by Mick Foley
“Sorry, Vince,” I apologized “It just came out.”
Vince disregarded my apology. “No, no, that’s great. As a matter of fact, don’t tell me what you’re going to say anymore. I’ll just react to it.”
That set the tone for the entire Mankind-McMahon sequence of events, with Mankind and Vince ad-libbing their way through their unique love/hate relationship. Mankind loved Vince and Vince hated Mankind.
At the next set of tapings, which would turn out to be my biggest merchandising coup, Vince Russo came running up to me in the dressing room of the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. “Vince just hurt his ankle. They’re putting him on a stretcher now.” He was practically hyperventilating. “He wants you to be there, and he doesn’t want to know what you are going to do. Surprise him.” Hell, I didn’t even know what to do, as I ran as fast as my concrete-battered body would carry me. Along the way, I picked up a few props.
When I got to Vince, he was just about to be loaded into the ambulance. His gang of stooges were all around him. Amid the concern and the corporate brown-nosing, a hairy arm came into view, cradling a 7-Eleven Big Gulp. I pushed the massive cup toward Vince’s face, and his expression was priceless. The Gulp disappeared, but then reappeared a moment later, as I diligently tried to get some frosty refreshment into Mr. McMahon’s gullet. “Would you get him out of here!” McMahon screamed, and momentarily Mankind was gone. A moment later, that same hairy arm was back, this time holding small pieces of candy. As Vince was being loaded into the ambulance, the arm kept trying to slip the candies into Vince’s pocket. Again his face was classic. Vince has a face that somehow lets him convey multiple emotions at once. In this case, it was disgust, pain, and even a little bit of pity. It seemed that I had found a formula that worked. I would kill him with kindness.
The next day in East Lansing, Michigan, Russo informed me that I would go visit Vince in the hospital. He wanted me to “cheer” him up, but again, I was told that Vince didn’t want to know the specifics. Within an hour, I had lined up a veritable smorgasbord of hokey gifts and entertainment. I was loaded to the hilt with “Get Well Soon” balloons, an inflated rubber glove, a cheesy heart-shaped box of chocolates, and a clown named Yurple with floppy purple shoes who specialized in balloon animals. Even with all the top-flight entertainment, I sensed that something was missing. I needed just one more special trick to really brighten Vince’s day. In a decision that would both help and haunt me, I grabbed Al Snow.
“Al, I’ve got a problem,” I said. “I’m going to visit Vince in the hospital, and I’ve got a bunch of great gimmicks I’m bringing with me, but I feel like I need maybe one more. What’s something really stupid that I can bring with me that Vince will hate?” Al thought it over inside that pea-size brain of his and quickly replied, “How about a sock puppet?”
Happy now, Al? Are you? Happy, happy, happy? Well, I certainly hope so. Man, it hurts to admit it, but yes, Al Snow did think of Mr. Socko. Well, I guess we’re even now, aren’t we Al, seeing as how I invented your whole “head” gimmick? The only difference is, without Mr. Socko, I’d still be a fairly popular wrestler-without my “head” idea, Al would be doing my yardwork. “Would you like me to finish planting those seeds, Mr. Foley?” “No, no, that’s all right Al, but I have some special seed of my own that I’ll be planting in a minute.” Ho, ho, ho. Oh, no, no, no. Oh boy, oh that’s good. (Fake laugh works every time.)
The scenario at the hospital was simple-Mr. McMahon was at an undisclosed hospital and was terrified that Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to find him. Although only the recipient of a bruised ankle bone, Vince was nonetheless bedridden with a heart monitor and an oxygen tube hooked up to him. He was being the ultimate cranky patient.
“Mr. McMahon, you’ve got a visitor,” a cheery nurse informed the miserable millionaire.
Immediately, Vince’s heart rate monitor started beeping faster. “Him,” yelled Vince. “It’s him. Why did you let him in here?”
The nurse remained rosy as she informed him, “He was awful big, and he was real insistent on seeing you, and he threatened to beat up the orderlies if we didn’t let him in.”
The door opened, and Vince prepared himself for the worst. Instead, an inflated surgical glove peeked its way inside the door with a big happy face on it. “Turn that frown upside down,” I said in my best goofy voice before bursting through the door. Vince’s expressive face now showed both anger and relief as I approached him bearing gifts. I handed him the balloons, which were met with disinterest, and then presented him with the delicious chocolate morsels as I kidded my old, grouchy boss, “Come on, I know Vinnie’s got a sweet tooth.”
