Its roundtable time once again here at WWEPreview.com and this week we’re looking at the question: Has Mick Foley’s legacy been destroyed by his constant arriving and departing from WWE over the last 5 years?

James Mustoe: Being a fairly long-time WWE fan, I will always remember Mick Foley as one of the ‘big four’ - along with Steve Austin, The Rock and The Undertaker, that carried WWF through the attitude era from 1997-2000. Through this time the only thing that could have cheapened Foley’s legacy for me was his retirement and return just a few weeks later between No Way Out and Wrestlemania in 2000 , but Foley was, in my eyes, able to fully justify his actions in the second of his books.

As for his role and legacy in the ‘modern’ era, while it is true that Foley’s presence in WWE from 2003 onwards has been inconsistent, he has almost always made an impact when he shows up. Foley’s refereeing was the best part in the Kevin Nash v. HHH Hell in a Cell match from Bad Blood 2003, and his match against Randy Orton at Backlash 2004 was a legitimate match of the year contender.

Moving on, his 2006 run produced a great Wrestlemania match against Edge and further superior efforts in the tag team match at One Night stand and against Ric Flair at Summerslam. Even more recently he played the role that he was asked to play to perfection in the Royal Rumble 2007 and at The Night of Champions last year. The only misstep so far has been the essentially half-assed midcard effort against Carlito at Taboo Tuesday in 2005, and judging by Carlito’s overall WWE form, it was probably more Foley’s opponent’s fault than his.

I can see that a more recent (say 2001 onwards) fan could see Foley as being an old legend living off past glories, but in response to that, they really should watch some the excellent WWE DVDs that have been made on him, and especially read at least his first two books to get a full picture of the Man and his impact and legacy to wrestling and WWE in particular.

Mick Foley essentially put himself through the grinder with his high impact style, and has got the right to pick and choose his spots at will if he wants - WWE owed him that much, and his recent walking away from his contract, shows that Foley himself was aware of this and has the guts to stand up for himself, perhaps the most intriguing part of his real legacy.

Steve McLaren: Back when Foley “first retired” from wrestling in the early part of 2000, he took the role of the commissioner and succeed excellently in that role. He then left after the Invasion angle and we didn’t see him again until 2003, and arguably, his presence as the special guest ref in the Hell in a Cell match between Triple H and Kevin Nash, added to the buy-rate. Foley not only had history in the Cell and with Triple H, but he also hadn’t been seen for ages and was still a legit fan favourite.

Foley came back to wrestling in 2004 to begin his feud with Orton, and slowly he was beginning to turn into ‘just another guy’. It was pretty much downhill from there for Foley.

When he came back for the ECW One Night Stand show, his announcing on the night sucked and then he went on to have a worthless feud with Carlito, which didn’t help either man. Granted he had an awesome match at Wrestlemania, but he was facing and feuding with the best heel of the decade (in my opinion of course) in Edge.

For One Night Stand 2, he turned heel and that was just an epic fail with the crowd. He went from being an over babyface to a failing to draw heat heel. In truth, no one really gave a crap about Foley and Flair. He’d show up at random times and his pops were pretty much non-existent, he was no longer any sort of a draw; he was merely like that uncle that comes around every few months.

There is a reason The Rock would get a God-like pop or draw a huge rating if he showed up at Raw one week, that reason being we haven’t seen him live for like 4 years.

Did anyone care for Foley when he was in the 5-way at Night of Champions 2007? Did anyone care for Foley when he was in the Royal Rumble this year? Did you even remember Foley was apart of them?

It was a good call to move Foley to the Smackdown announce desk, even if he did sometimes bury people by accident (i.e mocking Kozlov by calling him a Mambo dancer) and just put himself over. While he was no JBL, he was better than the man he replaced, that being the Coach.

If he goes to TNA (which he will do), I doubt he’d have any sort of impact. His importance to wrestling right now has been watered down. When Kurt Angle joined TNA, his importance to wrestling was MUCH higher than Foley’s is right now. Yet he [Kurt Angle] hardly made any sort of difference in TNA’s ratings and Buy-rates.

