by Mick Foley
“Actually, it’s Cactus Jack,” I corrected her, “and it’s a wrestling name.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” she said, smiling. “I went to wrestling matches at Madison Square Garden about five years ago. Have you ever wrestled there?”
“No,” I had to admit, “I haven’t yet.”
Her next question was kind of a buzz killer. “Where do you wrestle?”
“Well, next week, I’m wrestling here at the Raceway. Would you like to go?” She laughed a little bit at the thought of wrestling in such a place, and I tried to cover myself by blurting out, “I usually wrestle in nice places.”
She smiled and told me what seemed to be a sure blow-off. “Look, I’m just visiting my aunt and uncle here. I don’t have a car and I could only go if they come with me.”
Then I saw Tommy Dee out of the corner of my eye pointing to his watch, and I knew that it was time for my big racecar angle. I felt like I had ruined my chances already, but I decided to throw out my best line anyway. “Can I have your phone number?” I asked with about zero confidence in my voice.
“I don’t like to give out my number,” she replied. “Especially because I’m at my aunt and uncle’s house. You can give me yours if you like.” I wrote down the number and headed off to the racetrack, doubting that I would ever see her again.
When I got to the racetrack, about ten drivers were letting their engines softly idle to prepare for the next race. The public address announcer put his arm around me and said, “Ladies and gentleman, we have a special guest here today-Cactus Jack from the world of professional wrestling.” Mild applause. “Cactus, we would all just like to know how you’re enjoying the great town of Riverhead and the great sport of auto racing.”
I tried to forget about my flop with the S&M chick and got ready to rip off the Funker. “Thank you very much for your support,” I began. “You know, I’m really enjoying my time here in Riverhead. It’s a beautiful town, and the people have been so nice to me since I’ve been here.” Respectful applause. “But please, don’t insult my intelligence by calling this stuff you do out here a sport, or by calling these guys athletes.”
All of a sudden, the engines started revving in response to my cheap shot at their sport. One of the drivers, a big 230-ish kid named Eddie Dembrowski actually got out of his car and approached me. As his name might imply, Eddie was Polish, as was most of the town. The place was crawling with people who had “ski” at the ends of their names. “Hey,” Dembrowski yelled, “we go out here and risk our lives every week. How can you come out here and say that we’re not athletes?”
I really felt that this was going really well, and had especially high hopes for my next words, which were straight from Terry Funk in the horrible wrestling movie I Like to Hurt People. “Look,” I snarled at Eddie, “I’m going to say this once, and because I know you’re Polish, I’m going to say it real slow.” This was great. The engines were revving and people were booing, and Eddie looked so nervous I thought he was going to pass out. “In ancient times, there were only three real sports. Ancient man either ran for his life, swam for his life, or did what I do, and fought for his life. One thing that I can guarantee you that primitive man did not do is get in his car and drive away.”
With that, Eddie gave me a shove and I shoved him back. Racing security jumped in and held Eddie back, and when they did, I jumped him from behind, slammed his head into the hood, and then rolled him up onto his own hood, at which point I piledrove him. Fans were actually trying to climb over the fence to get to the infield, and other drivers, who had no idea that I was just trying to promote the show, tried to get at me. It really was a wild scene that ended with me being taken off in a wire mesh paddy wagon, as the fans yelled at the dastardly Cactus Jack. As I was being taken away, I thought about the girl I had met, and wondered if she did anything with that belt besides wear it. (Hey, I need to be honest, don’t I?)
Three nights later, I heard the phone ring and picked it up to hear a voice saying, “Hello, is Jack there?”
“Which Jack are you looking for,” I inquired, as, after all, my dad was the only real Jack in the house. “Cactus Jack,” the female voice answered.
“This is Cactus.”
“Hi, I’m Colette Christie,” she said, “the girl you met at the racetrack.” Moments later, I was securing my first real date in a very long time.
On Thursday, the night before my big match at the raceway, I was spiffing myself up for my big night out, and my mother walked in, slightly confused by the sight of her son applying cologne for the first time in recent memory. “Where are you going tonight, Mick,” she questioned, “out with your friends?”
