by Mick Foley
That night in Memphis, the idea I shared with Rob went exactly as I had envisioned. Other guys might have been getting the pops, but I felt like the proud producer waiting in the wings. Actually, I was lying on the cold concrete floor with a puddle of blood around my head, in what was described as one of the sickest scenes ever witnessed. Jeff Jarrett had gotten hold of Robert’s “loaded boot” and had begun to use it on him. With the Tennessee Stud in trouble, fellow stablemates Gary Young, Phil Hickerson, and Cactus Jack hit the ring. One by one, we all took a shot with the boot, and one by one, we went down. When I got up from my fall, on the outside of the ring apron, Jeff was waiting and laced me one more time with the boot. The impact sent me flying backward off the apron and in what might best be described as the 1970s Nestea Plunge. I landed on the concrete with my back, shoulders, and, to a lesser extent, my neck and head absorbing the blow. I landed with a thud and lay there for several minutes curled up in a fetal position and pushing with my diaphragm so as to squeeze out as much blood as possible from my busted-wide-open head.
When I got to the back, wrestlers were going crazy over what they had just seen. A few veterans, including Robert, said it was the damnedest thing they’d ever seen. Even Randy Hales loved it. “Geez, Cactus, that was great,” he gushed, “we’ll just do it around the loop (in every town).”
Oohh! This was not good news. Once was hard enough, twice was pushing it, and three times was looking for trouble. But four? No way. Even at twenty-three, with only three-and-a-half years in the business, I had a decent grasp on my limitations-and this, I knew, was exceeding it. Still, as a recent college graduate-a fact that Frank had been nice enough to remind me of on several occasions-I was going to give it the old college try.
We started out in Nashville on a Saturday night. Boot to the head, off I flew with a sickening thud, fetal position, puddle of blood. Louisville on Tuesday, ditto. By the time I got to Evansville on Wednesday, I was shot. My back was swollen and discolored to the point that there was actually a hump on my lower back. Truly hideous and, I’ll be honest, it scared me because I really didn’t know what to do about it. It certainly didn’t look like a human back.
That night, I ran into a problem that has become commonplace in my career. It seems that then, as now, people see me do so many things that look inhuman, that they start to believe that I’m not human. Well, I may have a high tolerance for pain and I may have a body that has been conditioned to accept punishment, but my body is just like everybody else’s-just a little less pleasing to look at.
I was sitting against the wall in the Evansville dressing room, and Robert walked by with a cheerful “Same thing tonight, Jackeroo?” I told him that I needed to talk to him and then sadly relayed the tragic news. “Rob, I just don’t think I can do it tonight.”
Rob thought about it for a minute and then spoke some words of wisdom. “You know, Jack, that’s probably a good idea. There’s not a whole lot of people there and you’re not going to make a whole lot of money tonight. You might want to save that bump for a time when you can actually make some money doing it.” Like most of what Robert told me, I listened, learned, and did what I’d been advised to. It was the last time I would take the Nestea Plunge in the CWA.
The territory had a tendency to be quite a bit redundant-if only on a weekly basis. It was a great place to learn because the weekly nature of the shows meant constantly creating new matches. Many times, locker rooms would be on separate sides of the building and the boys would be forced to come up with matches on the fly. Even with a few moves planned, you’d be forced to start from scratch the very next week. This did create one major drawback from a creative and business standpoint, in that shows in Memphis, Louisville, Evansville, and Nashville all tended to look alike. A lot alike.
