Have a Nice Day (2 page)

After about ten minutes of back-and-forth action, I charged at Vader, who was standing against the ropes. Earlier in the match, I had caught Vader with the patented Cactus clothesline, a move I had already successfully completed minutes earlier. In this move, I clothesline my opponent and let my momentum carry me over, as well. It was a pretty impressive sight, especially when you consider that in this case, over 750 pounds of humanity were tumbling to the floor. This time, however, Vader moved out of the way. I launched myself into the ropes and prepared to catch my head and neck between the second and third ropes, sail my body over, and, using precise timing and my own body’s momentum, twist the second rope over the third. This is a move known as the hangman because the end result is the illusion of a man being hanged V by his neck while his body kicks and writhes in an attempt to get out. Although it is a planned maneuver, it is no illusion, as the man actually is hanging by his neck and the body really does kick and writhe in an attempt to get out.

I was probably the sport’s foremost practitioner of the move, and I had the scars to prove it-about fifty of them behind both ears. Its funny, as many times as my ears were stitched, and as many times as I would watch them turn from black to purple to blue to slight shades of green and yellow, I never did have a problem with cauliflower ears he way some guys do. As a matter of fact, unless you looked closely behind my ears, at the zippers that decorated my auditory landscape, you wouldn’t know that I’d been a veteran of so many late-night emergency room visits.

There was no doubt about it; the hangman was a difficult move, but even more so in W, Championship Wrestling. WCW didnt actually use ring ropes-it used elevator cable covered with a rubber casing, and when the cables were entwined, they were almost impossible to pull apart. Now, throw a human head into the equation, and were talking about considerable pain. This night in Munich would turn out to be even more pain. Too Cold Scorpio, a brilliant high flyer (aerial wrestler), had wrestled in the evening’s first match and had complained that the ropes were too loose. Unbeknownst to me, the German roadies had tightened the cables to the maximum; there was no give on the ropes at all.

With my head caught in the ropes, I could immediately feel the difference. Instead of the normal pain that I had long ago accepted as a consequence for this exciting move, I felt as if my neck was in a vise. I literally felt like I was going to die right there in the Sporthalle in Munich. I’m usually known as a pretty good ring general, and I had kept a calm head in some pretty bizarre conditions, but in this case I was panicking big time. I began to do what no toughguy, big-cheese, blood-and-guts wrestler would ever, under normal conditions, even think of-1 began screaming-and I do mean SCREAMING-for help. Vader later took the credit for getting me out, thereby saving my life, but video evidence showed the big SOB with his back to me, yelling at the crowd and doing his “who’s the man?” gorilla-grunting routine.

Even with the panic setting in, I knew enough about the human anatomy to know I was in trouble. I knew that if the pressure continued on my carotid arteries, which run along both sides of the neck, I would soon pass out, and then, without exaggeration, could suffer brain damage and even death. With that grisly knowledge in mind, I made one last effort to get myself free and wrenched my head from between the ropes. I later likened it to a fox that chews off its paw to escape a trap.

I lay on the floor momentarily, and then got to my knees. Blood was literally pouring out of my right ear. I could actually hear the pitter-patter of drop after drop of bright red blood hitting the blue protective mats that surround the ring. This struck me as strange-I mean, as many times as the backs of my ears had been laid wide open, they had never really bled. They are made up mostly of cartilage, after all. But this was different. It was gushing. For some strange reason, I didn’t initially touch that right ear; instead I felt behind my left. To my disgust, there was a split I could damn near fit my finger in.”If this one feels like this, the other one must be real bad,” I remember thinking. I climbed into the ring and the match continued. “Nice juice, huh?” I said to Vader as he set me up for a monstrous forearm to the head. Loosely translated, that means “I’m bleeding pretty bad.” At this point, my ear was still hanging on … barely. I blocked Vaders third forearm and threw a blow of my own. When this happened, a fan’s videotape clearly shows something fall off the side of my head. Also at this point, in any other event, a ripped-off ear would probably be cause for a time-out. I mean, if Mark McGwire were beaned out at the plate, he probably wouldn’t jog to first base with a missing body part. If Shaquille O’Neal drove the lane and came up a near short of a pair, he probably wouldn’t go to the foul line with juice” running down his tank top. But in our sport, the fake sport, we have a single rule-“The show must go on.” And I went on as best I could.

