by Mick Foley
3. Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask—1981-1982, Japan. Take your pick from about twenty great ones these guys had.
4. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, "Music City Showdown"—May 1989, Nashville, Tennessee. The best match of their classic rivalry.
5. Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, WrestleMania—1997, Chicago, Illinois. The match that made Austin a superstar.
6. Hardy Boyz vs. Edge Christian, "Ladder" Match at No Mercy—October 1999, Cleveland, Ohio. One great match where four stars were born.
7. Sgt. Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik, "Boot Camp" Match—June 1984, Madison Square Garden. Both these guys were "busted wide open." A classic brawl.
8. Bruiser Brody vs. Antonio Inoki—April 1985, Japan. These guys brought out the best in each other. I'm just lumping the whole feud together on my list.
9. Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler—1982, Memphis, Tennessee. Funk was the personification of evil in this match. It is the standard that I tried to live up to as a heel but was never able to do.
10. Al Snow vs. Big Boss Man, "Kennel from Hell" at Unforgiven—September 1999. Just knowing this match existed and is on video makes me happy. So bad that I opted not to make fun of Al because of it—but knowing that I could makes me smile.
MICK'S TEN FAVORITE MATCHES THAT I'VE BEEN IN
1. Mankind vs. Shawn Michaels, "Mind Games"—September 1992, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the best shape I have ever been in. Great timing, psychology, and new moves that are still being stolen today.
2. Cactus Jack vs. Terry Funk, "Barbed Wire" Match—January 10, 1995, Guma, Japan. People go to jail for lesser things than we did to each other in this bloodbath in front of 180 fans in the forty-degree gym.
3. Cactus Jack vs. Triple H, "Street Fight" at Royal Rumble—January 23, 2000, Madison Square Garden. A great way to finish my career.
4. Mankind vs. Undertaker, "Hell in a Cell" at King of the King—June 29, 1998. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
5. Dude Love vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, "Over the Edge"—May 1998, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The only time Dude Love will EVER show up on a best of anything list, but this was a blast to watch.
6. Cactus Jack vs. Sting, "Falls Count Anywhere" at Beach Blast—June 1992, Mobile, Alabama. For a few years, this was the match I tried to live up to. My big comeback after whooping cough.
7. Mick Foley vs. Terry Funk, Raw Is War—May 1998, Richmond, Virginia. I received twenty- seven stitches in this wild fight for Mick Foley's soul. One of only two matches I ever wrestled under my real name.
8. Cactus Jack vs. Eddie Gilbert, "Two out of Three Falls"—August 1991, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was ECW before there was ECW with the late, great Eddie Gilbert at his absolute best.
9. Mankind vs. The Rock, Raw Is War—December 28, 1998, Worcester, Massachusetts. Not our best match, but certainly my favorite.
10. Dude Love vs. Owen Hart—sometime in 1997, San Jose, California. Hey, the Dude made it twice. I've stunk up a lot of buildings in my career, but never had this much fun doing it.
TOP TEN CHRISTMAS SONGS
1. "Little Drummer Boy," Emmylou Harris
2. "O Holy Night," Nat King Cole
3. "The First Noel," Colin Raye. I'm a big fan of Colin's music but an even bigger fan of the man. Knowing that people as nice as Colin exist in the world of entertainment is comforting.
4. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
5. "Little Drummer Boy," Bob Seger
6. "Holly Jolly Christmas," Burl Ives
7. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Judy Garland
8. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Mario Lanza
9. "What Child Is This?," The Judds
10. "Little Folks," Charlie Daniels Band
15: Rehab? What Rehab?
I finished writing Have a Nice Day! on July 1, 1999, in a trailer on the set of the USA show G vs. E. I had seen a few episodes of this rather odd, quirky science-fiction program, and was impressed. I really had only two problems: I was writing so much that I never learned my lines, and I was only a month out of double knee surgery, which made filming wrestling scenes a no-no.
The first problem was rather easy to solve. When in doubt, I did what wrestlers do best—I faked it. I pretended I knew what I was doing. Actually, through constant rehearsal, I managed to learn my lines, and even had the respected veteran actors on the show praising my work. "That was great," said Richard Brooks, whose work on Law and Order had been highly acclaimed. "How much acting experience have you had?" I thought his question over for a moment before saying, "I guess you could say I've been acting for fifteen years."
