Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker Than Wrestling

by Mick Foley

  "Yes, we would."

  Well, that cleared that one up in a hurry. The D-Generation X entrance video set an indoor record for most guys pointing in the proximity of their genitals repeatedly in rapid succession. I could easily see where the extra 1,200 chops came in, and frankly was surprised it wasn't a whole lot more.

  We then spoke briefly about the satanic references and I shared with him my feelings about the subject and how the absence of the Undertaker could explain the discrepancy. Then a thought entered my head that I hadn't considered before I decided to ask the professor about it. "Dr. Ganz, a wrestler named Gangrel spits a red liquid, that I guess is supposed to look like blood. Would that be considered a satanic reference?"

  "Yes," the professor said, "anything dealing with the occult was included in the study."

  Now it was on to the subjects that I wondered about the most, sex and drugs. Wait, I'm not sure that came out right—let me try again. Now it was on to the subjects that I wondered about the most as they pertained to Professor Walter Ganz's Indiana University study—sex and drugs. That's better.

  This whole "simulated sexual activity" had me baffled. I knew that our shows contained considerable sexual innuendo, several double entendres, and an occasional outright crude remark, but I truly couldn't recall any acts of simulated sex. I shared this feeling with Dr. Ganz. His response was not surprising.

  "Well, there was a wrestler named Sexual Chocolate, and he was involved in a situation with a—"

  I cut him off. "With a transvestite, right?"

  Dr. Ganz concurred. Of all the envelope pushing the World Wrestling Federation has done, this one pushed the furthest and offered the least upside. In this scenario, Olympic-weight-lifter-turned-wrestler Mark Henry, who had been nicknamed "Sexual Chocolate" due to his smoothness with the ladies, had a very suggestive erotic session ruined when he reached down and was startled to discover that "Oh sweet Jesus, she has a penis." The World Wrestling Federation took a much-deserved critical lambasting for the scene, and in a sense created a snowball effect of harsh criticism from the media that has yet to cease, despite the general toning down of the product.

  Even Vince McMahon, who had been a defender of the segment, has come to regret the decision, noting in a recent Playboy interview that "there was really no need to go there." Mark Henry's career suffered most of all. A few short weeks earlier Henry had been on the verge of major stardom, but instead found his career on a serious downward spiral, that saw him go from smooth ladies' man, to transvestite BJ. recipient, to sex addict, to boyfriend of seventy-eight-year-old Mae Young (which was at times actually quite sweet), to also-ran in the Ohio Valley Wrestling league. Hey, if we're going to use a transvestite angle, at least do it with The Rock. Sure, it would be tasteless, but at least it would make money.

  I spoke with the professor about the angle, and while admitting my negative feelings about it, told him that I couldn't remember another single episode remotely like it, let alone another 127. So I posed a few questions. "Would a situation where a seventy-eight-year-old woman was lying in a bed, smoking a cigar, presumably after sex, be considered an act of simulated sex?" Dr. Ganz informed me that it would not. "What about giving the impression that a sexual act was going to take place, would that be an act of simulated sex?" Again, the doctor's response was negative. At this point I was legitimately confused. "Well, I'm really at a loss to think of another example," I said.

  He tried to clear things up for me, and in a sense he did. "Well, a simulated sex act might be for example, a girl rubbing a man's arm."

  RUBBING HIS ARM? "Dr. Ganz," I said with my voice rising steadily higher, the way it does in certain surprising situations, "don't you think that is a little misleading?"

  "Why would you say that?" he replied with genuine curiosity in his voice.

  "Well, because I think what you've described could more accurately be described as 'simulated flirtation.'" At this point Dr. Ganz started to get a little defensive.

  "Well, it would have to be more than just rubbing an arm, it would have to be done ...provocatively."

  PROVOCATIVELY? What the hell? Dr. Ganz had assured me that all the students' findings would meet standardized criteria, but I now found this hard to believe. After all, a word like "provocative" is open to a great variety of interpretation. Still, I didn't press the professor further because he seemed to get a bit flustered over the whole "simulated sex" example. The last thing I wanted was for Dr. Ganz to hang up on me, especially in light of the discovery I had just stumbled upon. I sensed that there would be another valuable discovery in my immediate future. I was correct.

