The Attitude Era - D-Generation X and The Faces of Foley - Mick Foley

Mick Foley

Foley became a top star during the era, playing three different personas: Mankind, Dude Love and Cactus Jack. While Mankind was his main persona in the WWF and Cactus Jack was previously used in his days in WCW, Japan and independent circuits, Dude Love was inspired by a character Foley created when he and his high school friends did backyard wrestling in his hometown of Long Island. The image of Foley being thrown from the top of the Hell in a Cell by The Undertaker at the 1998 King of the Ring is synonymous with the era. His greatest contributions were a late-1998/early-1999 feud with The Rock and a 2000 feud with Triple H; these feuds were instrumental in establishing The Rock and Triple H as top stars.

Perhaps Foley's greatest accomplishment during the Attitude era was on January 4, 1999 on Raw Is War, where he won his first WWF Championship from The Rock. This match is also known as the turning point in ratings of the Monday Night Wars as it favored the WWF until the end of the wars and led to the downfall of WCW. That night, WCW attempted to sabotage Raw's rating by announcing the result of the match on Nitro, but their plan backfired when Nielsen ratings indicated that over 300,000 households changed the channel to watch the victory and shifted the ratings for the night in WWF's favor.