The Hardcore Diaries

by Mick Foley

  Edge props the ladder in the corner and readies himself for the spear that will drive Dreamer back-first into the steel. But Tommy sidesteps it and hip-tosses Edge, and spine meets metal, to the delight of the partisan crowd.

  Terry rolls into the ring and shoulders the ladder, spinning with it in a “whirlybird” maneuver, knocking down me, Edge, and even Dreamer with Three Stooges precision. Actually, it doesn’t look all that good, and we are in momentary danger of losing the interest of the crowd until Terry sets the twelve-foot apparatus up and begins to ascend.

  Edge foils the plan, however, stopping Dreamer before tipping the ladder, sending the sixty-one-year-old Funk into an F Troop –like free fall to the canvas below. I lay a couple of boots into Funk, knocking him from the ring. Now it’s time to play. The progression of the gimmicks is about to speed up. Way up. Business is about to pick up, courtesy of the barbed-wire board.

  I’d used boards like this on dozens of occasions in Japan. But this board, courtesy of “Magic Man” Richie Posner, puts the other versions to shame. It’s thicker, longer, heavier, and laced with considerably more barbed wire (real stuff) than it’s Japanese counterpart. Together, Edge and I lift the board overhead and drop it suplex-style on the prone body of Dreamer, who, truth be told, doesn’t seem to enjoy it. Indeed, his screams of agony seem especially realistic, and Edge seems intrigued by the stubborn barb that just won’t leave its new home in Tommy’s head.

  The Edgester and I ready ourselves for a second deadly drop, but Funk is ready, and manages to grab hold of the legs of both me and Edge, sending us sprawling backward to the canvas, the board close behind, a devastating reminder of how real our imaginary world can sometimes be. Edge manages to avoid much of the impact, but the board catches me good, immediately slicing through the palm of my hand, creating a continuous stream of blood; dark, deep red, almost burgundy.

  The board is then set up in the corner, and I am peppered with jabs from both Funk and Dreamer, who then proceed to throw me backward into the board. My head and shoulders crash into the lower part of the board, eliciting wails of hardcore satisfaction from the Hammerstein crowd—and a genuine scream of anguish from me, as I realize my hair is entangled in the unforgiving wire. My right forearm has been shredded as well, and blood flows freely from that second body part. My hand, however, remains my biggest problem, and I can see a chunk of meat peeking out through the blood. Even amid the wild verbal onslaught of ECW fans, I have the foresight to predict a future problem.

  “THIS IS AWESOME!” the fans chant, as flattering a cheer as I’ve ever heard. It is a chant that has actually become fairly common at smaller wrestling shows around the world, but as a first-time recipient of the chant, I’m pretty touched by it.

  Meanwhile, Edge has stopped Dreamer again, and although he’s cut off by Terry, gives me the time I need to free myself from the grasp of the barbs, allowing me to use the board as a weapon on Terry when he returns from educating Edge on the subject of his boots.

  Terry returns, and wham, I launch the board at him. Funk goes down hard, the board atop him, and reemerges moments later in a bad way, his face a crimson mask—the point of origin seemingly his eyebrow.

  Lita hands me a small coil of barbed wire, and I proceed to work over the general area of Funk’s left eye; dropping a couple of quality barbed-wire-wrapped forearms before blatantly grinding the wire into the affected area.

  “You sick guy,” the crowd chants. Actually, they had a more colorful substitute for “guy” that rhymes with “truck.” It’s not quite as flattering as “This is awesome,” but it’s close. Funk proceeds to do a very convincing job of making everyone—even me—believe his life may be coming to an end. After the show, Kirwin Siflies, one of WWE’s incredible directors, who has seen literally hundreds of men ply their crafts in WWE rings, remarked that he was very impressed by Terry. “He does things that no one else does. He says your name when he’s hurt. He asks for help.”

  Indeed, Terry does do things differently. He always has. His style has always been effective, and it always will be. Despite the naysayers and predictors of doom, Terry Funk is proving me right. He’s doing a hell of a job in turning this match into a memorable mess—a four-star fiasco. And we’re not through yet. The gimmicks still have a way to go to reach their ultimate progression.

