by Mick Foley
In 1998, I was thrown off of a sixteen-foot-high cage. I have never once felt the need to exaggerate its height, because I feel that the truth is impressive enough. In the same way, I don't feel the need to sensationalize the number of deaths in wrestling, because the truth is bad enough. And the truth is that the deaths of four wrestlers in the last five years—Brian Pillman, Louis Spicolli, Rick Rude, and Bobby Duncum Jr.—are suspected, at least in small part, to have been caused by prescription drugs. Undoubtedly, many more in our business have problems with these same drugs.
I knew all four of these men. Pillman and Rude I knew well. Spicolli I knew a little, but had not seen in five years, and had only met Duncum Jr. a few times in passing. Of these four, Brian Pillman was the only wrestler to die while he was involved in the World Wrestling Federation, and Duncum Jr.'s death was due to drugs that were given to him by someone else.
There are a lot of reasons for prescription drug use in the world of wrestling. The demands of the road and of the ring often lead to pain, sleeplessness, depression, and anxiety. On a larger scale, much of the world experiences pain, sleeplessness, depression, and anxiety, but for a wrestler, the job demands greatly intensify the symptoms.
■ Pain. Whether it be sport or show, wrestling is physically demanding work. Even when done correctly, a certain amount of soreness and injury are inevitable. I have never approved of the word "fake" as it pertains to professional wrestling, because the pain and injuries are very real, and at times, do require medication.
■ Sleeplessness. The schedule of a wrestler is sometimes mind-boggling. In one five-day stretch in April 2000, I flew from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Atlanta to Pensacola, Pensacola to New York, New York to Cleveland, Cleveland to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Pensacola. In those five days, I had actually landed in seven different time zones. Needless to say, my internal body clock was screwed up worse than a Test vs. Rodney match and I had difficulty sleeping on three consecutive nights of red-eye flights. It has been a long time since I have used a sleeping pill, but oftentimes when I am unable to sleep knowing that I have a 4:30 a.m. wake-up after a midnight hotel arrival, I question my judgment. Four hours of pill-induced sleep would certainly beat the horribly tired day I spend traveling home to see my kids and pretending to be superdad on minimal sleep once I do get there.
■ Depression. The rigors of the road, an ultracompetitive job, and the family problems that a combination of the two cause may lead a wrestler to battle depression. But hell, a large part of the world is depressed, and a large part of the world takes medication to deal with it.
■ Anxiety, Believe me, living in a fishbowl with a job that never ends and no real place to get away from it all can make even the best of us anxious. Fans at the hotel when we wake up, fans in the restaurant when we eat, fans wanting autographs while we're pooping, fans waving from their cars as we drive, fans at the airport when we fly, fans calling us at the hotel, fans driving past our houses, and fans with computers and apparently no real lives trying to access our personal information are somewhat anxiety inducing. I refuse to ask for anxiety medicine because of the negative stigma I feel is associated with it, a "he can't deal with life" stigma. Sometimes I take a pain pill before I go to an amusement park. Feel free to judge me if you want, but it's the difference between yelling, "Hey, I'm with my family" rather than, "Sure, buddy, what's your name?" when a fan wants an autograph.
Without question, I can see why wrestlers use drugs. Unfortunately, the step between use and abuse is a small one, and it's an awfully easy one to take. I've heard it said that nobody sets out to be a drug addict. I have personally never run into a single wrestler who said, "I never really wanted to be a wrestler, but I knew if I wrestled, I would get hurt, and then I'd get pain medicine." Wrestlers take medication because they legitimately need it. They continue taking the medication because they like it.
