by Mick Foley
Even when I was earning top dollar by industry standards, it was a tough row to hoe on the independent scene. Due to my exposure on Turner’s nationally televised shows, and with the reputation I had received as a damn hardworking wrestler, I was able to demand top dollar for the shows: $500 for a weekday or a smaller show, $750 for a larger one. If promoters booked me on several shows, I would cut deals with them. I realized that the chances of making what I had with WCW were next to impossible. But man, I was going to try.
It wasn’t long before I was questioning my decision to leave the company. Colette, for her part, had never really stopped questioning the decision. I was determined to prove her wrong. So, on a hot night in late September, I set out for the prestigious confines of the Alpharetta Auction Barn. The barn was only a forty-minute drive from my house, so I was willing to accept a smaller fee of two hundred for the night. That was all right, though, because I had packed up plenty of Cactus Jack Tshirts that I bought for a song from the WCW liquidator, and plenty of glossy eight-by-tens to make up for the smaller payoff. I brought along my sister-in-law Gail as well, to help keep up with what would surely be an insatiable demand.
As we headed for Alpharetta, I could visualize the entire scene. I could literally see it as it played out in my head. There would be a line out the door, filled with people holding intricately detailed and lovingly created Cactus Jack signs. I could even foresee a couple of unscrupulous scalpers, forcing small children to shell out big money to see their hero inside the auction barn.
When I pulled in to what would generously be described as a shit hole, I guessed that the scalpers had decided to stay home. Upon further review, I realized that there was not a real great proliferation of signs, or fans to wield them, for that matter. The place was practically empty. I had flashbacks of Polka High School all over again.
I walked into the oversize closet they called a dressing room, and detected the classic combination of urine and stale beer. I turned to see if Jake had somehow been booked on this same small show. What I saw instead was a group of hungry wrestlers looking at me with reverence in their eyes. “See what happens” began one, with a strong north Georgia accent, but not the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Ya bring in Cactus Jack, and we double the house.” It was true. My star status and international recognition had brought the crowd at the auction barn from twenty-eight to fifty-seven! Apparently there were some people who wanted to watch my “goddamn trampoline act” after all.
I headed out to the gimmick table anyway, where Gail was waiting with my assortment of eight-by-tens and my “Bang Bang” Tshirts. “The crowd may be small,” I told Gail, “but I bet every one of these fans is going to want something to bring home with them.” I was wrong. After ten minutes and a total gross of $12, I started thinking of a line from an old Ricky Nelson song: “I sang a song about a Honky Tonk, it was time to leave.”
It’s important not to overstay your welcome when working the gimmick table. Some guys want to work the table right until bell time, hoping for that one last dollar, but the idea for me is to stay only as long as there is a line. Well, there was no line, so I actually started contradicting my own advice-I was looking for that last dollar. After a few minutes, I decided to pack it in, and left with about a half a thimbleful of dignity.
I entered the ring for the night’s final match to a smattering of applause and one guy yelling, “You suck, Cactus Jack, you suck!” I was sporting a piece of white athletic tape on my head, which covered a small wound I had suffered two days earlier, in a match with my old partner Abdullah the Butcher. Abby had accidentally punctured my forehead with one of his foreign objects, and as a result, I had a small but deep hole in my head.
I had made up my mind to leave Alpharetta and its auction barn without getting hurt. Like many independent rings, this one was a piece of garbage, and offered a variety of ways to get hurt. Blown knees and ankles were a common consequence of working in a bad ring. I locked up with my opponent and grabbed him in a headlock. As I held him there, taking the chance to show off my seventeen-inch pythons, I felt a drip on my forearm. Then another one. Drip, drip, drip-now it was faster. I looked down at my arm and saw a growing family of blood drops nestling into the hairy area of my forearms. I must have grazed my head as I locked up, and now, in front of fifty-seven fans and my wife’s sister, I was busted wide open.
