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Mankind vs. The Undertaker Pt. 2

Hell in a Cell – Pittsburgh Civic Arena – 06.28.98

By Jack ReyPublished 2 years ago 14 min read
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Part 1 here: https://vocal.media/unbalanced/mankind-vs-the-undertaker-pt-1

Is he moving?

Mankind’s body is wedged between the destroyed announce table and the steel barricade… He is lying in a crumpled heap at the feet of the fans… This man is amazing… His dedication to this sport is amazing… Above and beyond… This is Mankind folks… This is Mick Foley!

Terry Funk rushes out to the ring to help his longtime comrade, his sometime rival, his all-time friend… Funk so quick to ringside he beats the medics, if even by a couple seconds… He leans over Foley and talks to him… Foley is out of it, reeling... His head lolls from side to side as if the room were spinning… He pulls the leather mask from off his face as the officials gather ‘round to check on his condition…

Undertaker stands high above and stares down at his opponent… Vince McMahon and Sgt. Slaughter have made their way ringside to check on Mick Foley after that brutal fall… The cell is being raised in order to make way for the stretcher and the paramedics…

The Dead Man stands stoically atop the demonic structure as it rises, suspended in the air…

The EMTs have the stretcher ringside… They roll the battered Foley onto the wheeled contraption and begin to push him toward the ramp to get him out of here… To get him some medical attention…

The crowd’s chants sound throughout the arena… “Undertaker! Undertaker!”

With the medical team clear of ringside and heading up the ramp, the cell slowly descends to the ground… ‘Taker has got to get down somehow, don’t he? The chants have died down… A silence has settled throughout the arena…

Is Mick Foley alright?

Is Mankind going to live to fight another day?

The medical team has stopped halfway up the ramp…

Terry Funk seems to be exchanging words with Mick Foley… Undertaker has made his way down from the top of the cell and is now standing ringside… Wait… What’s this?

You’ve got to be kidding me! He can’t be serious!

This simply cannot be allowed to continue! It’s inhumane!

Foley is on is feet and wearing a big grin on his now revealed face… The mask has come off… Mankind has given way to the Hardcore Legend… The man of many faces is now all of them and none…

Mrs. Foley’s baby boy is making his way back to the ring! Terry Funk is trying to stop him!

Talk some sense into him Terry!

Mankind reaches cage-side and again mounts that chain-link… He slips but quickly recovers… He has to be running on pure adrenaline right now! This is absolutely insane!

‘Taker climbs to the top of the cell on the opposite side… Both men reach the top, Foley trailing slightly behind… Both fighters on their feet… They make their way across the top of the cage toward each other… ‘Taker takes up the chair left up there from earlier… Foley’s left arm appears to be hanging limp… I’m pretty sure he dislocated it in that earlier fall through the table from twenty feet in the air…

Just a guess…

Undertaker abandons the chair and instead meets Mankind with a big head-butt followed by a right hand… Foley reels… ‘Taker poised to strike, getting ready for something big… The Dead Man grabs Mankind by the throat and lifts him up for a chokeslam!

Oh my God!!! Oh my God!!!

The steel cage has given way to the force and Foley’s weight!

Mankind has been choke-slammed through the steel cage to fall nearly twenty feet to the ring below! He might have survived the last fall… But this… How is he going to get up from this?! Somebody needs to put a stop to this match, if one could even call it that… Somebody needs to put a stop to this before somebody gets killed… If somebody hasn’t already gotten killed!

Terry Funk races into the cell to check on Mankind once again... The decimated Foley lays near motionless with his back on the mat… Undertaker stares down at his opponent… That intense, enveloping stare… The cold eyes of the Dead Man…

The Demon from Death Valley hangs from the top of the steel structure before dropping down through the newly created passage to the ring below… Foley rolls onto his stomach… ‘Taker stands over his prey… Terry Funk throws down his hat and cusses the Undertaker…

‘Taker grabs Funk by the throat… Funk fights back… ‘Taker catches Terry with a sharp right to the skull… Funk down on one knee… Undertaker pulls Terry Funk up to his feet by the throat… The Dead Man lifts Funk high into the air…

And a big chokeslam from the Undertaker!

He’s choke-slammed Terry Funk right out of his tennis shoes!

Funk flails about on the canvas in agony… ‘Taker helps the man to his feet only to send him through the ropes and to the outside… Mankind is still motionless, lying on the mat, behind his opponent, dressed in all black…

Undertaker circles ‘round after throwing Funk out of the ring… Amazing, Foley is stirring, starting to show some life…

This is the wildest thing I’ve ever seen… Foley is back on his feet!

