WWF Fridays: Mankind Wins The WWF Championship For The First Time

What a pop for Stone Cold. What a moment for Mick Foley. What a fucking video. Seeing the amount of heavy hitters the WWF had in just those 3.5 minutes alone explains why the Attitude Era was so goddamn great. An embarrassment of riches when it comes to guys that could work a match, a mic, or simply had awesome characters.

This match was the highlight of my fandom during the Attitude Era because Mankind was my guy. Of course I loved wrestlers like Stone Cold, The Rock, and everyone in DX like every other kid on the planet. But Mick Foley seemed like such a good dude and literally put his life on the line countless times to give the fans a memorable moment. Seeing him reach the top of the industry was damn near surreal.

However the craziest part of all this was that many people point to that moment as the thing that officially swung the Monday Night Ratings Wars with WCW into the WWF's favor after that weasel Tony Schiavone followed the orders of that snake Eric Bischoff to smugly spoil Mankind's title win since RAW was pre-recorded.

Followed by WCW wheeling out this hunk of bullshit for their main event.

Before the nWo storylines were reheated for the 100th time and tasted like shitty leftovers while the WWF was pumping out fresh bangers seemingly every week, leading to Vinnie Mac buying WCW a few years later in one of the moments that was truly surreal for a wrestling fan. But the fact everything started to change once a common man reached the mountaintop of the industry he gave everything to is pretty fucking amazing.