Mick Foley Recalls Dislocating His Jaw In WWE Debut Against The British Bulldogs
The Dynamite Kid is on Mick Foley’s Mount Rushmore of wrestlers.
Mick Foley is a guest on the upcoming episode of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions. In a bonus clip released online (seen above), the WWE Hall of Famer discussed how his in-ring debut for WWE happened as an extra and how you had to be pretty good to even be considered for those types of roles.
“You had to be pretty good to be an extra,” Foley began. “To go in there with the best talent in the world and make sure you didn’t mess up their stuff and, of course, if you’re Dynamite Kid — Tommy Billington is on my Mount Rushmore. He’s that wildcard where he might not be on other people’s Mount Rushmore, but no one ever goes, ‘Nah.’ Tommy was one of the best to ever do it. Of course, the only way to ensure the stuff looks good with a guy having his first match is they’re going to make it look good.”
Foley poked fun at his gimmick back in the day before reminiscing about how his tag team partner for that match against The British Bulldogs was Les Thornton. He says that as soon as he realized the other three men all knew each other, he knew he was going to get destroyed in the ring.
“I go out there and I’m actually feeling pretty good with my little heel persona where I was setting a bird free. That was my thing. Jack Foley. That was going to be my big thing, setting a bird free. Why that said money to me I don’t know,” Foley joked. “I see Les Thornton in there, he’s the man of a thousand moves, and I start realizing, they work together. They’re all British. They know each other. I’m going to get destroyed out there. Once he does his 2-3 minutes of technical wrestling, he never gets in there again and I take that beating.”
The match kept getting more painful for Foley. After firing up some punches, Davey Boy Smith no sold Mick’s big move and then proceeded to get levelled by a Billington clothesline that would dislocate his jaw. Foley said the following:
“At a certain point, you can see me start to fire off [punches] on Davey. The worst-looking punches in the world. But I see Tommy start shaking, like, ‘This is offensive to me that he’s trying to pull this.’ My big move, the flying elbow, where I don’t just hit him, I hit him and I spin in the air, and I hear laughter. I wasn’t prepared for the laughter and I look up and he hasn’t sold it a bit. Then everything that Tommy did hurt for weeks. Every single thing. He sends me in [to the ropes] and it wasn’t how hard, because I’ve seen other clotheslines that were harder; Stan Hansen, Bradshaw. But it was the fact that Tommy followed me in. So just as I’m coming off those ropes here is his bicep hitting me right in the jaw. I didn’t know the injury was a dislocated jaw, but three weeks I couldn’t chew anything. To this day I don’t think I could make my eyes roll up in my head like I think they did. It was just everything he did was 100%.”
Foley would go on to have one of the most iconic careers in the history of the business. The remainder of the conversation with Austin will be available on the WWE Network tomorrow ahead of Hell In A Cell 2021.
Fightful will have live coverage of the event beginning at 4 p.m. PST on Sunday, June 20.
If you use the quotes above, please credit WWE with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
