Authors: Mick Foley
As was the custom, the Dude did not celebrate a match without a young lady at his side. The young Dudette who walked down the aisle certainly was a picture of loveliness in her flowered dress and pink bonnet that she had just bought in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. When she was helped into the ring, her eyes were as wide as if she were Cindy Brady when the red light turned on during the quiz show episode. “It’s okay, peanut,” I calmly assured my daughter as “Dude Love, Dude Love Baby” played to the crowd. “Just do what Daddy does.” She then proceeded to imitate my every move, but in a way that was far more graceful than anything I could ever do. When I picked her up and carried her out of the ring and up the aisle, the crowd was applauding warmly. Every face I saw had a smile on it. The Dude may have stunk in the ring, but Vince had been right about one thing-he did make people feel good about themselves.
The Owen classics continued for the next few weeks, but with the added bonus of the still-injured Austin being in Dude’s corner for the match. With Stone Cold at ringside, Owen and I had only one objective-to make Austin break character. If he laughed, our match was successful; if he did not, it wasn’t. There was no other factor to determine victory. We especially knew that we hit pay dirt if we saw him with his head buried in his arm and his body shaking.
One night, in San Jose, we were mildly concerned about our little stinkathon of a match. Dave Meltzer, who wrote the Wrestling Observer newsletter, was in the crowd, and we knew he’d severely blister our effort whether Austin laughed or not. Fun was one thing, but getting ripped to shreds in the underground sheets was another. I approached Owen with my concern. “Do you think maybe we should be a little more serious, seeing as Meltzer’s out there?” I asked.
Owen considered it and gave in. “Sure, Jack, we’ll just have a regular match.”
I went to my dressing room and immediately felt weak in the stomach. Something was definitely wrong. After a few minutes of pondering and soul-searching, I realized what it was. I felt as if a whole choir of ECW fans were shouting in my ear, “You sold out, you sold out.”
“Dammit,” I thought, “I’m the Dude-I’m supposed to suck.” Not only was it expected and gladly accepted, but as Bill Alfonso might have said, “It’s his constitutional right to stink up the building if he so desires.”
I immediately sought out Owen and confessed my sin to him. Just admitting it seemed to help us both. Without a word, we went our separate ways, to search out ludicrous and completely harmless foreign objects to litter the ring with. When I returned, I had a whole mini-Dumpster full of stuff that even my son would have had a hard time selling. There was only one borderline dangerous weapon, and out of respect for my opponent, I brought up the sensitive subject matter. “Owen,” I began, not quite sure how to feel him out for this, “would you mind if I hit you with a bag of popcorn?” With my hands, I pantomimed a circle about the size of a basketball.
He didn’t even pause to think of his own well-being before answering, “Sure, Jack, just not too hard.”
After a few minutes of action so lame it would be hard for the written word to do justice to it, I dug deep into the inner confines of the Dumpster for my secret weapon. I pulled out my supply of the popped kernels, and it was soon apparent that I’d taken advantage of my opponent’s trust in me. For in my hands was a bag of popcorn that was somewhat larger than a basketball-in fact, it was a Hefty Cinch Sack filled to the brim with the dangerous snack. I’m sure that in Owen’s eyes, I must have looked like a tie-dyed Grinch on the top of Mount Krumpett. Up went the bag, and down it came with so much force that I resembled a pimply-faced fifteen-year-old trying to ring a bell with his hammer, so he could impress his skanky girlfriend with a cheap-ass stuffed animal at the local carnival. The impact buckled Owen’s knees, but he gamely continued until the blows wore him down and he collapsed in a pile of the salty snack food.
I should have stayed on him, but I couldn’t resist the urge to showboat, so I stuffed a handful of the corn into my mouth and turned to give the San Jose faithful a glimpse of the Dude’s “twenty-three skidoo” knock-kneed Love dance. When I returned, Owen was ready, and caught me with a boot and a series of weak chops and kicks to my buttocks area that sent me down in the middle of the corn, which by now was strewn about the ring. As he put the boots to me, I lay on my stomach and simultaneously waved my arms overhead and kicked my feet from side to side. When I got up, there was a huge “popcorn angel” in the ring where I had lain. I looked at Austin. He was trying to cover his face, but I could see his stomach shaking and tears rolling down his face. “You two are the shits,” was all he could manage to say. That analysis from the Texas Rattlesnake was worth more than any number of stars the Wrestling Observer could have possibly given us.
