The Hardcore Diaries (22 page)

I began my rebuttal of Edge’s rebuttal, noting the irony of a man who called me a glorified stuntman earning his
WrestleMania
paycheck by basically not getting killed in a ladder match. “That’s fine,” I said. “What’s not fine is, it seems like we’ve got a little problem here. I think you deserve the hardcore championship, and you think I deserve the hardcore championship. So as far as I can see, there’s only one way to resolve the issue—you and I beat the holy hell out of each other, right here tonight!”

The crowd went wild. They bought it. They actually bought it. Fortunately, for the sake of my knee, no such match was going to take place. Because Edge had another option. He whispered into ring announcer Lilian Garcia’s ear, and Lilian, after a moment of befuddlement, made the announcement I had been picturing in my mind for weeks, even months, when Edge and I were first hatching this plan prior to
WrestleMania.

Paul Heyman, aka Paul E., one of the most brilliant guys in the business.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the new coholders of the Hardcore title, Mick Foley and Edge.”

Yes, we had done it! We had a vision, and we saw it through. One of the cheesiest moments in WWE history; two men willingly sharing a single title. How much more unhardcore could holding the hardcore title possibly get? Proudly, the three of us, me, Edge, and Lita, held the title belt aloft, floating in the rising tide of boos that were so richly deserved.

Then Paul E. had to ruin it. Like a turd in the punch bowl of life (not the same punch bowl he served the ECW Kool-Aid from), he had to arrive on the scene to the accompaniment of the ECW music, and a surprisingly loud ovation.

“Look at this,” he said, obviously relishing his return to the spotlight. “In the only state where it’s still legal, a blatant display of prostitution right in that very ring.”

Everyone cheers as Edge and I console Lita, who, the fans of course believe, is the object of Paul E.’s derision.

“Oh, and there’s Lita, too,” Paul says, temporarily confusing the audience. “because the prostitute I’m talking about is you, Mick Foley.” I act stunned, like the thought has never entered my mind. Actually, it hadn’t, until a few weeks ago when I first heard a rumor of his claim.

Paul then went on to cut a masterful promo, accusing me of prostituting my name, my likeness, my legacy, the fans’ faith in me, even the term
hardcore
. But he does far more than just make charges. He builds me up first, so that our fans realize the significance of the charges. “Build him up before you tear him down.” It’s old-time wrestling psychology but it still works. I’m not just a piece of crap—I’m a guy who has chosen to become a piece of crap. There’s a big difference.

He concluded his diatribe by asking how it felt to look in the mirror and see a shell of my former self. Paul had previously asked me backstage about mentioning my wife and kids in the promo, and I hadn’t been in favor of it. Sure, they’d been referred to, respectively, as a “whore” and “bastards” just a week earlier, but I felt once was enough. I don’t want my older kids under any more pressure than they already are. Adolescence is tough enough without a WWE storyline hanging over their heads.

“Do you know what I see when I look in the mirror?” I say. “I see the coholder of the WWE hardcore title. I see a WWE Superstar. I see a real-life action figure. I see a man who has written seven books and who’s working on another that will be available in bookstores everywhere next spring.” By this point I’m yelling, my emotion is high, even when getting in a blatant plug for
The Hardcore Diaries.

I continue, saying, “I see a man of immense power, unlike you, Paul, who has none. You’re not general manager of
SmackDown!
anymore, you don’t own your own company, you’re nothing.”

Paul agrees that his power is limited, but he does have the power to make a suggestion, or to issue a challenge. Here it comes, the official challenge for the coholders of the Hardcore Championship to face any ECW scumbags of his choosing.

I’ve slummed long enough, I tell Paul E., so listen to the authoritative voice of a WWE Superstar as he tells you, “No way.”

But Paul E. is laughing, throwing me off my game, causing me to demand an explanation for the inappropriate anger. Actually, I think I just said, “What’s so funny?”

Paul E. continues to laugh, then says, “It’s just that I’m looking at Lita, Edge, and Mick Foley in the ring, and the only one with any NUTS is Lita.”

Sure, balls would have been better, but it’s the nine o’clock hour, so out of respect for the children watching
Raw,
Paul puts forth the less offensive of the testicular references. Actually, I thought he might seize the moment and the advantage of live television to let “balls” fall out of his mouth—wait, I’m not sure that sounded right—but he does the responsible thing. Otherwise, the only seizing done would be by Vince, when he seized Paul E. after the segment.

The insinuation of female ball possession is enough to send Edge over the edge (a deliberate play on words by the best-selling author), and against my wishes, he accepts the challenge, and offers to show Paul E. a little sample of what’s to come on June 11.

Paul E. then reveals our opponents, Funk and Dreamer, who proceed to administer the obligatory butt-kicking, sending the coholders of the hardcore title fleeing for safer grounds, through the crowd and out the exit.

Sure, Paul E. got chewed out for the segment going three minutes over, but in this case, rushing things would have been detrimental to the angle. We all realize that our angle is second in significance to the reformation of DX, but nonetheless, we all believe in the importance of what we’re doing and we don’t want to undermine it by skimping on important details, like not maximizing audience reactions. Besides, I’ve seen some stinkers that seemed to go on forever, and there didn’t seem to be any ramifications for the overrun, or any loss in future mike time for the people who overran. We’ll have to closely consider the time next week, however, as I don’t want to risk the potential last two weeks of promo time for having been slapped with an “overrunner” label.

May 24, 2006
5:30
A
.
M
.—Burbank, CA

Dear Hardcore Diary,

I’m sitting in the spare bed at my manager Barry Bloom’s house, resting my notebook on a large green stuffed alligator as I write. I would have been happy to spend most of yesterday as a designated
Diaries
day, but a quickly scheduled MRI appointment threw a wrench into my literary works.