  "Dr. Ganz, I was also unable to find a single episode of simulated drug use, and I wanted to ask you about a few possibilities." Dr. Ganz told me to proceed. "We have one wrestler [X-Pac] who will occasionally put his thumb and forefinger together and pretend to inhale it as if it were a marijuana cigarette. Would that be simulated drug use?"

  "No," the professor said, "we wouldn't count that."

  "Well, we've got another wrestler [The Godfather] who says, 'Roll a fatty for this pimp daddy.' Would that be considered simulated drug use?"

  "No, it would not," Dr. Ganz replied.

  Once again I was at a loss to think of a single episode of the alleged moral offense, and once again I asked the professor for clarification. His clarification would actually open the door to a great deal more questions—some of which I'm still trying to answer. Questions about ethics, honesty, responsibility, common sense, and the media's ability to bend a great deal of half-truths into one great big lie.

  "That would be beer drinking."

  BEER DRINKING? Come on, this had to be a joke, right? Nope.

  "Yes," Dr. Ganz said, apparently taking notice of my disbelief, "that would fall under the heading of 'simulated drug and alcohol use.'"

  "Now, Dr. Ganz, you can't tell me that you don't consider that figure to be misleading. I mean I have done a great deal of research on this, and I have yet to see one mention of 'simulated alcohol use.'"

  Dr. Ganz went into full defensive mode. "Our study was very clear on that," he said. "I can't control what reporters say."

  No, I guess he can't, but what he could do was clarify some final questions I had, concerning "simulated drug use" in the World Wrestling Federation.

  "But you didn't see any simulated use of heroin, did you?" I asked.

  "No."

  "How about cocaine?"

  "No."

  "Marijuana?"

  "No."

  "Or any drugs other than alcohol?"

  "None that I can recall."

  "Thank you."

  The next morning, I called my mother and put her to work. "Mom, for the next week, could you please tape every episode of General Hospital and Cheers for me?" "Well, I guess so," my mom said without a great deal of enthusiasm, "but why?" My answer perked her up immediately. "I'm doing research on this book I'm writing." Five days later I had the tapes. My mom has always been proud of my wrestling accomplishments, but she clearly is more impressed with my scholarly endeavors. Her help on this book—especially on these last chapters—has been invaluable.

  The IU study had opened up my eyes to the possibility of manipulation and deceit in the media. Raw had become the media's whipping boy, but I wondered how other shows would fare when put under a microscope and scrutinized as closely. So with great anticipation, I slid in the General Hospital tape.

  "Can they really do that at three in the afternoon?" I said to my wife, after witnessing an act that put our World Wrestling Federation adventures to shame. Call me old-fashioned, but I was a little shocked to see just how seedy these soap operas were. Suffice to say that if a woman was shown pouring and then licking champagne from my lower back on an episode of Raw, we'd be besieged with complaints, not to mention the fact that I personally would have to find a new bed to sleep in.

  During the course of five one-hour episodes of General Hospital, I was witness to twenty-one acts that wou
ld fit comfortably inside Dr. Ganz's definition of "simulated sexual activity." Everything from the aforementioned champagne shenanigans to butt grabbing to passionate kissing. Lots and lots of kissing. Deep kissing. Long kissing. Tongue kissing. You name it, I saw it, and all in a week's worth of programming. All, that is, except for provocative arm rubbing, which I guess remains the sole domain of the World Wrestling Federation.

  I will now call into play the mathematical skills that yielded me a D in Gary Eggers's math class during my junior year of high school. Okay—here goes. According to the Indiana study, a year's worth of Raw episodes, which adds up to 100 hours, yielded 128 acts of "simulated sexual activity." This adds up to 1.28 acts per hour.