Mark Bright: Whether or not Mick Foley ruined his legacy really depends on what you think his legacy is. In his active career he always had a reputation as a guy who took great bumps and could cut incredible promos, and was somebody you would use to get other guys over. Even at the height of his fame in WWE in 1998 and 1999, a lot of his time there was spent as Steve Austin’s first heel challenger after winning the WWF Title, and in long feuds with The Rock and Triple H where he essentially cut promos to make himself a threat, then got beaten and made his opponent look like more of a star for beating him.

In his recent WWE runs as far as being an active wrestler, he did much the same, particularly with Edge and Randy Orton. They were high-profile feuds where the people he worked with ended up better off for it. Ok so there have been mis-steps as far as using him as a special referee all the time and as a commentator and yes there may be some newer fans who will only remember him as the guy who did commentary on SmackDown for a bit before Edge destroyed him. But for people who watched him at the time he was at his peak he will be remembered for his active career and as the hardcore legend and one of the best promo guys in history. Old-time fans don’t remember Superstar Billy Graham or Bruno Sammartino for their short stints as commentators, do they?

Phil Lowe: As I write this, its a safe bet that Foley is heading to TNA. When Foley signed his last deal with WWE, it came about because he was close to signing with TNA and Vince threw a load of money at him. Although the two have worked together since then, there’s no doubt that their relationship changed. With Foley now leaving a nice, well-paid announcing job and heading to TNA, I think it will certainly have left a bad taste in Vince’s mouth.

Foley will still make it into the Hall of Fame, although the longer he stays around in TNA, the longer Vince will keep Foley out of the Hall - out of spite if nothing else. But he’s definitely still a Hall of Famer, in my opinion.

Looking back at his recent run after signing a new deal in 2005, there’s very little that you’d look back on as being great from Foley. The program with Ric Flair was for various reasons a huge disappointment. The interaction with Melina went nowhere. And the Taboo Tuesday match with Carlito was just a disaster.

I’d almost forgotten that Foley was in a title match just last year as part of Vengeance’s ‘Championship Challenge’ match, which says a lot for his contributions over the past few years.

If you take his work with Edge out of the equation (the awesome WrestleMania 22 match and the phenomenal promo on Smackdown recently - Foley’s last WWE appearance), his most recent run is almost forgettable.

In fact, for me his most recent run was summed up by WWE including him in the Royal Rumble - in his hometown - as if he was just a midcard guy who nobody really cared about.

As for his legacy, I don’t think it has been destroyed. Tarnished, perhaps, but not destroyed.

Martin Smith: In a way, I think Foley has completely destroyed his legacy.

It’s hard to believe this is the same guy from the nineties who threw himself off the Hell in a Cell and sacrificed his body a ridiculous number of times. Even more so, it’s ridiculous to think that this is a guy who formed a fantastic partnership with The Rock, had a memorable feud with Triple H and even had some great moments with Steve Austin.

Foley might be almost too passionate to leave this wrestling business, but he has had enough opportunity to sort his career out over time - with or without the WWE.

Deep down, did Foley ever want to retire? I don’t believe he did. I think when he retired in the early part of the millenium, he realised he was leaving something that was still relatively in a “boom” period. When WCW collapsed and the invasion started, he had to be a part of it - and he flopped spectacularly.

Foley needs to realise that everytime he comes back to the WWE, he is ruining his legacy.

How many times has he come back and promoted something? Then there was the feud with Orton, the stuff where he teams with Edge at the One Night Stand PPV or what about that nonsense with Melina and kissing McMahon’s ass? Did any of that serve a purpose? Ok, maybe the Orton stuff helped push Randy as a “Legend Killer” (even though that feud seemed to drag on forever) but I certainly didn’t think his effort at the first One Night Stand on commentary was much and his part in the Melina angle where he kissed McMahon’s ass (to save Melina - who was a heel at the time - from the sack) was absolutely laughable and embarassing. The angle was never followed up, never mentioned again and seemed completely pointless. Well done Mick, that was certainly up there with the time you won “King of the Deathmatch”.

With Foley leaving WWE again, the rumours have started that he will now end up in TNA. I’m not one to comment, but Foley needs to take a long hard look at Kip James, BG James, Kevin Nash, Booker T, Kurt Angle, Team 3D, Christian Cage, Rhino and more. They may not like to admit it, but once you leave the WWE, you lose a massive part of what you created. Your legacy, in TNA, is pretty much dead.