by Mick Foley
With mike in hand, I started the swerve in motion.
MICK FOLEY:“You know something, Edge? What you just said was exactly right. We did have the greatest hardcore match in wrestling history…at WrestleMania. Which means the winner of tonight’s match could rightly claim the right to be considered the greatest Hardcore Champion alive today! But the more I thought about that, the more I realized we couldn’t crown the greatest Hardcore Champion without also including the initials E-C-W. I thought back, Edge… Rawlast week…do you remember it? You said, ‘Any match you want, Mick.’ So I’m about to make the match I want: hardcore, triple threat. Edge! Foley! And the Innovator of Violence, ECW’s Tommy Dreamer.
Sure, not everyone knew Tommy Dreamer, and maybe some that knew him only from his WWE tenure as the guy who drank water from the urinal were a little less than thrilled, but I don’t care about Tommy’s May 8 reaction—I’m looking at Tommy’s June 11 reaction, and I bet it will be dynamite.
Dreamer and I head to the ring, as if we’re a tag team. I’ve got the bat, he’s got the kendo stick. I’m covering up my horrible physique with a trademark red and black flannel. Dreamer’s physique hider of choice is his trusty black ECW T-shirt. Even in the midst of absorbing some of the worst beatings ever seen by man (or Mankind), Dreamer has often found the intestinal fortitude to pull that damn shirt down over his protruding love handles. Together, our asses are the size of some small countries.
We slide into the ring together. Edge bails out. I’m fully aware that I’m drifting back and forth between past and present verb tenses, but I don’t care. This is the way I see the action. I urge Dreamer forward, so he can get to that no-good bastard (still a PG-13 word, I hope) Edge. And when he does—wham!—I nail him in the back with a mighty swing of the barbed-wire bat. It’s a hell of a swing, a home run swing, a Bonds-on-BALCO’s-best swing. I proposed an idea of Dreamer’s—that he get in some impressive offense before being destroyed—but the idea had been turned down in no uncertain terms by the big guy, Vince McMahon, himself.
And then it gets ugly. Or beautiful, depending on whether or not you’re Tommy Dreamer. Actually, it’s just four more simple moves. A bat to the head, busting Tommy open. A modified elbow/bat drop to the head. A legdrop onto the bat, which is conveniently placed in Tommy’s testicular region. Followed by Mr. Socko, and a hokey double pin, the video of which I hope to take full advantage of in Lubbock.
The audience is confused, as I hoped they would be. Jim Ross is busy posing some very good questions for the fans. Hopefully they will contemplate my actions and give me a chance to explain myself before jumping to the premature conclusion that I’m now a heel, or a bad guy. Because in my mind, I’m not. I’m just protecting what’s mine: my legacy. Keeping it safe from the prying hands of ECW.
At theSee No Evil premiere with Melina.
Edge and I shake hands. I grab Lita’s hand and kiss it gently. I’m determined to be the antithesis of every “ho”-shouting fan. I will treat Lita like she’s a proper lady. The three of us walk up the ramp, victorious, leaving a battered and very bloody Tommy Dreamer (who has been excellent in his role as a symbol for everything ECW stands for) vanquished in the ring. We pause so that Lita can raise the hands of both me and Edge.
A few hours later, I step off a tour bus onto the red carpet at the premiere of Kane’s movie, See No Evil. I’m immediately approached by a WWE television producer who tells me she’s been told to get an interview with me and Melina as soon as she gets to the theater. It’s really going to happen! We will start telling the story right away.
What a day it’s been. I’ve battled with Vince, hit a home run, gotten a possible SummerSlam title match, ruined seven years of goodwill with the fans, and willingly agreed to be publicly humiliated. And now I get to go to the movies with Melina. Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.
YouCan Go Home Again
I was in New York City in June of 2003, on Tietam Brown promotional duties, making my way to Penn Station, when a WWE fan told me that Triple H and Kevin Nash were scheduled to face off in a Hell in a Cell match at the Badd Blood Pay-Per-View on June 15, 2003. I caught the train into Huntington, something of a halfway point for me, then drove the rest of the way home. Those long rush-hour commutes are kind of overwhelming for me, and always leave me with a renewed respect for the sacrifices working men and women make every single day. Give me 400 miles of open roadway any day. A few good CDs, and I’m gone. But four hours or more of rush-hour traffic or train rides with the asses of strangers pressed against mine? Hopefully not, unless, you know, the stranger is pretty good looking.
