Mick Foley was far from Vince McMahon’s first choice of Superstar when he joined the company in 1996 but quickly proved himself to be a valuable asset.
After being signed so that Jim Ross would know what it was like to have a talent break his heart, Foley starred in the ring and struck up an incredible relationship with fans. When he finally retired from the ring he was a multiple-time World Champion and one of the most beloved WWE Superstars ever.
As his wrestling career came to a close Foley became a popular on-screen authority figure, a role he reprised on numerous occasions. Most recently, Foley became Raw General Manager in 2016 alongside Stephanie McMahon who acted as Commissioner.
Mick Foley Defied Vince McMahon
During a recent episode of his Foley is Pod podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer discussed this period of his career. Foley explained that he initially struggled with working with scripts due to his memory issues.
“When I finally started to get on track with the GM role, it’s where I realized “okay, I’m in a different atmosphere. I have to play by the rules, I don’t get to write the rules anymore.” But instead of me trying to memorize someone else’s verbiage, which is really difficult for me with the head injuries, I would write out promos. Even if they only took a few lines, it felt like they were mine.”
Foley also recalled getting his way with a segment although it went against what Vince McMahon wanted. The former World Champion revealed that he teamed up with Stephanie to override Vince, and he eventually liked what they came up with.
“I got maybe ten percent of what I wanted out of Vince. Then Stephanie and I went and cut the promo our own way. It was a lot of tension. We are overriding Vince’s edict. We cut the promo. He sees us cutting the promo, he goes “what the hell is going on here?”
Stephanie goes “dad, Mick and I did this just to see what happened. We’d like you to take a look at it.” And it was about a three-minute segment. He looked at it after, what seemed like an eternity, nodded his head, and went, “we’ll do it your way.” As soon as he turned the corner, we hugged. We were just so happy that we had stood up for ourselves.”
During the episode, Foley also paid tribute to Stephanie McMahon for helping him with his memory issues.
H/t to 411 Mania