In late October I, along with my partner, Gorgeous Gary Young, won the tag team titles in Evansville. That night, as I often did, I stayed with the DePriest family, whose daughter, Terri, was a close friend and a huge fan. Terri had spent most of her life in a wheelchair suffering from muscular dystrophy, but, amazingly, I never saw it get her down. She was eighteen and although she was unable to enjoy many of the activities that others her age did, her dad had made it a point to take her to Evansville every Wednesday for the matches. It wasn’t hard to spot them in the crowd. Terri in her wheelchair and her huge father, Mike, stood out among the usual crowd of 107. That night, we were watching TV and I asked her if she had been surprised to see me and Gary win the gold, or in this case, the stainless steel. “Not really,” she peppily replied. “I knew that you’d won them the last three nights also.” I really didn’t know what to say. Memphis had always been so adamant about “protecting the business,” to the point that the bad guys weren’t even supposed to talk to girls-lest they seem like real people. I’d been admonished on just such an occasion by Randy Hales, who said, “Cactus, what we’re trying to do here is build a territory and we can’t do that if you’re exposing the business by talking to girls.” Now, I may be a college graduate (right, Frank?) and granted, a degree from Cortland doesn’t automatically make me Einstein, but don’t you think running four consecutive title victories in towns that are 200 miles apart might be more detrimental to the business than my conversation with a girl?
I’ll make no bones about it-1 was miserable in that territory. A wrestler named Tommy Lane once asked me if I was scared about getting hurt during one of my high-impact falls. My answer caught him slightly offguard. “You know, Tommy, sometimes I really do hope that I am hurt bad enough so I don’t have to wrestle anymore.” As far as I was concerned, if this was all wrestling had to offer-bad pay, no benefits, repetitive road trips, backstabbing, no appreciation-I really didn’t need it or want it.
Thankfully, things started to look up a week later. As I mentioned earlier, the pressure of weekly television and weekly tours was enormous. To keep things interesting, talent turnover was high, and character “turns” were inevitable. Even though I didn’t have a lick of heat, apparently my heel card had been played out. For the first time in my career, I was about to become a good guy.
The Stud’s Stable was called out for a interview on the Channel 5 studio show. Robert started in with typical Fuller gusto about how the World Class (Texas) Champions, the Samoans, were coming into town and that as new champions, he and Jimmy Golden would be taking them on.
“Wait a second, Rob,” Gary interjected, “Jack and I won the belts-we get the shot.”
“Okay, okay,” Rob replied, “I was going to talk to you two guys about that in a minute. Now as I was saying, we’re going to be taking on these Samoans and … “
Again Gary butted in, “Now just a second there, Rob, we won those damn belts and we’ll be the ones taking on those damn guys.”
I don’t remember exactly what was said but I do remember Rob getting a great look of anger in his eye, Gary saying he quit, and me saying, “Yeah,” and storming away. With our backs turned, Fuller and Golden turned on us and manager Downtown Bruno as well, and left us lying. I especially looked impressive dripping a puddle of blood the circumference of a basketball onto the white tile floor. Knowing that this was an important angle, Robert had been considerate enough to slice me with a small implement of destruction. Although it seems barbaric to say, back in the eighties, being a “willing bleeder” was a benefit to a new guy trying to make the grade.
Back in the dressing room, Gary played pattycake with the blood that was running down my chest and applied it to a gauze bandage he had wrapped around his head. I myself required several layers of gauze to stop the blood flow and minutes later, during a Fuller-Golden tag match, came out in “the Spirit of ‘76” comeback, to a surprisingly loud reaction from the studio audience. Apparently I wasn’t just a babyface, I was a fiery white meat babyface! Yeah!
Gary and I tore down the house with the Stable at the show in Memphis two nights later. When we got back to TV, we needed a fired-up interview to continue the ball rolling and I knew I would
n’t be the one to give it. Talking was a no-no for Cactus Jack-simply because the office was afraid I’d give away my non-Truth or Consequences background. Even Rob had been blunt about my verbal future by warning me, “Jack, when you open up your mouth and they hear New York, these fans down here will turn on you in a heartbeat. I hate to say it, but I don’t see you as a promo guy in the business.” Thankfully for me, Gorgeous Gary nearly drowned on live TV and I was there to throw him a line.
Gary was in the middle of a decent interview when he started having trouble. He was stumbling over words. Like many people who are starting to drown, he panicked. All of a sudden he was calling Fuller and Golden “Tennessee rednecks.” “Hmm,” I thought, “that’s not good-these people are Tennessee rednecks and we’re supposed to be the good guys.” Lance Russell was the man doing the interviews, and having been around forever, he knew how to spot a drowning man when he saw one.” Lance tried to cover our butts by saying something wise and ended with “What do you think about that, Jack?”
