The Hardcore Diaries (23 page)

May 25, 2006 11:48
A
.
M
., Burbank, CA

Dear Hardcore Diary,

If I am ever to mount a congressional run, this will probably be the day that will come back to haunt me. What was I thinking? Christy Canyon? Ginger Lynn? An interview? Man, am I in trouble. I asked the show’s producer just what I could expect, and she said, “Oh, the girls will probably just play around with you a little bit.”

Now some of you longtime Foley fans might recognize Ms. Canyon’s name from 2001’s
Foley Is Good
as being something of an inspiration in the conception of little Mick—or at least in one of the many attempts over the course of a grueling three days.

Christy knows about it, too. How? I was kind enough to send her a copy, along with a letter, telling her how much I’d enjoyed her autobiography
Lights, Camera, Sex.
I told her there was an underlying sweetness to the book, and that it read like a very good action adventure/coming-of-age tale that just happened to center on the world of adult films.

So Christy had written me back, with a very nice letter of her own, telling me about her radio show, and inviting me on when I came to town. So, I guess I actually have two famous pen pals. John Irving and Christy.

Along with the copy of
Foley Is Good
I had sent a signed copy of
Tales from Wrescal Lane.
Because I remember way back in the eighties, sometime around ’85, when a friend who I won’t name here showed me a film of a young, twenty-or-so Christy. I vividly remember seeing the spirited, naturally busty young lady in action and having one distinct thought: “Someday I’d like to sign a children’s book for her.”

That was over twenty years ago. But I’ll never forget how she stepped into my solitary young sex life, filling a void that English veteran Kay Parker’s retirement had left. Kind of like Mantle replacing DiMaggio in centerfield for the Yankees, or Hogan stepping down for a fiery Sid Vicious.

Back in the dog days of the summer of ’89, following my return home from the World Class territory in Dallas (know as USWA by the time I left), I was in the process of transferring a Christy video onto a blank VHS tape when I heard a knock on my parents’ door. Outside stood a young lady who should best remain nameless, who I had known for years and had always carried a small torch for. Which, at the risk of falling victim to outmoded phrases, meant I had a longtime crush on. Obviously, I turned the Christy video off. Fortunately, I hadn’t been in the process of going a few rounds with my baldheaded champion, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I looked kind of ridiculous, which was a pretty constant fashion statement for me back then. Really long hair, red flannel shirt, an old pair of shorts, cheap snakeskin boots, and a burgundy cast, just short of my elbow—a hard-earned trophy from a Fort Worth Scaffold match landing that didn’t work out quite as I’d hoped.

The girl sat on the couch, and I began consoling her. She’d been through a rough few days, and felt comfortable allowing me into her confidence. I just thought she was beautiful. The more she talked, the more beautiful she became, until it reached a point where I had never been more attracted to a girl in my life. Well, at least until Colette came along about a year later and set a whole new standard for me.

Keep in mind, I was shy. I still am, in a way. And the attraction I felt wasn’t of the Christy Canyon video variety. It was more innocent. Like a first-love type of thing. A mutual thing. Perhaps I should have leaned forward, just gone for the kiss, instead of asking permission—which is what I ended up doing. Asking permission, that is.

“Can I kiss you?” I asked, feeling almost sure the request would be granted.

Maybe I should bring in Marv Albert to make the call. “Foley drives the lane, takes the shot. It’s no good! Rejected!”

The girl swatted my attempt away as if she was Dikembe Mutombo in his shot-blocking prime.

What had gone wrong? Well, I took a wild guess. There was only one person to blame—Christy Canyon. It was karma. To this day I believe that had I not been taping the porno, the kissing attempt would have been successful. Well, I don’t want to be too hard on Christy, because after reading her book, I know that she’s sensitive. Come to think of it, it may have been the shorts-and-boots combo that cost me the kiss. Not a real fashion winner in any era, even an era that featured the mullet.

May 26, 2006
12:10
A
.
M
.—Toluca Lake, CA

Dear Hardcore Diary,

I’m now at the home of Barry Blaustein, who I met ten years ago when he began work on
Beyond the Mat,
a wrestling documentary that was well liked and acclaimed by just about everybody who saw it, except Vince McMahon. Years ago, back in 1999, the release of the movie caused some friction between me and Vince, but to this day, I stand by it, and will always be proud I was a major part of it.

