With that, the audience broke out in laughter, but The Rock never cracked a smile. Jnstead, he uttered a Rockism and cocked his head back to prepare for his "if you smell what The Rock is cookin'" line. When he did this, his glasses fell off and plopped unceremoniously to the canvas. He was at a loss for words or actions. He couldn't very well pretend to be cool and deliver the line without his glasses. That would be like the Fonz saying "Hey" after falling off his bike. He couldn't bend down and put them back on. That would be like Michael Steadman and Elliot trying to fool Hope and Nancy into thinking that. . . never mind, a thirtysomething reference isn't really appropriate here.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes but what was probably only a few seconds, I bent down, picked up the glasses, and put them on The Rock's head myself. This time The Rock smiled, a huge smile, and said "The Rock thanks you for that," before asking me if I detected the aroma of his culinary efforts.
When we stepped through the curtain, we were both besieged by the boys in the back, who thought it was one of the classic moments in sports-entertainment. Two nights later I watched the show, eagerly anticipating this special moment. Here it comes—belt up the ass, it won't fit, if you smell what The Rock is cookin'. . . . Wait, what happened to our great moment? I never found out who made the final call, but the word I got is that it had been edited out because it wouldn't have been good for The Rock's character. Not good? It would have been great. What better way to show some warmth in his character than with an unplanned moment that we couldn't duplicate if we tried. Somebody had dropped the ball.
I know that The Rock's style works for him, but in issuing threats, I believe in adhering to a certain sense of reality. For example, if former Ultimate Fighting champion Ken Shamrock said, "I'm going to tear your shoulder out of its socket and then snap your Achilles tendon," I'd be likely to believe him. If World Wrestling Federation wrestler/human mannequin Steve Blackman said, "I'm going to dismember and decapitate you and dispose of your body in an abandoned mine shaft in eastern Pennsylvania," I would tend to believe him as well. But a championship belt turned sideways and shoved someplace never meant for that kind of storage capacity? No way.
So, kids, when using threats, always make sure you can back them up. Otherwise you'll sound as preposterous as people who actually use the following two threats. In theory, they may sound tough, but in practice, I just don't see the odds of bringing them to fruition being all that good. To illustrate the absurdity of these threats, I am going to insert fictional detectives Bill Tuesday and Fox Scully into a fictional hunt for two missing bodies. Imagine, if you will, a dark alley in a bad part of town. The smell of urine permeates the humid summer night as the detectives' flashlights cut through the darkness like swords.
"Hey, Fox, I think I've got something here. There's a human head and a trail of human feces that leads to the body ...oh no, it seems as if someone has ripped off his head and shit down his neck!"
"Tuesday, this could be even worse. I've got a body here with both eye sockets exposed. There seems to be a proliferation of some type of white liquid ...oh my goodness, this man has had his eyes pulled out and has been skull-fucked to death!"
21. "This Is Your Life"
THE SEPTEMBER 27, 1999, edition of Raw was a monumental show, both as a success and a failure. "This Is Your Life" with Mankind and The Rock would represent not only the high point of The Rock 'n' Sock Connection and Vince Russo's last great World Wrestling Federation idea, but an example of a great opportunity lost as well.
I had participated in the "Six-Pack Challenge" main event of the Unforgiven Pay-Per-View a night earlier, along with Kane, Triple H, Big Show, British Bulldog, and The Rock. During the buildup of the show, I had agonized over what to do should I find myself face-to-face with The Rock and had even claimed to "know how Meryl Streep felt at the end of Sophie's Choice." Granted, a great deal of our audience had never seen the movie, but I still thought it was a clever line—until seeing Sophie's Choice again a few nights ago. Somehow, after watching Streep's heart-wrenching performance, it no longer seemed like an appropriate punch line at a wrestling show. Toward the end of the match, I had surprised The Rock with a double-arm DDT for a near win (Triple H got the win) and felt horrible about it the following evening. So horrible in fact that I prepared a special surprise.
The segment was supposed to last fifteen minutes, and was set to start off the ten o'clock hour, but was teased with little vignettes throughout the opening hour. After every match, the camera would cut to me holding balloons and a giant book, with a mystery figure cloaked under the secrecy of a blue bedsheet. "Wait until The Rock sees you," I told the mysterious sheet wearer, "he's going to go BANANA!"
