Foley is Good



That my friends is the greatest wrestling promo ever cut. Period. And the reason Mick Foley is one of my big three. The big three are the pillars of my intellectual and philosophical influences. They are the lifeline to this man and above all the reason why I wake up in the morning and continue to live my life. Mick Foley, Wes Eisold, and Andy Kaufman are my three biggest heros and I will attempt, though jumbled as it may sound, to explain why Mick Foley is among them.

A lot of people wonder why a wrestler means so much to me and why something as superficial as a wrestling can captivate me and stimulate me artistically in ways that some music fails miserably. The truth is, I don't know. I've been watching wrestling since I was a little kid and through all the terrible times I had to go through I could watch this shit and escape for an hour or two. These guys were my heroes. It was a fantasy life that I could escape to when the world (even for a six year old) got to be a little much. When I was ten, it was the first time I ever saw Mankind. He scared me. He made me want to change the channel. He made me want to not watch wrestling. But oddly enough, I found myself rooting for him in all his matches. His classic battles against the Undertaker, his match against Shawn Michaels. I liked him because he was depressed, sad, different, not good looking, and just wanted to be loved--all the things a marginally disturbed pre-teen like myself felt at the time.

Mankind quickly became my favorite wrestler, not for his wrestling skills but mainly for his personna. He was a man beaten by time and passed on by the world, yet he still kept fighting, a character at the tender age of 11, I identified with. I got to know Mick's other characters like Dude Love, the outlandish, and yet strangely charming surf funker. And Cactus Jack, the deranged madman that only like to hurt people. Each one of these characters I saw a little of myself in, especially Mankind. When Mick was thrown off the cage, it was a turning point in my life. As he points out in "Have A Nice Day", it was the moment that made his career, but for me, it was the moment that changed my adolescent life. I realized that if a man can endure this much physical pain, this much punishment, then my life really wasn't all too bad. Even at my most depressed moments during my teenage life, I only had to think of Mick's body lying motionless in thumbtacks for me to realize, some guys have to blow themselves up to make a living (not that there's anything wrong with that). The bottom line was Mick Foley made me feel good about myself, a feat that is rarely matched by any other idol I have.

I watched his career progress and began to retroactively root for his Cactus Jack character in all the ECW matches I would watch. Mick was a consimate performer,despite his lack of physical talent, a trait which always resonated with me. He was a wordsmith and the best fucking actor the wrestling world has ever seen. It's promos like "Cane Dewey" that make me belive that there is a place for a thinking man in wrestling, and by all means when it came to wrestling, Mick Foley was definitely the thinking man's Terry Funk.

When Mick started writing, it was so cool to me. I always had an interest in writing from when I first learned how to form sentences and here my favorite wrestler was penning autobiographies and novels. I look up to Mick Foley in a manner that sadly I never looked up to my dad in. It's because Mick not only was crazy, deranged and disturbed like I felt I was, but he was also charming, funny, charasmatic, and a talented writer, all of things I definitely thought I was. This man's life was the ultimate in lives for me. He has fulfilled all his dreams, and I look to him as the gold standard in living your life by your own means according to your dreams. His writing inspires me because it's not stilted or pretentious in any way. It's true, simple but so descriptive and rambled. ANd his wrestling style is like my poetry. He can't fight. He can't grapple, but the motherfucker can pick up a trashcan and beat you senseless before falling over after being beaten so unmercifully.

Now I find myself emulating his style, much like I did when I was a teenager. Yes I admit it. When I saw Mick get thrown off the cage I wanted to do dangerous shit too. I got thrown off of roofs, smashed by chairs, driven through plywood and drywall, cut with blades, powerbombed onto floors. But I only did it because it made me feel good, the way Mick made me feel. Now I'm passed that and yet, I still find myself emulating him except this time in my writing. A lot of my creative writing is somehwat nonsensical with extreme digressions, but simple and heartfelt nonetheless. And while there is tons of room for improvement, I'm proud that Mick Foley is the biggest literary influence when it comes to the development of my literary voice. When it comes to fighting, I never was a very good fighter, but I get a feeling if I got into a fight now, you'd see a little Foley come out in me. And that quite frankly is a fucking scary thought.

I don't think I did a very good job explaining why he means so much to me. I suppose trying to sum into the words the reason why your hero means so much to you is extremely difficult, and fucking impossible if your hero happens to be a professional wrestler. All I know is that Mick Foley gave all loveable losers out there a hope. He made the tired, weary, and burnt out seem like they could keep on fighting. He also let me know that just because you fulfill one dream, doesn't mean you can't go for broke and accomplish another. Above all Mick Foley made me feel good about who I was. Whether its the Dude Love in me that comes out when I'm at parties and chatting it up with the dudes and the dudettes, the Cactus Jack in me that comes out when I'm picking fights with J-Crew wearing fuckbags, or the Mankind in me that comes home tired every day from work, just wanting to drink and go to sleep, I can safely say that I feel comfortable in who I am and owe a lot of it to Mick.

I won't say Foley is god, because he never felt comfortable when fans like me referred to him as god. I will say though that Foley is good. Foley is damn good.

- Cactus.