Vince actually opened the heart-shaped box and reacted with revulsion when he saw the contents. “These chocolates are half eaten,” he mumbled in disbelief.
“I know, I know, I got a little bored on the way over here,” I replied. “But wait till you see what I’ve got for you next. A little female entertainment, and I think you know what I mean. Vince, she does a trick with a dog that you won’t believe.” Vince’s face actually cracked a tiny little smile in anticipation of the hot act he was about to witness, when I announced my special guest. “Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to … Yurple.” Then I followed up the intro with the same weak verbal rendition of the Johnny Carson theme that my wife hates so much. “Rin din di di di di, di, diddly, di dah.”
With that, Yurple entered the room and with her clown feet, purple hair, whiteface, and balloon animals, was threatening to steal the show. This woman was a professional, and years of children’s birthday parties had honed her stage presence to the point that she was on the verge of stealing all my Monday night glory. I had heard a rumor that Burt Ward used to steal Adam West’s glory on the old Batman series in much the same way. “Damnit,” I thought, as if I were George Clooney on ER, “I’m losing him!”
Quickly, while Yurple was in the midst of a complex canine creation, I saw that the cameraman’s back was to me, and I made my move. In a flash I pulled out Mr. Socko, got down on my belly, and combat-crawled underneath the bed like the valiant Marine in The Sands of Iwo Jima. “What the hell was that?” Vince shouted as he felt the rustling beneath him. “What, what the-“
All of a sudden, my hand and wrist were in the air, with a dirty sweat sock over them. The face was hand drawn and was either beautiful in its simplicity or simply ugly, depending on how you look at it. The camera clearly showed my face, but that didn’t stop me from beginning the worst high-pitched ventriloquist act in the history of sports entertainment. “Hi, I’m Mr. Socko, and I’ve come to save the day. I hear you have a boo-boo, and Mr. Socko is going to kiss it and make it feel better.”
“No, no,” Vince interjected, “don’t kiss the boo-boo!” This was great. I had a world-famous millionaire genius for a boss, and thus far I had both hit him so hard with a chair that his dental work had flown off and gotten him to say, “No, no, don’t kiss the boo-boo” on national television.
Unfortunately for Vince, I overextended my reach and ended up lying on him, and as a result, instead of kissing the boo-boo, I had inadvertently hurt the boo-boo. Mr. McMahon had seen enough. “Please,” he implored us, “please just take your things and go.” When we were a little slow in leaving, he tried a more direct approach instead. “Dammit! Leave! Leave!” he bellowed, and sent us on our way amid a flurry of balloons and chocolate wrappers. After we left, the camera zoomed in on the beleaguered and outraged McMahon as he sarcastically repeated the two magic words, “Mr. Socko.”
The next day, many of the wrestlers were ribbing me about Mr. Socko, but and I really did not think too much about it. I thought it had been funny, but no any funnier than some of the other things we’d been doing. Actually, Austin was Mr. Socko’s biggest fan. He had seen the hospital shenanigans on a television monitor while preparing for a later bedside attack in which he shocked Vince with a cardiac fibrillator, and “violated” him with an enema tube. He thought it was great. I wasn’t so wil
ling to accept his adulation because I truly believed he was joking around with me. But throughout the day, he kept mentioning Mr. Socko, so I finally asked him if he was serious. “Jack, I’m not bullshitting you,” he replied with typical Austin subtlety. “That was one of the funniest damn things I’ve ever seen.”
Later, Russo came running over. It seems that the poor guy is always running. It’s just my theory, but I don’t think that Russo was ever the same after the Sacham-Ward Melville bleacher clearing basketball brawl back in 1979. “Did you bring Mr. Socko,” he gasped, with an urgency that was reminiscent of Mike Brady searching for the missing blueprints during the King’s Island episode.
“Yeah,” I calmly answered, “but why?”
“Cactus, I’m not kidding ya,” he began in his out-of-breath Brooklynese/Long Island-ese, “there must be at least a hundred Mr. Socko signs!”