"Banana," with no S on the end was my tribute to wrestling legend/stooge Pat Patterson. Patterson was of French-Canadian descent, and despite having lived in the United States (or United State as he would say) for over thirty years, he had never completely mastered the difference between singulars and plurals. As a result, he had once told a small group of wrestlers that "at this point the Undertaker will go completely banana," to which I responded, "Will the crowd then go absolutely NUT?"
Pat's plural problem had once led to me having my hopes dashed, when, in the mid-eighties, my parents informed me that Mr. Patterson had called my house and wanted me to work for the World Wrestling Federation. At the time Pat was Vince McMahon's right-hand man, and a call from Pat was like a trip to Shangri-la for a young wrestler. Still, I sensed it might be a rib. I knew how to weed out a Patterson impostor. "Dad, did the guy mess up his singulars and plurals?" I asked. My dad's answer made my day. "Oh, the guy's English was horrible." Yes, it really was Pat. Hooray!
I called Patterson's office every day for two weeks and left messages. When I visited my parents at the end of that time, my mom played me the message, and I knew right away that I'd been had. "Helios, this is Pat Pattersons calling to tell you that we thinks you is one of the greatest wrestler we have seens." It was Shane Douglas, speaking English that was even worse than Pat's, playing the always-funny trick of fooling someone into thinking that their dream has come true.
Only about six people in the world even knew what the joke was, but a one-out-of-every-million ratio seemed reasonable to me. Finally, after an hour of making the world wait, I made my way to the ring, along with my trusty mystery sidekick. Rumor had been rampant about which Superstar could be beneath the sheet. Abdullah the Butcher? Terry Funk? Spaceman Frank Hickey? Only I knew for sure.
Recently, The Rock too began paying homage to Patterson's unique verbal stylings by calling his "spinebuster" move the "pinebuster."
I picked up the mike and asked for The Rock. The "Great One" made his way to the ring and demanded to know the meaning of this intrusion. I explained that I was sorry about the DDT at the "Six-Pack Challenge" and this was important, this was historic ..."This Is Your Life."
With that, balloons fell from the ceiling, confetti filled the air, and the strains of "Happy Days Are Here Again" burst from the speakers. I then proceeded to pull out names from The Rock's past, and upon their arrival into the ring, The Rock would systematically tear them apart with his verbal skills. One by one, they were sent on their way. Betty Griffith, his home-economics teacher. Gone, because she wouldn't allow The Rock to make pancakes. Everett Hart, his high-school football coach. Gone, because he took The Rock out of the game before he could own the state single-game sack record. Joanna Imbriani, his high-school sweetheart. Gone, for cutting The Rock off as he tried to cop a feel on the couch.
In reality, these people were all actors and their names were all taken from my own life experiences. Everett Hart was the name of Ward Melville High School's football coach. Betty Griffith was my kindergarten teacher. Joanne Imbriani was my tribute to my buddy John Imbriani, who I had also paid tribute to in Have a Nice Day! by spelling his name eleven different ways.
These actors were a little bit shocked to see that The Rock and I didn't rehearse for a fifteen-minute
segment. I introduced them to The Rock a half hour before the segment, and he asked me how I wanted to go about doing it. "Rock, I'll say something to bring out the home-ec teacher, and then you say something to get rid of her, then I'll introduce the coach, and you'll get rid of him. And then the girlfriend will come out, and you'll get rid of her. Okay?" And that was pretty much it. Unfortunately, it wasn't "pretty much it" for the segment, which had already run its allotted fifteen minutes, and still had plenty left to go.
First, I unveiled the mystery guest, who turned out to be . . . drumroll please . . . YURPLE! That's right, the lovely clown who had accompanied me to the hospital for the birth of Mr. Socko. Together we presented The Rock with his presents—matching Rock 'n' Sock Connection jackets, and a "Mr. Rocko" sock with a tremendous image of The Rock on it—before regaling him with a 20,000-strong sing-along of Happy Birthday to You.