Once I was behind the wheel, my mind began wandering as I followed a steady parade of cars eastward, hoping to get ahold of some renewed energy by the time I got home, so my kids could see Superdad and not some 300-pound slug pulling up the drive. And it just kind of hit me. Hell in a Cell. Mick Foley. Special referee. It was a natural. After all, Hell in a Cell was the match that ninety-nine percent of our fans knew me for. Who better to maintain order than the guy who’d gotten the ever-living crap kicked out of him in, on, and around the structure? A single call to J.R. got the ball rolling, and within twenty-four hours, it was a done deal.
About nine days later, I was in my Miami hotel room, having second, third, and fourth thoughts, realizing I was about to reenter a world I had long presumed was part of my past. One o’clock rolled around, the scheduled arrival time. I lay in bed, watching the clock, wondering about the ramifications of not showing up. Everything had seemed so easy on the phone. Vince had even called me, telling me how much he was looking forward to my return. WWE had even been kind enough to put my upcoming book signings on their Web site, and had offered to mention the book on their Raw and SmackDown! shows. To no-show my first WWE appearance in eighteen months would be a big mistake.
I pulled into the parking lot around three, then walked to the double doors leading to the back of the arena, realizing on some level that the doors were symbolic of the world of wrestling I’d left behind. Once they opened, life was going to be different. I took a deep breath and swung a door open, stepping inside.
“Mick, Mick!” A woman’s voice—there she was, Stacy Keibler, running toward me, the world’s most beautiful welcoming committee member. As she jumped into my arms, I realized that coming back was not as difficult as I thought it might be. Then I saw Test, all six foot six of him, glowering behind her, his front teeth looming large, impossibly so. “Hey, Mick, good to see you,” he said.
“Hey, it’s good to see you too, Test,” I said, realizing how odd those words sounded when they weren’t told as a lie.
It was good to see him. It was good to see everybody. Gerald Briscoe was right there. Pat Patterson, Triple H, even the Texas Rattlesnake himself—Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was good to see Vince, too. He wrapped me up in a big hug, and we spoke for quite a while. I told him that I felt like I needed to go off on my own for a while, but that there wasn’t any reason we couldn’t do more in the future, including the publication of Tales from Wrescal Lane , which had been on the literary disabled list since 2000.
We managed to do a really good job of making a guest referee seem as important as possible during a single two-hour episode. Triple H had warned me against getting involved, and didn’t take well to my decision to follow through on my intention to do so. He caught me with a few blows and sent me hard into the steel steps, my momentum hurtling my substantial bulk through the air, over the steps. He then walked out, assuming of course that his work in Miami was through.
Not so fast, Triple H. As he walked up the ramp, I crawled into the ring and pounded the mat three times, as if making a count. At first the crowd didn’t get it, but as with so many situations in wrestling, it’s all in the sell. I held three fingers aloft as Triple H looked in amazement, before heading back down to finish the job—this time with his trademark move, the pedigree. Surely no one would get up from this, unless, of course, he was in line for a really big push. But
I didn’t have to get up—not all the way, at least. I just had to muster the fortitude to raise my hand in the air and come down to the mat with it three times.
“One.” The crowd got it now. “Two.” They were yelling it out. “Three.” There was no question at all that the hardcore legend was back.
Triple H and Nash had a very good match, possibly Nash’s best performance until his portrayal of the ruthless prison guard who has his anabolic steroids replaced with estrogen in the Longest Yard remake. I guess I was pretty good, too. The second honeymoon was in full swing. I loved WWE, and they loved me.