Sure enough, Mr. Sockomania was running wild. Not only were there signs hailing the new cotton hero, but when I got ready to square off with Mark Henry, a loud “Socko, Socko” chant echoed in the arena. Henry (this was before he was known as “Sexual Chocolate”) began working on my left ankle, as the “Socko” chant grew louder. Out of nowhere, I dazed the world’s strongest man and started to untie my shoe to “reduce the swelling” as the fifty announcers speculated. But no, it was not medical attention, but my trusty sidekick that I was seeking. As Henry stumbled to his feet, I put the filthy sock on my right hand. Mr. Socko seemed almost to be smiling. Henry turned around and I jammed the offensive athletic apparel into his mouth. “Ding, ding, ding.” We had a winner. It was the birth of the “Socko claw,” but more importantly, the birth of a star. “Mr. F’ing Socko.”
September and October were great months for me. I had gotten past my creative slump, and my fears of wrestling passing me by no longer seemed valid. I had been in a great three-way cage match with Shamrock and The Rock in September, and had followed it up with a pretty good October Pay-Per-View with Shamrock. I was personally proud of it because it involved more wrestling and working on an individual body part than I had done in a long time. I had also continued to wreak havoc on Mr. McMahon’s mind with my caring ways, including a story line where I kept Vince company while a heavily armed and recently unemployed Austin stalked him.
“Why don’t you just rehire him?” I asked my wheelchair-bound boss. “The fans love him. He’s got lots of fire and pizzazz, and he makes for some exciting television.”
Vince would not be deterred. “You don’t understand, Mick, it’s not that simple. This is about principle.”
“Vince, I’ll be honest with you,” I addressed the boss. “I really admire your moral fortitude. Come on, let’s play some games!”
The show broke for a commercial and when it came back, the fans were treated to an opening shot of my big ass filling their television screen. As the camera panned back, I was revealed to be engaged in a game of solitary Twister, which despite my encouragement, I couldn’t get Vince to join in on. Finally, I succumbed to the intensity of the game, and toppled over onto the curmudgeonly Vince. “Get out, dammit! Get out!” he bellowed, even though my ouster would eliminate his only line of defense from Austin.
“Hey man, stop being a party pooper,” I snarled, in typical toughguy rhetoric.
Most of all, as October came to a close, I had Mr. Socko. With him, a bad match was good, and a good match was great. I had taken to tucking him inside my tights, and making an elaborate ritual of pantomime before actually pulling him out. In some ways, pulling the floppy cotton sock out of my tights was not all that new. To tell the truth, I had been pulling a limp, white object out of my pants for years-I’d just never gotten cheered for it.
November 1 was a historic night in Houston, and not just because we were in the same building that Ahmed Johnson had refused to put Kurrgan over in. No, this was the building in which my kindness and understanding finally won Vince over. Vince had just gone through an on-air “falling out” with his son Shane, and was no doubt feeling a little melancholy about life. Maybe he was thinking about the hospital or Twister, or maybe he was just sensitive, but whatever the case, he summoned me into his office. In the office, he bestowed upon me a sacred gift, which in actuality was a broken, glued-together old belt. “Mick, this is yours.” He smiled. “You’ve earned it; this is the new hardcore championship belt.”
I was overcome with emotion. “I’ll be honest with you, Vince,” I tearfully said. “I love it.”
Vince looked at me and it was obvious that he had something on his mind. “You know, Mick,” he began, with about as much sincerity as the Grinch addressing Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two, “I lost a son tonight, but in some ways, I think I’ve gained one too.” Vince smiled at me as the stooges wheeled him away.
Just as he was about to exit the room, I responded to his touching claim with an equally touching “Gee, thanks … DAD.” At the sound of “Dad,” Vince’s face literally looked as if he’d just swigged down a glass of sour milk. I even got the Adam’s apple to bob, as if he were actually having trouble swallowing what I’d just told him.
The next night, I was officially welcomed upon my entrance by Vince’s stooges, and became Vince’s “boy.” The Survivor Series was coming up at the end of November and all indicators pointed to the possibility that Vince was hand-picking me to be his “corporate champion” and tear right through the Survivor championship tournament. First, however, I had to look the part. Borrowing more than slightly from the Hardcore Christmas Cactus and the Kiss-Ass Dude, I was given a complete makeover. My hair was shortened by seven inches, I was completely shaved (I still wore the mask), I was given a manicure and pedicure, and I began wrestling in a tuxedo.