"That's great," The Rock said with disgust, "but there's only one problem. It's not The Rock's birthday, you idiot." I wasn't so crazy about the "idiot" reference, but it was The Rock's next reaction that was going to make this whole segment and get us where we needed to go, angle-wise. I put my head down and slowly spoke like a child who's just been yelled at. "I know, Rock, but it's just that every day I get to spend with you feels like somebody's birthday."
Okay, here it comes. The reaction I'd been waiting for. The big smile, the amused laugh. Okay, Rock, I'm ready. But they never came. So we lost the opportunity to further our angle—to plant a seed. I needed those seeds, or else I couldn't turn heel. I also needed to have a little respect shown to me which, by refusing to be gracious, The Rock didn't do. The Rock 'n' Sock was a huge success, but hell, The Rock by himself was already a huge success. We didn't really need to be teaming unless it was going to lead us somewhere.
As I write this, I am currently the "Commissioner" of the World Wrestling Federation. It is truly the easiest job in the business, as I get to have all of the fun with none of the pain. On my first night back with the company, The Rock approached me and we reminisced about the days of The Rock 'n' Sock Connection. He even gave me what almost sounded like an apology. "Mick, when we were teamed up, I was new to being a babyface, and I almost felt like I was walking on eggshells. But I just watched some of that stuff we did, and man, that really was some funny shit. If we were to do things together now, I'd be up for anything."
Eight days after that talk, we were back in the ring. The Rock had a catchphrase that consisted of asking a person a question and then cutting him off with "it doesn't matter what you think/want/say/wear" and so on. Personally, I hated the phrase, because there was always some yahoo at a personal appearance who would use it, and it was really annoying. On this night, however, The Rock suggested that I use his own phrase on him.
"Rock, congratulations on being a three-time World Wrestling Federation Champion. In my opinion, this has to put you up there with the greatest World Wrestling Federation Champions of all time. I was wondering if you could tell me what you think about that." At the moment The Rock got his first syllable out, I was there for the cutoff. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!"
With that, I jumped up in the air and pumped my fist like an out-of-shape white guy with a Slick Watts seventies-style headband sinking a three-pointer at rec league. "Yes, yes." I then took off for a celebratory lap around the ring while the crowd chanted my name. "Foley, Foley, Foley." As I was running, I looked up at the ring and at The Rock. He was sporting a huge smile and was shaking his head in disbelief.
That's it, I thought, that's the look. If The Rock had given me that same look in September 1999, my whole career would have taken a different path.
"This Is Your Life" was not a total disaster. While sitting in the lunchroom the following day, I heard The Rock's voice behind me. "Did you hear?" He paused for a moment before revealing a very important number. "Eight-point-four." Eight-point-four? That was unheard of. "EIGHT-POINT-FOUR?" I yelled out in a "this is too good to be true" type of voice. "Eight-point-four," The Rock repeated.
The 8.4 in question was the rating for our "This Is Your Life" segment on Raw. It was, to the best of my knowledge, the highest-rated head-to-head wrestling segment in history. I say "head-to-head" in reference to WCW airing its Nitro show at the same time as Raw. Over the course of several months Raw had been averaging close to a six, which made it the most-watched show on cable television. Nitro had been averaging a three or so, but "This is Your Life" had taken a great deal of their viewers. Not enough, however, to fully explain the huge rating. Together, Rock and I tried to figure it out. I could only come to one conclusion. "Rock, that number is so big that people had to literally be calling their friends and telling them to turn on their televisions." Our happiness was such that there was only one appropriate and mature thing to do—rub it in Vince's face.
When we tracked Vince down, he reacted as if he were Superman looking at two towers of kryptonite. He was literally cowering. "Too long, Vince, huh?" The Rock said with a sneer. Vince had known this was coming and he was trying to laugh it off, but man, he hated being this wrong about something. Rock stayed on him. "So it dragged, huh, Vince?" Suddenly I broke out in an uncontrollable coughing fit. "Huh, huh, huh, eight-point—huh-huh—four, huh, huh." Finally, Vince cracked. "All right, all right, I was wrong. From now on you guys can go as long as you want."