I picked up the ringing phone on an early September morning in 1997. We had moved three weeks earlier to the Florida Panhandle, but our house was not quite ready to move into and as a result, boxes were strewn everywhere in our small apartment. “Hello,” I sleepily answered.
The voice on the other end was anything but sleepy, due to the fact that the man it belonged to had probably downed a half-dozen cups of coffee in the first two hours of the workday. “Mick, this is Vince, and I want to run something by you for this Monday. We would like you to be Cactus Jack in Madison Square Garden,” he told me.
A big smile broke out over my face. “Are you sure?” I asked, with my mind going back to those annual thirty-second phone calls with J. J. F’ing Dillon.
Vince was right there to answer my question, “Mick, this is going to be huge,” he said before adding, “I’ve got to admit, pal, I never thought I’d see Cactus Jack in the World Wrestling Federation.”
“Neither did I, Vince,” I echoed. “Neither did I.”
I arrived in Stamford, Connecticut, on Sunday evening and had dinner at the home of Joey Styles, the ECW play-by-play man. We reminisced about the old days, and he even asked me if I thought Cactus Jack would ever have a shot in the World Wrestling Federation. “I don’t know, Joey,” I lied right through my missing teeth, “but I doubt it.” I hated to lie to a friend, but I wanted the whole Cactus Jack return to be a mystery. When I returned to my hotel, I slept restlessly for a few hours, before being awakened for my short ride to the Titan TV studios. Chris Chambers was there to guide me through eight hours of special effects, technical innovations, and if you don’t mind my saying so, tour de force performances on the part of Dude Love, Mankind, and, in a cameo, Cactus Jack, that resulted in all three characters appearing on the Titantron at once. The creative lead-in had really set the stage for the return of the Hardcore Legend.
I was nervous as hell while the piece played, because I honestly didn’t know what kind of reaction Cactus Jack would get in New York City. It had been a year and half since Cactus had existed and three since he had been on national television. Wrestling fans have notoriously short memories, and I wondered if the MSG fans would even have seen my WCW exploits.
My doubts were all assuaged, however, when the on-screen Mankind yelled “Cactus Jack is back!” The response of the crowd was shocking in its sheer volume. I had been hoping for a nice reaction, but this had surpassed anything I could have hoped for. When I emerged through the curtain, it was the loudest reaction I’d ever been a part of. My ECW sendoff was more emotional and more heartfelt, but this audience was almost twenty times larger, and for that one evening, they were mine, mine, all mine!
The match itself may have been my best outing of 1997, and by the time I piledrove Triple H on a table at the top of the ring, it was as if a new/old star had been born/reborn. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I had continued from that point as Cactus Jack. It might have been huge, or it might have died out. Who knows for sure? Also, a full-time Cactus Jack would have nullified the strange events of the next year that resulted in Mankind’s sudden ascent in 1998.
Fans often ask about that night and wonder what I was thinking on my way down the ramp. The truth is, my mind was full of mixed emotions when I heard the reaction at MSG. On one hand, I was basking in the adulation and felt like I was on top of the world. On the other hand, I was thinking about my thirty-second calls with J. J. F’ing Dillon and his assertion that I was lucky to have a job. I had watched Mr. F’ing Dillon for years and always wondered how his interviews as the manager of the Four Horsemen, which were delivered with all the flash and sizzle of a UPS truck, had kept him working at all. Yes, Mr. F’ing Dillon, you may have been half-right during our half-minute conversations-one of us was lucky to have a job.
I had just found out a few months earlier about Vince’s contention from years gone by that Cactus Jack “doesn’t look like a star.” I hope that even someone as wise as Vince truly is learned a lesson about judging a book by its cover.
Actually, I believe it was Vince’s admission in October that he wasn’t always right that allowed the World Wrestling Federation to truly excel. Brian Pillman had tragically been found dead in a Minneapolis motel room a day earlier. Vince called a meeting of all the guys to address Brian’s death but informed us that maybe time had passed him by and that some of the old formulas that had been successful for so long were simply outdated. He was a big enough man to shift responsibility to the wrestlers for much of their character development. That was really the meeting that did away with ridiculous gimmicks and ushered in a new era of realistic human beings that people could actually relate to. This was more or less the birth of the Federation’s “attitude” campaign.