  Squaring off with the Funker

  Terry Funk is carted off, and Edge and I proceed to decimate Dreamer with the barbed-wire bat. Lita even joins the fun, executing a legdrop on the bat that conveniently covers Tommy’s genital area. The crowd chants, “We want Sandman,” but little do they know that Sandman is being saved for a later segment, in which he will interrupt a poem by Eugene, complete with the beautiful imagery, “ECW isn’t phony—I want to hug Balls Mahoney.”

  Now it’s Socko time. I don’t know why I didn’t milk the arrival of my little cotton sidekick. Maybe because the match was running longer than Vince had hoped for. So almost immediately after reaching into my pants and pulling out the limp white object (the sock, the sock), I pulled off a surprise of sorts by applying the dreaded Socko claw to the beautiful Beulah, even managing to pull her into the ring, proving that I am capable of impressive feats of strength when my opponent weighs 105 pounds.

  The move raises the ire of Dreamer, who temporarily breaks free of Edge—long enough to windmill me a couple of times with ineffective blows before being cut off once again by Edge.

  Now it’s Socko time for Tommy, and “the innovator of silence” tastes the sock, and then feels the wrath of Edge’s Spear. It is the same lethal combination that dropped Dreamer in Anaheim, and the match is all but over. Except, Edge doesn’t want it to be over. Not yet. Not until he’s had his way with Beulah.

  The “Rated R Superstar” picks up the fallen Beulah and toys with her, taunting her, placing her in position for the sexually suggestive pumphandle slam. Jeez, where the hell is Terry? We’re kind of expecting him, but so far he’s a no-show, prompting Edge and me to kill some time with yet another white-guy high five. Where is he? Where the hell is he?

  Finally, we hear a rumbling, and turn to see Terry making his way through the crowd, a barbed-wire-wrapped two-by-four held aloft. His eye wound is wrapped in dramatic “Spirit of ’76” fashion. Please don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a “Spirit of ’76” comeback. Remember the fife and drum? Oh, come on.

  This is going to hurt.

  We all know it would seem completely ridiculous not to acknowledge the slothlike speed of the Funker’s return, so Edge, Lita, and I turn to face it, fully intent on beating it back, with the help of our superior numbers and trusty barbed-wire bat. But Dreamer will have none of it, and, in a moment that will go down in the Party Poopers Hall of Fame, administers a double low blow to the hardcore title coholders. This leaves Tommy face-to-face with Lita, who promptly bails, leaving Edge and me to face a barbed-wire bombardment.

  I am the first recipient. Wham! A shot to the stomach. Wham! A second to the back. Edge is next up, and he takes a similar two-shot to the stomach and back. But Funk isn’t through. Though it seems to take forever, Terry is able to light the board on fire, and in an instant it is a mighty blaze, eliciting a roar of approval from the crowd.

  The first blow is to my gut. The fire is hotter than I had imagined, and the flame seems to linger a moment near my midsection before swirling into hardcore heaven.

  I’m not so fortunate with the second blow. It’s to the back, and it’s a good one; sending me down to my knees, where I come to the vague realization that my back is on fire. I should have stopped, dropped, and rolled, like all schoolkids are taught. Had I done so, the red and black flannel would have probably been extinguished. Instead, I crawl outside the ropes, waiting for blow number three, which will spell an end to my evening.

  Here it comes. Wham, to the chest, and I’m propelled backward, off the apron, into the waiting barbs of the board below, which has been propped up against the guardrail only moments earlier by Tommy Dre
amer. “Oh, my God,” screams ECW announcer Joey Styles, adding drama to the moment with his classic phrase. The impact puts out the fire, but I am soaked down with a chemical fire extinguisher anyway, as in the case of fire—which should never be used in any type of wrestling match—it’s always better to be safe than sorry. This may seem hypocritical, but it’s true. I’ve used fire two times during the course of my eleven-year association with WWE, and on both occasions, the stunt was approved by the fire marshal, who made sure every precaution was taken to ensure an exciting but safe maneuver.