Unfortunately, although The Rock's chemistry with me remained amusing, I not only saw our chances of spinning off into a Catcus Jack/Rock feud dwindling, but also felt my own reputation suffering. I felt that there was a fine line between allowing myself to be a comedic figure and looking like a complete idiot. Writing my book had let me relive all of the sacrifices I had made, and all of the battles I had fought on my way up the wrestling mountain. With The Rock 'n' Sock Connection not leading us to where I hoped it would, I began to seriously consider getting out of it and letting the two of us go our separate ways.
Upon my arrival at the Meadowlands Arena (it was called the Meadowlands, not the Continental Airlines Arena, when I hitchhiked to see the Kinks there in '81, so it will always be the Meadowlands to me) on October 5, I was told that Vince Russo had left the company. Not just left it, but left it for WCW. The day felt completely dismal, as we had lost not only our head writer, or writers, as Ed Fer-rara had left also, but a good friend as well. I had loved Russo's ideas—well, at least most of them. Aside from his tendency to come up with sexual ideas that drew no money and put heat on the company, I thought he was tremendous.
The departure of Russo would be a tremendous loss, but Russo felt his leaving was necessary. Not only because he felt overworked and underappreciated in World Wrestling Federation, but because he felt he could cement his reputation by pulling WCW out of the ratings gutter.
Sadly for Russo, the reputation he ended up cementing was Vince McMahon's. McMahon responded by taking an even greater interest in the writing for TV, and after a few shaky weeks, the World Wrestling Federation programs were as seamless as ever. The whole company pulled together, with Shane playing a greater part in production and the wrestlers themselves contributing a great deal.
Russo, on the other hand, never seemed to get off the ground. He was not prepared for the backstab-bing atmosphere backstage at WCW, or for the system of contracts and the politics that were designed not for success but for maintaining the status quo. Even worse, he put himself on television and pushed himself as the company's top heel. He took the lead role in angles that should have been left to actual wrestlers, and had such great ideas as teaching actors how to wrestle because "anyone can." You can tell the guy's job wasn't going well by the number of times Vince McMahon was asked, "Is Russo still secretly on our payroll?"
Before Russo left, he wrote one last week of television. It was the worst stuff he had ever written, including a segment where I was to ask The Rock to marry me. Alas, the nuptials were not to be, and on October 18, in Columbus, Ohio, The Rock 'n' Sock "marriage" was annulled in powerful fashion.
Dur
ing the show, I presented The Rock with a copy of my book, which was due to go on sale two days later. "Great, that's great," The Rock sarcastically stated, "just sign it to 'the Great One' and leave it over there."
Several minutes after this Al Snow found the book in the garbage and handed it back to me. I headed for The Rock's room and proceeded to give older fans a reminder of who I used to be, and newer ones a glimpse of a Mick Foley they never knew existed.
"How could you?" I softly asked The Rock. He didn't respond or even look up. "How could you?" I yelled, which prompted a "The Rock doesn't know what you're talking about." I gave him a hint. "I give you a gift, something that means a lot to me, and you throw it away?" The Rock still didn't seem concerned, as he said, "What is this about your book?" Voom! I threw off my mask and followed it with my Rock 'n' Sock jacket. I was about to enter a zone of intensity the likes of which the World Wrestling Federation fans had never seen from me. "Goddammit! I'm not talking about my book, I'm talking about my life—my blood, my sweat, my tears—and you take all that and you piss on it. I say piss on you—you self-righteous, self-centered, egotistical SON OF A BITCH!" My adrenaline was rushing now and I had entered that special place where one's own disbelief is lost. The Rock's eyes were wide, since this verbal diatribe had come as a complete surprise to him, and he tried to fire back. "You barge into The Rock's room and you interrupt The Rock. Well, The Rock says this. ..." I never did find out what The Rock had to say since I cut him off in a manner that no one had dared to use before. "No, I say this. I SAY THIS! I don't want to know you, I don't want to work with you, I don't want to fight you, Dwayne. I don't want to even know you exist. You live with that—and GROW UP!"
Even the cameraman, sound guy, and producer were a little blown away. They had known me for over three years and had never seen a "real" Cactus Jack promo—which was essentially what the scene had been. The angry 1995 Cactus Jack revisited.