  General Hospital yielded twenty-one acts in five hours, for an average of 4.2 acts per hour. Which means that General Hospital, a program broadcast over public airwaves at 3 p.m., was over three times trashier than Raw, which is a cable television program that airs between 9 and 11 p.m.

  Next up was Cheers, one of my all-time favorite shows, but one that seemed to lend itself to instances of "simulated drug use," or "beer drinking," as it is more commonly known. In judging the content, I adhered to the same considerations that Dr. Ganz had expressed to me concerning the frequency of wrestlers being hit by objects; "anytime a cocktail was clearly seen being ingested," I counted it.

  The results were not all that surprising and more or less supported the thesis that I had developed when I asked my mom to tape the programs. Sixty-nine examples of beer drinking, or "simulated drug use," in two and a half hours of programming for an average of 27.6 examples per hour.

  Let's compare that to the World Wrestling Federation, whose forty-two instances in 100 hours yield a disgusting, immoral .42 examples per hour. So, the rate of "simulated drug use" on Cheers is roughly sixty times higher than that of the evil and much-maligned Raw. SIXTY TIMES.

  Now, some people out there might think that the relatively short test period of one week that I viewed these programs would not be representative of these shows as a whole. To them I say, "Fire up your VCRs and see for yourself." Just make sure to interpret the evidence using the same criteria.

  Man, I felt like a scientist, and I loved it. I wanted more. What about satanic activity? Yeah, let's see how the rest of the entertainment industry stacked up to the World Wrestling Federation. In beginning my study, I went back to Dr. Ganz's definition of "satanic activity" as being "anything dealing with the occult." I then consulted my Webster's dictionary and looked up "occult," where it was defined as "of or relating to or dealing with supernatural influences, agencies, or phenomena." This certainly left the door open to interpretation, and I decided to interpret very liberally as I opened up to the letter D in Leonard Maltin's 2000 Movie and Video Guide, one of the most thorough review books in its field.

  Now, I'd be lying if I said I randomly picked the letter D, because in truth I made that letter my choice for the words "devil," "demon," and "Dracula" that would fall within its domain. D didn't let me down; indeed it brought forth 187 movies that fit the Indiana definition of "anything dealing with the occult." The letter D took up eighty-five pages of Maltin's massive 1,600-page tome. I mean, compared to Leonard, Roger Ebert's book looks like Tuesdays with Morrie. Using my newly honed math skills, I figured that the entire Maltin book could conceivably contain over 3,000 movies that dealt with the occult. All of a sudden our forty-seven instances for an average of .47 examples of satanic references per hour didn't look so bad.

  What about violence? Certainly, Dr. Ganz's discovery of 609 instances of wrestlers being struck by garbage cans and other objects seems very violent. Yeah, it does, with "seems" being the key word there. I wasn't able to itemize Dr. Ganz's incidents of violence, so I instead chose to go with my list of 169 (which was multiplied by 2.5 to give a fifty-week total of 422), which can be itemized as follows:

  1.

  chairs—48

  2.

  garbage can or cookie sheet—34

  3.

  title belt—19

  4.

  kendo stick—17

  5.

  mannequin head—11

  6.

  brass knuckles—7

  7.

  broomstick—4

  8.

  table piece—3

  9.

  stairs—11

  10.

  timekeeper's bell—4

  11.

  shovel—2

  12.

  road sign—2

  13.

  acoustic guitar—4

  14.

  coffeemaker—1

  15.

  pipe—1

  16.

  sledgehammer—1

  17.

  turnbuckle—1

  As part of my research I went to the video store, where I picked out the PG-rated family favorite Home Alone and took inventory of the violence that transpired therein. The results were impressive:

  1. shot from one-foot range with pellet gun to testicles

  2. shot from one-foot range from pellet gun to head

  3. four-foot fall from slip on ice to concrete

  4. fall down icy flight of stairs

  5. fall on back of head after slip on ice

  6. steam iron falling fifteen feet onto victim's face

  7. hand on red-hot doorknob

  8. nail in foot, followed by a six-foot fall backward onto concrete

  9. blowtorch sets head on fire for seven seconds

  10. slip on concrete

  11. step with bare feet on glass

  12. two slips on toys and fall backward on concrete

  13. two swinging paint cans, making direct contact with human face after fifteen-foot swing

