by Mick Foley
Chapter 19
I convalesced at home, while a pair of writers prepared an elaborate story line that would air throughout my twelve-week absence. Even though I would be off the road for four months, I would be back for television tapings after three. I really felt like I was on top of the world; I could finally spend quality time with my son and wife, who was now one month pregnant with our second child. And I had just come out in one piece from a daring angle, which would no doubt set the box office on fire when I returned. I was confident that when my contract rolled around in four months I would be well compensated for all my sacrifices. Everything was going to be just fine for the Foleys-right? Come on now, this is WCW we’re talking about here, a company that could screw up a wet dream. Sacrifice? Dedication? Loyalty? They were seemingly foreign words to my employers. Of course they’d screw it up. One phone call saw to that.
“Hello, Cactus, this is Tony Schiavone calling. How are ya feeling?”
“Not too bad, Tony, what’s going on?” “Well, I wanted to talk to you about your vignettes.”
“How are they? I can’t wait to see what they come up with.”
“Well, one of the things that we’ve decided is that there’s got to be some humor in them.”
“Tony, to tell you the truth, I don’t see anything funny about the whole situation. I mean, head injuries aren’t usually a real comedic thing.”
“I understand that, it’s just that we feel we can’t air twelve weeks of serious vignettes-it will turn people off.”
“Tony, the vignettes are only a couple of minutes long each, surely you guys can put some humor somewhere else in the show.”
“I’m sorry, Cactus, we talked about it, and we decided that this would be best. Janie will drive by later and give you a script.”
After reading the script, I felt as if they had reached out with a steel-toed boot and kicked me, as DeNucci might say, “right in the ball.” I saw my career and pay raise fading away before my eyes. In this script, I was to portray Cactus Jack as an escaped mental patient, who, believing himself to be a veteran sailor, leads a group of homeless people to a better sense of purpose and self-respect. Wow! There was even a scene where a reporter attempts in vain to get information from Colette as to my whereabouts, while Dewey causes havoc in the background. Unfortunately, Colette was not even allowed to play herself, because as Dusty put it, “We don’t think your wife ought to be so attractive.” So a dumpy woman was brought on to portray my wife, a small piece of casting buffoonery that bothered Colette for months. Even today, when many people think of Mick Foley’s wife, they envision the dumpy chick with the bad clothes and the droopy boobs (not that there’s anything wrong with that) instead of the white-hot chick who fell so hard for her battle-scarred ring warrior.
I thought that this thing had failure written all over it. I sensed that Eric Bischoff had some reservations about it, even though he had given the go-ahead to three days of filming for the vignettes. I was not needed for the first two vignettes, which consisted of a visit to the mental hospital, and the aforementioned visit with the fictitious Colette. I called director Neil Pruitt, who was a friend of mine, and asked him how it went. Now usually a director, or artist of any kind, is the first person to stand behind his work. I was expecting Neil to say, “Ohman, it’s great,” or, “Wait till you see this-you’ll love it.” Instead his stammered answer was slow in coming. “Well,” Neil said, “it’s got a little more humor in it than I would like.”
“Can you show it to me?” I asked, with a knot tightening in my stomach.
“I’ll be right over,” said Pruitt.
I slipped the tape in the VCR and within two minutes, saw all my aspirations crumble before me like the cookies in Diamond Dallas’s bed. I could feel my figurative ball swelling to grapefruit-size proportions from the blow of the steel-toed boot entitled “Lost in Cleveland.” In the vignette, a tabloid-like female television reporter seeks clues to find the missing Cactus Jack at the mental hospital he has escaped from. A helpful patient with a blanket folded over his lap, eating Cheez Doodles with a toothpick, and eerily reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman’s idiot savant in Rain Man, says, “Jack, over there, yeah, Jack’s definitely over there.” Running over to a man shooting baskets at a tiny basketball hoop, the reporter yells, “Jack, Jack, is that you, Jack,” causing a man to turn around and say in a terrible Nicholson impression (hey, I’m not making this stuff up), “How’s it going, nursery baby?” Upset at this cruel hand that fate had dealt her, the reporter whines that she’ll never find Jack. “Jack?” asks the Hoffman character. “Cleveland, yeah, Jack’s in Cleveland, definitely Cleveland.”