The events that happened next are almost too ridiculous to be real. Almost. Because two of our referees had been injured on the tour and had been sent home, a referee from France had been flown in. Because he spoke no English, he was unable to tell me that he had picked up part of my body and was holding it in his hand. He handed the ear to ring announcer Gary Michael Capital. With his face turning white, Gary tiptoed the ear back to the dressing room, where he informed Ric Flair, “I have Cactus’s ear; where should I put it?” Flair, being the thoughtful guy he was, arranged to have it put in a bag of ice for me. I later asked Cappetta what the ear looked like, and he told me in his perfect announcer’s voice, “Well, it looked like a piece of uncooked chicken, with tape on it.”

I have often imagined how this entire scene would play out on film, with Martin Scorsese directing, in black and white if possible. Dramatic music in the background. Vivid close-ups of the ear as it pirouetted in the air before dropping gracefully to the canvas, old-fashioned flashbulbs going off all the while. The referee screaming in French with tears streaming down his face. Cappetta sprinting to the back, trying not to lose his lunch. Flair, played perhaps by Buddy Ebsen, crying at the fate of Cactus Jack. Except in the movie version, Ill be damned if I’m going to scream for help. No, I’m going to take it like a man on the big screen.

Anyway, back in the ring, the match continued for about another two minutes. Yeah, I know, it would be great to say that I won the match and was carried away victoriously on the fans’ shoulders. But even though I’m writing about a sport that some feel is not “real,” this is a real story, and the real truth is I did the job that night (lost the match). With the match won, Vader went back into his “who’s the man?” when Doug Dillinger, the head of security, rushed in and told him to get the hell out of the ring. I reached for my right ear, and, well, there wasn’t a whole lot there to feel. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, and then sucked it up and headed back to the dressing room.

Believe it or not, I was actually in high spirits when I got there. I have often been referred to by doctors and nurses as “the most cheerful patient they’ve ever treated.” I like that. It may not be as badass as “the toughest SOB in the World Wrestling Federation,” or as colorful as “the most electrifying man in sports-entertainment,” but it’s something I’m proud of nonetheless. Can’t you just hear Howard Finkel at WrestleMania XVII as he announces: “Ladies and gentlemen, making his way to the ring, he weighs in at 287 pounds and is known around the world as the most cheerful emergency room patient in the world … Mick Foley!”

Vader, once again showing his sensitive side-the big softy-was pretty upset about the whole thing. He even wanted to ride to the hospital with me. Of course, being shaken up about it would not prevent him from claiming for years that he had been the man who tore Cactus Jacks ear off. Too Cold Scorpio offered to show me my ear in the plastic bag. I declined. Emergency medical technicians prepared to take me to the hospital. But, wait … something was missing … I couldnt leave yet. This event needed to be recorded for posterity-we needed a camera. I grabbed an English photographer named Colin, and he snapped about a dozen photos of the gruesome injury. If you look closely at the photos you can detect a gleam in my eye and just the slightest hint of a smile.

I hopped into the Krankenwagen, or ambulance, and we headed for the Krankenhaus, or hospital. Amazingly, we were denied access to the first hospital. Luckily, there was room at the second, and I hopped out, but not before uttering a German sentence that probably had never been used before, and possibly will never be used again:”Vergessen Sie nicht, bitte, mein ohr in der Plastik Tasche zu bringen,” or “Please don’t forget to bring my ear in the plastic bag.”

A plastic surgeon was called in and he gave me some unfortunate news. I should mention at this point that I had the utmost confidence that the wonders of medical science would enable him to sew my ear on in no time. After all, John Wayne Bobbitt had been sewed up, right? Oh, but I guess that wasn’t an ear. Anyway, the surgeon explained to me that unlike an ear that had been cut off and would be relatively easy to repair, mine had more or less been pushed off my head and had been too badly destroyed to salvage. There was hope, however. I underwent a four-hour operation during which all the cartilage from the missing ear was removed and placed in a man-made pocket an inch above my remaining lobe. By doing this, the cartilage would remain vital for a reconstructive operation somewhere down the road. And yes, I am at this very moment feeling that lump of stored cartilage, like a play toy that I’ll never misplace.

