever say the words “I quit” so as not to jinx himself in the match or allow Rock to pull this kind of shenanigan. Then right before the PPV Mankind screams “I quit” into the TV a bunch of times on the pre-show, so I guess everything the announcers told us was a lie.  The match ended with the Rock winning, and due to the concussion Mick Foley suffered so much that he doesn’t even remember that Dwayne Johnson (Rock out of character) spoke to him after the match and apologized for going over board with the chair shots. In his book he claims that the Rock never spoke to him after the match, but backstage video (including the documentary “Behind the Mat” shows that not to be the case).

The match will live on in infamy as many many Mick Foley matches do.  He was a brilliant wrestler and many people said he had the greatest mind for putting together matches out of anyone in history.  I hope he still has a mind at all after all these years.