It seems funny now, but at the time of our first meeting, Barry thought my career was fascinating, but was thinking of covering me as the guy who’d had a few years of stardom before heading back to the minor leagues. Luckily all that changed.

Barry went on to direct
The Ringer
, a real funny film with Johnny Knoxville as a guy who pretends to be mentally challenged so he can win the Special Olympics for big money. Despite its coldhearted premise, the film has a nice heart, was warmly received by many critics, and is currently the number-one video across the United States. Hanging out at Barry’s house has always been a pleasure, and just as importantly, it saves me big bucks on L.A. hotels. Okay, maybe it’s not quite as important, but it does help. I learned a long time ago that its not how much you make in wrestling, but how much you save, and though I may no longer be the tightest man in the business, the guy who pinches pennies so hard he makes Abe Lincoln scream, I am always aware of how easy it is to live life too large while on the road.

As for that once planned congressional run—you can forget about it. Following last night’s appearance on
Night Calls
with Christy Canyon and Ginger Lynn, I would be a ridiculously easy target for any attack ad. I could just hear the voice: Mick Foley claims to be for family values, but is he really? Cue specific sound bites from any number of the show’s shenanigans, and I’d be lucky to get a job cleaning toilets at a top-secret CIA wiretapping meeting.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t have fun. I did. The girls were both great, and I think I did a reasonably good job of being a good sport while the deviant duo assaulted whatever is still left of my innocence with a barrage of innuendos, straight-up sex talk, half-nude wrestling, mutual boob groping, and a litany of lavicious one-liners that had me shaking my head in sheer disbelief. Christy even whispered sweet nothings into what was left of my right ear, prompting a telltale tingling in my trousers that hasn’t completely subsided.

Colette called during a break in the show, and I was dumb enough to answer, freely admitting to my locale and the company I was keeping. For some odd reason, she wasn’t thrilled. Sure, I felt like I was promoting the ECW Pay-Per-View while engaging in some harmless fun, but I guess I need to see some things from her point of view.

We are about to leave Pornoland—no relation to Promoland—but not without one last stop, which took place at the nation’s largest video convention, back in 1999.

I was representing WWE at the convention, signing videotapes (DVDs weren’t yet big) in front of a respectable line—a couple hundred strong. Occasionally, I would notice a scantily clad woman cutting the line with permission, getting an autograph, before heading back behind a massive curtain. This strange occurrence happened several time before I asked our sales rep, 1980s WWE Superstar Hillbilly Jim, about the mysterious destination of the nearly naked girls.

Hillbilly laughed. He’s a gregarious guy, and a heck of a salesman, from what I have heard. “Son, they’re from the adult annex,” he said, slapping me on the back for emphasis.

“Adult annex?” I asked.

“Son, they’ve got their own little world right behind that curtain.”

“Really.”

“Sure,” Jim said. “How would you like to go there after you’re done with your signing?”

Wow, what a question. Would I like to go? I thought it over momentarily. Colette was 2,000 miles away. How would she find out? Unless, of course, I was going to be dumb enough to write about it in a book or something. Besides, I would be just walking around. I wouldn’t really be doing anything wrong. After my signing, I took that walk.

Behind that curtain lay a whole new world. I posed for pictures that, if discovered, would have cost me a shot at any type of political career long before the
Night Calls
naughtiness. I saw old stars I remembered from my much younger days, and new stars with whom I wasn’t even vaguely familiar. Then I saw a glimpse of one of the world’s beautiful women, Janine, a goddess in the adult film industry.

I don’t really know how she ended up in adult films—she should have been on the cover of
Cosmo
, with her radiant looks. She commanded a lot of attention from what seemed to be a legion of fans: a long line that snaked out into the vast reaches of the annex.

Hillbilly smiled. “Do you want to meet her?”

“Sure.”

But just as Hillbilly Jim was ushering me to the front of the line, a big-time wrestling fan jumped between me and Janine.

“Do you know who this guy is?” the fan said. “This is Mick Foley. Cactus Jack. Mankind. He’s done the most unbelievable things that you’ve ever seen. He’s been thrown off the cell, he’s been blown up, he’s been in barbed wire.”