I lay down and waited for the swelling to dissipate. I wondered how this could have happened. It was as if a bunch of guys had gathered in a board room and said, “Okay, gentlemen, what we’ve got here is an angle that people believe in, a wrestler who was willing to put his life on the line, and a feud that’s going to draw a ton of money. Now tell me, what can we do about this nagging problem? I know, let’s make the fans feel like idiots for ever believing in anything we did. That way, they’ll be cynical and uncaring the next time we try to do an exciting angle on television. As for that wrestler guy, well, we’ll show him. We’ll make him curse the day he ever sacrificed his body for this company. Let’s make him look like a complete nincompoop. Oh, we’ll show him. Head bouncing off the concrete and all that concussion business. We’ll make a farce out of him, that’s what we’ll do. Gentlemen, you have my word that as long as I’m in charge, this company will never, and I do mean NEVER, make a dime. Meeting adjourned.”
I couldn’t envision this stinker ever finishing its twelve-week run. What I could envision was the plug being pulled after about three weeks, and with WCW doing its “the fans won’t know-we’ll just pretend it never happened” routine, I’d be in worse career jeopardy than when I’d started this whole angle. Fortunately, I had an ace up my sleeve. Well, not an ace, exactly-it was more like a ligament. It wasn’t up my sleeve, either, it was in my knee, and it had been torn some four months earlier during a match with Ricky Steamboat. I figured a ligament replacement operation would give me my four months off, guaranteed.
“Dusty,” I said, in a call to the WCW offices. “Oh yeah, man, I love them, Dream,” I lied, hoping that the phone wasn’t magically connected to a polygraph machine that would have surely been dancing off the charts. “Yeah, while these things are running, I was thinking about having a little knee surgery done. What do you think?” I had my fingers crossed. “I can. Oh great, yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be able to shoot the vignettes-I’ve still got two weeks, right? Oh yeah, I saw it. Loved it. Especially the Nicholson imitation. Okay, thanks, Dusty. Bye.”
On May 12, 1993, I had my right posterior cruciate ligament replaced with a cadaver’s patella tendon. Sure enough, about eight weeks later, Eric Bischoff pulled the plug on “Lost in Cleveland.” It was a mercy killing.
Actually, I don’t mean to be so hard on Dusty-it wasn’t his fault. Like me, Dusty compared a lot of his ideas to movie scenarios, and I think his real career goal was to direct in Hollywood. The idea could have worked, but this was WCW’s first attempt at using writers, and they let the writers take the whole thing in a ridiculous direction. Hey, I wanted to believe in the project too, especially when I showed up on the set and saw the elaborate scenery, props, and hordes of extras. Still, all the same, if you do have a copy of these rare sketches, resist the urge to watch them, even if the idea of a clean-shaven, eyebrowless Cactus Jack talking about mizzenmasts and nor’easters does turn you on. Instead, please, if you have any respect for me at all, burn it now, to preserve the sanctity of my reputation for future generations.
Chapter 20
I tried to put the whole Cleveland thing behind me and just enjoy the time at home. I was scheduled to come back at the September Clash of the Champions, and in the meantime, I rehabbed my knee with diligence for my showdown in late October with Vader. I know most people d
on’t think of Cactus Jack or Mankind as training hard for anything, but I think they’ve been misled. The truth is, I usually show up ready to go, and I have had long, fast-paced matches with some really well-conditioned athletes. Now, as far as being not all that impressive when it comes to lifting heavy weights, I’ll plead guilty, but with the footnote that over the years, my joints, muscles, and tendons have been through quite an ordeal. Over the years, when guys in the business have had less than stellar physiques, announcers have covered for them by claiming they had great tendon strength. Sometimes, as in the case of Dan Severn, it was true. I’m actually in the process right now of trying to get Jim Ross to sell the fans on the idea that I am one of those guys. Can’t you just hear it? “My goodness, look at that tendon strength. Foley is deceptively strong.” Actually, it’s one of the small comforts in my life to know that on any given day, I can walk into any gym in the country and lift the exact same amount of weight that I did when I was a sixteen-year-old kid.
