Occasionally, pro wrestling produces the unexpected Renaissance man. An athletic kid born into a wrestling family and, as a wrestler, initially saddled with a goofy good-guy gimmick would grow up to be Dwayne Johnson, box-office-conquering superstar. A gaudily dressed, loudmouthed villain nicknamed “The Body” would end up as the governor of Minnesota and, later, hosting a TV show about conspiracy theories.
A third example is Mick Foley, a man who spent years wandering around the wrestling world before finding his greatest fame as Mankind — a deranged, violent masked character — in the World Wrestling Federation in the late 1990s.
While Foley will always be known for being a man apart in his native industry — he built his name by taking incredible risks to satisfy audiences and being a master on the mic — he has long maintained other interests, too. Aside from being an occasional voice actor, noted advocate for anti-sexual violence non-profit RAINN, and the producer of I Am Santa Claus, a new, now-on-Netflix documentary tracking the lives of multiple men who play Saint Nicholas come Christmas season, Foley has had serious success as an author, now having 10 books — non-fiction and fiction alike — to his name.
His authorial debut was 1999’s “Have A Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks.” Hitting No. 1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list for non-fiction, this memoir blew the lid off the wrestling biz for the general public at a time when the industry was a hot pop-culture topic and lingering uncertainties still persisted about whether wrestling was a sport or a show. In a landmark event, an out-of-character Foley openly discussed his career wrestling around the globe, dishing on the personalities, lingo, processes and backstage politics of this once extremely secretive business. “Mick Foley: Tales From Wrestling Past,” his current stand-up/spoken word tour, operates with that same freewheeling spirit, with the Long Island native spilling stories from his days in and out of the ring, fielding questions from the audience and sometimes even bringing a wrestling guest to join him. We caught up with Foley, 49, before he hits Connecticut for a performance at Hartford Funny Bone.
(Note: This interview was conducted in May 2014 to preview a Foley show that was canceled and rescheduled.)
CTNow: As a young wrestling fan, when I first read “Have A Nice Day!” after it came out, it was a big revelation considering how much behind-the-scenes information it had. So much has changed since then. Today, wrestling personalities like ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Colt Cabana and Chris Jericho all have podcasts that discuss the inner workings of wrestling. WWE puts out DVDs that reference behind-the-scenes things. The wrestling world is a very different place than it was before “Have A Nice Day!” came along. Do you feel responsible at all for the way information about wrestling has spread?
Mick Foley: Oh, man. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? … You know what, there was a really interesting article — I can’t remember where and who wrote it — but it was saying the same, kind of giving me credit for treating fans with respect, and for being really honest in opening up the curtain and allowing people to see what goes on in our little world. I always did it with the idea that people would respect it more if they knew what wrestling was, and that they would find the world backstage, behind the scenes and on the road, to be every bit as fascinating as what they saw on the television screen. I believe there would still be podcasts. Maybe I helped pave the way, but that road would have ultimately been constructed anyway.
CTN: One thing that comes up a lot in Have A Nice Day! is music. You talk about singing “Forever in Blue Jeans” to your wife on your first date. You also mention a Leonard Cohen record you once used as a weapon in a match, your love for Tori Amos’ “Winter” and, on one page, Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris. What are you listening to nowadays?
MF: A couple of friends of mine are involved in really cool projects, [such as] Norah Jones’ side project called Puss n Boots. I felt really privileged to see them publicly rehearsing in front of 15 or 20 of their friends. The idea of standing five feet away from Norah Jones and listening to her sing Neil Young’s “Down By The River” was just phenomenal. I compare that to what my kids know of at a concert, which is sitting in a stadium and watching a huge screen. I’m glad I had a chance to see great music played up close and live. In a way, that’s what I hope my show does. It’s almost like an acoustic evening with Mick Foley. As great a spectacle as WrestleMania is, there’s something to be said for seeing a guy you like telling stories from the heart from 20 feet away.
CTN: You posted a picture on Facebook involving former wrestlers Robert Fuller and Gerald Brisco being at one of your shows. What’s been the most interesting or unexpected guest at your shows, or a story that’s emerged that you weren’t expecting to tell?
MF: Part of the reason I do the Q&As is because the questions will occasionally jog a memory that results in a story I otherwise would never have thought to tell. That was the case a while back when someone asked me what the strangest thing I’d ever seen in my career was and asked if it was losing my ear in Germany. I thought about it for a moment and then it was like a lightbulb went off over my head, and I said, ‘You know, that’s not even the strangest thing I’ve seen in Germany.’ All of a sudden, I had a story that I told for the next several months. I cannot go into detail — I don’t care what kind of paper this is, this story took a turn for the worse somewhere in the red light district of Frankfurt — but I love doing the Q&As. Obviously, some of them are better than others depending on the questions, but any time I have a chance to bring out a friend or a legendary wrestling figure, I consider that to be a special treat. [Maybe] a McMahon family member will join me.
CTN: Maybe. That would be incredible. That’s a hell of a cameo, especially in Connecticut.
CTN: In re-reading “Have A Nice Day!” recently, I remembered ‘Lost in Cleveland,’ a series of wacky WCW vignettes about you ending up in a mental hospital, and also a ‘Rain Man’-like character and a crazy Jack Nicholson impersonator. Those always stand out as one of those things from your WCW time that was wrong in tone and wasn’t the right fit for you. From your WWE/WWF time, was there anything that stood out that was a bad storyline or a bad gimmick that made it to air?
MF: That might have to be a multiple choice question. You might have to give me four or five examples, but off the top of my head, I would say nothing approached the levels of awfulness that ‘Lost in Cleveland’ did. What’s funny about that segment is it was actually before its time in that it was completely scripted and heavily produced. A lot of what you see in sports entertainment is that way now, but like you said, it was the wrong tone. Everything about it was wrong, but the idea of filming vignettes as an ongoing saga was not necessarily a bad idea.
CTN: So there’s nothing from WWE or WWF that comes even close to that?
MF: Well, I’m guessing you have a couple in mind.
CTN: I don’t. I’m just fishing around because you never know what somebody would come up with, and you’ve been in so many storylines and segments.
MF: By the time I got to WWE, I had a lot more confidence and willingness to speak up. I knew the ‘Lost in Cleveland’ segment was going to be awful, but once I heard the phrase, ‘We’ll take you off the road for four months and pay you’ [while WCW promoted the vignettes], I was completely sold, and I took that time to have some much-needed knee surgery. All was not lost. I was home for four months, I had knee surgery. When I came back, in people’s minds, they realized it was ridiculous, and they were just happy to see me back again.
CTN: Looking back cumulatively on your life in wrestling, what have been the biggest life lessons it has taught you about the way people interact or are?
MF: I’ve learned most not to underestimate the importance of making people smile, honestly. For whatever faults people may find in Mr. [Vince] McMahon, he firmly believes in the power and the magic of taking people’s minds off their problems for a few hours a week with his programming. Honestly, short of curing diseases, he feels like that’s the most important contribution he could make. I’ve come to learn that. [I experience this] when you meet a soldier who has just come off his fourth tour of Afghanistan, and he said, ‘You have no idea how much watching your show means to us’ or a young man who said, ‘Look, I was having a lot of trouble during my formative years and your book made me feel like I was not alone.’ That’s what I’ve learned: What we do is not shallow or without merit. What we do is actually really important.
MICK FOLEY: TALES FROM WRESTLING PAST is Sunday, Dec. 14, at 7 p.m. at Hartford Funny Bone, 194 Buckland Hills Drive, Manchester. $25. Information: funnybone.com/Venues/Hartford
