Mick Foley Recalls Going Through His Backlash 2004 Match With Randy Orton The Night Before: ‘You’re Talking About A Moment That Changed His Career’

Mick Foley recalls speaking to Randy Orton about their Backlash 2004 match the day before.

At Backlash 2004, Randy Orton and Foley would clash in a Hardcore match for the Intercontinental Championship in brutal affair. Orton would come away the victor in the bout, but for Foley, it is his favorite match of his career.

While speaking on the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Mick Foley was asked about his favorite match, with Foley recalling how he and Orton went through the match together the night beforehand, something Foley feels changed Randy’s career.

“My favorite match was Backlash against Randy Orton. Crazy thing is, if he has a new favorite, I don’t want to know about it. He’s technically, probably had better matches. But the idea of being in that spot, people ask me, you will just say you made somebody. No one person makes anybody. It takes a lot of people, a lot of factors, and even if the bases were loaded for Randy, it’s still up to him to knock it out of the park. And he did, and one of the wisest decisions I ever made, much wiser than working at the Huntsville auto show the day before my street fight with Triple H, much wiser than catching a red eye and getting into New York City at 6 am for the Royal Rumble. I did a lot of stupid things that way, as far as travel, I actually canceled a talk at a community college so that I could come in the night before, as opposed to the day of the show. I like people to be able to read between the lines, rather than just spill the [beans]. But in this case, I think it’s beneficial to know Randy came up to my room, and for only the second time my entire career, I had an A through Z plan, and I’ll never forget, he was just taking it all in. I’m getting the tingles here, because you’re talking about a moment that changed his career, and I don’t know if we could have had that type of match if I’d gone through that speaking engagement. And the other key factor is that Michael Hayes heard some of the things we want to do. He goes, ‘You’re going to need more time.’ So instead of rushing through, we had time to let things breathe. And it just felt really good. Even though I had many trials and tribulations getting back home. My luggage was delayed for four hours. I did throw up in the parking lot of Tim Hortons in Edmonton, because my brain had jogged a little bit, but I made it back in time for Raw the next night, and it was like the fans looked at him like he was a completely different guy. And it really made me feel good. Now, they turned him babyface in two weeks, which I thought was a big mistake, but it was hard not to like somebody who’d been through that type of ordeal.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Foley spoke about his iconic Hell In A Cell bout with the Undertaker. You can read more about that here.