I started getting the feeling that something wasn’t right. This feeling started right after my return at the Clash, and grew as my Halloween Havoc match with Vader drew closer. I was scheduled to wrestle Yoshi K wan, a martial artist who was Harley’s newest wrestler. He was undefeated over the course of several months, with the idea being that if I beat him at the Pay-Per-View, I could start gunning for Vader. Instead, I watched in disgust as Kwan lost to Johnny B. Badd, who wasn’t even booked on the PPV. I asked Dusty about it, and he apologized for the error, but it didn’t stop the company from airing the match twice more that weekend.
After defeating the not-quite-as-impressive Kwan, I noticed more small details that didn’t seem to be quite right. As one of the better promo men in the company and with a strong reason to seek vengeance, I knew that I could help sell this show on the mike. Instead, in the four weeks leading up to the show, I was given one live interview to build up the main event. In that same amount of time, Dusty gave himself four live interviews to promote the fact that he was going to be in his son’s corner for another match. Priorities were definitely screwed up.
Also interesting to me was the fact that I wasn’t written into any of the television shows that would air after the Havoc show in October of 1993. I asked Dusty what he had in mind for me after Havoc, and he admitted he had nothing immediate. It was obvious to me that somebody somewhere didn’t want a Pay-Per-View that Cactus Jack was headlining to be a success. It was more or less booked to be a failure. Just like Stallone’s Rambo felt when he learned the only reason he had been sent on a dangerous mission was that he was supposed to fail, I too felt expendable.
It was in this atmosphere that I attempted to renegotiate my contract. In the history of wrestling, I don’t think anyone has ever done more research or work in attempting to renegotiate. I presented Eric Bischoff with a twenty-page, professionally printed thesis complete with charts, graphs, statistics, and analyses. My research had shown me that I was as valuable as anyone in the company, and as such, I certainly believed I deserved to be paid that way. I didn’t expect the $750,000 that guys like Sting were pulling in at the time, but I felt like I deserved something.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Bischoff said, simultaneously stroking my ego and letting me know that all my hard work wasn’t going to earn an extra nickel. “If it was up to me, I’d be glad to give you more, but my hands are tied here.” What could I do? In today’s open market, an unsigned wrestler headlining an upcoming Pay-Per-View show would be worth a fortune, even if just to screw up the other company. I wasn’t in that position, however; the World Wrestling Federation had made it clear to me that they weren’t interested, or at least J. J. Dillon had. J. J. was Vince McMahon’s right-hand man, and the guy I got ahold of once a year when my contract came up. Every year, he’d give me about a minute and five seconds of his time. “Sorry, we’re not looking for talent right now. You should be happy you’re working-a lot of guys aren’t, you know? Give us a call next year.” That was it. They weren’t looking for talent? The World Wrestling Federation was always on the lookout for talent. Excuse my language here, but I’m a little upset thinking about this-1 was Cactus Fucking Jack and all I get is one minute with J. J. Fucking Dillon? Whoa, it felt good to get that off my chest. How about one more? Okay. I was Cactus Fucking Jack and all I get is one minute with J. J. Fucking Dillon. Four “F” words in one paragraph-Diamond Dallas would be so proud.
Actually, as it turned out Vince McMahon himself wasn’t a big Cactus Jack fan, so maybe every year around the first of September he’d put J. J. on a Cactus Jack alert, with direct orders to “get rid of that fat, psycho, eyebrow-busted-open bastard.” Jim Ross had continually pushed for me, but Vince continually dismissed it, saying (I found out years later) that I “didn’t look like a star.” Yeah, Vince, and I guess Gobbledygooker and Mantaur did. Considering the parade of stiffs who stunk up World Wrestling Federation rings for years, Vince ought to be slapped for insulting the Hardcore Legend like that. Or at least forced to watch an hour of Al Snow matches. No wonder I hit Vince so damn hard when I finally got the chance.
Bischoff actually went down the WCW roster one by one checking off names, either saying yes or no-yes they were making more money than me or no they weren’t. I’ve got to admit, there were a lot of guys on that list who were making less money than I was, but I’d noticed one name that was conspicuous by its absence. “What about Jesse?” I said. Bischoff looked at me as if I’d just disgraced the good name of the Virgin Mary. He actually physically got out of his seat slightly and leaned forward, asking, “Were you in the number one movie in the country last week?” referring to Jesse’s role in the Stallone flick Demolition Man.