Not for long… Undertaker hits Foley with a big right hand and Mankind slowly crumples to the mat… This can’t go on… Mick Foley is bleeding from his mouth… I’m damn near positive that steel chair broke his jaw when it followed him on his fall to the ring below…

Undertaker brings Foley to his feet and wrenches his arm around… Looks like ‘Taker is going to go old school… He makes his way to the corner, guiding the stumbling Mick Foley…

‘Taker climbs the turnbuckle… He’s walking the top rope… Mankind stumbles into the rope! ‘Taker slips, racking himself on the top rope before falling to the apron…

Both men slow to rise… Mick Foley using the ropes in the corner to help himself to his feet… Blood is pouring out his mouth and it looks like he might have gone and lost himself another tooth… In fact it looks as though it’s lodged in his nostril!

You heard that right folks… Foley’s tooth has been knocked out and is lodged in the man’s nostril! What more are we going to see in this match?

Toothless… Mouth full of blood… Foley is smiling… Look at that big crimson grin!

This is insanity!

Foley is back on his feet… Undertaker not too far behind, still on the outside apron… Both men slow to rise, needing to use the ropes to help them find their feet…

Foley circles ‘round, gets a running start toward the Undertaker as he tries to reenter the ring…

And Mankind sends the Undertaker flying through the air to come to crash into that steel cage and the outside mat!

Undertaker slow to rise on the outside… Mick Foley follows his opponent to the outside… He tries to pick up the steel steps and use them as a weapon against ‘Taker but his shoulder gives out and the steps fall to the ground with a crash…

Mankind stumbles away from the steps as ‘Taker makes his way toward the heavy weapon… Undertaker with the steps in hand… He gets a running start…

And all that heavy steel crashes into Mankind’s already broken body! He stumbles backward only to run into that unforgiving chain-link mesh… And again the Phenom rams his opponent with the makeshift weapon! A third strike with the steps and Mick Foley falls to the ground…

How much more punishment can this man’s body take?

Undertaker stalks his fallen foe for a moment before pulling Foley to his feet… He leans Mankind’s beaten body against the steel structure before he delivers a sharp blow to that already dislocated jaw… And a second right uppercut! ‘Taker hits Foley with a third punch before letting his opponent fall to the floor… ‘Taker paces before making his way back into the ring…

The Undertaker circles ‘round the ring… He stops on the far side… ‘Taker with a running start… He dives between the middle and top rope to catch Foley with a devastating flying clothesline… Foley sees it coming… He ducks out of the way and ‘Taker flies through the air only to crash headfirst into the surrounding cell!

Undertaker is busted open! He’s bleeding from his forehead… Foley rises… He meets the Dead Man as ‘Taker finds he feet… And Mick Foley sends the Undertaker headfirst into that chain-link fencing! And ‘Taker’s face is forced into that steel a second time!

Foley grabs Undertaker by the hair and proceeds to grate the flesh of ‘Taker’s face on the surface of that unforgiving metal cell… The referee pulls Mankind off the Undertaker and Foley rolls back inside the ring… ‘Taker not far behind—he’s bleeding pretty bad now…

Mankind meets the Phenom as he attempts to enter the ring between the ropes… Foley with a handful of the Dead Man’s hair… He leads the man to the middle of the ring where the chair still lies folded on the canvas… Foley pulls ‘Taker’s head between those brown tight-clad thighs…

And a big piledriver by Mankind onto the steel chair! Undertaker limply rolls to the side with his back on the mat…

Mankind rolls atop his opponent for the pin…

1… 2…

And the Undertaker kicks out…

Both men struggle to rise… Mankind crawls around on the mat before nearing his opponent and catching him with a fist to the face… Another… A flurry of right hands fall upon the Undertaker! And again the referee separates the men…

Mankind wasting no time… He scoops up that steel chair and drapes it over the Undertaker’s face… A huge leg-drop onto the chair! All that human mass and metal down upon the Undertaker’s skull!

And Foley drops to the mat and stretches his arm over his opponent for the pin…

1… 2…

And the Dead Man rises again…

Mankind to his feet immediately after the kick out… Undertaker more delayed in finding his own… Foley stares at his opponent… If I didn’t know any better, I would say Mick Foley is smiling beneath that blood-soaked beard… He’s either smiling or his jaw is so dislocated his face his stuck that way…

Undertaker back on his feet, but Foley is ready… He forces his opponent’s head under his armpit… Foley going for his trademark double-underhook DDT!

And the Undertaker’s skull is driven into the mat!

‘Taker on his back in the center of the ring trying to regain his senses… Foley rolls to the outside… He’s searching around under the ring… What more could these men possibly do to each other? What weapon could Foley possibly be seeking?

It looks as though the Hardcore Legend has found exactly what he was looking for… But what is it? Foley has a bag in his hand… What could he possibly have in there?