Lance’s question put me in a tough position. On one hand, I had been told never to talk on the air. On the other hand, I’d just been asked a question on live TV by Lance Russell (one of the best in the industry). I couldn’t just say nothing to Lance, and also, dammit, Gary was drowning. Which meant, since he was my partner, I was drowning too. I decided to act and immediately launched into brutal diatribe against the Stud’s Stable that sounded a hell of a lot more like a seasoned veteran than a goofy kid who’d been ordered to keep his mouth shut.
As we walked to the back Gary turned to me and said, “Well, I guess we can forget about not letting you talk,” in a voice that sounded both complimentary and hurt.
Even Rob, one of the premier promo guys in the business, was impressed. “Damn Jack,” he gushed, “that’s what’s known as a money interview.”
I was actually given a scheduled interview the next week at the studio and turned in another quality speech promoting a “Tennessee football classic,” that became known as the “Kentucky football classic” when we went to Louisville ten days later. See if you can follow me here because the setup is a little tricky. Gary and I had lost a loser leaves town match at the MidSouth Coliseum in Memphis on Monday. Of course, because Memphis was a week ahead and 200 miles away from the other towns, the fans were not supposed to know about the match. On the previous Monday, we had engaged in the football classic match in Memphis. Now, with the week-old Memphis studio show airing in all the other markets, we were set to do the football shows in all of them.
The entire scenario for the football classic is a little tough to explain as well. I’ll do the best I can. Earlier on the card, Downtown Bruno had engaged in a match with Robert Fuller’s wife, Sylvia. The two combatants, each armed with a Kendo stick, would later be placed in separate four-foot by six-foot wire mesh boxes. To add to the drama, if Sylvia lost, she would be dressed in a negligee for her appearance in the box. If Bruno lost, he would have to wear a diaper in his. Well, Bruno lost, so our fearless manager stepped into the box wielding a Kendo stick and sporting a diaper. A football was also added to the mix with a colored key secured to each side. The red key opened Bruno’s door, and the blue opened Sylvia’s. The idea was for each team to attempt to unlock their manager, so that the Kendo stick would be used to their advantage. During the course of the match, the ball would be kicked, thrown, punted, and passed from team to fans to team to fans, in what had turned out in Memphis to be a fun, fan-inclusive cross between keep away, monkey in the middle, and kill the guy with the ball.
The Louisville match had the added pressure of the Japanese media presence at the ringside. For small time, monetarily challenged grapplers like me, Japan offered a much higher-paying alternative. Even one tour in Japan could pay me as much as I could make in six months in Tennessee. Which I desperately needed as I’d seen my checks go from $370 to $395 to $530 (I thought I was rich) before dipping for good under the $300 mark and occasionally the $200 mark. Before the show, Wally Yamaguchi, who in addition to being a photographer also booked talent for one of the organizations, had approached me. “The fans really like the way you bleed,” he informed me, and for some reason I said I would try to supply some more of the stuff the fans 10,000 miles away had enjoyed so much.
As it turned out, I was in luck. The loser-leaves-town, barbed-wire match with the Stud’s Stable had left me with a serious gash that I felt could easily be reopened. It was so bad that I had needed to apply constant pressure with my blood-soaked towel throughout the 200-mile trip home, all the way to Edwin Street in Nashville where I rented a room for $50 a week from an eighty-five-year-old lady. I went to Robert as if I were a neighbor borrowing a hammer and asked him for a favor. “Rob, I just found out that the Japanese fans really like the way I bleed. Their photographers are out there and if it’s all right with you, I’d really like you to lay me out with that Kendo stick tonight.”
Rob nodded his head. “Is this really important to you, Jack?” he asked. I nodded that it was. “Well then, Jack, let me see that cut.” I tore off the bandage and pulled the cut open for Rob to see. “Dear God,” he screamed, “the damn thing looks like a pussy sitting up on top of your head.” Robert looked like he was getting queasy. “Good Lord, Jack-o, I don’t want to open that up any further.”