I was even asked back to Raw, simply as a way for WWE to hold a hardcore tribute in my honor at Madison Square Garden, the arena that held so many special memories for me. It was where I’d seen Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka leap from the top of the steel cage, onto a prone Don Muraco, back in October of 1983. It was where I’d seen Sergeant Slaughter battle the Iron Sheik in the classic Boot Camp match in ’84. It was where I’d seen six-foot-eight-inch, 300-pound monster Sid Vicious parade around the ring, his arms flapping like a chicken, in a match with Vader, prompting Vince to say in disgust, “I never want to see that again.”
Being honored at Madison Square Garden was a career highlight.
The night turned out to be a memorable one indeed, with Stone Cold presenting me with the original hardcore belt, in all its duct-taped, broken-metal glory, in an in-ring ceremony attended by several of my hardcore contemporaries, such as the Dudley Boys, RVD, and Al Snow. I wish the late Crash Holly had been present for it, as I understand he took the oversight very personally and it made him consider me in an unfavorable light.
I even saw my Knopf editor, Victoria Wilson, in the front row, looking about as out of place as a human being possibly can. But she was happy for me, and proud to see how well thought of I was in my environment.
What an environment it was, too. Following a really well-produced video, set to the Staind song “Right Here,” twenty thousand people chanted my name. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that many. Maybe, due to the extravagant Raw set, it was only fifteen thousand—still an official sellout. And sure, some of those in attendance weren’t participating in the chant. But still, there had to have been two, three hundred people mumbling my name out of the corner of their mouths.
In a farewell address worthy of Lou Gehrig, I grabbed the mike, hoping to find an appropriate philosopher, poet, or esteemed scribe whom I could quote. I went with Frosty the Snowman, saying, “So I’ll say good-bye, but don’t you cry, I’ll be back again someday.” That someday would turn out to be six months later, in December, for the start of the biggest angle of my wrestling career—an angle that actually started about a half hour after the in-ring ceremony.
But first, after accepting a hug from a very emotional Stephanie McMahon, I asked a brief question of the boss’s daughter, the answer to which hung around in the dark, sensitive recesses of my mind, waiting to become the catalyst for my WWE heel turn almost three years later.
“Steph, how come Terry Funk wasn’t here?”
“Uh, Mick, Terry wanted too much money to come in.”
Next, it was time to leave the wrestling world a slightly better place. I may not have a whole lot of exceptional in-ring talent, but I do consider myself among the best when it comes to advancing people’s careers. There is always a lot of talk within the wrestling business about what constitutes a “great worker.” Are impressive in-ring skills enough to make someone a “great worker” even if those in-ring skills don’t translate into interest, box office, or buy rates? Is a “great worker” someone who draws money, regardless of how his stuff actually looks? Or is he someone who continually helps others out, by either honing their opponents’ skills (much as Fit Finlay has done with Bobby Lashley) or increasing their stature in the company? In my opinion, it’s a combination of all three, and I’ve always taken pride in excelling at the third. I’ll let fans and other wrestlers debate where I stand on the first two.
Randy Orton was the guy I was hoping to help out on this particular night. I knew Randy’s dad, “Cowboy” Bob Orton, aka Bob Orton Jr., aka Bob “Ace” Orton, aka “Boxing” Bob Orton, from my days on the independent scene and from tag-teaming with him in Herb Abram’s short-lived UWF back in 1990. I believe Colette and I even conceived Dewey on a wrestling tour of Aruba, on which Bob and I tagged.
I’d seen Randy work enough to know his potential, and thought, “Hey, why not let him throw me down a flight of stairs?” I mean, how bad could it be? I had scoffed at stunt coordinator Ellis Edwards’s suggestion that I wear special pads for the wimpy one-flight journey, informing him that I was Mick Foley, and I didn’t need pads. Man, I wish I’d had pads. Because not only did Randy split my head open like a ripe melon with a shot from the indestructible hardcore title display case, but the wimpy one-flight fall caused a deep shoulder-blade bruise that kept me in intense pain for weeks.
To make matters worse, the wound was in the back of my head, and although it required five stitches to close, not a single drop of blood was seen on camera, rendering it useless.
