Fifteen years ago this week, Mick Foley took two of the most-replayed bumps of the modern-era at the 1998 King of the Ring PPV. At the time, the concern was whether Foley's bumps off the top of the Hell in a Cell would lead to copy-cats attempting to emulate Foley's bumps because of how popular wrestling was at the time. Today, the concern shifts to concern for concussions and long-term damage to Foley's body from taking the dangerous-looking bumps.

The following is the PWTorch Newsletter Cover Story from 15 years ago covering Foley's bumps...

TORCH #501: COVER STORY
HEADLINE: Mick Foley's incredible bumps steal show
SUBHEADLINE: The two bumps will be talked about for decades, but will praise of his stunts lead to dangerous copycats?
By Wade Keller, Torch editor

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Sunday night, June 28, at the King of the Ring pay-per-view, Mick Foley took the two most incredible bumps in the history of professional wrestling. His two falls from the top of the cage in Pittsburgh, Pa. will be remembered for decades to come. They will also become a source of inspiration and jealousy on the part of some other wrestlers and a topic of discussion among wrestlers, promoters, and fans for a long time to come.

At the start of their Hell in the Cell match, Undertaker and Foley (in character as Mankind) fought on the roof of the cage. Just a minute into the match, Undertaker threw Foley off the top of the cage. Foley flipped in mid-air and landed on his back on the Spanish announcing table on the floor 16 feet below. He came just a few inches from landing on a monitor, just a few feet from hitting one of the announcers, and just a second of mistiming away from landing on his head and killing himself.

Minutes later, he got up from a stretcher and returned to the top of the cage to fight Undertaker again. Seconds later Undertaker chokeslammed him through the roof of the cage. Without a table to break his fall or a body roll to spread the impact of his fall, he landed flat on his back on the canvas of the ring 13 feet below. A minute later he got up and fought for another ten minutes.

As if the two bumps weren't enough to immortalize the match, at the end of the match Foley dumped a bag of about 500 thumb tacks onto the mat and ended up being slammed onto them twice. Dozens of tacks pierced his outfit and his skin. Seconds later Undertaker tombstoned Foley and scored a pin.

Without the two staggering bumps, the match would have been an excellent brawl. With the two bumps, it became perhaps the most memorable match of the '90s. But with both men bleeding, exchanging stiff chairshots, and Foley taking bumps onto tacks, it became the most brutal spectacle in the history of televised wrestling. It was undoubtedly a great wrestling match on several levels. Foley escaped with only three dislocated teeth, a broken jaw, and bruised ribs. That said, it has the potential to become an infamous and regretful match.

After the match, Jim Ross said on commentary: "I have never witnessed anything that even closely resembles what we just witnessed. These two men gave you everything in their bodies. They gave you part of their souls here tonight. This will be the most ungodly match that we will perhaps ever see. As long as I live I will never forget this moment."

Should the collective wrestling industry -- the announcers, promoters, wrestlers, and fans -- heap praise upon an act that came so close to ending a career and had the potential to cripple or end the life of a wrestler? Foley is much more than a stuntman. He's a good worker and one of the best talkers in the industry. Take out the thumb tacks and the falls from the roof of the cage and his match against Undertaker would still have been excellent. So is the thrill of seeing the added spectacle and is the memory that it creates worth the risks Foley took?

Foley is an adult with high intelligence and an apparently sound mind. He has established over the years a willingness to put himself at great risk in order to stand out in the crowd of a better bodies and more gifted athletes. Should Foley be praised? Perhaps. Should he be admired? In a twisted way, yes. But praising and admiring what Foley did is purely selfish on the part of us viewers who got a rush from seeing him risk his well-being for our entertainment.

It took tremendous timing and years of practicing bumps for Foley to pull off what he did. It is similar to Evil Knievel who used precise physics to establish the proper slope of his ramps and the speed of his motorcycle. Then he had to acquire unprecedented skill in manipulating his motorcycle so he had a chance to execute his jumps successfully. But he often crashed and spent months at a time in hospital beds.

Others in wrestling are going to see what Foley did and emulate it and perhaps try to top it. They may not have the years of honed skills that Foley has. They may not have his luck. And in the process of trying to top Foley, they may crash hard and end up paralyzed or dead -- all in an effort to receive praise and attention similar to what Foley has received this week.

[Torch photo credit Wade Keller (c) PWTorch.com]

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