“There goes my little wrestling match,” I thought, as I felt the flood of dark red liquid that was now cascading down my head. I let my opponent go and threw him outside. I then went to work on him out there, and encouraged him to do the same to me, in the hope that it would look to the fans as if the injury had come from some type of brawling maneuver, instead of from a harmless lockup.
I picked up a garbage can and hit him with it. You could see the indentation where the devastating Rubbermaid had made contact with human skull. I then picked it up and brought the dark gray container down over his head, so that he was trapped in there. Now, I had been the victim of more trash cans over the head than anybody, and knew just what to do. Stagger around in a large circle, while your foe prepares himself for the big punch, clothesline, dropkick, etc. I had even lain prone in the ring one time in WCW with my upper body and head entombed in the Rubbermaid while Sting splashed me from the top rope. The entire concept is foolproof-there is just an innate desire in people’s hearts to see grown men stagger around in circles while wearing a garbage can. It’s been that way since well before Biblical times, although I’m not sure that it was ever documented. This guy had his own theory, however. The can hadn’t been on him for more than a second when he threw it off-straight into the air. The force of the can paled in comparison, however, next to the force of his projectile vomiting, which continued without interruption for about thirty seconds. I looked down at my Cactus Jack boots, which revealed some new spots that didn’t quite fit into the leopard skin motif. I could hear Ricky Nelson’s voice singing just a little louder. It was time to leave.
I drove home with some serious doubts about my future. Gail was talking, but I remained more or less silent. Bleeding is a pretty intimate experience, and it was not one that I cared to share with my sister-in-law at that moment. I walked into my home, took a Bates Motel shower, and went to bed, with visions of scalpers and lines out the door dancing in my head.
Chapter 25
I made my return to the ECW arena at the end of September. I had no belt to spit on this time, so I assumed I would avoid any further controversy. I had already agreed with Todd and Paul E. to make ECW my top priority. At that time, the company was booking only four shows a month, and I agreed to appear in all of them. I was excited about the show, because it was to be my first singles match ever with the Funker, Terry Funk-the same guy who, four years earlier, jokingly claimed not to have seen “shit” in me.
I had been a friend of Terry’s for years, and he was pretty much my hero in the business. He had seen it all and done it all, but he still had the decency to respect all the other wrestlers, and he never failed to be polite to the fans. When the bell rang, however, Terry was a different man. He would become a wild-eyed madman at every show, no matter how small the crowd. He could be that out-of-control madman one moment, and kindly old Uncle Terry the next. Even at the age of fifty, he took a tremendous beating, and even years later, at fifty-four, took a World Wrestling Federation beating from me so bad that I apologized to him for days about it. “Cactus, now, don’t give me that shit,” he’d say in his soft-spoken mumble-whisper. “That’s part of the business, and I was glad I could do it for you.”
Terry was the king of storytellers, and I always listened closely for bits of information I could use. You had to listen closely when the Funker talked-he spoke so damn softly. One time on a propeller plane flight, I sat across the aisle while he talked for two hours. I nodded and laughed the whole time, not wanting to tell the Funker that I couldn’t hear a word he said. On this evening in Philadelphia, he had offered some especially propheti
c advice. “Cactus, just remember every match is a great match until it begins.”
In addition to the stories Terry told, I loved to hear stories that were about Terry. One of them occurred in Knoxville, where Terry was in town to defend the NWA heavyweight championship in the mid-seventies. In those days, the world champion would defend his belt against all the regional champions. On this occasion, Terry was being interviewed by a newscaster who was grilling Terry about what she called the “pageantry” involved in wrestling. This was during an era when wrestlers didn’t consider themselves “entertainers,” and the world championship was meant to be taken very seriously. “You wrestlers really crack me up,” the reporter said, looking down somewhat on this simple wrestler. “With all the pageantry and such.”