“Mom,” I shot back with enthusiasm, “I have a date tonight with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
My mom looked at me and quickly asked, “No, really, Mick, where are you going?” When I left the house five minutes later, I still don’t think she was convinced that I even knew a beautiful girl, let alone was going out with one.
Colette’s aunt lived an hour away, so I had plenty of time to think of all the cool things I was going to say. When I got there, I realized almost instantly that I wasn’t going to need any help in saying anything, because we connected instantly.
Being boring, or, more accurately, having nothing to say, had been a longtime fear of mine-a compulsion almost, which unfortunately led to avoiding conversation with strangers whenever possible. I even feared one-on-one conversation with all but my closest friends. With them, I could be myself-with everyone else, in a one-on-one situation, I was always petrified. As a result, I remember wearing headphones and keeping my head down when I walked back from classes at Cortland, just hoping that I wouldn’t run into someone I knew only moderately well.
I solved that problem with Colette by instantly becoming friends with her. As soon as she hopped into my black 1984 Chrysler LeBaron convertible, which had replaced the Arrow I had abandoned on the side of the road in Pennsylvania, I was not shy about hitting her with my stupid puns and dorky jokes. She responded by actually laughing, even though once in a while, she’d have to stop and ask, “Is that a joke?” As we drove to an unknown location, she fumbled with the radio, and when she started singing along with a country song, I felt like I might be falling in love. After all, a girl who was born in Queens, and who had grown up in Manhattan, actually singing country music was something I had never even considered. I remembered back to a time when I was eighteen and had two tickets to the Willie Nelson picnic at Giants Stadium, and had to give them to my parents because I could not find one person, male or female, who wanted to go with me. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the country music that was the turnoff; maybe it was me.
We finally ended up in a small bar in Rockville Center, right across from the office building where the Apter wrestling magazines are published. I fed the jukebox with quarters and got to know Colette a little bit while “Tweeter and the Monkeyman” by the Traveling Wilburys played. Colette explained that she had been a model for a long time, but that at twenty-nine, she was now too old for the business. Her father, with whom she’d been very close, had died a few months earlier, and Colette had been so distraught that she’d been unable to work. As a result, she was planning on going to live with her mother in Florida. She was staying with her aunt and uncle just long enough to get her things, and then she would be Sunshine State-bound. We decided that we could at least have some fun until she left, and that maybe I could stop by and visit her in Florida sometime if I was in town for a match.
I think, however, that I may have been too charming for my own good, especially singing all the words to “Forever in Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond. I firmly believe that when you find a girl that you feel strong enough to sing Neil Diamond in front of-especially on the first date-well, man, you’ve got to hold on to that girl. By the way, do you know who else who knows all the words to “Forever in Blue Jeans”? The tattooed toughguy wrestler Mideon.
By the time I go
t back to Colette’s aunt’s house, I had already confessed to actually being named Mick and not Jack. After all, I didn’t want to have to put on my act around this girl-I wanted the freedom and honestly of being my own dorky self. She invited me in for tea, and I accepted, being the tea-loving son of a bitch that I am. It was there that I met Confusion, Colette’s Shetland sheepdog of ten years, and spotted a book with Colette’s picture on it that I asked if I could see. It turned out to be Colette’s modeling portfolio.
Now, I feel like I need to admit right here that I had certain doubts about the validity of Colette’s alleged modeling career. Sure, I thought she was beautiful, but I’d met a lot of girls who said they modeled, and at most it turned out to be a few head shots and a local underwear ad. Hell, even the Godfather’s Hoes consider what they do to be modeling. Instead, I was blown away by what I saw. Real pictures, real ads. Revlon, Avon, Tropical Blond, Maidenform, book covers. This was impressive. This wasn’t someone claiming to be a Guess Jeans model-this was a real model. Next I turned the page and saw a two page layout that nearly knocked me for a loop. “I know that ad,” I yelled, “but what is it?”
