The Hardcore Diaries (34 page)

Authors: Mick Foley

BOOK: The Hardcore Diaries

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I have come to accept that not everyone is going to be a fan of my particular style, be it in the ring or on the mike. Fortunately, Vince McMahon liked my style. Sure, it took me eleven years to get to WWE. Sure, Vince may have thought I looked sleazy, like I wasn’t WWE material. And sure, it may have taken years of prodding from J.R., as well as a few words of support from guys like Undertaker and Kevin Nash, for me to even get my foot in the door. But ultimately it was Vince who made the decision to hire me, to push me, and eventually to treat me like I was one of his top guys—even if he was stingy when it came to Pay-Per-View credit attribution. Ultimately, it was Vince McMahon, “the decider,” overruling all of the potential “persuaders.” It was Vince who became like a second father to me, who told me to treat his house like it was my house, who…Okay, maybe I’m overdoing it a little.

As of the writing of this afterword, Vince has been made aware of the worst of the criticisms expressed in this book, and found them to be alternately amusing and insightful. The fact that he allows criticisms about him in a book that he publishes speaks very highly of either his belief in freedom of speech or his apparent joy at courting controversy wherever possible.

The fact that I feel free to express this criticism toward the man who pays me speaks well of either how confident I am in our unique relationship, or how many times I’ve been hit in the head with steel chairs.

All right, all right, that’s enough kissing Vince’s ass in the
literary
sense. Let’s move on to kissing it in the
literal
sense. As those of you who skipped to the color insert may have noticed, I did indeed join Vince’s special club. Yes, Vince kept his word, and I got to do my big angle with Melina—the one I proposed in Anaheim, where I agreed to kiss Vince’s ass to save her job. But by the time the big moment rolled around, the day after
SummerSlam,
I had grudgingly accepted that the idea was not going to come off as the big deal that I had imagined.

We weren’t given much time—six minutes for everything—and I was well aware that the angle’s main purpose to Vince was to serve as a backdrop to his continuing adventures with DX. But even with the short time allotted and even with all sense of subtlety stripped from the sequence, I still held out hope that strong personal performances could make the idea a success. The performances were indeed strong. Melina more then lived up to my faith in her, with genuine tears streaming from her eyes as she begged me to reconsider my commitment to Vince’s crevice. And Vince and I slipped effortlessly back into our old chemistry together, probably because deep down, we share a small, but very real, dislike for each other. Maybe even a little bigger than small. At least on my part.

Sure, the whole thing wasn’t played up as big as it could have been. But Melina was so genuinely grateful and happy afterward that it made the mere consideration of disappointment on my part seem foolish. I even got choked up when I said good-bye to Johnny Nitro, thanking him for being a hell of a guy who never made me feel like I was hovering around his girlfriend, or treating her in any way but with the utmost respect.

As I headed out onto the road, for home and the seven-month vacation that my public firing would bring, I received a call from Barry Blaustein, who marveled at how I had been able to turn an act of degradation (kissing another man’s ass) into an act of defiance. Which is exactly what I had hoped to do, although in truth, following Blaustein’s call, not one other person has echoed his cinematic sentiment.

If only it had all ended there, I would have labeled the entire experience, from
One Night Stand
to
SummerSlam
, as a success. If only. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. I sat in front of my television every Monday for the next several weeks, a helpless observer, watching in vain as everything I had worked for vanished. There was no new Flair push—no mike time at all—just a few meaningless matches with the Spirit Squad. The spotlight I had hoped would be shone on Melina, the one I was sure Vince would take full advantage of, turned out to be a momentary flicker. Within three weeks, it was as if our angle had never existed.

I took it all as a personal defeat, and as a personal slap in the face from Vince and the creative team. The conspiracy theorist in me surfaced, and I began to internally question everything about my last several weeks with WWE, from the lack of any meaningful promotion of my
Raw
segments with Ric to what I viewed as Vince’s preoccupation with everything DX. For a few weeks, I just flat-out lost my mojo, and couldn’t seem to get it back. On more than one occasion, I woke up in a cold sweat thinking about the Flair match, wishing I could have those damn three minutes back. I questioned whether I even belonged in the ring any more. I looked back at the DVDs of my most recent matches, the 2006 comeback matches, and couldn’t help but think that something was missing. The fire in my eyes was gone.

I even came to compare my return to WWE—the contract I’d signed in September 2005—to a fictional decision to get back together with an old flame. At first I was constantly reminded of why I’d fallen for her to begin with, but as the months went by I became more and more aware of just why we’d parted, and for several weeks after
SummerSlam,
I found myself wondering what the hell I’d ever seen in her. I felt like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
—the beautiful woman in room 217 had become a nasty, pus-filled, decaying, putrid cadaver right before my horrified eyes.