Terry laughed and started to speak. For a guy who whispered and mumbled, he was actually one of the best interviews in the business. “What if I came to the ring and a band was playing,” Terry said with a laugh. “And what if there were girls in short skirts who danced when I got into the ring. And then, by golly, some cannons would go off-wouldn’t that be great?” The reporter agreed; this had affirmed her opinion of pageantry in wrestling. But the Funker wasn’t through. “I’ve just described exactly what happens every time the Dallas Cowboys score a touchdown.” Another Funk victory.
One of my favorite Funk interviews, and one that the World Wrestling Federation wrestlers still imitate today, was also one of his worst. So bad that it was good-or maybe it was just good, and no one realized it. Terry was working for Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion in 1994, and was preparing for a match with Bullet Bob Armstrong. Armstrong was a Southern wrestling legend and patriarch of the Armstrong family, which includes current World Wrestling Federation star Road Dogg. Even today, at fifty-five, Bob will walk into the small gym my wife and I own in the Florida Panhandle, sporting an impressive pair of guns. In this interview, Funk was deliberating on how he could anger a Southeasterner like Armstrong into finding the guts to fight him.
“I know,” Funk began in a very slow, deliberate tone, “Bob Armstrong is a son of a bitch!-no, no, that won’t anger a Southeasterner, because they have no self-respect. I know, how about this-all of your sons are bastards! There, that oughtta do it. No, no, because no southeasterner really cares about his kids. I know-your wife is a whore! Yeah, that’s it. No, no, no-southeasterners don’t really care about their wives either. Wait, wait, I’ve got it-the one thing that would make a gutless son of a bitch like Bob Armstrong mad enough to fight. Here it is-your mistress is a whore!”
The fans were, as in most cases at the ECW arena, extremely excited about the evening’s show. Now, I use the term “arena” lightly, as it more closely resembled a larger auction barn. In actuality, when I started with ECW, we often had to clear the building in time for midnight bingo. I could most accurately describe the ambiance as a Rocky Horror Picture Show for wrestling. There was a “dollar” store next door to the arena, and they did a brisk preshow business on pots and pans and various other culinary utensils. The fans would then bring their purchases to the arena, where they would generously hand them to their favorite wrestlers. I became so used to swinging these cheap aluminum objects that one time I grabbed one and was in mid-swing by the time I realized I had a cast-iron skillet in my possession. Approximately two weeks later, the recipient of the skillet blow, the Sandman, was able to wrestle again.
I am often asked what the strangest foreign object I ever used was. No doubt about it, the two-man kayak that was once handed to me at the arena tops the list. Or maybe the Leonard Cohen album I used on Mikey Whipwreck.
Terry and I were scheduled to be on last. Like most ECW shows, we would have to try to follow a lot of strange and exciting action. By the time we got out there, we knew, the fans would have seen a variety of chair shots, pan shots, stop sign shots, incrowd brawling, out-of-thering dives, and obscenity-laced ring interviews. It wouldn’t be easy, and in retrospect, main eventing in ECW never was.
Keeping in mind Funk’s theory, “Every match is a great match until it begins,” I grabbed the mike. “Terry,” I called, in my Cactus Jack warble, “it’s going to hurt me to kick your ass all over the ECW arena-but … not as bad as it’s going to hurt you!”
I handed Terry the mike. He smiled that lovable old Uncle Terry smile and said, “That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Cactus-you’ve always been a dreamer.” Terry and I then shook hands and tore into each other. As two veteran hardcore warriors, the Funker and I didn’t have to rely on cheap, violent stunts to get a pop out of the crowd-we knew how to work. No, we didn’t have to rely on it, but we did anyway-giving the crowd the same variety of chair shots, pan shots, stop sign shots, and out-of-the ring brawling that they had already seen for the past three hours.
