Mick Foley spoke with Sky Sports about his memorable first WWE Championship title win against The Rock on Monday Night Raw in January of 1999. At this point, in the Monday Night Wars, WCW was winning handily in the ratings as their live weekly show, Nitro, outpaced the pre-taped, Raw.
On that night, WCW Announcer Tony Schiavone (via Eric Bischoff) gave away the Raw ending, “We understand Mick Foley, who wrestled here as Cactus Jack, is going to win their world title. That’ll put a lot of butts in seats.” Around 600,000 fans switched over to Raw to see the finish. A finish that in the big picture helped turn the tide in WWE’s favor was seen as a mistake by Mick Foley, at that time.
“It meant so much to me on a personal level and I think I’m right in saying the fans have voted it the best ever Raw moment,” Foley said. “I’m excited to have been part of so many big matches on Raw. But I saw me as champion as a mistake. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I always thought the challenger should be chasing the champion, and The Rock was a great champion. But it turned out to be the best thing for everybody. We were going up against a massive live WCW show at the Georgia Dome in front of 40,000 people and nobody thought we’d be celebrating a big victory that night.”
