March 5, 2007 - I remember about seven years ago, I'm sitting backstage with Mick Foley when the inevitable Hell in a Cell conversation arises. I tell him how I have the match on tape, even passed the tape along to friends, how my girlfriend at the time referred to him as the guy with the tooth in his nose. "Jonny Ballgame, you're one sick son of a bitch," Foley said with a grin, knowing the match that could've ended his career was really the beginning of an era.

I ask him about the match again over the phone the other day as we talked about his latest autobiography "The Hardcore Diaries", as there's never been anyone as hardcore to step into a WWE ring…or off the roof of a cage.

One thing I always wondered. Undertaker pushes you off the roof, what goes through your mind?

"I remember having two distinct thoughts," says Foley. "I was falling really fast and that table looked really small. I have people tell me they watch that match every day and my take is this, isn't watching me get knocked unconscious once enough? Do you have to relive what for me wasn't a great career moment?"

Foley pauses for a second then reconsiders what the match meant to his career.

"I guess the match really got people talking and it did lead to a lot of other things, but from a match standpoint, I've had a lot of other matches where I didn't get knocked out that I'm kind of proud of as well, but that's the match everyone always goes back to," Foley continues. "Kevin Sullivan, who was booking WCW at the time, later told me that once he saw that, he told people that the tide had turned. He said he knew right then that WWE was going to pass them and that they'd never catch us again."

Foley covered Hell in a Cell in his previous writings, while Diaries revolves more around the behind the curtains dealings of everyone's favorite male soap opera/circus on crack.

The legend even painstakingly wrote the book longhand, inking everything from creative meetings with Vince and crew to the day Foley volunteered to join the Kiss My Ass Club. "This is probably the most behind the scenes look you'll ever read," says Foley, and we might not ever read anything like it again. "From what I understand, there are some people within the company who are not happy with how much behind the scenes access I granted the reader."

A true must read for anyone who ever thought the world of politics was reserved for Washington.

IGN Sports: This is a WWE sanctioned book, but you touch on things, especially the politics backstage, that really surprised me in terms of WWE putting this to print.

Mick Foley: At one time, I was really afraid they were going to scrap the whole project, especially when my own personal story started to take a turn for the worse. Luckily for me, Vince McMahon really believed that I should have the right to tell the story as I saw it and literally the only thing he wanted changed was one tiny line that really wasn't important. One line out of everything, and he certainly never gave the criticisms about him a second thought. His feelings are: If that's the way he sees it, that's the way he should write it.

IGN Sports: You wrote the book longhand. Are you ever going to learn to use a computer?

Mick Foley: Two things I can't turn on, a computer and a woman. [laughs] I just feel like there's a better mind-to-pen connection for me than a mind-to-keyboard connection.

IGN Sports: I just hope you're figuring out your cell phone better so you don't speed dial Test all the time (in the book, Test is one of the only numbers saved on Mick's phone, courtesy of Stacy Keibler, and ends up on the receiving end of a lot of the jokes throughout Diaries).

Mick Foley: Actually, I'm afraid to call Test. I may have overdone it from his perspective with some of these jokes. Hopefully he'll see it in the joking manner it's meant, but who knows, he may get serious about it and it may be the last of the Test jokes I ever put down in writing.

IGN Sports: On a more serious note, there are some interesting points in the book where you mention your hardcore style and how many unprotected chair shots you took in the head. What does it feel like for you right now to get out of bed and walk around? How many injuries are you living with?

Mick Foley: I think I had four concussions throughout my career that were diagnosed, and I guess that I've had seven more. But the fact that three of them came in a four month span when I was making a comeback in 2004 is a little bit scary. I really have to accept the fact that I'm not a young man anymore, that I've probably taken one lifetime's worth of punishment already, and I really do need to be careful. Certainly I don't want other WWE superstars taking the shots I did. That makes me feel very uncomfortable when I see somebody get hit with an unprotected chair shot.

IGN Sports: Does WWE look at tapes of some of the stuff you did, and because of the danger, because of the risks, they're crossing moves or certain violent acts off their list of acceptable ring behavior?

Mick Foley: I do remember right after Hell in a Cell, Vince McMahon came up to me and said "Mick, you have no idea how much I appreciate what you just did, but I never want to see that again." So the guys are not taking the extreme risks, and when the fairly risky moves are performed, they're being done in situations that take maximum advantage of it. You don't see guys doing wasteful things like diving on concrete floors at house shows that will so soon be forgotten. In other words, if you're going to get hurt, get it on video.

Click this link for rest of interview and photo's:   IGN: Mick Foley Interview