‘Get back in the ring’ – WWE legend worked WrestleMania match to stop Vince McMahon suing him for breach of contract

For many a wrestling fan there is nothing that gets the eyes rolling more than a wrestler having retired.

Often, the high-stakes storyline environment that is WWE – and others around the world - needs a character to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Wrestling, of course, mirrors the soap opera world but, whereas soaps can write off a character by giving it a gruesome death, those scripting grappling stories don’t have that luxury.

As such, the retirement card is often pulled – a ‘loser leaves WWE’ match, for instance, or the instance that a star can never wrestle again, despite the full intention for them to do so.

Regularly, such talents return to screen weeks later to continue the latest part of the tale, the value of their ‘retirement’ rendered meaningless.

In some cases, wrestlers do generally want to retire. Ric Flair, for instance, was given a moving and meaningful send-off for WWE at what was genuinely considered the end of his career when he lost to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania.

Flair would, of course, go on to wrestle again on many an occasion for other companies – Michaels himself even pulling himself out of retirement for WWE in a disastrous one-off return in Saudi Arabia.

In some cases, though, a bizarre mix of the two occurs, as in the case of Mick Foley in the Attitude Era.

Battered and bruised after years of putting himself through ridiculous levels of punishment for the entertainment of WWE fans, Foley had agreed to call it quits and step away at the front end of 2000.

A gruelling rivalry with newly established top dog Triple H did a great job of solidifying The Game at Foley’s expense and, after bowing out at No Way Out having lost successive matches to his rival, ended his in-ring career.

Imagine the New Yorker’s terror, then, when Foley received a phone call and pitch from WWE boss Vince McMahon for him to headline WrestleMania alongside Triple H, The Rock, and The Big Show in a fatal four-way.

Safe to say, the veteran was not a fan of the idea. He wrote in his book, Foley is Good: “Generally speaking, a wrestler considers finding out he's just been picked to be in the main event at WrestleMania to be good news….

“For me, however, main eventing at 'Mania sounded like a disaster… I called Vince and tried to convince him of the error of his ways.”

Foley’s main grievance was that he would, in his own words, ‘prostitute’ himself by vowing to ‘retire’ only to resurface again weeks later, but admitted the lure of a Mania main event was sizable.

The multi-time world champ had another issue weighing on his mind, however.

Despite having ceased the wrestling aspect of his career, he remained a contracted WWE talent so that, accompanied by the fact he found McMahon impossible to say ‘no’ to, meant he really had no leg to stand on in regard to not wanting to get back in the squared circle.

He admitted: “Since there was no ‘real’ retirement in wrestling, I would in fact have been breaching my contract by refusing to do a match.

“It's a slap to Vince McMahon's face to insinuate that they would have kept the money that I had coming to me. But when I thought of the money I was owed, money I had already earned, I became worried to the point of paranoia. I had a hell of a lot to lose.

“The Royal Rumble and the No Way Out Pay-Per-View pay-offs stood to be the biggest ones by far of my career. At the time of this 'Mania madness, I had yet to be paid for either.

“Have a Nice Day! had at that time been on the New York Times list for twenty-one weeks and was still hanging in there. I stood to make more in royalties than I'd made in my first twelve years in wrestling combined. But I had yet to see a single penny. The fruits of all my 15 years of labour were just waiting to be harvested.

“As a husband and a father, I just could not take a chance -any chance- on letting my harvest freeze.

“In a paranoid worst-case scenario, I actually envisioned my breach-of-contract case going to court. ‘Your Honor,’ I would say, ‘I gave my word to the fans that I would retire if I lost at No Way Out.’

“The judge would think it over for about a half a second before making his ruling. ‘Retirement? That was just a wrestling angle. Get your a** back in the ring."

Foley ended up doing exactly that, returning weeks after his ‘retirement’ to set up the WrestleMania match in which he’d feature.

Triple H ended up seeing off the man behind Cactus Jack and Dude Love - and the rest of the competition to keep hold of his gold and, having done his bit, Foley effectively retired once more by not wrestling for another four years.

Is a wrestler’s career ever truly over, though? Foley was back again, wrestling numerous high-profile events for WWE, TNA and other independent organisations, right up until his last outing at Royal Rumble in 2012.

Now 13 years removed from that date, an in-ring comeback looks less likely. Foley himself shelved talk of one-last match but, as ever, you can never say never. It’s wrestling, after all.