Authors: Mick Foley
“Yes, Mr. Jack,” my friend assured me, “it will be okay.”
An hour later, without the benefit of anesthesia, I received seven stitches in a chemist’s office with a dirt floor. Back at the hotel, where we were no longer allowed to eat in the Chinese restaurant because “it will cost the promotion too much,” I had a revelation that I shared with Tony Nardo-“I need to write a book.”
The next day, Nardo flew home, and I spent the next five days as the only Caucasian I saw. Fortunately, I had two things to keep me company-Fatal Vision, an excellent book by Joe McGinniss, and the Nigerian wrestlers, who almost considered me one of them. I even had a chance to go out to a club, and noticed two things that appeared rather strange to a tough guy like myself. Guys danced with each other, instead of with women, and they also held hands when they walked. I had seen some of the wrestlers holding hands on the way to meals and asked what it meant. “Holding hands is a gesture of respect and friendship,” a wrestler named Sunday had told me. I liked the name so much that I suggested it for our firstborn, but my wife shot it down immediately.
With only a few days left on the tour, I was walking to breakfast with a few of the guys when I felt it. A man’s hand. In mine. Flash Mask Udor was not just holding my hand, he was swinging it as he walked. I didn’t know what to do. At that moment, I felt like every kid in America who gets a physical and has to turn his head and cough while the doctor feels his nads. Our sports physical guy in high school, Dr. Eihacker, had felt so many teenage testes in his life that he actually had the nickname “Happy Hands.” Every kid in school was terrified of Happy Hands, because the last thing he wanted was an overabundance of blood in the region when Eihacker went to squeezing, lest he appear as if he enjoyed it. Jay Johnson had suffered the misfortune of giggling while in the office, and the poor guy’s reputation was shot from then on. With that in mind, I was really hoping that my blood would be in short supply, as I tried to figure out what to do or say. Wisely using the hand that wasn’t being held by a 260-pound man, I discreetly felt for my little buddy, and was relieved to find him in his normal unaroused state. With irrefutable physical proof that I was indeed a true man, I decided to speak up and end this romantic stroll. I did decide, however, to do it gently.
“Uh, Flash, can I tell you something?” I politely asked my too close friend.
“Yes, Mr. Jack, what is it?” his kind voice wanted to know.
“Well, I know over here in Nigeria, you guys hold hands with each other, but where I come from, we usually just hold hands with girls.”
Flash immediately saw where I was coming from and let me loose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jack,” he politely said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
We walked the rest of the way and talked amiably, and as I walked, I began to see his gesture in a different light. Here was a huge Nigerian man in his mid-forties, reaching out to accept an American man in his early twenties. I felt foolish for having been so troubled about it, and immediately saw his gesture as the ultimate sign of acceptance. It was a true compliment, given from a true gentleman. Either that or the guy secretly wanted to hammer me.
At the end of the tour, I was handed my money, which consisted of eighteen crisp U.S. bills. Too bad they were all tens. I had spent a total of six weeks in Africa on three different tours, and had brought home a cool $480 total. The guy at the 7-Eleven was making more dispensing Slurpees than I was for my overseas bludgeonings. I had to face the fact that some things in my life had to change.
I was at a stalemate as I entered 1988. I had been going to DeNucci’s school in Freedom for two straight years, and had benefited enormously from his training, but I had to accept the fact that I just couldn’t improve enough in an empty gym 500 miles from home to justify going there. I will always consider myself a DeNucci student, but at this point, I effectively stopped my whole routine. I still forayed out that way occasionally, but only when I was booked on shows. Fortunately, I was starting to get some recognition in New York, mainly based on shows I did for a friend of Dominic’s named Mark Tendler. Back in 1988, if you had looked up the word “character” in the dictionary, you probably would have seen a picture of Mark Tendler’s smiling face. Mark was a big loud man who wore loud clothes with big loud jewelry. He also made big loud noises when he ate. He wore a huge “Mark” nameplate across his chest, which we referred to as the “Tendler license plate.” He wore one of the world’s worst wigs, which for some reason had dandruff in it. I guess to make it look more natural. He was also a genuinely warm, nice guy, who made his home on Long Island our house and who invited me to train in his new wrestling school free of charge.