In 1994, I suffered a serious shoulder injury at the WCW Spring Stampede Pay-Per-View. I was in so much pain that I couldn't sleep at night, and in the daytime I was in so much pain that I was a miserable SOB to be around. At that point I had been in the wrestling business for nine years. It was the first time that I was given a prescription for pain medicine. Prior to that, I had taken one pain pill for broken ribs in 1991 and two more pain pills for more broken ribs in 1992. This was actually the first bottle of my own, and when I took a pill something strange happened. Not only did my pain subside, but the world became a wonderful place to live in. I smiled a beautiful, mouth-hanging-half-open, tongue-sticking-out smile and waited with happy impatience for four hours to pass so I could take another one. Within two days I felt I was becoming addicted, if not physically, at least mentally, to these pills. The next day I stopped taking them and didn't look at them again until I used them for my "Hooked on Being Hardcore" ECW promo a year later.
I was smart enough and lucky enough to realize that the medicine was getting a hold on me. Most people don't realize this until it's too late.
If I had used my entire prescription at the recommended rate of "one or two every four hours," I would have been out of pills in a week. Meanwhile, if I, at 300 pounds, was zonked on one pill, what kind of guy takes two? I'll tell you who—a person with a built-up tolerance for drugs. If I had called my doctor after a week and asked for a refill, I hope that he would have objected. Apparently many doctors don't.
Have you ever seen the list of drugs found in Elvis Presley's system at the time of his death? My goodness, Betty Crocker doesn't have that many ingredients in her cupboard. What about Sonny Bono's autopsy? What the hell did Sonny ever need pain medicine for? Sure, he was married to Cher, but I never saw him married to Chair. You know, as in Chair Schott.
Obviously, these guys either had an awfully generous doctor, a number of different doctors, or a combination of both.
Wrestlers are no different from anyone else, and quite honestly, this is the part about prescription drugs that I find most confusing and bothersome. Aren't there restrictions on how much medicine one doctor can prescribe? And shouldn't there be some sort of national data system that ensures that the same drugs are not prescribed to the same person by multiple doctors? I've been trying to find out for weeks now, and it seems like the answers to both questions are no. Why not? Well, I don't have an intimate knowledge of the pharmaceutical business in this country, but it would seem that the answer would point to money. The more drugs they sell, the more money they get. So we can send a man to the moon, we can have five-year-old kids access hardcore pornography on their computer, but we can't stop a drug addict from getting the same legally prescribed drug in multiple states?
Brian Pillman was, in my opinion, an accident waiting to happen. Always a tremendous athlete and an exceptional wrestler, Brian's popularity had peaked when he began his "Loose Cannon" persona in 1996, in which he managed to not only convince the fans but most of the boys in WCW as well that he was legitimately out of control. I saw him during this time, and despite our having been good friends prior to the birth of this character, I had little to say to him. He either had a screw loose for real or was doing a convincing job of pretending to. This character had made Brian a hot commodity right at the time that his contract was ending, but a near-fatal auto accident put his future as a wrestler in jeopardy.
Brian did return to wrestling, but he was never the same. His ankle, especially, was badly injured, and he took a great deal of medicine to mask the pain. He signed with the World Wrestling Federation, but a variation of his "Loose Cannon" personality never really took off. His behavior was erratic and his ring work was at times embarrassing.
Brian was my second opponent when I entered Wards WCW in late 1989, and a tremendous match with him, and his words of praise for me to the office helped my standing in the company immensely. Our ring chemistry continued over the years but by no means were his matches with me a highlight of his career. Indeed Brian Pillman was a constant show stealer, with his serie
s of singles matches with Japanese star Jushin Liger, and his tag team exploits as one half of the Hollywood Babes, along with a pre—"Stone Cold" Steve Austin standing especially strong in my mind.
I was scheduled to wrestle him the following day in St. Louis on the Badd Blood Pay-Per-View. To be quite honest, I had great apprehension about the match because his condition had been so poor and his ring work had sunk so far from its previous levels.
Brian never made it to that show. He was found dead in the same Super 8 Motel that I had slept in that night. An enlarged heart was detected, and was ruled as the official cause. Some have claimed that the World Wrestling Federation should have checked for such a defect. Actually they did. As did the National Football League, as did the Canadian Football League, as did World Championship Wrestling. The defect never showed up.