Now Jesse was a good guy, and considering who he is, I should probably be kissing his gubernatorial ass, but the truth is he was paid an exorbitant amount of money to make jokes on the air, and tell stories about the Crusher and Verne Gagne to the boys backstage. “No,” I had to admit. “I wasn’t.”
It was no use. Bischoff wasn’t going to budge. I really had no other recourse. I had a family to think of and a child on the way in two months, and to make matters more difficult, Colette was dilating early and was forced to spend the last ten weeks of her pregnancy in bed. I explained this situation to Bischoff and then said in a voice that was pretty near cracking with emotion, “If I take the same money, can I have the next six weeks off to spend helping my wife?”
Knowing he had the upper hand, but really not being as big a prick about it as he could have, Eric said, “Cactus, you just had four months off.”
I pointed to our schedule that was behind his desk, and pleaded my case one last time. “Eric, you’ve got me teaming up with Ice Train (a huge, but green, wrestler) in junior high schools in the backwoods of the Carolinas. How important could that match be?” Maybe a little of what I was saying was getting through. Maybe dedication and a track record of proven performances still meant something.
“If you get the time off, will you sign for 156?” he asked.
“Yes, I will.” I left the CNN Center that afternoon, vowing that I would never let myself be put in that position again.
Halloween Havoc was an artistic and athletic victory, but an emotional defeat. Actually, I was lucky to even make it. We had a match in Phoenix on Friday night, followed by a day off and then Havoc in New Orleans. I left the house on Friday morning, running a little late. I could never get the roof of the convertible to latch on just right, so as a result, I just drove all the way with the top down. It was cold this late October morning, however, and raining hard. It didn’t usually matter, though; as long as I kept up a decent speed, the rain would usually just blow on by. Usually. This time it was raining way too hard, and I was occasionally having to stop for traffic. But I decided to gut it out. By the time I got to Atlanta, I was drenched from head to toe. By the time I got to Phoenix, I was sick as a dog. I went to eat with my old buddy Robert Fuller. I ate a Reuben sandwich and promptly threw it up. (To this day I
can’t eat a Reuben sandwich, which had been a longtime favorite.) That night I stumbled through a match where I was so bad that I made Al Snow look like Satoro Sayoma by comparison. I stopped at a gas station to get some liquids into my body-funny, earlier that day, I had plenty of liquids hitting my body. A bunch of kids recognized me. “Cactus Jack,” they yelled as I went to open the door. “Can we have your autograph?” Vumphoow. I threw up everywhere, including on one of the kid’s shoes. It was almost as bad as a night in Baltimore in which I threw up about eleven strawberry margaritas all over the room I was sharing with Scotty Flamingo. Wow-between the dry-heaves, blood spitting, vomit, and urine, this book is turning out to be a little more scatalogical than I would have imagined.
Actually, as I’ve said, I’m not much of a drinker at all. Back in the days I’m writing about now, I would go out maybe half a dozen times a year, nowadays maybe twice. I just don’t find going out to be all that much fun, and as Stan Hansen once told me, “there’s nothing good that can happen to you when you go out.” For the sake of my marriage, my pocketbook, and my body’s healing process, I’m much better off lying in bed, watching Nick-at-Nite or a movie or reading a book, or once in a great while, getting to know my body a little better. If someone asks me what the best quality a wrestler can have is, I can honestly say it would be the ability to enjoy doing nothing. Which isn’t to say I don’t do things. I catch movies whenever I pass a multiplex with time to spare, visit historic battlefields or monuments I see, and am the self-professed king of amusement parks. As a matter of fact, Al Snow and I almost had to go to wrestlers’ court to face formal charges of stranding Bob Holly at the airport in order to go to a carnival. We were guilty as hell, but we settled out of court to the tune of two nights’ free lodging, meals, and rental car, and the reimbursement of $80 that the cranky, curmudgeonly “I don’t want to go to a carnival” Bob had to pay for his own car.