Considering the amount of punishment he sustained throughout his career, it’s a small miracle that Mick Foley is even alive today, let alone walking around and being the lovable “Hardcore Legend” everyone came to know him as. Foley’s last official match as an in-ring performer was the 2012 Royal Rumble match where he entered at number eight and eliminated both Primo and Epico, as well as Justin Gabriel with the help of Ricardo Rodriguez. He was eventually eliminated by Cody Rhodes, but that wasn’t meant to have been the last fans saw of Foley in the ring as he was meant to be involved in a violent angle at that year’s SummerSlam.

In the spring of 2012, Foley was confronted in a hotel lobby by a young man named Dean Ambrose, an aspiring wrestler who was angry at the fact that Foley’s hardcore style had influenced so many people to follow in his footsteps, only for those same people to be left battered, broken, and permanently injured. At the time, Ambrose was still known by long-time indie fans as Jon Moxley, who would go on to debut as one-third of The Shield that November at Survivor Series as the planned match with Foley, which would have been Ambrose’s coming out party in WWE, fell through due to Foley not being medically cleared to compete.

Moxley would later come out and admit that a match between himself and Foley not happening was probably for the best, but that hasn’t stopped the “Hardcore Legend” from wanting to get back in the ring and have one final bloodbath to cap off his career. In 2024, Foley revealed that he was planning on losing 100 pounds in order to get in ring-shape by the time he turned 60. He was aiming to get himself healthy enough to have one last death match before retiring, and given that a match with Moxley never materialized, the former AEW Men’s World Champion was named by Foley as one of his ideal opponents.

However, Foley also considered facing the self-proclaimed “King of the Death Match” Matt Cardona as he felt like the match would have more natural heat as Cardona is not seen by many fans as a true death match wrestler, whereas Moxley has a long history working in violent matches and promotions. Foley and Cardona even went as far as to trade barbs on social media to hype up a potential match, but much like the SummerSlam 2012 bout, Foley was forced to cancel his plans for a retirement match as his doctors stepped in and said no. Since then, Foley has thrown out names like Kevin Owens and CM Punk in a non-death match setting, but it’s likely that his doctors would have to step in for a third time and say “Mick, please stop trying to wrestle, we’ve already told you twice.”