This was pretty cool—almost like a dream come true. A daydream come true, at least. I mean, I used to literally daydream about someone singing my praises in front of a beautiful girl. Even back when I didn’t have praises to sing about. This daydream goes back quite a while, like back to eleven or twelve, when I daydreamed about looking real good in front of the girls in Mr. Perkins’s sixth-grade class. The realization of this dream in front of Janine was almost enough to make up for all the heartbreak and ridicule I’d suffered at the hands of unrequited loves during my formative years. Almost enough to make up for the incredible rejection I’d suffered on the couch in my parents’ living room after dubbing the early Canyon video offering onto a blank VHS. Almost.

“Wow, who was that guy?” I said to Janine, after the fan had finally finished up his fond Foley affirmations.

“Oh, he owns the video company,” Janine said. Before asking, “Which group do you wrestle for?” with genuine interest.

“WWE,” I said, proud of the company, proud of myself. But I saw Janine’s nose and eyes crinkle in a look of great disappointment. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, no offense, but I don’t let my son watch you, because of the ‘Suck it.’”

“Well, that’s quite a coincidence,” I said.

“What is?” said Janine.

“Well, I don’t let my son watch you either.”

The train is now leaving Pornoland. Please leave all your bad thoughts behind.

Plan B

I may indeed have made Dee Snider a better man, but to the best of my knowledge, I didn’t inspire the Twisted Sister reunion. Dee and the boys had done a couple of USO shows in Korea for the troops, and had decided to hit the road in the summer of 2003 for a full-fledged comeback tour. As a tune-up, the band, under the clever subterfuge of “Bent Brother,” kicked off the tour with a couple of club dates, including one at Long Island’s “Downtown,” which as a pal of Dee’s I received a VIP ticket to.

Quite frankly, I was a little worried for Dee. He’d had such massive success in the 1980s and was a veritable cultural icon. Why ruin it almost twenty years later? I thought I’d seen the last of old guys in tights with the fall of WCW.

My preshow concern for my friend triggered one of the dumbest comments of my life, during a conversation with Dee’s teenage son, Shane.

“Is your dad excited about the tour?” I said.

“Yeah, he’s been working out and doing a lot of yoga.”

“Yoga?” I said, with joking sarcasm. “I bet he doesn’t want anyone knowing about that.” Yeah, I know it’s great exercise and that my good buddy Diamond Dallas Page wrote a book called
Yoga for Real Guys,
but you can’t deny that it still has a certain stigma surrounding it.

Apparently that stigma didn’t mean that much to Shane, who said, “Mick, my dad dressed up in women’s clothing for ten years, I don’t think he cares if people knows he does yoga.”

So having been put firmly in my place by a teenager, I went out toward the stage, fearing that I was about to watch a good friend embarrass himself. Hey, I knew how this felt. I’d been embarrassed by the last several months of my active wrestling career, before an early 2000 angle with Triple H allowed me to retire with my dignity, courtesy of a couple of classic matches. From time to time, I’d even considered a comeback. Every once in a while, I’d see a great match, and I’d get the itch, and every month when I got my financial statements, I’d be reminded that my Clinton-era plan of living off the interest from my investments was just not going to happen.

Sure, I’d saved a lot of money. And unlike a lot of investors, I hadn’t bailed out at a loss when the market got rough in the wake of 9/11. Within a couple of years, the markets had largely stabilized, but I also knew I could never count on them again. As soon as the Dow Jones got close to 11,000, I shifted most of what I had into fixed-income investments, meaning I would never fall victim to the volatility of the stock market again. But neither could I sit back, do nothing, and reap the late 1990s harvest of yearly double-digit gains.
Tietam Brown
had done okay, but not as well as I’d hoped. I had another novel,
Scooter,
largely written, but I wasn’t foolish enough to expect any type of sales miracles from it. Writing novels, I realized, was not going to provide a whole lot of extra security for my family—which, with the additions of Mickey and Hughie, was obviously of slightly more concern. My refereeing experience at Hell in a Cell had shown me that there was still a market for Mick Foley, the wrestler. I would be a fool not to consider it. After all, I felt better than I had in years. But I really feared returning, to find that Father Time had played a rib on me. I had been proud of the legacy I’d left behind. I didn’t want to mess that up. Let Dee Snider mess up his own legacy. I was going to leave mine alone.