Up until a few years ago I would never admit to being an actor. Nothing bothered me more than a well-meaning fan saying, "Hey, you're a great actor." Dammit, I didn't act out there; I became my character. In other words, I was a Method actor. Or else I would convince myself that I was the character, and I was just enhancing a certain aspect of my real personality for the camera. In other words, I was acting. In my present role of World Wrestling Federation Commissioner, I am often just being myself, which is in itself a form of acting. Hell, John Wayne made a pretty good living being himself in about a hundred movies. The Duke didn't have to change a thing, even as a Roman centurion uttering the memorable line "Surely thou wert the Son of God" in the biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told.
My second problem was a little more serious. My knee was nowhere near ready, and I had a pretty intense wrestling scene to shoot. The World Wrestling Federation, for their part, had made sure that I had a stunt double, but I still felt just a little bit uneasy. Sure, I could barely walk, but my pride was on the line here. A stunt double for Mick Foley? That would be like having a Polish or Australian or Italian accent dubbed in for Meryl Streep, or a home-run-swing stand-in for Mark McGwire, or a stunt penis for Dirk Diggler. I don't generally consider myself a macho guy, but I do believe there are times that "a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do."
My opponent for the match was Testicules, who in the story line was an independent wrestler whose Faustian deal with the devil had given him amazing power. My job was not only to lick Testicules—wait, maybe I better rephrase that. My job was to not only defeat my demonic opponent, but get him to renounce the devil as well.
"What can you do out there?" I asked Testicules, who will now be known simply as "T." Think back to the Jerry Seinfeld story, and how I told the casting director I could do anything. That's what all wrestlers do when asked of their abilities. "T," who actually wasn't a wrestler but a wrestling manager, tried the honest approach: "I can throw a forearm across your back." Quickly, I sought out the Pate brothers, the twin creators/directors of the show, who looked like surfer dudes, and responded to good takes with "awesome, dude!" "Guys," I said, "I think we're going to need a stunt double for Testicules." "Do you think Andrew can do it?" they asked, in reference to the inimitable Andrew Bryniarski, of Any Given Sunday fame. Andrew had taken the role of an Australian bully that I beat up in a bar, simply so we could spend some quality hanging out time together. That scared me. Andrew, you see, is a little intense. When he used to come to the matches in Los Angeles, I at least had places to hide and thirty other wrestlers to deal him off to. I must admit, though, in a two-day period, I went from being afraid of him, to getting a kick out of him, to actually liking him. I was glad to work with Andrew on the wrestling scene. There was only one problem. Even though both Andrew and "T" were around six-feet-four, and both were around 280 pounds, they looked a little different. Andrew was pumped up and ripped to the bone, and "T," well, he wasn't. I could compare him to Ralphus of WCW fame, but I wouldn't want to offend Ralphus.
Fortunately, Andrew had connections with a good wrestling school in Los Angeles, and within an hour we had a great stand-in for "T." Our wrestling scene came across very well, even if doing take after take after take of move after move after move wasn't exactly what the doctor had ordered.
Actually, I had no idea what the doc
tor had ordered; I never saw one. I will admit to slacking off on rehab, which was odd, because I had always prided myself on how quickly I could charge back from injury. I'm always amazed how great guys usually look when they come back from injury. Not me. When I'm hurt, I look like I'm hurt. And on the rare few occasions when I've taken time off due to injury, I have the decency to come back looking like hell. I've never understood how guys can come back from arm injuries with arms that are bigger and better than ever. Actually, I understand it: they wait until they've had time to properly train and look good before returning. I just don't happen to agree with this approach.
In 1993, I had returned from a torn ligament in my knee in only three and a half months. The average time is six months, but I've known guys who milked it—I mean rehabbed it for up to a year. My progress had been swift because I trained like a man possessed. I know Mick Foley and training usually go together like Ready to Rumble and Oscar nominations, but three and a half months later I was back in action. Four months later I was tearing down the house with the huge wrestler Vader in a Pay-Per-View main event.
