Authors: Mick Foley
I had heard of Owen’s reputation as a “ribber” but couldn’t appreciate it until I saw him in action. We were in Colorado in July 1996. Business had been up, but this particular crowd was uncharacteristically small. I felt like part of the reason was the show’s promoter, a likeable but somewhat goofy-looking cowboy, who seemed content just to hang out with the guys-good house or not. Midway through the card, I looked at Owen and saw him wearing headphones and yelling into the accompanying microphone. “Do it,” Owen yelled, “just do it!” I saw Owen listen, and then he yelled some more. “I don’t care if there’s a match going on … I’m the promoter, and I say play the damn music now.” This was vintage Owen-attempting to get the sound guy to play the wrong music at inappropriate times. Except not only was this sound guy not cooperating, he was getting hot. But this just made Owen happy. He loved a challenge. “Oh, yeah, well come on down, tough guy-I won’t be hard to find. I’ve got a big cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots that I’ll stick right up your ass. Oh, yeah, come on down, you bastard, so I can smash my big-ass belt buckle right over your head.” I looked over and saw a man who looked exactly like the man that Owen had just described. Same hat, same boots, same big-ass belt buckle. It was the affable promoter, grinning goofily, without a clue that Owen Hart was attempting to arrange an impromptu meeting between him and an angry soundman.
Sometimes Owen’s ribs didn’t seem so funny at the time. We were in the middle of a ten-day tour in the summer of 1997 and were touching down in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Because this was not a usual Federation stop, we were met at the airport baggage claim by a large number of fans. One of them had a camcorder, and I could see on his video screen that he was zooming in on fellow wrestler Chyna’s breasts. I went over right away and told the guy that not only was he to stop filming, but he was to rewind his tape and retape over the offensive part. I was hot, and the guy looked like a sheep molester anyway. In a flash, Owen was there to lend a helping hand. “Hey, you two,” he said in his phony overexaggerated way. “How about I get some footage of you two together?” I was hot and getting hotter.
“Stop it, Owen,” I demanded. “This guy’s a little pervert.”
“Oh, come on, Jack,” Owen cheerily answered back. “Come on, he’s a big fan. Let’s get some footage. Maybe you can put your arm around him, Jack.”
I was still hot, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle. “Owen,” I pleaded with him, but it was no use. I’d lost the fight. Now when that little pervert from Newfoundland watches his home videos, he not only has clips of Chyna’s breasts, but tape of me with my arm around him as well. He could drive you crazy, and tick you off, but I find myself laughing out loud when I think of Owen now.
He was the undisputed king of the prank phone calls as well. He would drive the guys crazy by calling their rooms, pretending to be an autograph-seeking fan. “What are you … too big a star to come down here and sign?” he’d yell into the phone. “Never mind, just give me your room number, and I’ll be right up to get them myself.” Inevitably, he’d offer to fight them, and many was the time a furious wrestler came running to the lobby … only to find a calm Owen saying, “What’s wrong, you look upset!”
Owen got me one night in Toledo, Ohio, after I’d bragged to him about what a great rate I’d gotten at the Red Roof Inn. We would always tip each other off as to where the good deals were, because, like me, Owen liked to save his money, but also like me, he’d spare no expense on his family. I was just about to drift off when the phone rang, and a pleasant-sounding man with a soft English accent said, “Hello, Mr. Foley, how are you this evening?” I could literally picture this guy with gray hair and glasses, and a thick wool sweater. The man continued in his pleasant way. “Mr. Foley, I’m afraid that after checking our accounts, we have found that we did not charge you enough money for your room.”
I was stunned. I had been in wrestling for over thirteen years at that point and had never heard of raising a rate after checking in. “Sir, I don’t think you can do that,” I politely stated.
“Oh, young man, I’m afraid I can and … wait, wait, wait … are you one of the wrestlers?” the old gentleman wanted to know.
“Yes sir, I am” I was glad to tell him.
The old man spoke again. “Wrestling … hmmm … isn’t that all fake?”
I was kind of perplexed, but I wasn’t about to lose my rate, and besides, I knew how to handle this. “Well, sir,” I pleasantly began, “it’s about sixty-seven percent real, one guy got down to sixty-two, and they had to let him go.”