  14. tarantula bite

  15. blow to ribs with crowbar

  16. fifteen-foot swing directly into brick wall

  17. two blows with a snow shovel to the head

  While traveling with the World Wrestling Federation, I consulted Dr. Robert Quarrels, who is a board-certified family practitioner, with an emphasis on sports medicine. I asked Dr. Quarrels to look at the separate lists of violent acts and to offer his expert explanation of the expected consequences of such acts.

  First the wrestling:

  1. chair—possible concussion, laceration, contusion

  2. garbage can or cookie sheet—possible laceration and contusion

  3. title belt—contusion, possible laceration, possible concussion

  4. kendo stick—contusion, possible laceration

  5. mannequin head—too ridiculous to warrant a medical opinion

  I think you get the idea. With the exception of the sledgehammer shot, which was to the knee, and the brass knuckles, which were only used in one match, we're basically talking about cuts, bruises, and possible concussions. Now let's look at the movie.

  Home Alone:

  1. pellet to testicles—penetrate scrotum, severe contusion of testicle, and could disrupt small vessels that conduct seminal fluids. May result in complete dysfunction of testicle.

  2. pellet to head—severe contusion, no probable penetration

  3. four-foot fall from slip on ice—concussion, possible vertebral fractures at various levels, bulging or herniated discs. Subdural hematoma, or other forms of cerebral hemorrhage. Possible broken hip or pelvis.

  4. fall down stairs—concussion, intracranial bleeding, possible lower external fracture, vertebral fracture, hip fracture

  5. fall on head following slip on ice—see #3

  6. iron on face—skull fractures, blow-out fracture of orbit, facial nerve disruption, concussion, intracranial bleeds

  7. hand on red-hot doorknob—severe second-degree burns

  8. nail in foot—puncture wound could disrupt vessels in foot, exposure to tetanus, severe soft-tissue infection

  9. blowtorch—third-degree burns, tissue loses all function

  10. slip on concrete—see #3

  11. bare feet on glass—multiple puncture wounds,
risk of tetanus and infection

  12. two slips on toys—see #3

  13. swinging paint cans—blow-out fracture of orbit, facial fractures, dental fractures, disruption of nasal cartilage, concussion, intracranial bleeding

  14. tarantula bite—possible T-toxin infection, possible neurotoxicity

  15. crowbar to ribs—rib fracture, possible lung puncture and deflation due to broken rib, possible ruptured spleen

  16. swing into wall—multiple fractures

  17. snow shovel to head—concussion, laceration, possible skull fracture

  I was so impressed with my Home Alone results that I decided to investigate the sequel, Home Alone 2.1 could feel for the director while I watched this one. In some ways, I'm sure he felt the pressure to top the first one, much as I have felt the pressure to top some of the big matches of my past. Here's how they topped it:

  1. four bricks to the head, from a height of four stories

  2. staple gun to buttocks

  3. ten-foot fall backward onto concrete

  4. twenty-foot fall face-first onto concrete

  5. sixteen-second electrocution

  6. blowtorch sets hair on fire for seventeen seconds

  7. hundred-pound sandbag drops on head from twenty feet

  8. steel object swinging ten feet into faces of two men, followed by simultaneous twenty-five-foot falls onto concrete. Steel object then drops twenty-five feet on top of them.

  9. heavy tool cart goes down flight of stairs and sandwiches men into wall

  10. two simultaneous thirty-foot falls off a rope onto concrete

  I then spoke with Dr. Quarrels about the fate of the two victims. Things were not looking too good for them. Let's take a look.

  1. bricks to head—death, skull fracture, intracranial bleeding

  2. staple gun to buttocks—puncture wounds

  3. ten-foot fall onto concrete—impact fracture where skull caves in, various vertebral fractures, herniated discs, soft-tissue injury, lacerations, contusions, organ contusions