Still, I was on a tremendous high when I hopped into my Impala, cranking up tunes of questionable quality as I journeyed back home. I don’t question the quality of my tunes—other people do. After all, there’s got to be some reason why nobody wants to ride with me. Here, I’ll list my current collection of CDs that I’m rocking out to on this eight-day West Coast run. You be the judge.
Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose. Alan Jackson: Precious Memories. Julie Miller: Broken Things. Bruce Springsteen: The Rising. Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run. Dolly Parton: Those Were the Days. Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing or a Curse. Jethro Tull: Songs from the Wood. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Anthology. Ray Davies: Other People’s Lives. Slaid Cleaves: Broke Down. The Cowboy Junkies: The Trinity Session. Waylon Jennings: Lonesome, On’ry and Mean. Patty Loveless: Mountain Soul. Neil Young: Harvest Moon. Steve Earle and the Dukes: The Hard Way. Gillian Welch: Soul Journey. The Cult: Sonic Temple. The Dixie Chicks: Home. John Mellencamp: Human Wheels.
What do you think? You should probably just stick to reading the book and watching Raw, and run the other way if I ever offer you a ride.
By the time I arrived home, about an hour and a half later, the tremendous high had subsided, seemingly in direct correlation to the pain in my shoulder, which was cringe-inducing. Usually pains like these don’t truly surface until morning; I did not interpret this early onset of agony to be a good sign.
I lay down in bed, eager to tell Colette about the big night. Unfortunately listening to tales of my big night was not a high priority on Colette’s late-night agenda. The garbage, however, was. “Mick, could you please take out the garbage—the kids forgot to do it.”
So I rolled out of bed, clad in red flannel PJs, and took out the garbage.
Upon returning to bed, my wife had another request. The guinea pigs’ cage, it seemed, was starting to smell. Was it possible, she asked, for me to clean up the mess? So I went upstairs to their room, where they don’t actually have a cage, but one of those plastic kid’s pools that allows them some running room. By the smell of things, it had last been cleaned during the Clinton administration. Dutifully, I shoveled the pig poop, using a dustpan and garbage can, while remaining painfully aware of how big a problem this shoulder was going to pose.
My night, however, wasn’t quite done. Not according to Colette. “Mick,” she said. “Could you check and see if the dog has been fed?”
It was more than even a hardcore legend could take. Dejectedly, I turned to Colette. “You know, two hours ago, twenty thousand people were chanting my name.”
May 11, 2006
Dear Hardcore Diary,
A few hours ago, I was the emcee of a fund-raiser for a young wrestler, John Grill, who had been paralyzed from the chest down during his very first pro wrestling match, which took place around six weeks ago. The move that caused the damage was apparently a German suplex, my least favorit
e maneuver in the business. Most people reading this book will be familiar with the move, as it is frequently used in today’s wrestling game, from the smallest of independents right up to the WWE. Although it’s commonplace, it has always struck me as dangerous, as the margin for error seems too damn narrow. Even though a single German suplex doesn’t seem to result in many injuries, I firmly believe that the preponderance of serious neck injuries in WWE is caused at least in part by the constant repetition of the move.
I was always known as a guy who took a lot of punishment. Maybe the punishment I took was unprecedented, leaving a dangerous legacy for others to attempt to follow. But for the most part, I was in control of my own destiny. I took big bumps in and out of the ring, I wasn’t given them. There’s a huge difference. Taking bumps means that I assumed personal responsibility for the outcome of a move. Being given one means that safety is someone else’s responsibility.
I always knew there would be a price to pay for the style I chose. I pay that price every day. But at least I’m still functional. Slow, but functional.
Chair shots are another matter. I took too many, especially in 1998 and ’99, when my body was really wearing down, but I nonetheless wanted to present a physical product. That was pretty much when it became open season for the headshots, which I took full force, without blocking, as if it was some macho rite of passage instead of sports entertainment.
Some fans ask me if I resent current WWE Superstars who dare to have the common sense to actually put their hands up to block heavy metal objects traveling at high speeds, aiming for their heads. No, I don’t. I actually wish I’d done a little more of it myself. This book might actually be grammatically correct. Maybe I could even learn how to use a computer.
