Thats all Mick and his brother wanted to do is wrestle. They watched them all: Chief Jay Strongbow, Bruno Sammartino, the Valiant Brothers-that's what they wanted to be. Then Mick broke his brothers nose by back dropping him into his bedroom wall and mom said no more wrestling. Mick Foley continued to pursue his dream, but he paid a heavy price. The emotional scars of a strange childhood are still evident. Mick was different because he acted different-looked different. They used to throw worms at Mick. He'd be bending down doing hurdling stretches and there was a bombardment of worms being thrown at him. He couldn't think of a way to retaliate throw worms back at seven or eight people? It's not the fact they were hurting him, they were hurting his pride, they were making him look like garbage. So he picked up the largest specimen, and he sucked it down! To show them their attempts to hurt his pride would not be successful. He thought he'd shown them. But then sure enough, the story became exagerated, as everything in life does, and it no longer became well Micky Foley ate one worm because some kids were picking on him it became Micky Foley eats a plate full of worms everyday! Do you think he got many dates after that? Do you think girls wanted to kiss a boy that had worms on his breath? He's a good kisser(say's Foley i don't speak from expierence).. but he never got the chance to show it! What was he gonna do practice on himself? He never had the chance to show the world that he could love and be loved, because they ruled him out because he had a strange appetite for strange things. He's not saying he didn't except money to eat other strange things, but the fact is the damage had been done and he went through his entire high school without date number one! You don't think that scarred my soul, then maybe you're not looking deep enough! On the surface young Mick Foley was just like other boys. He even played high school lacrosse, but Mick played goalie without the benefit of pads. Losing the chest protector was not enough, and he began to tempt fate.. tempt a certain pain even more, and he removed his protective cup. And he payed the price one May morning, because he got hit and he went down like he'd been shot! And he remembers the girls field hockey team watching him as they strapped ice packs onto his affected area, and shipped him off in an ambulance. And the doctor said it would be at least three weeks before the swelling would go down and then he could go back to school. But even though his testicle was the size of a grapefruit, he made it back to school the next day! And it was the only time in his high school years that he remembers girls...looking in his genital region! And he considered that.. the greatest day of his high school years! There is no simple explanation for why a man becomes deranged, From childhood, Mick Foley's affection for pain made him different. Despite coming from a loving and caring household, he was not at home: Mickey Foley was searching for a place to belong. It was 1983, and upstate New York, with it's endless rolling fields, might be a nice place for a lot of boys, but not when Jimmy Superfly Snuka and Don Muraco were in a cage, in October in, Madison Square Garden. THAT'S WHERE HE WANTED TO BE! He didn't want to ride horses along a field: he didn't want to fish for trout in a stream. He wanted to be where the blood and guts were! So he put his thumb out, and it took sixteen or seventeen hours, but he made his way up to the Garden. It took just about all the money he had in the world, but he got a front row seat….and he saw the move that would change his life. When Jimmy Snuka came off the top of the cage, and he saw people stand up, and he saw people cheer, and he knew he wasn't the only person who's life changed in that arena. And he realized that he wanted to do the same thing. He wanted to hear people people cheer for him because of some act of bravery that he'd commited. He wanted to hear-see peoples emotions. he wanted to see children cry out of love for him, for things he could do inside a ring. That was my first time in Madison Square Garden-his parents weren't there, He did it like he's done just about everything else in his life: all by himself! That's when Mick Foley developed an alter ego: a superstar with the athleticism of Jimmy Snuka, and the sex appeal that he so desperately wanted in high school. He made a movie.... when he was eighteen...about himself, maybe as a type of escape, where he was a wrestler.. and it's strange the 1st time Mick met HBK. HBK looked at Mick's scarred and battered body. He didn't know Mick, but the legend of who Mick was before and HBK asked Mick "Is this the way you've always envisioned yourself?" looking somewhat down on Mick. And Mick said No. You know the strange thing is I always imagined myself being like you! And HBK said The Champ?