Mark’s promoting style was comical, to put it mildly. With the exception of one or two stars he booked per card, Mark filled his shows with unknown wrestlers. But if you didn’t look closely, a casual fan might believe that a Super Bowl of Wrestling had just come to his town.
Fellow Long Islander Lou Fabiano, with whom I became fast friends, became the Magnificent LaRocca. A long-haired blond guy became Buck Hogan. A fat, bald guy became Ding Dong Bundy. He had a tag team of Tom Brandi and Bill Woods called, the Rock n’ Roll Connection, whose opponents, King Kaluha and I, were the South Sea Islanders, which was either a tribute to or a ripoff of the World Wrestling Federation team, the Islanders. I had no issue with Kaluha, whose Philippine/Hawaiian ancestry made him a passable Islander. But me? I had to question it. “Mark, I appreciate the spot on the card,” I said, “but I really don’t want to change my name to do the Islander thing.”
“Hey, no problem,” the gregarious Tendler replied with a huge lump of hero sandwich in his mouth, “you can still be Cactus Jack, we’ll just announce you from the Fiji Islands.” Hey, who could disagree with that logic? On second thought, coming from a promoter who had taught two twelve-year-olds to walk bowlegged so they could pass as midget wrestlers, and who got a black guy to be his “Russian,” the South Sea Cactus Jack wasn’t so bad. It also helped that, as “Islanders,” Kaluha and I were stealing the show.
As spring rolled around I even got a real job-three of them, actually. I worked full-time as a landscaper by day, went to Mark’s for a few hours a few times a week, and bounced/tended bar at a local institution called the Check Mate Inn. I was putting in about sixty hours a week, plus wrestling most weekends, and was bringing home almost $400 a week. During this time, I got a call from Shane Douglas, whom Eddie Gilbert had brought with him to Alabama in the Continental Wrestling Federation. As would be the case for much of Shane’s career, he wasn’t too happy there. “Cactus, if you’re making $400 a week at home,” Shane said, “there’s no reason to move here to make the same thing.”
“Shane, I’m not sure you understand,” I shot back. “This isn’t exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life-I want to wrestle.”
I would have jumped at any chance to wrestle full-time. Sadly, most of the full-time regional territories had dried up, and the openings that were available were often taken by local boys who were already known entities even if their presence was stale and unmarketable. I never did quite understand why Eddie didn’t bring me in-I could have contributed to his CWF (Continental Wrestling Federation), and his guidance would have benefited me greatly. As for Shane, thankfully, I’d already learned that although he was an exceptionally bright guy, career guidance was not a strong point for him. I can honestly say that if I had ever listened to Shane’s advice, including his later World Wrestling Federation warnings, I would be out of wrestling and probably cutting grass instead of kicking ass.
When I first showed up at the Tendler house, I almost immediately made the transition from trainee to trainer. Mark Tendler was a lot of things, but a polished wrestling technician was not one of them. Once I stepped inside the Tendler ring, which was really just amateur mats on the floor and jerryrigged ropes running along three sides of his basement walls, I was pretty much the teacher. For two hours I would show holds and reversals, while Mark answered the phone and ate sandwiches of astonishing size.
I will admit to being fairly rough on the new guys, but I never took liberties with them. They might have left with a couple of bruises, but at least they were still walking and they still had both eyes. Training the guys also had the added benefit of helping me, as the repetition of teaching reinforced many of the scientific skills I had stopped using. Now, I know a lot of people are probably saying, “What scientific skills?” and I will freely admit to not displaying a wide array of holds and picture-perfect pinning predicaments. But you’ve got to understand one thing-I noticed a direct correlation between how many nice moves I did and how many peanut butter sandwiches I had to eat. More skills-more peanut butter. Punching, kicking, and throwing chairs-less peanut butter. So, I more or less decided to dance with the one that brought me, and scientific wrestling became a thing of the past. Still, it’s comforting to know that I have it, and unlike the petrified prophylactic I pulled out in the Caribbean, I’m hoping my old skills will still work.
