by Mick Foley
I set the whole interview against the story line of Todd Gordon voting for the most hardcore wrestler of 1995. By brown-nosing both Gordon and the fans, while at the same time adding ridiculous imagery to the hardcore mentality and losing my look and voice, I was sure it would gain me the disdain of the fans. It was also the most fun I ever had in front of a camera. My wife filmed it, and, if I may say so, did a pretty damn good job.
December 1995-ECW TV Show-A Hardcore Christmas Scene-The Foley house. As Burl Ives’s “Holly Jolly Christmas” plays in the background, the camera fades in. A sockless loafer is bouncing to the tune of the music as the camera slowly pans out. We see a clean-shaven Cactus Jack sitting in front of a Christmas tree with his two-year-old daughter, Noelle, on his lap. The clean-cut Cactus speaks:
“Ho, ho, ho-Happy Hardcore Holidays, everybody. This is Cactus Jack, along with the rest of the Foleys here to wish you and your family a Happy Holiday Hardcore season. [Noelle laughs.] I took this time out today to try to explain what Christmas means to me, and, by golly, I found out that Christmas can mean a lot of different things. First off, I found out that Christmas can be [yelling] FUN! Ha ha [Noelle laughs]. Why, just the other day there were some Christmas carolers, and I snuck up on their little group and, as the door opened and they began to sing, I started chanting ‘ECW, ECW, ECW,’ ha ha, and I’ll tell you what … I would have gotten away with it too, but all the neighbors heard me yelling ‘BANG BANG’ [Noelle laughs] as I made my way through the neighborhood. But you know, they didn’t care. They just thought, ‘There goes that nutty Cactus Jack’ -but you know what, they realized that it doesn’t hurt to have a hardcore person in the neighborhood. Second of all [getting serious], Christmas is for family. Why just the other day, I was taking gingerbread men out of the oven [getting happier], and I’ll tell you what, I took one look at that cookie sheet and I was wishing that I could POWEE! Ha ha … hit someone over the head with it-right in the kisser. Ha ha, I bet you could get some juice out of that one! BANG BANG!
“Most important, Christmas is for caring [real serious]. Now, I understand that there is a hardcore balloting going on, and that Todd Gordon is in charge of the voting, but more importantly, Todd is in charge of some very prestigious and worthwhile children’s charities and likes to be the first at this special time of the year to write a generous check. Seeing as I don’t know the exact names of the charities, I’m just going to make the check out to Todd Gordon himself, and [winking at camera] I think Todd will know what to do with it. Ha ha. Here, honey, zoom in so they can get a look at all these zeros-ha ha-not too close so they’ll see our address and we’re liable to have 1,500 hardcore fans on our front lawn chanting, ‘He’s hardcore, he’s hardcore.’ Ha ha. I’ll tell you what. I love them, and if it were up to me, I’d have them all in for a cup of hot chocolate. Oh, Santa [picking up a plush Santa doll], what’s the number one wrestling organization? [Horrible ventriloquist act] ECW ho ho ECW.”
Camera fades out, as Noelle cries for “Mama, Mama, Mama.”
I left for Japan right after New Year’s, but not before doing some ten-second promos to introduce Mankind to the audience. They were just brief sound bites, and because my mask was still undergoing final preparations, the camera really never showed my face, but would instead feature an extreme close-up of my ear or mouth. On that evening in Stamford, “Have a nice day” was born.
I actually came back without a scratch on that tour, although I had a hard time trying to convince Colette of that during my traditional posttour phone call. Upon my return to the States, I headed to Queens for ECW’s debut in the New York area. My beard had grown in a little bit, and despite my different look and ridiculous promos, I still received a hell of a reaction from my hometown fans, as I battled Sabu in a tremendous contest. For some reason, the building was demanding a fifty percent concession fee for any item sold, which I protested immediately. Instead of letting these people whom I’d never met walk away with my money, I had my T-shirt maker hawk them in the parking lot. He came back excited as hell less than twenty minutes later. “We sold them all,” he yelled. “Cactus, no matter what, they still love you.”