Almost immediately old gimmicks were switched, and guys became, to some extent, themselves. Gone was the stodgy, rich persona of Hunter Hearst Helmsley, to be replaced by a wise-ass, double-entendre-spouting Triple H. The Real Double J was taken off Titan death row and was given new life as the Road Dogg. Rockabilly took off his bedazzled Kmart special jacket, dyed his hair to its natural state, and became Bad Ass Billy Gunn. Rocky Maivia deep-sixed his Chia Pet hairstyle and stereotyped ass-kissing persona to become The Rock. Even Howard Finkel developed a bit of ‘tude. For some of the guys, it was too late. If Vader had come in right off the get-go as a killer, he would have drawn big money. Instead, the cowardly Vader never really found his niche. I actually had a very difficult time adjusting to the new Federation “attitude,” even though it would take several months for the business to pass me by. Catching back up would be one of the biggest challenges of my career.
No one will ever forget the Survivor Series of November 1997. It was without a doubt the most controversial night in the history of the business, the ramifications of which are still being felt today. It was also a night in which my World Wrestling Federation career nearly ended.
I still do not know all the details that set the wheels of the Survivor Series controversy in motion, so I will be somewhat brief in outlining its history. Problems seemed to arise when Brett Hart resigned from the Federation, after being wooed by WCW. Brett had been and still was a huge star for Vince McMahon, and had held all the company’s major titles, including the world belt on several occasions. In the midst of the ratings war with Turner, Vince felt that the loss of Brett would be devastating to his company and so pulled strings that had previously been unheard of to keep his star. Vince was unable to match the yearly salary that WCW was offering and so, in a sense, offered Brett a lifetime contract that would offer him more over a greater length of time. Brett, it should be mentioned, had a great sense of loyalty to the Federation and took the lifetime contract.
Almost immediately, problems arose, not the least of which was Shawn Michaels pulling out of WrestleMania with a knee injury. Brett saw this as a slap in the face from a man he already did not personally care for. The locker room incident had not done a whole lot to pacify the tension.
It should be noted also that Brett was not at all comfortable with the new Federation “attitude,” which seemed to push actual wrestling to the rear in favor of story lines and liberal doses of mature content.
Worse yet, with his company in certain financial straits, Vince had gone to Brett and asked to restructure his salary. Brett had balked, and at the time Vince allowed Brett to reopen negotiations with WCW, which would let him work with the Federation until December 5. There was only one problem: Brett was still the World Wrestling Federation champion, and no one seemed to quite know how to get the belt off of him. Brett offered several scenarios, but there was one story line that he was dead set against-he would not lose his title to Shawn Michaels. If Brett had gotten his way, Stone Cold or I would have had the damn belt, and none of the bizarre series of events would have unfolded.
In the midst of all of this, I had a problem: I had not brought my passport to Canada for the Montreal Pay-Per-View. I was very afraid of being detained at the Montreal airport by Canadian police, which was a fairly common occurrence at the Canadian borders. Many wrestlers would have their bags and even their shoes cut open or destroyed by overzealous border cops trying to look like big shots. I had rented a car, which I had planned to drive from Friday’s show in Detroit to Saturday’s show in Toronto, before driving the 400 miles to Montreal. In Detroit, Owen’s buddy Ronnie Gaffe offered to put me up at his home in Hamilton and drive me the rest of the loop. I knew Ronnie looked forward to these road trips for months, so I agreed to tag along. Also, the prospect of driving all night before my big matchup with Kane was a prospect that I was not looking forward to. So I headed off for a trip with the Gaffer, unaware that the absence of my car would have a greater effect than I could imagine.
I was very proud of my match with Kane, who was in the beginning of a huge push as an unstoppable monster. A chokeslam he had given me outside the ring had actually dented the steel ramp structure, something that mightily impressed our road technicians. I thought I had been successful in adding both to Kane’s aura of a monster and my aura of never backing down. I was sore but satisfied as I settled down in front of the monitor for the main event.