Countdown To Lockdown (15 page)

At the time they probably were. But in the end, I think they (the network execs, not Marcus) opted for more of the same. I may be giving American viewers too much credit here, but I think people are a little more capable of detecting subtleties than reality television producers give them credit for. Conflict comes in many forms; it doesn’t need to be embodied by outbursts, drug habits, teenage pregnancy, or nude modeling. Our home is actually filled with conflict. Most homes are. It’s there if you look — you just have to look a little harder. American viewers can accept those types of subtleties. It’s time that reality television stopped dumbing down life for them.

Wait, what’s that you say?
Rock of Love
is a huge hit? So is
Flavor of Love
? Scott Baio’s show was renewed? In that case, I take back what I said about American viewers. Dumb it down, brother, dumb it down. The dumber the better.

You know, I think we had the answer to our conflict problem right in front of us. Shelly Martinez (ECW’s “Ariel” and TNA’s “Salinas”) called me a few days into shooting, saying she’d been released from WWE because the creative team was out of ideas for her. That was something of a surprise for me, especially because I thought her character was a high point of the ECW television program. Certainly I watched her unique entrance with great interest, thinking that maybe, just maybe, this woman really was a vampire. Either that, or she
thought
she was a real vampire, which was just as impressive.

A few weeks earlier, I’d interviewed her on Dee Snider’s
Fangoria
satellite radio show, and she’d been great. Rumor had it that she’d actually been let go following a rather spirited verbal exchange with a top WWE star. Which is a shame, but perhaps, I thought, WWE’s loss could be A&E’s gain.

I offered my idea up to Marcus, who loved it but had reservations about whether my wife would share our enthusiasm. I gave it a try.

“Colette, you know I’m friends with a lot of the WWE Divas, right?”

“Yes, Mick,” she said, rolling her eyes, sensing something really stupid was about to come out of her husband’s mouth.

“Well, one of them is a vampire.” Yes, there it was, that something stupid.

“No, Mick, don’t even think about it.”

“Just listen. She was just released by WWE.”

“No, Mick.”

“What if she slept over? When you wake up, you come downstairs, and Mickey and Hughie are eating breakfast with a vampire!”

My wife just wouldn’t listen to reason. But if Billy the Exterminator has breakfast with a vampire, you’ll know where A&E got the idea.

A few weeks later, my wife paid fifteen hundred dollars for a feces-eating dog. Too bad Marcus and his team had already left. For there was plenty of conflict in the Foley house during Pom Pom’s short tenure.

I don’t think I’m a hater. But man, did I hate that dog — a tiny little Pomeranian that scarfed down pieces of poop as if she were a canine Takeru Kobayashi at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Invitational. At one point I saw her looking like Groucho Marx working on a giant stogie. Except Groucho didn’t eat his cigars.

My older children, who had previously never heard their dad drop a single F-bomb, heard the dropping of several during Pom Pom’s stay. It was the “shock and awe” campaign of paternal profanity, prompted not only by the sight of feces going down the gullet, but by the feel of bare feet settling into the warm ooze of fresh dog poop that Pom Pom left around the house.

Fortunately, I had an out. At a certain point, my wife agreed that the Pom Pom experiment had been a failure. Maybe, she thought, I could sell her to a previously interested buyer, a woman who thought that the spirit of her recently deceased Pomeranian lived on in Pom Pom. I called the number on a letter she had written — the one containing the theory on Pom Pom’s spirit.

But the owner didn’t outwardly express an urge to give me fifteen hundred dollars for my feces-eating dog. Instead, she gave me the name of a medication to apply to Pom Pom’s food, which would cause the feces to taste foul. Of course, how could I have been so dumb? It was in fact the same medication my parents had placed on my food, when in my early teens I began to mistake my own feces for warm apple pie à la mode — just like Grandma used to make. Mmm, delicious.

We tried the medicine. It failed, apparently unable to fully mask the down-home goodness of fresh-baked turds, right from Pom Pom’s oven.

I called that same number a few weeks later. I begged the woman to take Pom Pom. I made no mention of money. Mickey went into his room and had a good little cry, before coming with me to the safe house. He held little Pom Pom in his lap, petting her, telling her he’d always love her.

Pom Pom’s new owner had about five other dogs in the house. On the wall in the kitchen was a large framed photo of all the dogs sitting in chairs, celebrating a birthday. They had party hats on.

“You know, Mickey, I think Pom Pom’s going to be okay,” I said as I headed for the door, pretty sure I could go another fifteen, sixteen years without dropping an F-bomb in front of my kids.

Hughie didn’t take the departure well, claiming that he’d loved the dog and didn’t want to talk to me ever again.

“What if I buy you a toy?” I said.

