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Mick Foley

Mick Foley posted the following on his Facebook account, calling out fans who criticized the new WWE Universal Championship design and interrupted the championship match with distruptive chants:

WHEN SMART FANS TURN DUMB

I have long felt, and often spoken about the element of magic needed to make a good match great and a great match classic.

Finn Balor and Seth Rollins had a GREAT match last night – a match that I was HONORED to watch from ringside. But instead of that element of magic necessary to turn that great match into a classic, what Finn and Seth got instead was the stench of self-congratulatory snarkiness from a a very vocal minority of the sold-out Barklay’s Center. But a couple thousand self-important chanters, mixed in with 14,000 other people who genuinely WANT TO WATCH THE FREAKING MATCH is an awful distraction.

Yes, the chants were clever. Maybe the look of the Universal Championship isn’t the one that I personally wouldn’t have wanted. But remember the Hardcore Title? It was supposed to be a joke when it was presented to me – broken pieces of metal held together by duct tape. But we made that title mean something by busting our asses to show it’s worth. As Seth Rollins writes in his tweet, a title is about more than appearance; it’s about what it represents for the men fighting for it. Remember the WWE title I won from The Rock – that moment that has gone down as among the greatest in Monday Night Raw history? Did you know that title belt reeked of beer and mildew, and stunk up my bag every day for the 37 days (or whatever the exact number was) that I held it? Did you know that I didn’t give an F about the beer and mildew… or what it looked like, what color it was, if it spun or had my name on it? I only cared about the hard work that had gone into winning it, and that those responsible for running the company felt that I was worthy of holding it.

There are so many times when WWE fans act in a way that makes me proud. Last night was not one of them. Last night, that vocal minority in attendance – who thought their clever chants about their displeasure toward the aesthetic design of a FREAKING belt were more important than the two guys busting their asses to have the best match possible, made me feel ashamed.

I hope some of those people who were chanting about the Universal Championship – many of whom are Finn Balor fans – will read this article, and realize that Finn flew his family in from Ireland to be part of the event last night. I hope they will take a good look at themselves in the mirror, and realize they made the evening a little less special for him by trying to make the evening about themselves.

There is a reason why Seth Rollins simple, yet eloquent statement received 10,000 RT’s from around the world. People agreed with him! Most of them would have loved to be sitting in the seats of those self-important fans – with that element of magic in the air that would have turned their great match into a classic.