But the old man wasn’t buying my line. “Oh, Mr. Foley, you’re very funny, but just last week, I saw you stomping your foot on the mat instead of really hitting somebody. I used to box, you know.”
Now I was starting to become perturbed. “Sir, I really don’t think you should be calling up customers and insulting their livelihood.”
The old man instantly apologized. “Oh, Mr. Foley, I’m so sorry … please forgive me.” After I did and assured him everything was fine, he spoke up one more time. “I’m afraid I’m still going to have to raise your rate.”
“What?” I yelled, when suddenly I heard laughter on the other end of the line. I knew I’d been had by the best. “Owen,” I yelled, “you prick!”
Everything he did seemed to be done with a sense of both innocence and mischief. In a beautiful column that Brett wrote in the Calgary Sun, he said, “Owen never stopped looking at the world through the eyes of a child.” That trait made every day a new adventure for Owen. Whether he was “accidentally” marking up your hand during an autograph session, writing a sappy “Let’s be friends” over where you’d just signed your name, or pulling the emergency brake on poor fan/friend Ronnie Gaffe’s truck in the middle of traffic, he truly seemed to love every day.
He had a seriousness to him as well, but far from being a dark side, it may have actually been the part of him I enjoyed most. He didn’t drink, disdained drugs, and was the only guy in the company who went out less than I did. He truly loved his wife and kids, Oje and Athena, and his face used to light up when he spoke of them, which was often. He spoke of simple pleasures, like hot chocolate on a porch swing with his wife and planning Disney vacations for his family. His wife said they had not only their next day planned together, but their next month and year, and the next forty years as well. I used to tell my wife that of all the guys, Owen was the most like me. I realize now that it was probably wishful thinking on my part. He was better than me. He was the best of us. He was probably the nicest, funniest, most moral man I have ever met. As I write this, I am reminded of a song titled “Reflections” that was written by Charlie Daniels over twenty years ago, and which I will paraphrase just slightly for Owen:
And Owen, my buddy, above all the rest
I miss you the most, and I love you the best
And now that you’re gone, I thank God I was blessed
Just to know you.
I can’t interpret every line literally, except for the last one, for there were people who knew Owen longer, loved him better, and will miss him more. But, Owen, I do thank God that I was blessed just to know you. Rest in peace, my aggravating, instigating, wonderful friendand may God bless your beautiful wife and children.
Business was rolling along as we looked toward Summerslam, which was traditionally the second biggest show of the year. Shawn Michaels was getting over well as champion and would be facing Vader as half of a double main event. The other half would pit me and Undertaker in a boiler room brawl. The concept of the boiler room brawl was simple but somewhat unusual. The match would start with the two of us inside the boiler room at the Gund Arena in Cleveland and would continue until one of us could leave the room and gain possession of the Undertaker’s urn, which Paul Bearer (‘Taker’s manager) held in midring.
I love the concept and had actually given similar ideas to WCW, which, not surprisingly, had fallen on deaf ears. By having a match that was unique to television and could not be replicated in arena shows, I felt we had a great ratings draw on our hands. We actually taped the boiler room part of the match the night before the Pay-Per-View and filmed everything else live. Undertaker had been out most of the day in a promotional appearance and was exhausted when he arrived. He then dressed and walked into an empty boiler room.
The match was either a classic or a disaster, depending on whom you talk to-there was really no middle ground. I believed the former and in many ways, the boiler room brawl felt more like an unloved child, whose goodness only I could see. I had read interviews in which actor Billy Crystal felt much the same way about his movie Mr. Saturday Night, which was a personal favorite that had met with poor response. I told a mutual friend, Barry Blausteen, who has been working on a wrestling documentary for the past four years, that Mr. Saturday Night had been a particular favorite among several wrestlers, including myself, and was told that Billy really appreciated it. So if any fans want to stop me in an airport and heap praise on my unloved child, I would feel much the same way.