This time, however, I rehabbed a little differently: I sat on my ass all day. Now, granted, I usually had a pen in my hand and a notebook in front of me, as I wrote my memoirs, but I was on my ass nonetheless. Proper rehab includes ice and elevation. I strapped on the ice, but had no time for elevation. I was on a deadline. Unfortunately, as the size of my book grew, so did the size of my ass.
I will forever consider writing that book to be my finest professional accomplishment. As an author, I can accurately state that writing is a rewarding, therapeutic experience. It is not, however, a real effective form of aerobic exercise or a proven calorie burner. As a result, though I may have felt like Ernest Hemingway intellectually, physically I looked more like Ernest Borgnine. Writing had another negative effect on me. My career, I felt, was over. Actually, this feeling wasn't negative at all—it was wonderful. I realized that writing my story had brought a perfect sense of closure to my career. I didn't need to prove anything to anyone; my career had been more successful than I'd ever dared dream. I looked at a list of goals that I had set for myself two years earlier and found that I had achieved them all. Sell out Madison Square Garden—check. Main event in a Pay-Per-View that does a 1.0 buy rate—check. Nail Barbara Eden— check. Okay, okay, so I haven't quite achieved that last one yet.
I only had one problem. Money. The World Wrestling Federation had become so popular that my bank account was expanding almost as quickly as my waist measurement. Financial independence had been one of my ultimate goals, and unfortunately, I was a long way from being there. I had made a million dollars in wrestling, but that figure was a total of my first twelve years combined. Even after being something of a star for seven of my thirteen years, I was averaging eighty grand a year. I have a friend who makes that much punching tickets on the Long Island Railroad—and he has both his ears.
Back when I joined in late 1995, the World Wrestling Federation was not quite the phenomenon it is now. Sports-entertainers didn't appear on the cover of TV Guide or host Saturday Night Live in 1995. A top guy, I was promised, could make between 300 and 500 grand a year. My first year had come nowhere close. A six-figure income was a lot of money to make, but not when Uncle Sam has his hand out, not to mention the Super 8s, Red Roof Inns, Cracker Barrels, and Ponderosa Steak Houses that wanted a cut for close to 300 days a year. My pay increased in 1997. It increased in 1998. Business was way up, and there seemed to be no end in sight. The year 1999 was shaping up to be even better.
I had been saving money since day one in the wrestling business. My thriftiness was legendary, with exaggerations of that thriftiness making it even more so. My payoffs had grown tremendously, but my road budget hadn't. Even when riding and rooming by myself, I still kept my expenses to under a hundred a night. I cut corners on the road like my high-school buddies buying a present for a birthday party. (One Springsteen album with six names on the card.) "That man at the bar would like to buy you a drink," was a statement I often heard at restaurants. "I'm not drinking, but he can buy my soup instead," was the answer many a waiter would return to the bar with. I had learned from some of the masters—Skandar Akbar, Bronco Lubich, Rip Rogers—that "it's not how much you make, it's how much you save." Over the years I had saved quite a bit, but. . . not enough. I felt like I owed it to my family to put in one more year.
Actually, I also owe it to my family to be a little more generous at home than I am on the road. So don't worry about my family—they're doing all right. If I'm guilty of anything with my kids, it's spoiling them. A recent road trip with Dewey (our yearly father-son bonding trip) saw the little guy do things other eight-year-olds could only wish for. In the span of a week he toured World Wrestling Federation headquarters, watched The King of the Ring at the World Wrestling Federation New York, was a batboy at a minor-league baseball game, made $43 signing his name on stick figures he drew, went to Six Flags New England, wrestled in the Federation ring, watched two Federation live shows, and nailed Barbara Eden (just kidding!).
Dewey may well be the world's biggest wrestling fan. In addition to his Federation action figures, his Federation video games, his Federation CDs, his king-size bed for wrestling, his trampoline for aerial moves, and his vast video collection, he has almost an encyclopedic memory for wrestling's recent past. When I decided to include the Al Snow/Boss Man match on my top-ten list, I drew a blank as to when it happened. This was not totally surprising, as most people who viewed the match have blocked it out of their memories—at least on a conscious level. Lack of memory shouldn't be enough of a reason to stop an Al Snow attack, so I decided to consult the master. "Dewey, what Pay-Per-View was Al Snow's 'Kennel' match with the Boss Man?" In about the time it takes for 30 percent of the viewing audience to turn the channel during a Tiger Ali Singh promo, Dewey had the answer. "Unforgiven, September 1999." I had to laugh. "How did you know that?" The little guy seemed almost embarrassed over his power of recall. "I don't know." He shrugged before revealing his source. "I read it in a magazine last month."
