Mick Foley Remembers The Original Halftime Heat Match

Mick Foley recently remembered the original Halftime Heat match which aired twenty years ago in an interview with ESPN. 

On the concept for Halftime Heat:

“I think a year earlier MTV has had a lot of success doing Celebrity Deathmatch with claymation figures — one of which was Stone Cold Steve Austin — and they’d done a tremendous rating during halftime of the Super Bowl. I don’t know when the idea came to Mr. McMahon to take that giant audience and kind of keep it for ourselves, but I do remember being asked about it — and then it was my suggestion that The Rock and I do an empty arena match.”

On the uniqueness of the match:

 “The fact that it was so completely different than anything on television was also indicative of the chances we regularly took, whether it was on the microphone or in the ring. Later on, [that] really led to great chemistry as a tag team. We were really rolling, and it was understood that The Rock was going to go on to bigger and better things — one of them being a WrestleMania main event with Stone Cold Steve Austin.”

On watching the match air live:

 “I do remember really hustling through the airport to try to catch that match live [on USA Network], and so I walked into a lounge in the airport where some guys were watching the Super Bowl halftime. I convinced them to switch over to Halftime Heat. They were really getting into the match, up until I hit the Rock with a bag of popcorn. Up until that point I had been taking a pretty legitimate pounding at the hands of ‘The Great One’ and they were ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing.’ All of a sudden the popcorn [spot happens] and they turn to each other and go, ‘That wouldn’t hurt.’ Maybe in retrospect I should’ve found a different devastating object to pummel him with.”

Tonight's Halftime Heat will feature a Six-Man Tag Team Match pitting Aleister Black, Ricochet & Velveteen Dream against NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa, newly crowned NXT North American Champion Johnny Gargano & Adam Cole.

You will be available to watch the match on WWE Network, as well as on WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and WNS!