“Rob, you have to,” I pleaded. “There’s a lot of money riding on it.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yeah Rob, I am,” I replied.
“God, I don’t want to but I will,” Rob finally conceded. Doesn’t it remind you somewhat of a Hallmark card? “A true friend is one who will split you open when you ask him to.”
Rob turned out to be a man of his word and then some. Actually, Jimmy Golden had quit the company and Sid Vicious was his replacement. We had a wild, rollicking good time in our football match, which ended when I unlocked the diapered, caged Bruno, who showed me his gratitude by cracking me with the stick, looking like a deranged baby New Year. The treacherous Bruno then handed the stick to Rob, who, true to his word, began wearing me out with it. I felt the warm flow start to come and I squeezed and grimaced so the Japanese photographers could snap away.
Yes sir, things were working out just fine, especially when Rob caught me in the back of the head with the stick and I did the “hangman” in the ropes. I could see the photographers shooting away as Fuller cracked down time and again with his Western martial arts training weapon. “All right,” I remember thinking, “that’s enough of that.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to convey my message to Rob, who was desperately trying to break the stick over my head-which he finally did.
The ropes, meanwhile, were awful tight on my neck, and as I would in Munich, I began to panic. Also as in Munich, I pulled my head out as my only way to safety, and again as in Munich, my ears paid the price. I felt behind my right ear and it was split. The first of many splits behind the ears, as it would turn out. At least it’s over, I thought. Not so fast. Whack! came another shot with the stick, which by this point was a more like a club. Man, Fuller was turning out to be a friend indeed. Several shots later, the massacre was over, and I was free to collect myself and go back to the dressing room.
Fuller was there waiting for me. “Goddamn, Jack, I’m sorry,” he said with exasperation, “but I saw all that juice and all them Japs, and I remember what you had told me about Japan, and I didn’t want to let you down and damn, Jack-o, I just got carried away. 01’ Jack-o had that good color tonight though. Damn, son, I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Rob” was all I could say, as I took the Norman Bates shower and ran upstairs to see what Yamaguchi had thought. He was gone and I didn’t see him again for months. I hope they enjoyed their photographs. I wonderin the case of the bloody photos, should I get a credit for doing my own makeup?
My Memphis tenure ended a night later in Evansville, which for the first time in years was packed to the rafters with about a thousand fans. I actually got $50 for Evansville instead of the
big two five that was customary for that town. I stayed overnight and, after sharing Thanksgiving dinner with the DePriest family, headed back for Texas.
Sadly, Terri died three years later, after suffering for almost her entire life. I’m sure she’s resting in a better place now. To help deal with his loss, Mike began painting Christmas ceramics, and over the years has sent me many. I have four of his Old World Santas on my mantel year round and a nativity set that stays in a bookcase all year, as well. Aside from my talks with Robert, Mike’s artwork is about the only pleasant reminder I have of my time in Memphis.
Chapter 8
I enjoyed Texas every bit as much as I’d hated Tennessee. From the moment I limped into Dallas in the 1980 Plymouth Arrow that veteran wrestler Mike Davis had sold me when the Fairmont died, I seemed to take a liking to the state and its people. Maybe it was the barbecue or the catfish. Maybe it was the creative freedom I was given. Or maybe it was the forty-year-old Australian lady who worked at the desk at the motel I stayed in during my first week in town. Whatever the case, Texas reaffirmed my faith in the wrestling business, and I grew by leaps and bounds while I was there.
At one point in the mid-eighties, World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) had been the hottest promotion in the country. Fritz Von Erich owned the territory, and using his three boys, David, Kevin, and Kerry, as his top stars, he had built a hugely successful wrestling empire. The boys were seen as legitimate heroes in their native state and, to a lesser extent, the country as well, because World Class had a tremendous syndication package. Even after David died in Japan from an apparent drug overdose, the territory thrived, peaking in 1984 for the David Von Erich Memorial card in Texas Stadium, where a crowd of 42,000 saw Kerry defeat Ric Flair for the NWA title.