Recently, Mick Foley praised Randy Orton for completing 20yrs in WWE and talked about the 2003-04 feud involving both legends.
The Pro Wrestling World has been raining praise and gratitude to Randy Orton for completing 20yrs in the WWE company. “The Hardcore Legend” Mick Foley also applauded Randy Orton and called his achievement surprising. WWE celebrated Randy Orton’s accomplishment over the past week which culminated in the latest edition of Monday Night Raw.
Mick Foley reflected back on his 2003-04 feud with The Viper
On the latest edition of the Throwing Down with Renee & Miesha podcast, The Hardcore Legend praised Orton on his 20th anniversary in WWE. He also talked about the feud he had with Orton in 2003-04.
Disclosing the origin of his feud with The Viper, Foley stated that he went to Vince McMahon with two ideas. The first one was winning the Royal Rumble and challenging both champions. The plan B was related to Mick Foley and Randy Orton. Mick Foley also talked about how he had to convince Vince and Stephanie to do the feud his way.
He said:
“It all balanced on me being the first guy to walk away from a match. Just have a crisis of confidence, basically, I guess chicken out would be one expression. Vince didn’t want me to do it.
Stephanie called me up, ‘We’re gonna have Evolution attack you.’
I said, ‘Why? What happened to me stepping out of the match?’
She said, ‘my dad doesn’t think the fans will ever forgive you.’
So I said, ‘OK, I’m gonna call your dad.’
So I called Vince, and he said, ‘Mick, you’ve just worked so hard. I’d hate to have the fans rebel on you that way.’
I said, ‘Vince, you’re a big fan of Westerns, right? Go back and watch Shane and tell me how could that movie be – as he accepts the challenge the first time because the entire movie is predicated on this guy finding this deep part, dark part of his soul that he thought he’d left behind.”
Foley also disclosed how he had to persuade Randy Orton to do something that he did not want to
Even though Vince and Stephanie were ok with the story idea, Orton was not ok with spitting Mick Foley on the face. Foley stated:
“They went with my idea, but I had to talk Randy into spitting on me, on camera. He did not want to do it, then he finally said, ‘Mick, what if I just pretend? I won’t really spit on you.’
I said, ‘Randy, this is one of the most important moments of your career. You need to dig down as deep into your lungs as far as you can, and the people need to see that residue, proving he was a gamer when it came time to do it. You would never guess that he was hesitating on that.”
Randy Orton Faced each other at WrestleMania XX and continued their feud after that. The classic rivalry culminated at Backlash 2004 in a brutal Hardcore match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
There is no doubt that the feud with Foley elevated the career of Randy Orton to a new level. Even Randy Orton has spoken many times about Foley and hailed The Hardcore legend.
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