After the operation, one of the Krankenschwesters, or nurses, showed me the remains of my ear, except by now, without my cartilage, it looked like a giant skin flap, kind of like the cheese on a pizza thats been sitting at room temperature. I asked her if I could have it “Ich mochte mein ohr zu haben?” She looked at me as if I’d just farted in church, pinched her nose with her fingers, and replied that the ear would become schutzig, or dirty and smelly. Now that’s a hell of a thing to say about something as near and dear as my ear, but as I searched in vain for the German word for formaldehyde, the Krankenschwester did something, the image of which would haunt me for months. She calmly stepped on the foot pedal that lifted the lid of the medical waste basket, and with a flick of her wrist, disposed of my former ear forevermore. She then turned to me and with the inquiring eyes of a child said, “Der catch ist alles schauspiel, ya?” or “Isnt wrestling all fake?

Welcome to my world, the world of professional wrestling, where fact is often stranger than fiction, and the line between the two keeps getting tougher and tougher to distinguish.

I was eighteen in the fall of 1983. Upon graduation from Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, New York, that June, I had spent the summer lifeguarding at the Stony Brook Racquet Club and daydreaming about professional wrestling. Up on the stand for continuous eight-hour shifts, I had plenty of time to envision suplexes and dives off the top rope like my idol, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, while I watched over the well-being of a bunch of spoiled rich kids. My brother, John, on the other hand, was in his third year as a prestigious “Town of Brookhaven” lifeguard, which meant that, unlike me, he guarded at an actual beach that actual good-looking women frequented. In addition, he was given an hour off for every hour worked, during which, rumor had it, the town guards would pump up with a pair of dumbbells before taking the stand.

But, hey, my job had its benefits too, such as free tennis privileges at the club, which I used liberally-until my racket-throwing, yelling, and court-diving ways led to the termination of my court privileges. Looking back, I think I may have actually thrown the town lifeguarding test to avoid the indignity of wearing the official bikini bathing suit that the town guards were required to wear. Even at a lean, mean 200 pounds, Mrs. Foley’s little boy was never cut out for Speedos. So as a result, I grudgingly accepted my responsibility to watch out for children.

Hell, it wasn’t so bad. I was actually something of an institution at the club; I had not only guarded the summer before, but worked at Arthur’s Take Out in the winter. Arthur’s Take Out was the brainchild of club owner Arthur Grower, who paid me and my buddy Rob Betcher minimum wage to cook and deliver broasted (a combination of broiling and roasting-but it looked like fried) chicken out of the freezing snack bar. There was no heat in the place, so we would have to throw water on the stove and do calisthenics to keep warm while we waited for the phone that seemed to never ring.

As a result, we had lots of free time in the snack bar, and I had taken to whittling objects out of potatoes and then broasting them. One night, Danny Zucker, who would later go on to manage me in the Dude Love movies, called in an order, and I set out whittling my best potato penis complete with two potato testicles that we attached to the starchy shaft through the miracle of toothpicks.

I set out with two orders in my car, and after dropping off the first, headed over to the Zucker residence to unveil my unique sculpture. “You’re going to love this, Zuck,” I promised, as Danny opened the box to reveal a normal order of fries. Oops. I never did find out if Mrs. Smith on lower Sheep Pasture Lane enjoyed her meal.

I had been on several recruiting trips with Rob Betcher during the winter and spring, as we were prized players on the Ward Melville High School lacrosse team, which were perennial county champions. I was a goalie and Betch played attack. It didn’t matter that the two of us hardly played as juniors-the important thing was that we played for Joe Couzzo’s Patriots and had been seen in summer camp action by college scouts. It was actually at Couzzo’s Suffolk Lacrosse Camp that I had honed the skills necessary to promote a big wrestling match.

The situation started innocently enough-I was taunting one of the counselors, a Ward Melville graduate named Dave McCulloch. Dave had been my idol when I was a sophomore, and I felt such a bond to him that I even fell for his girlfriend, Crystal Kost, in a crush that only lasted for two years. I eventually went to the prom with Crystal-at her request-but left prom night without even so much as a kiss on the cheek or a dance. Back then, even as a popular if somewhat strange kid, I would have had trouble scoring even if she had pulled the goalie.