On that same night, Mikey Whipwreck won a strange stipulation match that, although wrestled as a single, allowed him to take possession of both tag team belts. Mikey was then, in theory, allowed to pick his own partner to be tag champs with, but in reality, I immediately ran to the ring, hugged him, and accepted the belt. Mikey and I were now two-time tag team champions, although Mikey would spend the next several weeks wanting out of our partnership.
A week later, my little World Wrestling Federation video spots started airing, and everything changed. When we returned to Queens, I sent my T-shirt guy out onto the street and waited anxiously for all the extra shirt money to jam my pockets. A few minutes later, he returned out of breath with his arms still full of “Wanted” shirts. There were at least four visible loogies on his jacket from where he’d been spit on. “They hate you out there,” he cried. “I had to get out of there. I thought they might kill me.”
Sure enough, the crowd was hot when I hit the ring with Mikey to defend the belts. I added to the heat by sporting a takeoff on the popular “EC F’N W” shirt that read “W W F’N F.” We lost the belts that night, and I turned on poor Mikey, who had just wrestled his heart out-further cementing my new image as a sellout and a scumbag. As a matter of fact, I was showered by chants of “You sold out, you sold out” on my way out of the ring, stepped back in, and addressed the chant. “You know, you people are a lot smarter than I give you credit for,” I said. “Because I have a feeling that a year from now, I’m going to have to look in the mirror and admit in my heart that I sold out.” The crowd was quiet now, as they took in my impromptu confession. Then I continued with a sarcastic yell. “I sold out the Garden, I sold out the Coliseum, I sold out every damn arena in this country!” The next day I arrived an hour late at the ECW arena, as I had been at the wedding of my old school buddy Scott Darragh. When I got there, my opponent, Shane Douglas, who was making his return to ECW after a disastrous run in World Wrestling Federation, was irate. Apparently, Shane’s return to the ECW arena had not been warmly received, and he was concerned that he would be booed out of the place against Cactus Jack. “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “because these people will hate me, and besides, I’ve got a plan.”
I showed up for my match teetering slowly and still dressed in my wedding suit. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” I alerted the crowd, which wasn’t quite sure where I might be going with this. “The good news is … I was at a wedding, and it was beautiful, and I drove back here without any harm to myself or others. The bad news is … in all the merriment, I had a little too much to drink, and I don’t feel that I can, in good conscience, subject any of you to my drunken, irresponsible ways. Now, how about somebody throwing me a fucking beer!” With that, Shane hit the ring and interrupted my little postnuptial cocktail. We went at it, and a hell of a match ensued.
For a reason that was never quite explained, Brian Hildebrand was our referee, and for a reason that also went unknown, my old friend handcuffed my hands behind my back when I was down. When I got up, Shane had a chair, and began teeing off on my unprotected skull (an idea we would later use in the 1999 Royal Rumble). After every shot, he’d grab the mike and try to get me to denounce the World Wrestling Federation. I wouldn’t do it. Finally, after I’d taken more punishment than anyone ever ought to, he put the mike in front of my mouth and demanded a denouncement. “Mikey!” was what I screamed. Another chance, another “Mikey!” Shane then hooked on a figure four leg lock, as I screamed in vain for my little buddy.
Finally, Mikey arrived, armed with the chair that I was sure would free me from the figure four. Instead, Mikey faked right and went left and caught me with a brutal shot to the forehead and nose that resulted in a three-count. A match with Mikey was booked for my final ECW appearance in March of 1996 at the ECW arena.
Before
I started with the Federation, I had one more tour of Japan to complete. Before I left, I went back to Stamford, where on a sunny afternoon I participated in four vignettes that I was sure were going to propel me to the forefront of the company and Vince’s heart. I left the studio that day sure that I’d hit a home run. Everyone there, including Jim Cornette, thought so, too.
The vignettes were filmed in front of a makeshift dungeon and featured me playing with rats and telling stories of piano playing, child abuse, neglect, and disfigurement. I had been reading books like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and was full of antisocial images. “This wasn’t as good as Cactus Jack’s stuff,” I thought as I pulled out of the Federation parking lot. “It’s better.”
