Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley who is a former three times WWE World Champion recently talked about boxing Legend Mike Tyson becoming a part of a WWE storyline and also discussed his importance of being the special guest referee for the main event of WrestleMania XIV.
The involvement of Mike Tyson began before WrestleMania XIV when WWE decided to give homage to the boxing legend. It is considered as one of the best segments of the Attitude Era. Stone Cold Steve Austin got involved in this segment and he flipped the bird on the face of Tyson. In return Tyson pushed him away.
Mick Foley Discusses The Role Of Mike Tyson At WrestleMania XIV
The segment became really famous and it was one of the biggest steps that Austin climbed before becoming the top babyface of WWE. It just strengthened the gimmick of Austin even more. Fans started to worship Austin after such badass moments. WWE fans never saw anything like this before.
At WrestleMania XIV, Austin went on to challenge Shawn Michaels for the WWE championship where Mike Tyson was booked as the special guest referee. This was the match where Shawn Michaels passed the torch to Austin and it was really important. Tyson did a marvelous job as the special guest referee of this match, however, he never got involved in any other WWE segment ever after.
Mick Foley who is a former three times WWE World Champion recently spoke on his Foley Is Pod Podcast where he talked about boxing Legend Mike Tyson becoming a part of a WWE storyline and also discussed his importance of being the special guest referee for the main event of WrestleMania XIV. He said;
“When Mike met me, he was talking about ‘Mankind hanging out with rats.’ He was talking about the original vignettes, which I had forgotten I’d even did.”
“It does feel big. Big to the point where I remember being on one of those Legends roundtables, right before Mania? You may have seen it because I left there feeling kind of disrespected.
“I was stomped on by the panel when I said that Tyson was the most important celebrity we’d ever had, I got jumped on for that! ‘What are you trying to say, [WrestleMania] wasn’t big without it [Tyson’s involvement]?’ Yeah, it was big… but it was big within wrestling.”
“Tyson made it big in the mainstream. That was really important, it was really difficult to get mainstream coverage. [Tuesday morning] it was everywhere. It was one of the best things WWE had ever done. I think it was the biggest celebrity appearance that we’ve ever had. Mike and [Steve] Austin, hitting the news around the world, that was really important.”
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