  The fire extinguisher makes breathing difficult, and the landing hurt like hell, creating the clawlike gouges on my back, but despite my predicament, I am gratified by the rabid “ECW” chants that permeate the building. My night is over. I am now free to lie back and enjoy the rest of the match, from the relative comfort of my barbed-wire bed.

  Oooh, damn! I guess I was wrong! Funk just landed on me. He was knocked off the apron by Edge and landed right on me. What the hell? It seems as logical a way as any to see the ending; stuck in a bale of barbed wire with my friend and mentor, Terry Funk.

  Dreamer stops Edge with a DDT and proceeds to apply a submission hold with the creative use of barbed wire thrown in for good measure. Edge later admitted that he was being choked out for real, and found Lita’s breakup of the move to be a genuine relief.

  Lita turned to Beulah, and the catfight was on. Beulah on top, Lita on top, Beulah on top, Lita on top—until Dreamer grabs hold of Lita’s long mane of red hair and plants her on the canvas with a Death Valley driver. It is a stunning lack of chivalry, but one that the ECW faithful is in full support of. I guess one must actually have a girlfriend to hold a door open for her.

  Tommy and Beulah strike a pose of unity, enabling Edge to sneak up from behind with an Edgeomatic, yet another example of the creative use of barbed wire in this very creative bloodbath. Beulah goes toward her man, checking up on him—an act of love that proves to be a very costly mistake, and the cause of the end of the match. For when she turns to Tommy, Edge readies himself for the Spear. Beulah recognizes her error, but not in time, for Edge is upon her, sailing through the air, crashing into her midsection with a Spear for the ages.

  “Oh, my God,” Styles yells. “Edge damn near broke Beulah in half.” Which really doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration, given the tremendous impact of the move. I give Beulah all the credit in the world for this. She’s not a wrestler. Her instinct must have surely been to turn from the impact. But she hung in there and took the blow, and allowed a tremendous exclamation point to be added to the very odd, but very effective story of suffering we’d just written in the Hammerstein Ballroom.

  But wait, the story wasn’t quite over yet. Edge was about to add an exclamation point of his own, with the seediest, most provocative pinfall cover in sports entertainment history. Okay, maybe Verne Gagne and the Crusher had done something like…Never mind. It was the type of cover that even Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger might object to, saying, “Hey man, isn’t that just a little bit too much?”

  Now it’s time to relax, once I get the hell out of the wire, which I finally do with Edge’s help. I know this type of match isn’t for everyone, but I also know it’s among the best of its kind that I’ve been in—and I’ve been in a lot of them. Time seemed to fly by—the match went almost twenty minutes—

  and my conditioning was never a factor. I may not be so lucky in the Flair match, but on this one night, I feel lucky indeed. Lucky to have had a match that lived up to its billing. Lucky that I wasn’t more seriously hurt, given the risks that were taken. Lucky to have been in a match of such magnitude with the true hardcore legend, Terry Funk. And most of all, lucky that I’d have a chance to see Vince McMahon the next day, where I would demand an admission of misjudgment on his part. He had been wrong.

  Afterword

  October 1, 2006

  Arlington, VA

  Dear Hardcore Diary,

  “Yes, Mick, you had a very good match,” Vince said.

  “So, you’re admitting you’re wrong?” I asked.

  “Yes, Mick, I was wrong.”

  Just like that it was over—the shortest, most direct admission of error in the history of sports entertainment. One night earlier, I’d drifted off to sleep, comforted by the anticipated images of a vanquished Vince McMahon, his mouth filled with figurative poop, choking out an agonizing confession of major mat misjudgment and fundamental wrestling wrongdoing.

  What a letdown! So brief. So direct. No hemming and hawing. No anguish. No shit in the mouth. Just a simple, “Yes, Mick, I was wrong.” What a small price to pay for all the frustration his error in judgment had caused me.

  Speaking of errors in judgment, I guess I’ve got a confession to make as well. Remember my prediction that One Night Stand was going to be a financial disaster? Remember how I predicted that it might end up as the least watched Pay-Per-View in WWE history? Well, it turns out that I was, uh, wrong. Oddly enough, One Night Stand turned out to be a surprising financial success, far exceeding WWE’s initial projections, and decimating my forecast of impending doom. At this point, it looks to have a chance of eclipsing last year’s total of 335,000 buys, which in and of itself was considered a major success.