Outside of Disney’s Haunted Mansion with Hughie and Mickey.

Courtesy of the Foley family.

Dee took the stage. And I stood mesmerized, awestruck as a near-fifty-year-old rocker blew away all my preconceptions. He wasn’t just the Dee Snider of old—he was better. Full of emotion, full of passion; full of all the things you can’t teach in a studio, or fake in front of fans. He still had it. And I vividly remember thinking that I would not return to WWE unless I could be as good at wrestling as Dee was on that stage.

Meanwhile, I had been watching Randy Orton. Watching him progress and mature into a rising young star. Perhaps I could play off my Madison Square Garden mishap after all.

Scooter
was now approaching the final editing stage, although it would not be published for another year and a half, in the late summer of 2005. One of
Scooter
’s central themes involved incidents of inaction or cowardice at inopportune times in the main character’s lives, leaving the reader to wonder whether a life should be looked at and judged in its entire context, or whether it should be judged based on one regrettable moment.

How, I wondered, would our fans judge me if I were to fall victim to such a moment? I sat on the idea for months, letting it grow, visualizing it, waiting until it kept me awake for many nights. Then, in late fall of 2003, I gave Vince a call.

I am a firm believer in backup plans, especially when trying to stay afloat in the tumultuous ocean that is WWE. The
Scooter
scenario was actually my backup plan. Plan B. Here, let me show you plan A.

“Vince, I was thinking about showing up as a surprise entry at the
Royal Rumble.
I would win the
Rumble
and then, because I wasn’t technically a
Raw
or a
SmackDown!
wrestler, would challenge both champions to a three-way match at
WrestleMania,
which I would win, making me the undisputed WWE champion.”

“No,” Vince said. “I have no interest in doing that.”

“Okay, I’ve got a different idea involving Randy Orton.”

I told Vince that I wanted to be the first pro wrestler to ever chicken out of a match—accept a match and just walk away from it. Vince nodded his head, intrigued.

“Then, after I walk out, Randy will launch a political attack ad campaign on me.”

“Attack ads?” Vince asked.

“Yeah, you know those things. Everyone hates them. Imagine that deep voice we always hear, saying, ‘Mick Foley
claims
to be the hardcore legend…but is he really?’”

Vince laughed and began writing feverishly.

He liked the idea. On December 15, in Tampa, Florida, I was going to make history.

But it didn’t happen without a fight. A couple of nights before the Tampa show, I received a call from Stephanie McMahon, telling me that a variety of well-respected wrestling minds had voiced opposition to my idea, feeling that quite simply, any character who walked out on a match would never be forgiven by our fans. Instead, Steph told me, I was going to walk out for the match, and be jumped by Orton’s brothers in Evolution—Triple H, Ric Flair, and Batista.

So it seems that our fans can indeed accept gullible, naive, stupid wrestlers—just not courageously uncertain ones. Man, I was confused and upset. I will always love certain aspects of WWE, but the unwillingness to take chances with characters is akin to creative suffocation. And no, by taking chances, I’m not talking about doing angles involving necrophilia or terrorism. I’m talking about allowing characters to show faults and vulnerabilities that our fans can empathize with and talk about.

We can’t get away with just being shocking or cutting-edge anymore. So many of the elements that made WWE so big in the late 1990s have been borrowed, stolen, or hijacked by various elements of the entertainment spectrum that the onus is on us to give our fans scenarios that they can become emotionally caught up in. From Bill Clinton’s arrival at the 2000 Democratic Convention being captured with the
Raw
low-angle shot, to rappers wrestling on video games, to the everyday shock and awe of reality shows, the new pop culture seems to have a never-ending hunger for crumbs from the WWE pie. We have to constantly adapt. And in my opinion, that means broadening our characters’ range of emotions, and giving our fans enough credit to broaden their expectations of what WWE can be.

I stated my case as best I could to Steph, and then left a long, rambling message on Vince’s machine. I knew that a nonmatch with Orton might displease some viewers, but argued that those types of fans weren’t likely to order Pay-Per-Views anyway.