Mankind reaches a hand into the light blue bag… What does he got here? A handful of something…

Sweet mercy!

Small silver tacks fall from Foley’s hand and onto the ring canvas underfoot… The polished surfaces of the torturous tools refract the light from the high-powered lamps above and they shimmer like giant snowflakes as they fall to mat… Painful, stabbing snowflakes… Snowflakes borrowed from the worst of nightmares…

Undertaker rolls to his side and attempts to rise as Mankind spreads a second handful of tacks across the mat… ‘Taker’s head is bleeding pretty bad, the red rolls down his forehead, around his eyes and down his hollowed cheeks…

Mankind tired of the time it’s taking to lay out the tacks one handful at a time—the madman overturns the blue sack and thousands of tacks pour to the ring floor… A shining, metallic pile of doom… He spreads the pile out with his boot to enhance the potential chance of punishment…

Foley circles around his still grounded opponent, never taking his eyes off his tormentor, and as soon as the Undertaker rises he is caught with a quick right… ‘Taker reels and nearly loses his balance to fall backwards onto that pile of tacks…

Mankind off the ropes…

‘Taker stops Mankind dead in his tracks, his fingers wrapped around the other man’s throat… Undertaker going for the chokeslam… No! Mankind catches ‘Taker with a boot to the gut before heading to the ropes…

Foley off the ropes… ‘Taker straightens up as his opponent nears… And Foley takes a big boot to the jaw that sends him back toward the ropes!

Again Mick Foley off the ropes…

And the Undertaker scoops Mankind into the air—right hand between his opponent’s legs , left hand grasping the other man’s shoulder... It looks as though the Dead Man is going for the Tombstone Piledriver!

Foley struggles and manages to free himself… He finds his feet back on the mat, his hands still wrapped around his opponent’s face… And he’s going for it! The Mandible Claw! Mankind has the Undertaker in the Mandible Claw!

Undertaker is fading, now down on his knees in the ring, Mankind still with the hold locked in… The ref raises the Undertaker’s hand twice and it drops to the mat… One more time and the Undertaker has lost this match… The referee raises ‘Taker’s hand in the air and waits for it to fall…

And the Undertaker stops his hand at the last moment, immediately grabbing Mankind by the thighs and lifting the other man as if giving him a piggyback ride… A piggyback ride… To hell!

‘Taker holds Mankind on his back as he walks in reverse across the ring… The two men are getting mighty close to those metal tacks… And Undertaker drops backwards, smashing Mick Foley into that painful pointed pool of gleaming metal… Mankind writhes and rolls around in pain but as he does so he only finds more punishment… There are tacks all around his body… There is so much shining steel embedded in his flesh he looks like he stole a jacket from a rhinestone cowboy…

Foley manages to crawl from out the pile of tacks to find his feet… He staggers to the corner and uses the ropes to help steady himself before he makes his way toward ‘Taker… But the Dead Man is ready, just waiting…

The Phenom grabs Mankind by the throat and lifts him high into the air! And Foley’s body again comes into jarring contact with that shining, shimmering, hellacious, permanently scarring pile…

This, ladies and gentleman, is certainly what I would consider Hell in a Cell… Foley crawls on his knees to the corner in order to escape the scattered tacks… He finds he feet quick all things considered, and makes his way back toward ‘Taker…

Undertaker, lying in wait and watching his opponent, scoops Mankind up as he nears… And the Dead Man is again going for the Tombstone Piledriver! And this time the Demon of Death Valley is successful! Mankind lies limp and helpless on the canvas…

Few rise from a Tombstone Piledriver…

Undertaker crosses Mankind’s arms over his chest and goes for the pin…

1… 2… 3…

Rest in peace…

The Undertaker’s music begins to play…

The Dead Man stands and walks around the ring exhausted…

Mankind lies motionless on the mat… Officials surround the downed Mick Foley… A stretcher is being wheeled to the ring…

Undertaker exits the cell and slowly makes his way down the entrance ramp to disappear into the back…

Paramedics tend to Mankind unmoved from where he was left to lie by the ‘Taker… Medics and officials try and strap Foley to the plastic support in order to move him to the stretcher…

Foley won't let them… Can you believe this?

After all the punishment this man has endured… All the pain, the sacrifice, the broken bones… A lost tooth… Mick Foley is going to walk out of this arena on his own two feet…

With the help of Terry Funk and the referee, Mankind makes his way down the ramp to a standing ovation from the crowd wide-eyed and openmouthed from the scene just witnessed…

A St. Valentine’s Day Massacre indeed…

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About the Creator

Jack Rey

Mid-western American writer specializing in short stories, science fiction, music and professional wrestling. A coyote howling for your reads, likes and follows. Enjoy my work and enjoy your day!

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