Guess what, I even got a girlfriend at Mark’s house-an older veteran of the ladies’ circuit. I’ll leave it up to you fans to figure out who it was, but I’ll give you a hint-Adrian Street wrote a song about her called “Mighty Big Girl.” Unfortunately, when we weren’t throwing each other around Tendler’s basement, we didn’t have a whole lot to say, which made me pretty miserable in the relationship, and the whole thing fizzled out about as quickly as an Al Snow entrance pop. Tragically, Mark Tendler’s life would end less than two years later. I had kept in touch with Mark, and had even been to see him at the small nightclub he had just bought. On that night he had told me, “You know, Cactus, it’s impossible to open up a club around here without the right connections.” A week later, my dad told me that Mark had been gunned down outside his club in what appeared to be a professional hit. Whenever I stop to remember Mark, I am always reminded of those last words he said to me.
I was at Brian Hildebrand’s in the early summer of ‘88, when I saw him reading a strange publication called the Wrestling Observer. I had heard about these “dirtsheets” (inside newsletters) that “exposed” wrestling to its readers, but had never actually seen one. At the time, these sheets were probably read by fewer than a thousand people, but nonetheless carried a lot of weight in the business. Men as important as Bill Watts were known to change the company’s direction if the sheets didn’t like what was going on, while many others swore they’d kill the guy who wrote it if they ever found him. In 1990, the guy, Dave Meltzer, introduced himself to me in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I was shocked that he actually appeared in public. I thought he was like Salman Rushdie of The Satanic Verses fame.
“Hey, Brian,” I said, “could I take a look at that thing when you’re done?”
“Sure,” he replied, “you’re in it.”
“I am?” I asked in disbelief. “For what?” Before he could answer, I changed my mind. “Never mind, I’ll read it myself.” When Brian handed me the sheet, I took it to a place where I could concentrate, and it was there, on the bowl of the Hildebrand house in Pittsburgh while squeezing out a solid Snow, that I read the biggest compliment of my young career. “Cactus Jack, who many consider to be the best no-name independent in the country.”
I couldn’t believe it-as much as the Observer was maligned by people in the business, a wrestler getting a favorable write-up was like an actor getting a good review in the New York Times. Whether it was coincidence or not, I’ll never know, but interest in Cactus Jack picked up immediately.
A phone call came in minutes later, which Brian answered. I could tell right away he was excited. “Yes, yes sir. I sure would, Tommy. Thank you very much.” Brian then smiled at me, and continued talking briefly. “Yes, Tommy, as a matter of a fact he’s right here. Would you like to talk to him?”
He handed me the phone, and without a clue as to what was going on, I said, “Hello.”
“Cactus, this is Tommy Gilbert,” the voice informed me. Tommy was Eddie’s dad-a former wrestler himself, and also the referee for my big blunder match with Sam Houston. I didn’t know what to expect.
“Hi, Tommy, how are you?” I asked.
Tommy got right to the point. “Look, I’m going to open up a small territory in Kansas City, and I’d like you and Brian to come. I can’t promise you a lot of money, but you’ll be working full-time. What do you think?” I didn’t need any time to think it over or discuss it with Brian. We both knew the answer. We were going to Kansas City! I hung up the phone, and we jumped around Brian’s living room with our fists pumping in the air.
A few days later, I received a call from Capital Sports in Puerto Rico, also offering me a full-time job. My blood ran cold. A short time earlier, Bruiser Brody had been stabbed to death by a fellow wrestler in the locker room. Apparently Brody, who was one of my heroes, and whose tapes from Japan I had studied for hours, had been stabbed in the stomach by booker Jose Gonzalez. Brody died on the locker room floor an hour later, poisoned by the bile from his own wounded kidney, while waiting for an ambulance that never arrived.
Gonzalez was not only cleared of all charges in a trial because it was ruled to be self-defense, but he was also received as a hero by the Puerto Rican fans, who believed that Gonzalez was like a heroic David slaying the bully Brody.
I vowed never to work for Capital Sports, but ended up spending a weekend there in 1994 at the request of Eddie Gilbert. I will never forget the feeling in my gut when I shook hands with the man who killed Brody. It was a feeling of shame.
I was glad to be able to inform Puerto Rico in 1988 that I wasn’t interested in coming to their island.
Two weeks went by and I hadn’t heard anything from Tommy Gilbert, so when I answered the phone and I was given a starting date in Memphis by booker Randy Hales, I jumped at the opportunity. I never did hear anything else about Kansas City.