I remember one specific line from my return call from Vince. “Did you ever see the movie
Shane?
” I asked, in reference to the classic 1953 Western in which a reformed gunfighter is forced to confront his past demons to defend his honor.

“Yes,” said Vince. “I have.”

“Well, go back and watch that movie some time,” I said. “And tell me how good it would be if Shane accepts the heel’s challenge the first time.”

“Okay, I get your point,” Vince said. “But, Mick, you’re the only person who could make this thing work.”

We did make it work. I walked out, and Randy hocked a major-league loogie right in my face. He ran several weeks of major attack ads, building from the somewhat subtle to the outright shocking.

They worked, too. I watched with pride as Randy Orton’s confidence and star seemed to grow with each passing week. As general manager, my old buddy Steve Austin played a valuable role as well, more or less promising WWE fans that I would be returning for vengeance at the
Royal Rumble.

And return I did. Where I learned two valuable lessons. One—three months of hard training and strict dieting didn’t mean anything when I got into the ring, where I gassed out in less than a minute. And two—the very real punches that Randy and I threw at each other during the
Rumble
didn’t look any different than the punches WWE fans see every week on
Raw.
Actually they might have looked worse. As a matter of fact, as of this writing not one person has ever commented on those punches, leading me to believe that the very thought of them was a waste of time, pain, and swelling. Sadly, the lesson of the real punches was not one I would fully absorb, in 2004 or 2006.

January 26, 2004, was my day—for explanation and for retribution. It was one of those promos I’d done so many times in my head that it seemed to beg for a chance to escape and have a life of its own on millions of televisions across the world. Rarely have I been so fired up as I was on that night. And rarely has a promo lived up to my expectations of it as it did that night in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

MICK FOLEY:
Thank you…it’s very nice. But I think that following the events of December 15, 2003, maybe a little explanation is in order; every day since that day, I’ve heard one comment over and over: “Why, Mick, why?” I think I have finally come to a place where I can answer that question as best as I can, but I think to understand “why” you need to understand where I’ve been, or maybe, more accurately, what it is that got me there. When I think about my career—when fans refer to my career—they come up with a lot of really nice accolades. They talk about my heart, my guts, my courage, my love for the business. The truth is, yes, some of that came into play, but the main benefit I had was hatred—the ability to take something in my life, to hate it very much, and then channel it in a very useful way. To go into a deep dark part in my heart and produce things inside this ring that were thought to be humanly impossible. That’s really good, as long as I was an active wrestler, but then I thought of a guy like Pete Rose—the most competitive player of his era—who when I was a kid played the game as if he was angry at the world. To see Pete Rose dive into third base headfirst was pretty cool. To see Pete Rose knock over Ray Fosse at the ’70 All Star game or take a swipe at Bud Harrelson in the ’73 playoffs was really cool. But to see that same guy, ultracompetitive, still angry at the world at age sixty-one, lying about betting on baseball, is pretty sad. I don’t want to be the sad guy. I don’t want to be the bitter guy. So when I retired from wrestling, although it was very difficult, I had to let go of all that anger. And I heard throughout my career, “Mick Foley is a hell of a guy.” I was a hell of a guy as long as I had that avenue to channel all the hatred toward. When I retired, I needed to let go, and after a long time I did, and got to a place where I was truly for the first time happy with myself. So I’ll admit to making a big, big mistake on December 15, 2003, in Tampa, Florida. The mistake was not walking out on the match. The mistake I made was accepting the match to begin with, because as I walked down that ramp to face Randy Orton, who is the Intercontinental Champion and is a hell of a wrestler, I realized I wasn’t willing and maybe not able to go inside that place in my heart to do what was necessary to get the job done. Now, Randy kind of seized that opportunity, and I think he took advantage of it a little bit, and he’s chosen to make my life a little bit difficult over the last seven weeks. So even though I know he is probably very angry at me for costing him his shot at the main event at
WrestleMania,
I still think Randy Orton, all things considered, owes me a little favor. So what I’d like to do is call Randy Orton down to the ring without Evolution. One on one, right now. Randy, I will wait here all night if I have to.

Randy Orton comes to the ring.

RANDY ORTON:
You want a favor from me, Mick? I dare ask, after blowing my chances at a main event at
WrestleMania!
I dare ask, what do you want from me?