“That’s a campaign I did for Burlington Leggs,” she replied, either being completely modest, or trying to sound modest, like I do when I tell stories about my matches in Japan.
“But where have I seen it?” I begged. “I know that ad from somewhere.”
“It used to be on the New York City buses,” she informed me. “In fact, the ad took up the whole bus.”
“That’s it,” I gushed. “I loved that picture. My friends loved that picture. We used to talk about that picture.” This was great. I had just had a date with a supermodel, and had swept her off her feet with an ‘84 LeBaron, a Neil Diamond song, and very little else. I even got a kiss goodnight, and was called the correct name to boot. As I drove the hour back to Setauket, I couldn’t help feeling that I was going to be letting the perfect woman go when she took off for Florida, and I comforted myself with the hope that I’d maybe get to nail her (my wife and I get a personal kick out of this word, which is why I use it here) before she left.
As it turns out, all my fears were for naught, as she came to the matches to see me on Friday, went to the movies to see Ghost on Saturday, took a day off from Foley on Sunday, and moved across the street from me (into the room my neighbors were renting out) on Monday. The Foley charm had simply been too much to resist. For the rest of the summer, we were inseparable, except for my shows, during which time she and my mother hung out anyway. We spent a lot of time at the beach, went on road trips, and in a situation that was a little bit awkward, made many strange noises upstairs directly over Joe and Martha Forte’s bedroom, so that my neighbors of twenty-four years never looked at little Mickey the same way again.
After a few weeks of fun in the summer sun, I offered to show Colette a tape of me wrestling. I just knew she was going to be impressed. She wasn’t. I was a little hurt, and asked why. She got real serious and said, “I don’t like the way you allow yourself to be slapped around out there-you’re better than that.” I had often talked to Colette about my desire to go back to one of the big two, and she saw this somewhat goofy act as being a stumbling block in front of something good. “You’re better than that, Mickey,” she kept saying. “You’re better than that.” Without any real knowledge, she had more or less surmised what Frank Dusek had said a year earlier. “You’re a goof, and goofs will never be top guys.”
Maybe she had a point. Bruiser Brody didn’t look like an imbecile when he was alive. Stan Hansen didn’t make his name doing a Keystone Cops routine. I decided at that point to veer away from so much comedy, and concentrate on getting vicious. For the next year, I tried my best to scare fans when I went to the ring, and many times, especially in front of a small crowd, I would leave a high school gym or armory looking like a tornado had gone through it. I became fond of swinging chairs, and had the best match on every card I was on, and ended up turning in very solid performances with a variety of different wrestlers in a variety of different states and countries.
Around this time, I met a man named Herb Abrams at a wrestling convention in New York. It was there that Herb held a press conference and announced the formation of his new Universal Wrestling Federation, or UWF. In addition, he announced Cactus Jack as a signee with the company, which was a handshake deal that we had just agreed to. Herb really felt that his new group would instantly join the big two and felt confident that in time, it would become number one. When someone at the conference asked how he could feel so sure without having a background in wrestling, Herb replied, “What they’re looking for, I have, and that’s the Hollywood glitz.” Herb also announced Bruno Sammartino as his color commentator and himself as play-by-play man, an idea that would prove to be entertaining, if not exactly wise.
To know Herb Abrams was to like him, or at least be amused by him, as he was a true cartoon character. About five-foot-four-ish, with a small frame, Herb realized that he would never make it in the wrestling business he loved so much, unless he bought his own company. I don’t know where he got his money, but man, did he spend it, as he brought in a crew of guys that actually had more talent than the rosters of either of the big two. The guys he brought in had legitimately been huge names and had drawn big money around the globe. The list reads like a Who’s Who of wrestling with Paul Orndorff, Dr. Death (Steve Williams), Don Muraco, Bob Orton, B. Brian Blair, Danny Spivey, Bill Jack Haynes, Sid Vicious, Ken Patera, Colonel DeBeers, David Sammartino, Jimmy Snuka, and even Andre the Giant being only some of the guys he brought in.