(when he was the champ) and Mick said no. The girls.. Jewelry the tattoos.. The love. So in Mick's movie, he wasn't Mick Foley. And he sure as hell wasn't Mankind! He was Dude Love. And during the course of this movie, dating back to his expierence at Madison Square Garden, he decided he was going to do something heroic, He was going to do something that would make people cheer for him. So he ascended up onto his friends roof, and he dove off. Ironically, Dude Love gave Mick Foley his first break. It became an underground hit, and somehow ended up in the hands of wrestling great Dominic DeNucci. DeNucci admired Mick's guts more than his skill, and took him under his wing. Every weekend, for the next two years, Mick traveled 800 miles round trip. Eating and sleeping in the back of his 1979 Ford Fairmont: Still hoping to realize his dream. He knew he wasn't ready to be Dude Love yet. He never wanted to be Cactus Jack. He figured here is a horrible name for a horrible wrestler and, by golly, as soon as he gets the ability, then he'll get that heart shaped tattoo on his chest, he'll out those earrings in, and he's gonna get the girls! And it never really worked out that way. Cactus Jack was supposed to be around for three months...he stayed for eleven YEARS!!! The evolution of Mick Foley.. What fuels the insanity? So far I have covered the tormented youth of Mick Foley, and now will explore his wrestling career, one that began with a brief stint in the WWF as the unheralded Jack Foley in 1986. But despite performing before several organizations, success wasn't achieved until Mick Foley unveiled his dark alter ego: the sadistic Cactus Jack. What made Cactus Jack so different was he just wanted it a little bit more. He was willing to go the extra length. He was willing to sleep in a filthy car. in order to achieve his dream, he was willing to forego bonds and romantic relationships to be the best. He was somebody in an era of bodybuilder physiques who carved out his own niche-said "I'm going to make it on my own style." he said "No one else is going to tell me what to do. I'm not going to dye my hair. I'm going to be exactly who I am, and I'm going to do it my way!" As the legend of Cactus Jack grew, so too did his affinity for pain. Concerned independent promoters soon asked him to tame his increasingly brutal behavior, but Mick Foley always did things his way. Instead of compromise, he left the United States to seek satisfaction in a bizarre, sadistic wrestling subculture in Japan. And Mick had heard rumors about these horrible matches that took place.. And he didn't care! As far as he was concerned, this was his destiny. And he walked out the first time he saw barbed-wire strung up in place of the ropes, and he said..."I"M FINALLY HOME!! Mrs. Foley's little boy is FINALLY HOME!!!" He said it didn't matter what kind of match it was.. He wrestled on beds of nails. He's wrestled.. He's wrestled on tens of thousands of thumbtacks..he's wrestled on C-4 explosives..and the funny thing was it didn't matter how mutilated he was..physically, he healed himself spiritually. Because for the first time he was respected, I'll go so far as say he was loved, people lined up and chanted his name:"Cactus Jack! Cactus Jack!" They sure as hell didn't line up, as they do here, to spit on him! To pee in paper cup's and pour it on him! He had his dignity, and he's not sure he's got it anymore! Obviously these matches in Japan were bizarre, they were dangerous carrer threatening. "He shall strip his sleeves and show his scars and say these wounds I had at St. Crispins Day. And the good story shall be told from me, father to his son, for we shall be remembered. We few...we happy. We brothers, for he who sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother! It's kind of touching isn't it?"(Mick) The nomatic reign of Cactus Jack lasted nearly eleven years, but his fondest memory occured aboard a commercial airline, where his battle-ravaged body made an indelible impression on a fellow passenger. He was a "coach class" person, but they took one look at his wounded face..his scarred, battered arm..his stitched head, his stitched hand, his stitched ear, and they bumped him up. The woman sitting next to him didn't quite understand that. She spent double her money, and ended up moving back to coach, to get away from Mick. She felt that much of him that she couldn't stand to be around him! Not a day goes by that Mick doesn't think of her face, drifting to the back, and he stretched out in her seat....and he had the ride of his life! He was a Deathmatch Champion. Mick Foley. Cactus Jack. Mankind. Three bizarre, yet distinct personalities. Each one scarred by trauma and suffering. Each one still haunted by pain. When you look at Mankind in the WWF, you're saying to somebody-every time he put on the Mandible Claw, in his mind, that's Vince McMahon, and he's saying "Why didn't you take me when I was young when I was good?!" Thats where the Mandible Claw comes from: it's power tempered with mercy, just like Mick. Mick doesn't believe in doctors. He believes in the bodys ability to heal itself. There's something wrong with his mind, and I think he'd be the first to know.Champion, and he had the ability to make people sick!!!