At least I’ll know what I’m dealing with from a health standpoint. I’m pretty sure something is wrong into the back of my knee—the posterior cruciate ligament is still my best guess—but the MRI should help me be better prepared to deal with it. Maybe I’ll need a special brace, or can be given a specific training routine. For now, I’m doing a lot of work on recumbent bikes and a variety of elliptical trainers. But I’m staying away from weights with my legs—not that I’m bombarding my upper body with weight work either—and as always, staying far, far away from tanning beds of any type.

In the old days, I had my own tanning bed—a Chrysler LeBaron convertible. By 1991, I’d become adept at the act of the cover-up wrestling attire, which displayed only my bare arms. So a few days a week, I’d simply go sleeveless in the LeBaron and, presto, instant farmer’s tan.

I do continue to wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew these next few months. Gearing up physically and emotionally for
One Night Stand
would be trying enough, even if I weren’t attempting to pen a towering best seller at the same time. Plus, I’ve got the Flair match looming on the post-ECW horizon, meaning I’ll have little time to relax and enjoy what we’ve all worked so hard to create at
One Night Stand.

That was always one of the biggest demands of life with WWE—continually having to climb to emotional highs without a decent downtime to enjoy them. At least I was able to sleep in late after
WrestleMania,
and take an early-afternoon flight home. Edge, who was hurt worse than I was, had to actually wrestle the next night on
Raw.

I’m sure I’ll be hurting after our June 11 show, possibly even injured. But there will be no rest for the weary, as I’ll have to crank up the emotion that very next night to start creating interest for the June 28 match with Ric Flair. There will be some people out there expecting an awful lot out of the match, myself included, but unlike most of those people, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in Mick Foley’s chances of really tearing down the house.

Of course being in Charlotte will help a great deal. Unlike most cities, where I’ll probably be cheered by a decent portion of people no matter what I do, I’ll be hated in Charlotte. Which is cool.

It’s been a very productive trip from a
Diaries
standpoint. Over a three-day period, from Sunday afternoon to yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, I’d written 20,000 words by hand, including almost 9,000 on Tuesday alone. Hopefully as you read, you’ll be able to get a sense of how much I’ve enjoying writing it. I know some chapters may seem like emotional downers, and there may be some extended periods where I don’t talk about wrestling at all, but nonetheless, I hope you don’t regret your decision to pick this thing up.

I saw Chris Jericho last night, who is writing a book of his own—about his formative years in wrestling, leading up to WWE. Chris and his family came over to Barry’s for dinner, and we all laughed and told exaggerated stories until almost midnight. I always liked Chris, and considered him to be a great wrestler, a tremendous promo guy, and a class act. And his wife Jessica, for some reason, has always thought I was cool.

Chris remarked on how odd it seemed that so few people stayed in touch after he left WWE about nine months ago. It just seems to be the nature of the business. You can work intensely with somebody, draw money together, trust that person with your life, share that obligatory post–Pay-Per-View honeymoon period watching your previous night’s match on the lunchroom TV monitor, and then, poof, that person is more or less out of your life. You’re both on to new partners, and what you both worked so hard to create just fades into history. Unless of course you write a book about it, and then it lives on in perpetuity.

Hey, I plead guilty. As much as I like Chris, I haven’t stayed in touch, even though I’ve been very happy for his successes outside the ring. He’s got quite a lot going on, singing, acting, writing, so I’m not sure if wrestling even fits into his future. But should he ever choose to return, WWE fans would love to welcome him back.

I told Chris that I’d actually had something of a George Bailey moment a few nights earlier. George Bailey was the Jimmy Stewart character in
It’s a Wonderful Life
, the guy who becomes convinced that his life has been meaningless until an angel shows him just how full of meaning his life really has been. Okay, maybe I wasn’t in need of an angel, and I certainly don’t think my life’s been without meaning, but I was lying awake, following a late-night
Diaries
session, trying to figure out just how many real friends I’d made during the course of a twenty-year career.

The answer? Not many. Not many at all. I get along with almost everybody. I like almost everybody. I’m genuinely thrilled to see most of the guys (and girls) in our WWE family during the course of my sporadic returns. But when it comes to “real” friends—wow, there’s not an awful lot there.

The actual low point of my career, a defining moment of sorts, came in Calgary in 1999, on a hospital visit to see Davey Boy Smith, who had been laid up for several days with a bad staph infection that had gone into his spine. At his peak, Davey, as one-half of the British Bulldogs tag team, was one of the top wrestlers in the world, and as a singles competitor had engaged in many great battles, including a couple of classics with his brother-in-law, Bret “Hit Man” Hart.

He was well liked by all of the guys, and had several close friends that he traveled and trained with. He had an infectious laugh and a great sense of humor, often pulling elaborate pranks that eased the monotony of the road, but really hurt no one.

I remember talking to Owen Hart, getting directions to the Calgary hospital, which was just minutes away from both the airport hotels and the arena. “Davey’s really excited to see everybody,” Owen said. “I think it’s going to really help lift his spirits.”

Except “everybody” wasn’t there. In fact, nobody was. Except me and Biff Wellington, a longtime Calgary wrestler. And I wasn’t even a good friend of Davey’s. Not like some of the guys were. Yet nobody showed. I guess there were tanning beds that were lonely, or weights that needed lifting, or any number of reasons not to complete a ten-minute drive. But the message it sent me was chilling and simple—this isn’t family. And on that day, I promised myself that I would make as much money as possible and retire on my terms, without kidding myself that I owed the wrestling business a thing.