"It Couldn't Have Been More Perfect" - Shawn Michaels Reflects On 1996 WWE Match With Mick Foley

Shawn Michaels has hailed the story he and Mick Foley were able to tell in their match at WWE In Your House: Mind Games in 1996, despite having previously never worked together.

The bout between Michaels and Mankind is considered one of the best in each performer's respective history, with only the end of the bout - a disqualification - slightly disappointing audiences.

Michaels has now reflected on the unique nature of his match with Foley and believes, despite how limited they were in terms of working together, things couldn't have gone better.

Michaels told My Mom's Basement: "Mick is one of the few guys...everyone else, you at least had a couple times on the road working with each other. Mick and I really didn't. It was one of those abstract matches.

"He had a different style than anyone else. It was sort of a holding place for both us as we were in different stories. It was an odd placement. For a long time, it was a hidden gem that was so fantastic and an entity unto itself that people brushed past it. It was the process and Mick just....not thinking outside the box for him because he knew his character and knew it well.

"The things he wanted to do put my character in a place where he just hadn't been. I don't think any of us really knew at the time that it was so vital for us to have at that time. It couldn't have been more perfect. It was two guys adapting and adjusting to one another. This job can be easy at its core, but you usually only have that with your best friend because there's always another emotion getting in the way.

"Mick is one of those people who I never hung around and didn't know, but when you get together, there's a chemistry there. It's an odd pairing in a fantastic way. It'll always be special because there's no storyline or follow-up.

"It's one of those matches where you go, 'Didn't that end in a DQ?' Heaven forbid you do those now. I understand it because it may not play the same now, but that's what made it special in that moment in time. It was a perfect thing that just sits there and had you done more with it, it might have messed it up. People have come to appreciate it for what it was."

H/T Fightful