June 28 is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Hell in a Cell match that saw Mick Foley get hurled off the side of the cage by Undertaker.
For me, however, it has a deeper meaning.
The match took place at King of the Ring ‘98 and was only the third Hell in a Cell match in WWE history at the time. Foley was known as Mankind then, and Undertaker was one of his biggest rivals.
Upon making his entrance, Foley astonishingly climbed the giant steel structure to start the match, and Undertaker proceeded to join him at the top.
Then, in one of wrestling’s most shocking moments of all time, Undertaker brought Mankind to the edge and tossed him off the side. Foley plunged 22 feet to the ground, crashing through an announcer’s table and landing on the concrete.
WWE personnel and medics rushed to his side, and Foley was strapped to a stretcher to be taken to the back. Then, in a move that was perhaps heroic and certainly foolhardy, Mankind got off the stretcher and climbed back to the top of the cell.
Undertaker once again met him there and the match continued.
Foley was then chokeslammed through the top of the cage, sending him on a painful descent to the ring. Adding insult to injury, a chair fell at the same time from the top, landing on Mankind’s face and knocking him out.
The match somehow continued after this until Taker eventually took Foley out with his trademark Tombstone for the pinfall victory.
It was one of the wildest things you could ever watch in wrestling. To this day, when a non-wrestling fan asks me to show them something that proves wrestling isn’t “fake,” this is the match I show them.
And there’s a good reason for it. It’s the match that kicked off my fandom.
Twenty-five years ago this week, a neighbor my brother and I played basketball with excitedly came over to tell us he had something we needed to watch. It was a wrestling match we had to see to believe.
This wasn’t the first time I had watched wrestling, but I hadn’t watched it religiously, and the way he spoke of the match made it seem life-changing.
My brother and I shuffled up to his bedroom and waited with wonder as he put the VHS tape in. Yes, I’m old and I come from a VHS era — deal with it. The match played out and my eyes couldn’t unglue from the screen.
My dad had always been a wrestling fan, but the stuff he showed us from the 80s and early 90s never really connected with me. It certainly wasn’t like this!
This Hell in a Cell match was different. This was real. This was a guy being thrown off the side of the cage through a table. This was a guy being chokeslammed into thumbtacks. This was a man risking his life for our entertainment. You can’t “fake” that.
Then everything clicked for me. I finally got it.
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I had to tune in the next week to see the follow-up. I needed to see what other characters like this I was missing. If this was engaging me more than anything I had ever watched, then I had to catch up fast and get on board.
From then on, a lifelong love of wrestling blossomed.
So, while many wrestling fans remember this day as a moment in time that will never be forgotten, for me it holds a deeper meaning. It’s the week my love affair with wrestling began.
And considering I’m being paid to write this article, I’d say that love affair worked out pretty well for us all.
Ryan Satin is a WWE analyst for FOX Sports. Satin previously appeared on FS1’s “WWE Backstage” and founded Pro Wrestling Sheet, where he broke countless news stories as editor-in-chief.
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