WWE icon Mick Foley recounts legendary match for one-man-show at Spokane Comedy Club

World Wrestling Entertainment hall-of-famer Mick Foley goes by many names in the ring – Cactus Jack, Dude Love, Mankind (alongside his sock puppet friend, Mr. Socko). But whatever the name, Foley has been a fan favorite for the better part of three decades, and is remembered for some of the more bizarre and brutal moments in professional wrestling history.

Take, for example, that time he lost his right ear in a match against the wrestler Vader in Munich, Germany in 1994. Fans often assume it’s the craziest moment he’s seen in his career.

“I tell people that’s not even the craziest thing I’ve seen in Germany,” Foley said in a phone interview with The Spokesman-Review.

Outside the ring, Foley is an acclaimed and popular storyteller – he’s penned 10 books so far, including his 1999 memoir, “Have a Nice Day” and the follow-up, “Foley is Good.” Both reached the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.

He’s also established himself as an in-demand spoken-word performer. On Wednesday, Foley brings his one-man show, “Twenty Years of Hell,” to the Spokane Comedy Club. In addition to taking questions from the audience, Foley will recount his 1998 “Hell in a Cell” match with The Undertaker, an event that became one of the most iconic matches in professional wrestling history.

“It’s not a comedy show, though there is plenty of humor,” Foley said of his show. “I don’t really care about the number of laughs; they’ll come, but also with it some gasps and maybe even some tears… It’s a challenge cutting the story down because there were so many incredible and surreal moments that have sprung up from that match,” Foley said.

The match took place during the King of the Ring pay-per-view event held June 28, 1998 in Pittsburgh. The “cell” was a steel cube structure that enclosed the ring and ringside area. In the match, the Undertaker choke-slammed Mankind atop the chain-link mesh cage ceiling, causing Foley to fall through to the mat. Though the ceiling was designed to sag and partially give way, it was not supposed to break completely, and the resulting 16-foot fall was an unscripted moment of terror for those involved.

Foley lost consciousness on impact.

“I can piece together every part of that match except for those 42 seconds,” Foley said. “Going through the cell itself was a blur, and when I came to I had some strange thoughts.”

That fall was only one aspect of how the match became popular with fans –Foley’s first big “bump” of the match, when Undertaker threw him from the top of the cage, is equally famous. Even with all the scripted theatrics typically associated with WWE, the match emphasized the physicality and real-life injuries that can happen in professional wrestling.

Foley would recover and eventually finish the bout with a tooth lodged in his nose, but he credits Undertaker for performing the whole match with an existing injury.

“He walked into possibly the most dangerous match ever devised with a broken foot,” Foley said.

WWE boss Vince McMahon approached Foley after the match with words of both appreciation and warning.

“He told me to never do something like that again,” Foley said.

The 1998 Hell in a Cell event is still repeatedly cited as one of the greatest events in WWE history, though Foley is still reluctant to take much credit.

“Calling it the greatest match of all time is kind of like calling the Titanic the greatest cruise of all time,” Foley said. “The fall was accidental. The Titanic didn’t mean to hit the iceberg.”

“We didn’t know immediately that it would become iconic,” he added. “If it had happened today, it probably would have trended for three or four days then become a blip on the radar. But it was able to grow organically at that time. It was allowed to build.”

Foley’s stock rose slowly in the WWE, though his Mankind character would evolve and become an even more popular presence thanks to Mr. Socko – the dirty sock puppet who was key to Mankind’s smelly finishing move, the mandible claw. He also rose alongside another popular wrestler of the time period, a guy named Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. After a series of bouts on opposing sides, Foley and Johnson became the popular tag team, “The Rock n’ Sock Connection.”

“He was obviously gonna be huge without me – he had the gift of gab, but what we had was this completely unscripted back and forth repartee, and the WWE allowed us a lot of room to create things even when Mr. McMahon thought some of the ideas were terrible,” Foley said.

Though retired from wrestling and on a “no-touch” list, as ordered by doctors, Foley hinted at the possibility of future appearances within WWE. After the “Twenty Years of Hell” tour, Foley may also continue themed-shows about aspects of his illustrious career. Foley was a three-time WWE Champion, a King of the Deathmatch” winner in Japan, and a prominent figure in many other professional wrestling leagues over the years.

And of course there’s that crazy thing that happened to him in Germany.

“Every now and again people will ask me to retell that story, and I’m just trying to keep this a PG show,” Foley said.