  So, how to explain this success? Well, some of it stems from an increase in international purchases, which in general have been a major boon to WWE Pay-Per-View profits.

  WWE has done an amazing job of opening and exploiting new revenue streams, utilizing international marketing and promotion, as well as remaining on the cutting edge of new technology to maintain its status as a very successful entity.

  But international buys were not the sole source behind the success. I’m actually at a loss to explain it, with any degree of certainty. It probably goes back to the Dayton show, the late buzz, the Cena interview, the hardway promo. Maybe it was just enough to encourage an awful lot of people on the fence to take a chance. Or maybe, just maybe, the whole Foley/Edge/Funk/ Paul E./Dreamer story was more effective than I thought. Though I doubt that possibility will ever enter Vince’s mind. By my own estimate, Vince McMahon has given me credit for the success of exactly one Pay-Per-View—the February 2000 Hell in a Cell with Triple H. And when it comes to dishing out the credit for the success of One Night Stand, I believe Vince is going to “stay the course” with that anti-Foley philosophy.

  Perhaps One Night Stand ’s greatest, if least obvious, legacy is that it helped maintain Edge’s status as a certifiable main event performer. Much as I had hoped, Edge’s affiliation with me, from our ’Mania buildup through the ECW show, was accepted by fans as a lateral move, not a step backward, and he emerged professionally (if not physically) unscathed from the June 11 carnage, ready to rejoin the WWE Championship picture.

  So, by the time Vince called me into his office at the June 12 Raw at Penn State University, I had already accepted the possibility that Edge, not me, might be wrestling John Cena at SummerSlam.

  So I wasn’t surprised, or even upset, when Vince said, “Mick, we think you and Ric have too much potential to just blow off your program at Vengeance .”

  I saw where he was going, and decided to fill in the blanks, saying, “So you’d like me to work with Ric at SummerSlam ?”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No,” I said. “As long as you and I can still do our angle after SummerSlam .”

  “Which one was that?” he asked.

  “The one with Melina. The ‘Kiss My Ass Club’ one.”

  “Oh, yes,” Vince said, “we’ll still do that.”

  Yeah, as you’ll see, we still did it, but the fact that Vince had to be reminded about the idea should have given me an indication that it wasn’t going to be treated with the degree of importance that I had hoped for.

  Here perhaps is the biggest shocker of all—I really liked working with Ric Flair. I may have been disappointed with my actual in-ring wrestling performances, but the buildup and th
e promos were among the most enjoyable things I’ve taken part in.

  In an odd way, Rob Van Dam’s misfortune was my good fortune. For following my Vengeance match with Ric, which was really just a glorified, bloody teaser for SummerSlam, I was set to take part in a six-man tag match on July 3, teaming up with Edge and Van Dam (or RVD) to take on the team of Cena, Sabu, and Flair. Personally, I would have preferred to hold off any physicality with Flair for several weeks. I had left Ric laying in a puddle of his own blood at Vengeance, and wanted to exploit that image for a little while longer. I really didn’t see how this six-man tag would advance our story, but didn’t think it would be politically wise to argue for scrapping it. After all, there were sure to be important creative battles worth fighting for in the future. I was willing to sit this one out.

  I don’t know all of the technicalities of the fateful Van Dam/Sabu road trip that had been inconveniently interrupted by an officer of the law a few days earlier. But an hour before match time, a decision was made to ditch the six-man in favor of an Edge/Van Dam single match, in which the Edgester won the title that RVD had won from Cena at One Night Stand.

  I decided to stick around, asking writer Ed Kosky if I could perhaps try out an interview after the show. Hey, if they didn’t use it, no big deal. But if they did, it would save me a trip to the teeming metropolis of Sioux City, Iowa, for the next week’s Raw.

  So, in a sense, I pried the doors to Promoland open for an after-hours visit, summoned forth some real-life anger, circa 1994, and strapped myself in for a hell of a ride.