WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley recently took to an episode of his Foley is Pod podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including a prank Owen Hart pulled on Vader in the late 1990s.
Foley said, “Davey’s [Boy Smith], the guy who had the second match in my career against the British Bulldogs. So Davey’s a legend, and Owen is one of the great workers of his generation who can turn it on. He can both make you laugh. Like you said, he’d do these rib matches just to get the boys to laugh sometimes. But he’s all business where it counts. The night before, the big angle that shoots this thing up to the stars, Owen, has worked it out with a plant carrying 12 pitchers of iced tea. So that when Owen, you know, I think Owen jumped on stage was this 1997 maybe he jumped on stage because he was the year he was the Slammy Award winner, made the best out of that situation, really put the onus on everyone who followed up to make their Slammy important. Became the two-time Slammy winner.”
“He carried it to the ring with him and said, Davey, you might have two titles, but I’ve got two Slammys who, you know, I’m a winner. And then he confronts Leon. Leon doesn’t know that a guy is passing by with 12 pitchers of iced tea. Owen gives the guy a shove over. Go the 12 pitchers of iced tea, and Leon makes the worst possible choice, which is? He tries to chase Owen because Leon doesn’t know it’s a rib. He tries to chase Owen. He won’t catch Owen under any circumstances, but especially not when Owen tips a chair over in his path. Leon goes down like a ton of bricks. And at that point, your TV payoff was $25. You get $25 at that time for TV unless you were in the dark Match main event. Leon was in all these dark match main events and couldn’t do them because he tweaked or hurt his knee. So now I’m stepping into a dark show, dark match main events. I think with Undertaker, I’m revisiting Taker. I’m working almost every Monday night with Taker, and instead of getting $2,525, I’m getting more like $2,500. So Leon’s loss was my gain, for sure. Leon could have petitioned the company and said, I’m the scheduled main event, like I’m getting something out of it. But that was a rib. That was a little. I thought it was a good rib. And Leon was, again, so hurt. He was a sensitive, big guy.”
“It hurt his feelings and hurt his feelings that I knew about it and didn’t tell him. Because you knew, you knew we could have turned it around like no one turns a rib around on Owen Hart. You don’t venture there. So, I thought it was a good rib. Leon did suffer an injury. I benefited and made about an extra 2025 grand because of the rib, which I was grateful for. Grateful. It’s hard, $25 a night. And who are you to say no? Because it had been done, the enhancement talent was receiving more. I didn’t know at the time when we were getting $100 a night in 86 to be WWE enhancement. I didn’t know we were making four times more than them.”
You can check out Mick Foley’s complete podcast below.