I returned from Japan, and after a few days flew to New York for my final ECW shows. My opponent for the first show in Queens was Chris Jericho. I had met Jericho in Japan and thought he had a hell of a lot of potential-not just as a wrestler, because he was already damn good, but as a personality as well. I had been after Paul E. literally for months about giving him a try, and he had finally given in.
The response to me was brutal, even to the point of hurting my feelings. Even though I’d been doing my best to piss these people off for the last several months, I wanted to feel like they could at least separate fact from fantasy and give me a decent sendoff. Instead, they showered me with everything from full beers to deafening chants of “You sold out.” That’s a chant that has always disturbed me. It reminded me of when the bratty little kid on One Day at a Time accuses Schneider, the custodian, of selling out for taking a better job. I didn’t buy it then, and I still don’t. I mean, it’s not as if these fans were taking up collections for ECW wrestlers’ retirement funds or taking care of my mortgage.
Even after the match, when I did my “Today, day, I feel like, like the luckiest man, on, the face of the earth, earth” Lou Gehrig speech, the crowd was unforgiving. It was definitely one of those nights when I went to sleep thinking that this whole wrestling thing wasn’t worth it. I wondered if my farewell in the ECW arena, where I had sacrificed so much, would be any different. I hoped so, but I doubted it. I had made that particular group of fans a direct target of my wrath and doubted they had forgiven me for it.
I had made up special commemorative Tshirts for my finale. The front was an illustration that a fan had sent me, depicting a somewhat pained-looking Cactus Jack bound by barbed wire to a cactus, as buzzards flew overhead. It did look somewhat Christ-like, but I rationalized it enough to avoid feeling like a total blasphemer. “Well, I was on a cactus, not a cross, and was held there by barbed wire, not nails. Besides, I’m a lot heavier than Jesus ever was.” Underneath the illustration were these simple words: “Cactus Jack 1985-1996.” The shirts had done well in Japan, and even though I wasn’t expecting many to sell in the States, at least they were there for anyone who wanted to commemorate Cactus Jack’s last match.
My promos to build up my match had been something of a departure for me. I had already condemned, criticized, kissed ass, and made fun-now it was time for something different: the completely irrational interviews. I picked out the tiniest detail and lambasted Mikey about it. I blamed him for leaving Doritos in the car by screaming “Good God, man, don’t you know I have an eating disorder!” I also criticized his lack of appreciation for the beauty of fall foliage. Last, but not least, I tore into him for replacing my soothing Leonard Cohen tape with “Satanic heavy metal music-for crying out loud, I’m the father of two impressionable children, you sinner!” For his part, Mikey just acted completely flabbergasted.
I was thinking of two reasons for this rather odd take on our feud. One, anyone can get mad about major things, but it takes a dangerous man to get worked up about the changing of the leaves. And two, no matter what I talked about, the building was going to sell out anyway-why not have some fun?
The next night I heard Mikey’s music playing, and my mind began to race. I thought about where I’d been and where I was heading. I know that I’d worked my ass off on both sides of the Pacific, but I also knew that I’d been a big fish in a small pond there. The World Wrestling Federation was the great unknown, and I had an eight o’clock flight to Corpus Christi, Texas, the next day to give Mankind a test run in front of the Federation fans. It would not be televised, but instead used as a dress rehearsal before my big debut. I had always hated wearing a mask and doubted that this would be any different. I liked being Cactus Jack, but after tonight, I never would be again. I wanted to make this last match count. Crash! I heard the cymbal. Then the familiar guitar riff. John Kary’s voice kicked in, and I knew that it was time to go. “Get your motor running, head out on the highway” -I stepped through the curtain.
I was not mentally prepared for the reaction I received. I couldn’t have expected it in my wildest dreams. Fans were clapping, and by the time I got to the ring, every last one was on his feet chanting my name in unison. “Cactus Jack, Cactus Jack.” It wasn’t the loudest reaction I’d ever heard for a wrestler, but it was damn close. What set it apart was that it was so real. It wasn’t born out of pandemonium, angles, marketing, or hoopla-it was born out of a genuine respect and appreciation, and it blew me away. I had my head down, because I knew that if I looked up, I’d surely cry. I came real close. But I was moved beyond all description. I was moved when I saw it on tape, and I’m moved right now while I’m writing it. I could not possibly have asked for a better going-away present. I had launched verbal assaults at these people for over six months, and in the end it turned out that they liked me-they really liked me.
