One other case of a retired legend almost butchering his legacy for a run in TNA, “The Hardcore Legend” Mick Foley was still semi-active by the point he arrived in TNA at the top of 2008, but where he ended up in the corporate is a spot he should been nowhere near.
Foley originally arrived as an on-screen authority figure, but very like Flair, Foley would transition himself back into the ring by the spring of 2009. A one-off match would not have been offensive because, as we have already mentioned, Foley could still work a basic match despite his obvious difficulties walking, but that wasn’t enough for TNA. The powers that be thought it could be idea to have Foley, who had already put his body through unimaginable pain throughout his profession and will barely get around, to beat Sting and turn out to be the TNA World Champion.
Within the match where he became the TNA World Champion, Foley almost tore his ACL, suffered an enormous concussion that he blamed on the six-sided ring for having less give than a 4 sided ring, and admitted that he wasn’t joyful with how the match turned out. All of that was documented in his fourth book, “Countdown To Lockdown: A Hardcore Journal,” a book that also documents how he thought a few of the stories in TNA were a bit of undercooked, and while he did have some praise for the likes of TNA President Dixie Carter, he picked his words fastidiously enough that he was capable of get a legends contract with WWE after he left the corporate in 2011.
Between 2009 and 2011, Foley would proceed to suffer injury after injury, and yet still desired to soldier on (as was the style on the time) through his feuds with the likes of Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, and Kurt Angle. Had he not put his body through the whole lot that he did in TNA, there would have been a slim likelihood that Foley would have been capable of do the scrapped Hardcore match with Dean Ambrose on the WWE SummerSlam in 2012, and it’s likely he would not have needed to retire as well. Foley was told by his doctors in 2012 that he would never wrestle again, and searching back at a few of the spots he took in TNA, perhaps a move to the Impact Zone didn’t find yourself being the neatest move.
Foley still dreams of getting yet one more bloodbath to cap off his profession in style, even going so far as to attempt to lose 100 kilos before his sixtieth birthday with a view to get into ring shape. Nonetheless, doctors keep telling him to remain retired as yet one more bump could potentially cripple “The Hardcore Legend.” His run in TNA didn’t prevent him from returning to WWE in a non-wrestling capability nevertheless, becoming the “WWE Raw” General Manager in 2016, however it did prevent him from ending his profession in the corporate he at all times dreamed of working for when he was growing up.