I remember Michael Hayes pumping me up before I stepped into the room by saying, “Cactus, this is the match that you’ll be showing your grandchildren, and saying, ‘This is what Grandpa used to do.’” I stepped in and waited for the ‘Taker to arrive. The psychology was that in “the room,” I would have the advantage,. because since Mankind’s Federation debut, he had been filmed inside the room, as if it were his lair. My heart was pounding as he came near. There was no crowd to pump us up, so a great deal of mental preparation had gone into my prematch ritual. I had to fight the urge to feel stupid inside this big, dark room with only one cameraman as a spectator. Looking back, I honestly feel that there were three things wrong with the match-two of them conceptual and one of them in the execution. For one thing, the entire match was a one-camera shot in dark, murky conditions. The cameraman did a tremendous job, but I later felt that the whole thing had looked like a well-done love movie instead of a Pay-Per-View main event. The second conceptual problem was even more damaging, although the decision itself was born out of a compliment. Vince liked the match so much that he decided not to do commentary over it, even though, as usual, I had visualized much of the match with Vince and J. R. in mind. The third fault, if you can call it that, was that the brawl itself was just too long. Seventeen minutes inside the room itself was an awfully long time, and many people could not see past the silence and length to see the quality and intensity of what we were doing.
One journalist described it as being “like a Hollywood fight scene, except way too long.” I think that needs to be rethought a little. A three-minute Hollywood fight scene can take weeks to rehearse and film. We did ours in one take, with one camera. So I think a more accurate critique might read “like a Hollywood fight scene except without rehearsing, choreography, editing, special effects, sound effects, grips, or a best boy.” It may have been too long, but damn, we put a lot into it, including a bump that went astray.
Near the end of the match, I had Undertaker down and pulled out a ladder from the darkness. As usual, I could hear the announcer in my head as the match progressed. “He’s got a ladder, J. R …. I believe he’s going to attempt to hit the … “
“No Vince, Mankind is setting the ladder up and is ascending its wooden rungs.”
“J. R., he must be ten, fifteen, twenty feet in the air-UNBELIEVABLE!”
Unfortunately, we got nothing of the sort, even though the live crowd seemed to enjoy watching on the monitors in the arena-especially when Undertaker sat up and dumped me off the ladder. He was able to pull the ladder toward him, and as I started to go, I tried to land in relative safety on a pile of cardboard boxes that were scattered on the floor. Unfortunately, the top of the ladder became caught on the rafters of the boiler room, and I was landed violently several feet short of my intended target. My upper body landed somewhat safely, but my lower half (where I actually store nine-tenths of my body weight) landed roughly on the cold, hard concrete below. The botched landing would actually result in the onset of a seven-month sciatic nerve problem that, for a while, I legitimately thought would cause me to retire.
I was actually the first one out of the room, but I was feeling much worse for the wear. We had both beaten on each other pretty good, and I was ready to crash into a comfortable bed after a long, hot shower. Instead, I stood for over an hour inside the building, waiting for one of the TV contract guys to show up in his rented Lincoln and take me to my crummy Days Inn room, across the street from the porno shops, before checking himself into the Marriott.
The next evening, we picked up where we had left off, with me trying to get to the ring, and ‘Taker beating on me the whole way there. I kept throwing obstacles in his way, and like Michael Myers from Halloween, he kept coming back. I finally got the edge with a somewhat less than my best piledriver, and tried to enter the ring, where Paul Bearer nervously held the sacred urn. The cold, purple-gloved hand of the Dead Man stopped my progress, and we jockeyed for position on the ring apron. ‘Taker stopped me for a moment and, using the ropes as a slingshot, hurled my body backward, where it crashed flat-backed on the concrete (which was cold and hard) with a sickening thud. He then dropped to one knee and reached out with his waiting glove for the urn that would signify victory.
There was only one problem for the ‘Taker-Paul wouldn’t give it to him. He held out his hand again, this time impatiently, while the crowd stood up, and I rolled back into the ring. Undertaker got to his feet, but I was there to cut him off with my mandible claw. Once down, the Undertaker started crawling toward Paul, as I laid in heavy, and I do mean heavy, boots to the head. I can’t believe that I kicked someone I actually liked that hard, even if it was a big show. Even with the boots slowing down his progress, he kept crawling to Paul until he was on his knees and looking at his chubby buddy with a “why me” look that made me think of Nancy Kerrigan after the Gillooley/Harding pipe job scandal. Uncle Paul then methodically lifted the magic urn and came down hard with it on the Dead Man’s head. He handed me the urn, and we left triumphantly as a team. Undertaker and I had been wrestling each other for five months, but in essence were just getting started.