We did throw in one added bonus, however. It was actually a combination of two moves we discussed earlier, but paired together for maximum audience enjoyment: a hangman complemented by a busted eyebrow. Terry threw me to the ropes, and I caught my head and neck in perfect textbook form, even if I doubt the existence of just such a textbook. My legs were kicking, but my head was in perfect position. I looked up with my right eye, and saw Terry throwing that big left. BAM-his fist went off like a rifle against my eyebrow bone. The blow helped knock me out of the ropes, and I lay on the cold, concrete floor (no protective mats at ECW), relishing that rare feeling of pain and satisfaction. We had the fans rocking and rolling, when a tag team called the Public Enemy hit the ring. Seeing that the PE had pooped on our party, Terry and I banded together to fight them off. After a minute, they went down, and Terry told me to get him a chair. There were no more within easy reach, so I called to a fan to throw me his. He willingly obliged, and a chair sailed into the ring. Then another one flew in. Then another. Then another, and another, and another. It was literally raining chairs, as the plastic seating devices were coming from all angles. In all my years, it was the damnedest thing I’d ever seen. I stood there in wonderment at this spectacle, until one of the chairs bounced off my head, and I realized it was time to leave. In a scene that would be replayed weekly on ECW television for years, the ring had been bombarded with over 200 chairs-with the Public Enemy literally buried underneath. When they emerged from under the sea of hard plastic, we had next month’s main event already booked-Funk and Cactus would be taking on the Public Enemy.
The backstage area of the bingo hall often more closely resembled a triage unit at a hospital. So many guys were trying so hard to impress this unique audience that injuries were inevitable. Guys were practically killing themselves to earn the fans’ approval, and the fans in ECW could often be callous about these ring mishaps.
J. T. Smith was a perfect example of an ECW guy who would do anything to get over. I had met him four years earlier, and he had unfortunately taken me on as his role model. He would do Cactus Jack moves, but he didn’t have the Cactus Jack ability to absorb them, and as a result, he spent a lot of his time either injured or in agony. On one memorable night, J. T. attempted a springboard dive off the ropes to the floor, and slipped-sending him crashing headfirst to the concrete below. As he lay unconscious, the crowd broke into the chant they used whenever someone visibly messed up a move-“You fucked up, you fucked up.” Over the course of time, incidents like these would weigh very heavily on my mind. Ironically, J. T. Smith, the guy who spent years searching for acceptance, finally found it in ECW as a comedy act. As a black man portraying an old-world Italian, J. T. would talk like a paisano and would screw up moves on purpose, and the fans loved him for it. “You fucked up, you fucked up!” became a chant of affection.
I worked a string of independent shows for anyone who met my price, before returning to the ECW arena three weeks later, for the big match with Public Enemy. I worked hard on all these shows, but I’d be less than honest with you if I didn’t admit that my main purpose was to sell as many Cactus Jack pictures, shirts, and assorted paraphernalia as I could. In addition to purchasi
ng Cactus Jack shirts through a liquidator, I also bought a host of kids’ belts and foam fingers that I hawked shamelessly through these shows. The ECW arena was different, however. If I sold pictures at all, it would only be for a few minutes, as it was important for me to retain my “aura” in that atmosphere. An “aura” could be ruined in a hurry if these ruthless fans caught you saying, “Please buy a picture.” Within a month, however, I would unveil a new shirt that would both make me a hell of a lot of money and revolutionize the way ECW looked at merchandising. The “Wanted Dead” T-shirt-a black shirt with a weathered yellow Old West-style wanted poster on it-was so nice that it blew away anything else for sale. For a while, the ECW arena looked like the future Austin 3:16 craze, with a sea of black and yellow to meet me. Unlike the Austin phenomenon, however, the “Wanted” craze was limited to a thousand fans at the ECW arena, and not millions worldwide. Paul E. took note of this small-scale success, however, and went to work. Today, ECW merchandise is a huge seller, nationwide.
When I got to my hotel, I was alerted by Todd Gordon that Terry had missed his flight and wouldn’t be making it to the show. Actually, due to reasons of his own, Terry would not set foot in an ECW ring for another six months, paving the road to our future feud overseas. Todd was beside himself-this was a huge match, and the rabid fans at the arena would be hard to appease without it.