Progress has been made. The rings have more give now, and the days of twenty-five-day road trips are gone. In the World Wrestling Federation, we are on the road four days a week. It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. I have had a lot of pain to deal with in my career, and I know that I will have some degree of it for the rest of my life. When the pain gets too bad, I take a pill, but never more than once a day. I don't blame wrestling for the way I feel. I don't blame the World Wrestling Federation and I don't blame Vince McMahon. Vince didn't force me to get into wrestling. He didn't push me off Danny Zucker's roof in 1985.1 am a grown man, and I take full responsibility for every decision that I've made.
The decision to take drugs or not to take drugs ultimately is my own to make as well. To claim otherwise is to live in a world of denial. Wrestling is in many ways a world of fantasy, but inside that world, some very real decisions need to be made, including the decision whether or not to take drugs. Vince McMahon doesn't make those decisions. We do.
29: The Boy Who Saved Christmas
"WHAT PAIN THIS LITTLE BOY had known, what suffering for a child, but the thing that touched dear Santa most was the magic in his smile."
I wanted everything to be perfect for my big reunion on December 7 in Boston. I was having a little party for a special person, and I had asked some of the wrestlers to join me. Edge and Christian were there, as were Ivory, Albert, and both Hardy brothers. We gathered in a backstage room and waited for our little visitor. The door flung open and his eyes met mine. With all the speed that his four-year-old legs could gather, he ran to meet me with open arms. I met the little guy with a giant hug and picked him up in the air. His smile was magical. I looked at my fellow wrestlers and could see beaming smiles on each face. Without saying a word, this little boy had touched them all.
I had first met Antonio Freitas on December 4 at a shopping center in Somerville, Massachusetts. It was not a book signing but a free autograph session, and as a result the store was packed and a line ran out deep into the brisk New England night. In a situation like this, conversations need to be kept to a minimum and signing is done as quickly as possible. With almost 2,000 people to get through in my two hours, a rate of one autograph every four seconds is a necessity. Sure, I wink, nod, and throw out a lot of "pals," "buddies," and "chiefs," almost like a Val Venis conversation, but an event like an autograph session is the last situation at which I thought I'd meet a special friend.
He was a tiny little guy, but he certainly wasn't hard to spot. Part of his face and a great deal of his head were covered with thick scar tissue. I could tell instantly that he had been burned and had suffered through many difficult operations.
There was something else that touched me, even deeper than his obvious wounds. The child had the face of an angel and a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts. I asked if the little boy could be brought up to the front, and despite the length of the line, and the length of time that some people had been on it, not a single person voiced an objection. I signed a picture for the child and asked him his name. Antonio's stepfather said that I was his favorite wrestler and that I had played a special role in his life.
Antonio had been two when he had pulled a boiling pot full of frying oil on top of his own head. He was feared dead, but was revived on the way to the Shriners Hospital for Children, where he remained for three months. As part of his treatment, Antonio was required to wear a mask, which he had objected to vigorously. His family had pointed out that Mankind wore a mask, and as a result, the child began wearing his too.
I had enjoyed talking to the boy, and his stepfather's story had flattered me greatly, but unfortunately I still had 1,500 fans to please. I gave the boy a thank-you and he wrapped his little arms around me tight and walked away. I waved as he grew smaller in the distance, but somehow felt like I had failed my own self. It was almost as if Jiminy Cricket was slapping me upside the face and was screaming, "What's wrong with you?" I got the picture. "Antonio!" I yelled, just as he was about out of earshot. I was relieved to see him making his way back, his stepfather holding his hand. As he got closer, I asked him a question that would cause a small but profound change in my life. "Would you like to sit on my lap?" With that, the little guy jumped up on my leg as if it was a big comfy couch, and we talked about wrestling and children and Christmas as I signed my name once every four seconds. When he left a while later, the crowd cheered for a solid minute with smiles so warm it was as if a bit of Christmas magic had touched us all. I continued my rapid signing pace, but I took pleasure in a special feeling that bathed me in tranquillity the likes of which I'd rarely known. After a while I identified the feeling. Antonio Freitas, a four-year-old boy, had made me feel like Santa Claus.
