Mainstream Mat: Passion And Pain: King Of The Ring 1998

This article contains accounts and quotes collected from various online sources. Most are provided at the bottom of this page. My sincere appreciation and gratitude goes out to those who shared their memories over the years and those who collected them.

Civic Arena. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. June 28, 1998.

15 years ago, this is where the legend was born.

There's only one match from King Of The Ring 1998 that fans still talk about. A little more than 17,000 people were in attendance that night. In more than a half million other places, people were watching live on pay per view. But every fan has seen that match.

Hell In A Cell.

When The Undertaker and Mankind entered Pittsburgh's Civic Arena on June 28, 1998 there had been only two other Hell In A Cell matches in World Wrestling Federation history: A throwaway tag team no-contest two weeks earlier on Raw Is War involving "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Kane and the cell's legendary debut between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels.

Nothing before, and nothing after would ever compare to this night.

"Do you think he's daring The Undertaker to start this match up there?" -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Just climbing to the top of Hell In A Cell took toughness. The Undertaker was performing with a broken foot. Expectations were high, but Mankind was not Shawn Michaels in his prime. I wonder if either man entertained the thought that they were about to have what many crowned the match of the year in 1998, and perhaps the most famous in professional wrestling history.

"They're right above us folks, and I don't like it a damn bit." -Jim Ross

Most fans don't need YouTube to refresh their memory of what happened at the start of this match. It's instantly unforgettable. There's a little punching and teasing on top of the cell. Slowly, they wander toward the edge over the annouce tables. Then, the unthinkable happens. The Undertaker pushes Mankind off the top of the cell. Mick Foley was once asked what was going through his mind at that moment.

"I remember having two distinct thoughts. I was falling really fast and that table looked really small."

No one inside the Civic Arena had a more terrifying view of Foley's flight than WWE's veteran Spanish commentator Carlos Cabrera.

“At that moment, I was frozen for a fraction of a second, and when he smashed into the table, the sound was tremendous.”

“There must have been hundreds of moments at the table, but that was the most incredible and horrific one.”

"Good God almighty! Good God almighty! That killed him! As God is my witness, he's broken in half!" -Jim Ross

The sound. The Undertaker heard it too.

"When I tossed him off the cage it was like time stopped. People say they have out of body experiences and things like that. I could actually-" Years later, the stoic Deadman we all know is emotional as he remembers the moment.

"Standing on the cage and watching him fly, I could actually see him and I could actually see myself standing up there. I didn't think Mick Foley would get up from that. It was such a violent impact, you know, and the TV doesn't do it justice."

The match was at a virtual standstill for nearly 8 minutes. After an initial shriek from the crowd unlike just about anything ever heard at a professional wrestling show, people were still buzzing. Bleacher Report contributor Nick Bolyard was in the crowd, getting more than he expected from his first live WWF event.

"My brother was stunned. I was in shock. My dad, who wasn't a fan and thought it was all wires and tricks, couldn't believe what he just saw."

"Mankind was done. There was no way he was getting up. Then everything froze in the aisle. There was a stir. All of a sudden, a deafening roar overtook the arena. I couldn't see what was going on (since I was nine and like 4'10"). My dad shouted "How the hell is this guy standing?" All of a sudden, Mankind was climbing back up the cage. The match was back on!"

Jim Shireman was also in the crowd that night.

"I don't know if it's the immediate contrast to how quiet things had gotten or what, but when it was apparent he was up, fighting through Terry Funk and Hebner and going back up there after Taker? Absolutely unreal."

"Mankind is moving!" -Jerry "The King" Lawler

This is where things took an unexpected and even more dangerous turn. Mankind's first fall from the cell was always part of the plan, but when he and The Undertaker went up a second time they were, perhaps unknowingly, gambling with their careers. Fans could see the top of the cell was not going to hold up under their weight much longer. If you believe Mick Foley, he and The Undertaker did not anticipate the danger.

"I really thought the cell would slowly tear, so that The Undertaker would be stuffing me down a hole and the image would be of me dangling upside down, being stuffed through a hole, not plummeting into unconsciousness... and the history books."