He can play with his figures for hours . . . only he's not just playing. I saw his D'Lo figure covering Hardcore Holly, and Dewey made a three-count on the rug with his hand . . . "one, two, three." As soon as he finished the count, he took out a pen and wrote in his notepad. I was intrigued. "Dewey, did you just write down who won?" It turns out that he does a lot more than just that. He writes down the winners and losers and keeps won/loss records and title histories for all World Wrestling Federation belts. "Do you want to hear my champions?" he asked. I assured him I did. "D'Lo is the Hardcore champ, Test is the European champ, Chyna is the Intercontinental champ, Road Dogg and X-Pac have the tag-team belts, and Austin has the World Wrestling Federation title—but don't worry, you're going to win it from him in a Three-Way Dance.' "
I try hard not to make my house a "look at me" house. There are only three mementos of my wrestling career in the main part of the house: a bookshelf with a variety of Mankind/Cactus/Dude toys, a plaque commemorating Have a Nice Day! as a number one bestseller, and a beautiful painting that a fan (who later became a friend) gave me outside an arena in Tacoma, Washington.
Dewey's room makes up for it, though. Dad is everywhere. Even when he's at school, for some strange reason, I find myself spending a lot of time in there. Staring . . . and thinking, Look at me, look at me, look at me!
So my book was done—or so I thought. In some ways, writing it was the easy part, but I'll get to that later. I had decided to wrestle one more year, but with knees that Joe Namath would have felt sorry for, and a body that made Colette feel sorry for herself, I wasn't all that eager to get back in the ring. I weighed myself in mid-July and was shocked. At 311 pounds, I had actually lost a few pounds while sitting on my ass and stapling late-night pizzas directly onto my hips. "How could this be?" I wondered aloud. "I've done nothing but write and eat. I haven't worked out. But I weigh less than I did before. How can this b
e?" Colette tried to comfort me. She knew that I sometimes felt bad about my appearance, and wanted to ease my pain. Her choice of words failed in that respect. "Mick, you've lost a lot of muscle."
A visit to "Foley's Gym" confirmed this. Sure, I was benching somewhere around 430 (or quarter to five in the evening), but the results weren't all that impressive.
As July came to a close I began appearing at a few shows as an added bonus for the hardworking fans. My first night back was at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It was one of the few nights in my career when I became flustered in front of a crowd. I was welcomed back with a nice ovation and decided to make my first public words an Al Snow joke. I picked the wrong one. This was actually a dressing-room classic, but its humor didn't seem to translate outside those confines. "Hello, New Jersey," I began—always a cheap, easy way to get a pop. "You know, right before I come out here, a kid asked me if I had seen Al Snow's last match. I looked at the kid and said ...'I certainly hope so!' " I waited to be bathed with wave after wave of laughter, but. ..nothing. A few groans, and a few courtesy laughs, but in general. . . nothing. I had told jokes that had failed before, but they had always been designed to fail—kind of like Carson or Letterman on late-night TV. This, however, was unnerving. So unnerving in fact that I had to resort to name-dropping.
Name-dropping is something I rarely do—a fact that my personal friend, The Green Mile Academy Award nominee Michael Clarke Duncan, would attest to—but at this point, I didn't know where else to turn. "I was talking to The Rock backstage," I yelled, to a tumultuous pop from the crowd, "and he said he's going to come out here and lay the smackdown on somebody's candy ass!"
16: A Special Night
ON JULY 30, 1999, I had the honor of participating in one of wrestling's greatest nights—the "Curtis Comes Home" card in Rostraver, Pennsylvania. The "Curtis" in question was Brian Hildebrand, who had managed and wrestled under the name Marc Curtis for over a dozen years before catching on as a referee with WCW in 1996.