Mick Foley may be a legendary former professional wrestler and a bonafide Hall of Famer but he's just a fan at heart. And that heart was broken when WWE opted not to book Daniel Bryan to win the Royal Rumble match this past Sun., Jan. 26, 2014, at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Actually, he wasn't even booked to participate in the match.
This infuriated Foley, a former WWE champion and ambassador for the company. He immediately took to Twitter to voice his disgust and promised to come through on a prior threat to put a brick through his own television set in the event Bryan didn't win the Rumble.
Earlier today, he made good on that threat, though he substituted a baseball bat for the brick. See the video here.
He also raged against the machine for its handling of one of its hottest stars -- at least in-arena -- in years. He went so far, in fact, that some feel his outrage was forced, which is to say, he was simply in on a work the entire time. The idea floated around was WWE had always planned on not using Bryan for the Rumble match and letting the fans get more and more angry at The Authority for keeping him down. Bryan himself tweeted out his own displeasure at the situation, which was definitely a part of the plan.
But Foley's part? Nope.
That's what he's claiming now, at least (via Newsday):
When reached by Newsday Monday evening via text message, Foley made it clear that his reactions were all too real. "Not a work at all on my part," Foley said. "I was just calling it like I saw it." He declined to comment further.
Can we trust him? Unfortunately we can't because this is pro wrestling, after all, and it's important to remember that everyone is working everyone else and it's best to simply stick to the story and worry about that rather than wondering if someone flew off the rails.
But it's at least possible. Maybe that, in and of itself, is interesting enough.