A half-hearted choke slam sent Mankind crashing through the roof of the cell. A steel chair chased his face down to the mat, and knocked out his front teeth on impact. The Undertaker's face never showed it, but he was worried.

"This one was a lot worse than the first one. That panel wasn't supposed to break loose."

"Will somebody stop the damn match? Enough's enough!" -Jim Ross

Mick Foley was knocked out. Doctors and WWE officials filed into the cell. So, did Foley's longtime friend Terry Funk, wearing a pair of sneakers that would not make it out. After Funk was choke slammed by The Undertaker, the shoes came off. They remained in the ring for the rest of the match. The sight puzzled Foley for years.

"There was a point where I saw a pair of sneakers in the ring and I had no idea how they had gotten there. So there were 30 or 40 seconds there that had gone by that I couldn't remember and I'm still not aware of."

Funk finally revealed the mystery during Mick Foley's WWE Hall Of Fame induction. Funk also shared what The Undertaker whispered to him before he was choke slammed. The Undertaker told Funk to see if Mick Foley was still alive. Funk told him Foley was still breathing. The Undertaker was ready to see the match end.

"I actually told Mick. I said, 'Mick, just stay down.'"

Mankind did not stay down. He got up. Not even Mick Foley himself is sure why.

"I don't know what it was that got me to my feet. The logical conclusion would have been to call it a night, especially after that second time. No one would have thought less of me, but at the same time no one would be asking me about the match."

"He's either crazy as hell, or he's the toughest S.O.B. that I've ever seen." -Jim Ross

It wasn't just that Mankind kept fighting. For a few moments, it appeared he might actually win. Sensing the end of the match was within sight, he searched under the ring for something WWF fans had never seen before. It shocked Nick Bolyard, and a lot of other people.
"Mankind would pull a bag from under the ring. He poured something shiny into the ring. We had no clue what it was, until it filtered through the crowd that he was using thumbtacks."

The first fall was planned. The second was not, but what about that bag of thumbtacks under the ring? That was most certainly planned out before the match. The Undertaker and Mankind knew they were going to have to do something special to make this match memorable. They must have intended for this to be its signature moment. Instead, it's an afterthought.

"There's a human being in there who's unbelievably indestructable." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

The thumbtacks introduced by Mankind would be his downfall. After the pinfall, Nick Bolyard and the rest of the fans inside the Civic Arena processed what they has just seen.

"The reaction from the crowd was tremendous. We had just been taken on an emotional roller coaster. It was the equivalent of watching a walk-off home run at Yankee stadium or seeing Michael Jordan hit a buzzer-beating jumper to win the game."

"This is off the page." -Jim Ross

For those who experienced Hell In The Cell when it happened, it's easy to forget that not every fan was in that moment with them. Many fans have come along since. They know this match only by reputation and legend. They can't understand the shock of seeing it for the first time or hearing about it from your friends the day after.

The bar had never been set this high. Nothing ever felt this dangerous and real. Mick Foley nearly killed himself for our entertainment. He sustained a laundry list of injuries. One and a half missing teeth. 14 stitches below his lip. A concussion. A dislocated jaw. A bruised kidney. A dislocated shoulder.

He was back in the ring for a match two nights later.

Critics have had their say on Hell In A Cell. Some call it overrated. Others say Mick Foley became a star only because of the desperate risks he was willing to take and the damage he was willing to sustain.

I'll just ask one question.What made so many of us love Mick Foley after this night, those two hellacious falls? Or, that he got up and kept fighting?

Mick's fight to the top was just getting started. Six months and one day after Hell In A Cell, he won his first WWF Championship. He found more fame in the documentary Beyond The Mat, as a New York Times bestselling author and he had brutal, star-making runs with young performers from The Rock and Triple H to Randy Orton and Edge. His career was launched to another level with a little push from The Undertaker.

Mick Foley still gets around today, but he admits he's in pain a lot of the time. He knows matches like this one are the reasons why. They made his career, but they also shortened it.