I guess you are wondering about how Halloween Havoc turned out, unless you want to hear more stories about how the guy you paid twenty-five bucks to read about is a socially inept, amusement park-obsessed loser who has been ostracized by all but a few of his fellow wrestlers. In addition, I have what Steve Austin considers the worst taste in music of any wrestler in the business. If, on the other hand, you’re one of those “Foley is God” type of fans, I implore you to give Steve Earle or Emmylou Harris a try. Havoc was actually a tremendous matchup. Some people feel that it was the best match Vader and I ever had, and some feel it was the most brutal. I don’t know about that, but it was definitely a physical affair that left me battered and bleeding from a busted eyebrow. No, Harley still didn’t get to do it. The next time I go to Harley’s for a barbecue, I’m going to let the poor SOB bust me open, just so I won’t have it on my conscience.
When many fans think about Halloween Havoc 1993, they may recall a particularly painful move that for my money was the single most gut-busting, suicidal maneuver I’ve ever tried. In actuality, I really was going to commit suicide: career suicide. I was trying to end my career right there in the Lakefront Center in New Orleans. The plot to end my eight years in the ring began when I placed a sleeper hold on Vader, who was staggering on the wooden ramp. A sleeper hold is a simple move that in theory deprives the brain from receiving oxygen by placing pressure on both carotid arteries-causing a man to go to “sleep.” Similar pressure from a different maneuver had helped cost me my ear in Germany. In reality, nobody has won a match with a sleeper in years. It’s usually just used to get a cheap pop from the crowd when you run out of things to do. But my sleeper had a purpose. I jumped on Vader’s back, SStill holding the sleeper, causing the Mastodon to stumble like a drunken sailor with a 300-pound weight on his back. Here it comes, I thought, bracing myself for the pain and hoping that it would be severe. With a sudden burst of energy, Vader put my plan into effect. He dropped straight back while kicking his legs up in the air, literally crushing me between the bulk of his 450 pounds and the unforgiving wood of the entrance ramp. Vader rolled to the side, and I instinctively rolled into a fetal position, secure in the knowledge that my career was over.
There was no way that a human body could endure such a blownot without permanent damage. And permanent damage was what I was looking for. With all that force landing directly on top of me, there was no way I could continue. Bones, vertebrae, discs, nerves; something in there had to be shot. Or at least I hoped so.
A few years prior to this, wrestlers had started purchasing disability insurance policies from the prestigious Lloyds of London company. Agents were more than happy to oblige them-after all, how much risk could a “fake” sport like wrestling carry with it? As it turned out for the Lloyds people, it carried plenty. Most of the policies called for generous payouts for career-ending injuries, based on a percentage of what your previous two years’ salary had been. What Lloyds didn’t understand, and in reality what few others do as well, is that pro wrestlers regularly perform with injuries that most normal people would consider career-ending. Unlike, say, a bus driver, who takes disability and retires early, a wrestler with the same type of injury would be getting suplexed and thrown around twenty days a month. It’s considered part of the price you pay.
The guys were not faking their injuries, they were simply taking advantage of what the medical community had established as being normal by being, in a sense, abnormal. Now, my payout would not have been that large because in comparison to others, my salary wasn’t, but I certainly would have received enough money to get by for a few years, until I figured out something else to do with my life. I was tired of wrestling; I was tired of the pain, I was tired of the lies, I was tired of the politics, and I was tired of the bullshit. I wanted out, and this was my ticket.
There was only one problem. Me. My body had become so conditioned to taking punishment that it had somehow managed to take this. So I did the only thing I knew how. I got up. Slowly. And then, as in Germany, I went on as best I could.
There you have it, a shocking revelation that until now, I’d only revealed to Eddie Gilbert in the midst of a three-beer buzz in Puerto Rico. To this day, I don’t know if what I was attempting was illegal. I’m pretty sure I can’t be arrested for it, even if what I did could be constituted as attempted insurance fraud. As it turns out, Lloyds of London refused to renew my policy. I always imagined that one of the bigwigs from Lloyds was watching TBS one day and heard Jim Ross say, “Look at Cactus Jack, with all the risks he takes, I wouldn’t expect him to last much longer.” So Lloyds of London, a company that insures against asbestos, theft, fire, floods, and natural disasters (as well as insuring Mary Hart’s legs), wouldn’t insure Mick Foley, a simple entertainer-I kind of like that.