The match was one of my all-time favorites. Poor Mikey took a hell of a beating but kept coming back. I backdropped a charging Mikey and then backsuplexed him into a table I had leaned against the ring post. I worked him over and used a fan named John Owen’s crutch to give him a nice shot to the gut. I even premiered the mandible claw, which unfortunately was met with silence.
Somewhere along the way, Mikey took over and used a variety of interesting implements, including the sacred Cohen album I referred to earlier. Actually, I held on to the ancient vinyl disc like Linus holds on to his blanket, while Mikey continued his assault. While holding the album, I staggered through the crowd until Mikey suplexed me at the base of the ramp. While I slowly stood, Mikey ascended to the top of the stage, which was some twelve feet off the floor. With a leap, Mikey became airborne and caught me with a variation of a flying cross body block. I actually lowered my head and caught much of his impact with my head in his chest, which could have been bad news for both of us. Fortunately, we were both okay, and we made our way back through the crowd, at which point Mikey rolled me into the ring.
He followed me in with one of the gray plastic ringside chairs and caught me with three good shots that sent me down for a close two-and- a-half count. Mikey then took to the top rope and attempted a somersault dive, which I avoided. Now it was my turn. I took the chair and turned it around. I always felt that by using the reverse side, and by making contact with the backrest portion, as opposed to the seat itself, the blow was more impressive. It allowed me greater extension and increased force, and the result was more of a loud crack, as opposed to a dull thud. I came down hard across Mikey’s back with the first one. CRACK! The crowd felt it then. Another one, even harder than the first. CRACK! Mikey was wriggling in pain. I then put the chair down and waited for young Mikey to get up. When he arose, I tucked his head between my legs, grabbed the back of his tights, and then piledrove him on the chair with a quick, stump-pulling motion. One, two, three-and the Cactus Jack era was over.
The crowd rose to their feet and began clapping vigorously. Again, it wasn’t pandemonium reigning but a legitimate display of gratitude. I picked up Mikey and hugged him before raising his head. Joey Styles made a great call in the television broadcast. “This is the Cactus Jack that we want to remember. This is the Cactus Jack that we love.” The crowd’s reaction had me close to tears again as I grabbed the house mike. The match had been
very memorable, but the post match shenanigans would be just as good.
“This is one screwed-up place” is how I started my farewell speech. “To give me this type of reaction after all the things I’ve said about you makes it all worth it.” I looked down and saw my friend who was always willing to lend his trusty crutch, John Owen. I stepped out of the ring and took off my new Cactus T-shirt. When I handed it to him, he hugged me tight and wouldn’t let me go. I tried to pull away, but he had a hell of a grip. I looked at his face, and I could see tears streaming down it-he was embarrassed by his show of emotion. I gently assured him that it was okay and climbed back into the ring. I then continued, “There are two guys that I have to mention here by name because without them there would be no more ECW. One of them is a business visionary, who knew what he wanted and went about creating ECW. The other is a creative genius.” I could hear people yelling at Todd Gordon and Paul E. by name. “I want to bring them out for you right now … Dancing Stevie Richards, and the Blue Meanie.” Meanie and Richards, who were kind of like comedic heels for the company, came running out, pumping their arms in the air and jumping around like little kids. We hugged in midring and the music-only version of “New York, New York” began to play.
To understand the significance of “New York, New York,” you have to understand the wrestling industry’s habit of referring to every wrestling promotion by its nearest major city. A wrestler going to work in the World Class group would say, “I’m going to Dallas,” and a wrestler heading for WCW would say, “I’m going to Atlanta.” Even though the World Wrestling Federation was located in Stamford, it had always been known as “New York.” The packed house picked up on it right away and actually started singing the words as I did a terrible Rockettes kickline routine with my two cronies. After the music died down, I got on the mike again and said that, as a last request, I wanted to strut out of the ECW arena. So, as Stevie Richards’ music kicked in, I did the worst Fargo strut in history-all the way up the aisle and out of the ECW arena. I believe it was the greatest wrestling sendoff I’d ever seen.