A kind and considerate text message from Melina served as a temporary oasis from my desert of disenchantment. The segment with Melina, understandably, was not among my wife’s personal favorite Mick Foley moments. But Colette agreed that it was a nice message.

A few days later, I called Flair, just to tell him how much I’d enjoyed the match (I didn’t tell him it was causing me nightmares), and that I was sorry it hadn’t led to anything resembling a decent push.

“Hey,” Flair asked, “did you get my text?”

“No, but I just wanted to tell you—”

“Hold on,” Ric interjected, “before you say anything, let me send it again.”

So, I waited a moment, my cheap cell phone vibrated, and there it was—Melina’s text message! Holy crap, it wasn’t even her text, it was Flair’s all along. Colette thought that the text from Flair was the nicest thing. I guess I did too, I even saved it. Why? Because he’s Ric Flair. The same reason his book bothered me so much. Because he’s Ric Flair. The same reason why I outright refused to even think about winning at
SummerSlam
. Because he’s Ric Flair.

In fairness to Melina, she was kind enough to forgive me for having single-handedly built her hopes up, leading her to believe (as I expressed earlier in the book) that our angle was going to be the biggest break of her career. Indeed, I think the guilt I felt over seeing her storyline amount to little more than nothing, combined with the embarrassment I felt over having dedicated so much
Hardcore Diary
energy to it, may have been the primary culprits behind the tragic loss of the Foley mojo.

Fortunately, that mojo has largely returned (in a steady trickle, not a flood), so that I am now better able to see the larger picture in a slightly more positive light. Hopefully, you the reader have escaped from the downer zone I just sent you journeying into, without too much psychological trauma.

After all, the outcome wasn’t all bad, was it? I had some good matches. I did some good interviews. I even got a chance to romp around Promoland, long after I’d assumed it was closed for good.

I’m proud of myself, too. I came back for six months of ideas, angles, interviews, and matches, and I don’t think I ever looked or felt like I was coasting or resting on my laurels. I gave the fans a different version of Mick Foley, and I think, for the most part, they enjoyed the effort. I know I did—at least, some of it. Despite the frustration, I really did enjoy much of the process. The in-ring promo with Funk, teaming up with Edge, proving Vince wrong, making magic with Ric Flair. Hey, let’s not forget about Melina’s hand touching my “guys.” Sure, that hand was balled up in a fist and was traveling at high speed when that contact with the “guys” was made, but, hey, it’s my book and I’m going to count it. Yes, I am aware that I made a similar stupid joke in
Foley Is Good
.

No, I never really got to “wrestling immortality.” Those two balls I could have sworn I’d hit out of the park (the April 25 pitch in Stamford, and the May 8 pitch in Anaheim) barely reached the warning track. But at least I took my best swings. When it comes to this whole experience, maybe I need to quote President Clinton from his now infamous September 24, 2006, interview: “I tried…and I failed. But at least I tried.”

Besides, time may be the final judge as to whether this whole thing was ultimately a failure. Maybe we can reexamine the Vince McMahon and Melina possibilities when I return. Who knows, with the benefit of a little creative fertilization we may yet see growth from those seeds planted on August 21 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The promos have already started to sprout in my mind—they should be ready to harvest when I return to WWE. Unless, of course, Vince isn’t interested in any more of my crop (another winning pun from the best-selling author), and opts instead to bury the fruits of my mental labor.

Pretty lame agricultural analogy, huh? I probably should have just stuck with the Promoland theme.

So now for the big question. If I had known then what I know now, would I still have pitched my idea in Stamford, the idea that served as the basis for
The Hardcore Diaries?

Let me see, I just quoted Bill Clinton earlier, so perhaps I should quote another famous statesman here. How about the Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin, who might very well say, “Oh HELL NO!”

No, I wouldn’t have shown up in Stamford.

But I think my mistake made for a good book.

Acknowledgments

Thank you first and foremost to Vince McMahon, for suggesting the idea of another autobiography, and for allowing me to share my story in its entirety.

Special thanks to my editor, Margaret Clark, for her feedback corrections, grammatical expertise, belief in this project, and for all the many other tasks required in transforming over six hundred pages of handwritten notebook paper into actual book form. The transcriptions of the live speeches were provided by Sue DeRosa, Michael Dalvano, Anwar Fennell, Ben Williams, and Matt Yackeren from WWE. Thanks also go out to Richard Oriolo for his design, and to Dean Miller at WWE and Erica Feldon at Pocket Books for their support.

Thank you to my family for toleration of my extended writing session in the Foley Christmas room.

I’d like to thank Michael Zimmerman for his friendship and inspiration.

Lastly, thanks to all the wrestlers, service members and special kids who have touched my life. To quote an old rocker, “You’ve made me a better man.”

Photographic Insert