Shortly after that match, I was asked by a fan on a call-in radio show what the highest moment of my career was. I replied that it was during Halloween Havoc right after I had drilled Vader with a foreign object at ringside. I looked up at the crowd and did a slow half-turn, covering about a third of the arena with my eyes. Everywhere I looked, people stood in unison, almost like fans doing the wave. Except they weren’t performing a rah-rah choreographer move-they were transfixed by the intensity of the match. It truly was a powerful moment. The same fan than asked what my lowest point was. My answer was simple. “About ten minutes later, when I knew I’d never be that high again.” Thankfully, I was wrong.
Chapter 21
Dusty finally came up with a plan for me-I was going to form a team with Maxx Payne. Now Maxx was a great guy, and we got along really well, but it was quite a drop from where I had been before. But at a certain point in that company-a point many of their current wrestlers are at right now-you simply stop caring as much and keep collecting a paycheck.
I wasn’t the only one getting the shaft at the time. The Hollywood Blonds, Steve Austin and Brian Pillman, were inexplicably broken up. Every once in a while, I’ll hear someone talk about Austin, and say, “He wasn’t anything until he came to the World Wrestling Federation.” The truth is, Austin was always good. He was an excellent television champion, and he and Pillman were probably the hottest team I had seen in years. They were funny, they knew how to wrestle as a team, and the matches they had with Rick Steamboat and Shane Douglas regularly stole the show in ‘93.
I had known Pillman off and on since late 1989, but had only recently become closer with him. A doctor had told Brian that if he didn’t stop drinking, he’d be dead within a few years, and he took the advice to heart. In addition to changing his ways, he made a conscious effort to change some of his acquaintances. Brian began calling me regularly, and offering me his “Pillman’s pick of the week,” which was usually a saying or bit of psychological advice. I would then try to use his “pick” in an interview. When I left the company, I fell out of touch with him, and when I saw him again, during a short stint with ECW, he seemed like a different person. Sadly, although we shared the same car on the night of his death, it seemed as if I hardly knew him when he passed. As I write this now, it is the eve of the Brian Pillman Memorial Show for which I will wrestle to raise money for the future education of his children. I am hoping that by helping his family after his death, I can make up for the fact that I didn’t try to help him while he was alive.
Amid all the setbacks and disappointment, the Foley family welcomed Noelle Margaret into the world on December 15, 1993. I had wrestled that night at the Crystal Chandelier nightclub teaming with Maxx Payne against Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce. Yes, I was now reduced to wrestling in bars. I then went to the airport to pick up my dad for the holidays, went to the wrong terminal, and sat about fifty yards away from him for an hour, while each wondered where the other was. When I returned home, Colette was waiting with her bag. Away we went, and I fell asleep while Colette endured the agony of labor without me. We tried to tape the miracle of birth, but I ended up bumping the camera and getting magnificent footage of the doctor’s
head. Maybe it’s not so bad, though. I had a friend who actually had me watch footage of his wife delivering their baby. I almost asked if they had the tape of DDP and Big Cat Hughes from Fort Myers instead.
Two days after Noelle’s birth, the wrestlers all gathered at CNN Center for our first ever meeting with Ted Turner. Now, I respect Ted for his vision and his philanthropy, and he helped make a damn good movie about the Battle of Gettysburg, but when it came to his wrestling product, Ted was a little out of touch. It seemed as if the only wrestler in the room that Ted knew was Ric Flair. “I know Ric wrestled there-Ric, how do you feel about that-Ric, Ric, Ric.” Eric Bischoff may not have been a great announcer, and his later on-air heel persona may have, at times, made me want to throw a brick through my TV, but hey-he was no fool. He knew where his bread was buttered. Ric Flair became the new booker about eleven seconds after the meeting adjourned.
