Well, watch this, my friend.
As I mentioned in my last post, with my sickness I fell pretty behind in posting. So today, I'm gonna make it up to you in five parts. First up, the Rock's rise to main event status. Despite losing an Intercontinental Championship ladder match at Summerslam 1998, it was clear that the young Dwayne Johnson would be a significant player sooner than later.
So it was imminent that The Rock would get a run (three of them actually) as WWF Champion from that show to Wrestlemania XV six months later. One man was connected at the hip virtually the entire time of his rise to main eventer: Mick Foley, aka Mankind.
In September 1998, The Rock, Mankind, and Ken Shamrock all claimed to be the next in line for a shot at the WWF Championship. So Mr. McMahon, hoping to get rid of two of the three problems (Ken Shamrock and The Rock), had the trio fight in a cage match at Breakdown: In Your House.
But the result of the WWF Championship match an hour later rendered this match moot, as the Undertaker and Kane pinned then champion Stone Cold Steve Austin for the title at the same time. The title would remain vacant for seven weeks, the longest the WWF went without a champion since Andre the Giant attempted (unsuccessfully) to sell off the title to Ted DiBiase. It was at that November's Survivor Series when The Rock "defeated" Mankind to win the WWF title. "Defeated" because...well, Montreal Screwjob 2.0.
The following month at Rock Bottom: In Your House, the newly minted "corporate champion" Rock took on the McMahon outcast Mankind.
Though Mankind won the bout, he did not win the title, as per Vince McMahon, The Rock was neither pinned nor made to submit. It did not stop Foley from demanding one more match with The Rock for the WWF Championship. On the January 4, 1999 RAW (taped about a week earlier), McMahon denied his request, saying he had blown his chances. But he could qualify for the Royal Rumble and get his title shot that way, but first, he had to beat his new ally Triple H with Shane McMahon as guest referee.
Triple H got a fast count victory over Mankind, and moments after, Foley went over the edge. After a Triple H pedigree to Shane McMahon, Mankind had Shane in a Rings of Saturn-type submission and would not release him or the hold until Vince granted Mankind a title match later on in the show. Vince reluctantly complied. The closing moments are some of the most iconic in WWE history.
The Rock, none too happy about losing his championship on a night he wasn't even scheduled to compete, demanded a rematch. Foley was none too giving about a title shot until The Rock said he quits thinking about ideas for getting a rematch. The Rock stumbled onto the idea in this classic promo, and Foley accepted the match for the 1999 Royal Rumble event. The I Quit match is immortalized in the movie released later that year Beyond the Mat.
The Rock had won the WWF Championship for the second time, but he had little time to enjoy his victory. The $100,000 bounty placed on Stone Cold Steve Austin's elimination from the Royal Rumble went unclaimed, so Mr. McMahon awarded the prize to The Rock. But he never got to enjoy the money, as Mankind stole the money and threw out a portion of the reward to the crowd. Mankind promised to give it back under the condition that The Rock give Mankind his rightful rematch...in an empty arena. The match, taped two days after the Royal Rumble, took place in the Tuscon Arena in Tucson, Arizona, and was broadcast during halftime of Super Bowl XXXIV.
Mankind got his title back, but, as had been the case in this rivalry, he had little time to enjoy it. Through four months of battles, nothing had been settled between the two. So it was on to St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House, where a winner in this feud would finally be determined, and it would be done in a last man standing match, a bout where a winner would only be declared if his opponent can't answer a standing 10 count.
With Stone Cold Steve Austin defeating Vince McMahon in a steel cage match at Massacre, the stage was set for an Austin-Mankind Wrestlemania XV main event. But with three wins and a draw each in high-profile bouts dating back to Breakdown, nothing had been settled between The Rock and Mankind. So one final match between the two was commissioned to settle the matter once and for all: a ladder match between champion Mankind and challenger The Rock, with the winner getting the WWF Championship and being the likely opponent for Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania.
With the assist from Paul "Big Show" Wight, The Rock became just the fourth man (Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, and Shawn Michaels were the others) to win the WWF Championship three times (by comparison, four other men--Austin, Undertaker, Mankind, and Triple H--would have three title reigns by the next year). The win would set up the first Wrestlemania trilogy: The Rock versus Stone Cold Steve Austin.
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