Our reunion in Boston three days later was a wonderful time, and his family members were deeply grateful. His mother, Rhonda, handed me a card with touching words of heartfelt thanks. Her eyes held tears that nearly fell as she said, "I'll never forget you for what you've done for my son." "I don't think you understand," I explained, with eyes that welled to match her own, "that he's done just as much for me."
I have been a wrestler for fifteen years, and with a few glaring exceptions, I think I have done my job well. My brother is a supervisor for UPS. He puts in long hours and does his job well. My dad was an athletic director for thirty-five years in the Three Village School District in Long Island and is considered something of a legend among his peers. In our respective fields, I probably am about on a par with my brother and can't compare with my father, who worked every day as if the Pay-Per-View cameras were rolling. Of the three of us, however, I'm the one who signs autographs, and on rare occasions can make a difference in a child's life.
As wrestlers, we have critics who call what we do immoral. If the choice was theirs, professional wrestling would not exist. I wish one of these people could be on hand to see the smile on a dying boy's face when Steve Austin says hello, or see an ill child's family cry when The Rock raises an eyebrow to pose for a picture. I don't believe that we are necessarily role models, but we have been given an unbelievable gift by our fans—the chance to make a small difference in some special people's lives.
I have recognized this fact for the last ten years, and at age thirty-five believe that I have wasted far too much time without truly giving back. A number of people across this world would disagree with my self-critique, and those particular people would be correct, for over the years I have been involved in what I would call random acts of great kindness. Unfortunately, I can't help feeling that when my face stops being televised and my name stops meaning quite as much, I'm going to realize that one of the biggest opportunities of my life has passed me by. I sometimes think of Liam Neeson at the end of Schindler's List thinking that he could somehow have done more. I can do more, and in all fairness to myself, I have tried. But I haven't tried hard enough. I believe I needed something special to inspire the best of me to make itself known, and I honestly believe that my initial meeting with Antonio Freitas was that "something special."
Writing my book had opened up doors that I never knew existed. I approached ReganBooks with the idea of doing a children's Christmas book, a
nd they had actually seemed interested. I had stated my goal of being known as "America's foremost author of children's Christmas books" and relished the thought of growing old, watching my kids grow, and warming the hearts of future generations with my beloved tales of the true meaning of Christmas. I only had one problem. I had writer's block.
For weeks and then months I had hoped that the words would come to me. I was certain that the book should be done in rhyme and didn't want to resort to sitting down and saying, "Let's see, what rhymes with 'stocking.'" True art, I felt, couldn't be rushed, it had to flow naturally. Unfortunately, a natural flow and an approaching deadline sometimes don't go together all that well. On a few occasions I even began to write but just came up flat. I needed an idea. I needed inspiration.
On a flight from New York to Houston, inspiration hit me. It came in the form of a four-year-old boy, and it hit me hard. For the next two hours I fired off rhymes about naked elves and arrogant reindeer and managed to make rhymes out of "flatten 'em" and "triple platinum." In my poem, various North Pole hassles had poor Santa feeling down, to the point where he actually threw in the towel and called off Christmas.
I had set out to make a book for children that would make grown-ups cry. I wanted to write a story that was fun but had a genuine heart in the middle of it. While I sat in my hotel room the next night, I had Antonio on my mind, and as wild as it may sound, I believe I got the help from someone up above as I wrote about the special little child who changes Santa's mind. I believe the last few pages of what turned out to be Mick Foley's Christmas Chaos to be the best writing I have ever done. I have read the story to several wrestlers, and though I've yet to see one cry, I have seen something equally touching. I see them making a genuine effort not to.
A portion of the proceeds from Christmas Chaos (which benefits greatly from Jerry "the King" Lawler's illustrations) now goes to the Shriners Hospital for Children, but more importantly, I am hoping that it is raising awareness for the cause. Until recently, when I thought of the Shriners, I thought of the guys in the funny red hats. They are a whole lot more. They care, they save lives, and all treatment is free to children under eighteen years of age.