The next few months were uneventful, as I teamed with Maxx and wondered if I was going to ever get another chance on top. Bischoff had made the decision to curtail most of the road shows, and instead concentrate on the television product. That was fine with me. If I was going to hate the company, I would much rather hate it at home with Colette and the two children.
In March, we headed for Germany and the hangman incident that cost me my ear. I called Colette the next afternoon from Germany, expecting sympathy to be showered on me. I had attempted to call home after my operation, but was told that Eric would take care of it, and to get some rest. “Hi, Colette, how are you?” I said into the receiver, waiting for the sobs that I so richly deserved. Instead, I got: “The damn dog is barking, I think Noelle has an ear infection, and Dewey’s being a grouch.”
“Did anyone from the office call you?” I asked slowly, already knowing the answer to my question.
“What happened, are you all right?” screamed Colette, apparently deducing from my question that something indeed had gone wrong.
“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news,” I started. “The good news is I’m coming home tomorrow-the bad news is that my right ear isn’t coming with me.”
The hospital in Munich wanted to keep me for a full week, but when I found out all they were keeping me for was intravenous antibiotics, I convinced them to let me fly home, where I would continue the IV treatment. I checked into the hospital in Atlanta, where they assigned me a registered nurse, and I headed home. Believe it or not, I was actually in high spirits, because I knew, I just knew, that no one could screw this angle up. I guess I should have known better.
I showed up at Center Stage theater the next week, raring to go; wondering what the brainpower in WCW had come up with to take advantage of this unexpected “gift.”
To me, this would be a booker’s dream. Forget the bogus knee injury angles, this was a certifiable gold mine. I mean, how could anyone not see the money in a Cactus vs. Vader “you tore off my ear, you son of a bitch” grudge match? The match would sell itself. It would be so easy, it would-oops, I forgot we were talking about WCW here. I had one more match with Vader, about a month later in a little theater in Columbia, South Carolina, in front of a thousand fans. Not exactly what I would call making the most of the situation.
I knew also that all of Flair’s talk about turning me into a top heel was bullshit, as well. In some ways, I’m fortunate that I lost my ear, because if I’d let Flair have a say in my career for another year, I’d be cleaning pools right now. So when Flair is retired, and the fans are singing his praises (and rightfully so) as one of the greatest of all time, I hope those same fans will remember that as a booker, this is the same guy that let both Mick Foley and Stone Cold Steve Austin walk away.
With depression setting in, and with the knowledge that I had no future in WCW, I scheduled, with Bischoff’s approval, an operation that would reconstruct a new ear out of one of my ribs and the cartilage behind my ear. Eric assured me that as the accident occurred inside the ring, I would be fully compensated during my six-month absence. After that, it would be September again-time to call J. J.
I had one more match before the surgery-a Chicago street fight (an anything-goes, falls-count-anywhere match) that would team me and Maxx in a war with the Nasty Boys. I knew it was my last match, but I just couldn’t get up for it. I wondered, “How am I going to get through this without stinking the place up?” The answer was simple. Survival. Jerry Saggs broke a pool cue over my head, and Brian Knobbs nearly dented my skull. The Nasties were sloppy as hell, and more than a little dangerous, but they knew how to brawl. About a minute into this thing, I realized that I’d better start fighting or I was going to get killed out there. About three minutes in, I realized we were in the midst of something pretty special. Saggs attempted to piledrive me on a table for the finish. The table buckled under our weight and we crashed to the ramp. As I got up, Saggs pushed me and I fell backward off the five-foot ramp and onto the cold, hard concrete below. I didn’t land flat, however, and I knew that my shoulder was injured. But at least I’d earned the right to rest, right? Not quite yet. Saggs hopped down off the ramp, and I winced when I saw Knobbs throw him a scoop shovel. It was plastic, but I knew with this crazy bastard swinging, it would hurt just the same. He raised the shovel high overhead, almost like an axe. I remembered what DeNucci had taught us about protecting our teeth and nose, and I turned my head to the side. Saggs proceeded to hit me about as hard as another human being could, but at least I’d be out of WCW.