In that very tuxedo, I engaged Ken Shamrock in an excellent battle for my Hardcore Championship belt. The belt actually went on to become a coveted possession, to the point that I believe it means more than any strap in the company, save the big one-the World Wrestling Federation Championship. Our match spilled up onto the ramp where “Dad” was watching with the stooges and the corporate bodyguard, the Big Boss Man. Behind my back, the Boss Man helped me gain the win, and I was elated to learn of my victory when Patterson and Brisco handed me the belt. I looked for Vince, and ad-lib bed a big hug. When I got back to the dressing room, Al Snow informed me, “You should have seen Vince’s face when you hugged him. It was hilarious.” Sure enough, when I saw the tape of it, I had to laugh, Vince was great. Within three seconds of the hug, Vince’s face had run a gamut of emotions from disgust, to acceptance, to fake happiness, to indifference. Though he was supposed to be like a father to him, “Dad” didn’t seem to care for Mankind all that much. Heading into the Survivor Series, the fish were smelling just a little bit in Denmark.
To win the title, I would have to wrestle and win four matches. Despite promising myself that I would come into this tournament in top shape, I was uneasy about my conditioning for such a big Pay-PerView. My first-round opponent was a “mystery opponent” that many in attendance thought would be Shawn Michaels. Shawn had retired from active competition eight months earlier and had only sparingly been heard from since. I was brought out to the ring first, and while inside the squared circle I heard Vince read off an incredible introduction before announcing “the man, the myth,” Duane Gill. Out came Gill, who would later have a small but fun run as “Gillberg.” Gill acted overjoyed at just seeing his visage on the overhead screen as he lost match after match to former Federation stars, and was startled by his own pyro. The match was over in twenty seconds, and I prepared for my next matchup. Obviously, Vince was going to make everything as simple as possible for his “corporate champ.”
Al Snow was next, and he did the J-O-B on the PPV. Vince had masterminded a plot that included stealing Mr. Socko and placing him around Al Snow’s “head.” Now usually I’m a big fan of the Federation story lines, but this one was a little weak. For one thing, Mr. Socko was actually several different Sockos, as I usually threw my Socko t
o the crowd after a match. Apparently this sock was special, as I mourned its loss. For his part, Al looked like a complete moron for parading around with a Mr. Socko headband stapled to his “head.” When I saw the missing Socko, I went ballistic and, as usual, Al played Winger to my Hulka, as I scored the victory.
My semifinal opponent was Stone Cold, and we picked up right where we left off and tore the Kiel Center in St. Louis apart. A referee went down, and as Austin hit me with the stunner, babyface referee Shane McMahon slid in to make the count. One, two, and nothing. Steve looked at Shane and the younger McMahon flipped him off, revealing himself to be a no-good SOB just like his dad. At this point, I was waiting for the Big Boss Man to make his presence felt, but he was nowhere to be found. He reminded me of the reindeer in the story my mom used to read me, who fell asleep in a snow bank and missed out on the “Happiest Christmas of All.” Trust me, though, there was nothing happy about the finish of this match, even if I did emerge the victor. My means of victory was so weak that it never aired in any form on World Wrestling Federation programming. Actually, compared to this, my “Lost in Cleveland” vignettes didn’t look too bad.
The final match of the tournament, with the Federation title hanging in the balance, pitted me against The Rock. By virtue of his charisma, good looks, endless stream of catchy phrases, and two big moves, The Rock was riding a huge wave of momentum and popularity into the finals. One of the two moves, the “people’s elbow,” was the most ludicrous thing I’d ever seen in any form of entertainment, but its effect on a crowd was phenomenal. Momentum and popularity aside, I had to be considered the heavy favorite going in, due to my close relationship with Dad.
I had only one problem. I really had no clue what I was going to do in this huge main event. I was physically exhausted and mentally drained. For a wrestler with only two years’ experience, The Rock had incredible poise in the ring, but he too looked worn and confused. We locked up, and I drew a blank. Another lockup and another blank. I was worried as hell. Within minutes, I had The Rock on the mat with a rear chinlock-a sure sign that the match was sailing down the tubes. Our match was literally dying, and as the senior member in the ring, I would be held to blame.