Even with all these guys, Herb Abrams was the star. At least that’s what he thought. I remember watching his show, which was a pretty difficult thing to do. Despite his prediction, the “Hollywood glitz” was nowhere to be seen, as we toiled away in a dingy nightclub that seated, at most, 300 people, and believe me, there were not usually 300 butts in those seats. Even with all the top names, I was the crowd favorite at the nightclub, even though I was technically a bad guy. Maybe it was the “Welcome to the Jungle” music that Herb had made my entrance theme, or maybe it was the “Unpredictable” moniker that Herb had placed before Cactus Jack-the same one that had worked so well for Johny Rodz.
Anyway, during the show, there was an advertisement for wrestling cookies, which I guess Herb felt was the natural snack food choice of all wrestling fans. Herb’s grating voice was doing the talking, as he hailed the benefits of “Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff cookies, Wild Thing Steve Ray cookies, and, coming soon, Herbie cookies.”
He did the same thing with merchandise. Herb somehow landed a deal for his Blackjack Brawl, not only to be held at the prestigious MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, but also to be carried live around the country on Sports Channel. What a sight it was to see 200 fans in a 22,000-seat building. But hey, Herb was ready and no one could say that Vince McMahon had anything over Herb in the “marketing genius” category. After all, he did air ten commercials for UWF merchandise during the Blackjack Brawl, even if all of them did push only one product-the Mr. Electricity, Herb Abrams T-shirt. I asked his girlfriend after the show how he got the Mr. Electricity nickname, and she put her hands over her head, shook her hips, and gave a very animated, “Because when he plugs it in he really turns me on.”
I think that it was at the MGM show that Herb’s announcing skills really came to the forefront. He had invited me to his suite at the hotel to show me a “big surprise.” Herb had an incredible six-room penthouse suite that offered an unbelievable view of Las Vegas. When I got there, Herb had a bandage pressed to his lip, from a wound that he had suffered while wrestling with his buddies in the suite. His surprise-a new UWF championship belt, and a pair of yellow and green ostrich-skin boots that he swore the fans were “going to go nuts over.” Well, maybe the fans didn’t go nuts, but the wrestlers certainly did, as Mr. Electricity strutted out to the ring with the belt and the ostrich boots. There may have been only a few hundred people in the ca
vernous arena, but they were Herbie’s people, baby, and he was giving them what they came to see.
His announcing that night was truly memorable, as in addition to the fat lip, he was downing cocktails throughout the show and was totally hammered by the time he interviewed Little Tokyo, who had just won the prestigious Midget’s World Title. “Congratulations, Little Tokyo,” Herb slurred, “maybe you have some sake tonight to celebrate.”
Little Tokyo’s eyes grew wide and he replied in astonishment, “How do you know sake?” to which Herb offhandedly said with a shrug, “Oh, I was married to a Jap once.”
I’ve got to hand it to Herb, however, as that night in Las Vegas I got to live out a dream when I wrestled the Superfly Jimmy Snuka in a lumberjack match, in which other wrestlers were to stand outside the ring to ensure that the action didn’t spill outside. There were a few problems with the match, however, as no one ever assigned any lumberjacks to the match, and we had no idea what Herb wanted out of it. As a result, I began asking wrestlers to be lumberjacks, an invitation that many declined, and as a result had a threatening group of lumberjacks consisting of two male wrestlers, two women, two midgets, and three security guards as we got set to go out. Thankfully, Jack Mulligan took control of the situation, and made wrestlers go out to the ring and help us.
The end of the match posed a problem, as Herb didn’t want me to lose, and there was no way I was going to let Jimmy lie down for me. As a result, we did the exact thing that lumberjack matches are supposed to prevent-we fought to a double count-out. The lumberjacks were baffled as we fought outside the ring and into the empty stands. “What are you guys doing,” B. Brian Blair yelled to us as he gave chase into the twenty-seventh row.
“It’s a double count-out,” I yelled as the Fly and I continued to trade punches.
“But you can’t do that in a lumberjack match,” Blair said, laughing in disbelief.