Man, you think I would have learned by now, right? I was awakened two days later by the sound of the telephone. It was Kevin Sullivan.
“Brotha, I need a fayva.”
“Kevin, hey, what can I do?”
“Brotha, Evad blew out his knee, I don’t have a pahtnah-brotha, you might think I’m crazy, but I think if the two of us teamed in Philadelphia, we’d blow the roof off the fuckin’ place.”
I tried to tell Kevin about my ear operation, but he could be a very hard person to say no to. His wrestling “brother” Evad was so named because his character supposedly had dyslexia and couldn’t say “Dave.” The two of them were scheduled to take on the Nasties at the next month’s Pay-Per-View Slamboree in Philadelphia. Without a partner at Slamboree, Sullivan’s whole stint with WCW might be in jeopardy, I felt, but in retrospect I should have realized that, as Kevin himself had once told me, he was like the phoenix, and eventually would have risen again.
Later, Flair called and said, “I want you to come to TV today.” I tried to tell Flair about the operation, but he persuaded me by saying, “We want to go all the way with you and Kevin.” For some reason, in a decision I would soon regret, I went to TV.
It would be easy for me to point fingers and blame people for bringing me back. The truth, however, is twofold. First, I felt that by going “all the way” with me and Kevin, my value would be raised and that I would maybe, just maybe, get that elusive pay raise, although probably for me, finding the Ark of the Covenant would be easier. And second, I really felt that wrestling in front of the Philadelphia fans might lift me out of the emotional mire in which I was walking.
I really had become a miserable bastard. I hadn’t cut the grass in three weeks. I had a two-year-old son and a four-month-old daughter that I barely had the energy to play with. My vaunted lovemaking skills were now barely adequate. Worst of all, I had rented Sophies Choice and watched it twice … in a row. As mesmerizing as Meryl Streep’s performance is, it’s not exactly the type of film that makes you want to go out and dance a jig. The thought of a big showdown in front of my favorite audience was just the thing I needed.
I went to TV that day with a renewed sense of purpose. Kevin and I revived our old Slaughterhouse chemistry, even though I was no longer “in urgent need of advice.” We were on fire-until we went to Orlando.
Orlando was the site of WCW’s syndicated television tapings. Every three months, we would head to Disney MGM Studios to film thirteen episodes of the most boring wrestling shows ever witnessed by human eyes. The wrestling was
an “attraction” at the park, and a new theme park audience of about 300 fans was brought in for every new show. The fans would boo or cheer according to a sign that said “boo” or “cheer,” so although the studio was noisy as hell, there wasn’t an ounce of genuine emotion in the place. Most of the matches stunk, and because it was Disney, nothing that could be construed as violence was allowed. But, because the tapings covered so many weeks of syndication, a wrestler was able to get a decent idea of where his career was going-and mine was going nowhere.
Kevin and I were not on any of the television shows-no interviews, no angles, no run-ins, no matches-no nothing. The second to last nail was hammered when I overheard Paul Orndorff and and his tag team partner Paul Roma giving an interview about how they had defeated Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan for the belts. At this point, Kevin and I hadn’t even won the belts. This was really not what I considered “going all the way” with us. This meant that even if Kevin and I set the world on fire as champions, it would all be for nothing. I was, once again, being booked to fail. Kevin and I had a meeting with Flair, and even though Naitch and Sullivan had been friends for two decades, I did all our talking.
“Ric, a few weeks ago, you said you were going to go all the way with us, but I’ve been here [in Orlando] three days, and we haven’t been on television for three days.”
Flair, who only rarely drops his perfect gentleman manners, honored me by doing so. “Hey, last I heard, you wanted to take six months off for psychological counseling.” Flair then tried to draw a comparison between me and Barry Windham, who was at the end of nursing a year-long knee ligament injury. Barry had been paid the entire time, to the tune of eight grand a week. This was a perfect example of office gossip leading to factual errors, and the very rare occasion that the old cliche “When you assume it makes an ass out of you and me” was actually correct.