“Okay.” Sadness and anger, you see, are no match for a new Rey Mysterio figure.

Sometimes — not often, but sometimes — I think of Pom Pom. I think of the look on her little face after polishing off that last savory morsel. It almost looked like Pom Pom was smiling. A big, ol’-fashioned shit-eating grin.

March 30, 2009

Orlando, Florida

9:30 p.m.

Sometimes I envy the Machine Guns. Not just because my kids like them more than they do me. But also because they court the nerd contingent, the way I used to in my late-nineties Mankind days. But the Guns are more aggressive in their courting — they’re more active, more inclusive. I was like a nerd in hardcore clothing, trying to lead
by example. Sabin and Shelley, by nature of their promos, are almost running for nerd presidents. “Hi, we’re Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, and we want your vote.”

Sting was inside the ring as
Impact
began, voicing a reasonable grievance about me; that I had forced him to wrestle Samoa Joe a week earlier, as a tune-up to
Lockdown
, while I, the other participant in the big Philadelphia main event, sat on my sizable butt. Which technically wasn’t true, as I’d actually been quite impressive in a decisive victory over a cardboard cutout of Rocky Balboa. By the way, the Don West call of the Foley/Balboa showdown was a thing of broadcasting beauty.

The Guns came out, accompanied by what may be TNA’s worst entrance tune (sorry, Dale; sorry, Serge) to rectify the situation.

“Chris and I were in the back playing
Resident Evil 5
and
Street Fighter IV
, and we couldn’t help but hear what you were saying, Sting,” said Alex. “Quite honestly, our hearts go out to you. We completely agree with you, it is not fair that you had to wrestle Samoa Joe last week and Mick Foley had the night off, but I guess that’s what happens when Mick Foley’s the boss around here. However, if you wanted to make things right, Jeff, the Motor City Machine Guns aren’t just the most attractive tag team in TNA, we are a tag team for hire tonight.”

Resident Evil 5
?
Street Fighter IV
? I’ve never even heard of these games. Shelley then reached back to a long-forgotten angle — the one that almost got the Guns fired — to tie the frayed threads of logic together.

“Thanksgiving Eve 2008 was one of the worst days of my life,” Shelley explained. “And do you know why? Because I was humiliated, okay. I had to put on a turkey suit that was extremely itchy. It smelled like burnt hair, I don’t know why, and on top of that I get sucker-punched and double-arm-DDTed by Mick Foley. And not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought about that. I’ve been waiting a long time for a night with Mick. You weren’t doing anything and the Motor
City Machine Guns weren’t doing anything, and you want to give Mick Foley a tune-up match for
Lockdown
, well, how about the Motor City Machine Guns versus Mick Foley in a handicap match? What do you say to that, boss? I mean, you are still the boss around here, you are the one with all the stroke? Get it?” This was a slick reference to the name of Jarrett’s finishing move. “Do I have to talk to you, do I have to go talk to somebody else, do I have to text them, e-mail them, smoke signal, you tell me, huh, what do you say, Jeff?”

It was ironic in a way that Shelley was talking to Jeff about that particular instance — the Thanksgiving turkey suit extravaganza. Because Jeff hated it, absolutely hated it! More specifically, he hated the way Shelley sold his feathery fate.

Jeff had literally grown up in the business, and knew, just knew, that the best way, the only way, to project fear and unhappiness was to really
project
fear and unhappiness. Project from the front row to the nosebleeds (even if technically there are no nosebleeds at the Impact Zone). Shake your head vehemently. Put out those hands in protest. Whoa! Whoa! Hold on a minute. I am not putting on that turkey suit!

Instead, Shelley made little birdlike faces, and said something about his MySpace page — how donning the suit might jeopardize his status on the social networking website.

I later learned that the MySpace comment was the final straw on the camel’s back — that Sabin and Shelley, who’d had heat with the office over a misunderstanding from over a year earlier, were facing possible termination by TNA.

Meanwhile, not being privy to any of this, I had been singing the Guns’ praises, talking to Russo about big plans I had for these guys, how much potential I saw in them. But that night, after the turkey suit incident, I got word of the imminent firing. The Hardcore Legend leapt into action … you know, figuratively speaking. Because it’s been awhile since I leapt anywhere.

I talked to Jeff about the guys and how things had changed since
the days of the territories, the days of having to project to every soul in the audience, like the ring was our little theater in the round — or hexagon, in TNA’s case.

“You know, Jeff, his reaction caught me by surprise, too,” I said. “But remember, people are sitting home watching this show on big screens, in hi-def. Those little expressions work. Those guys are funny — their humor is just a little more subtle than what we grew up on.”

The next day, I sat down with both Guns and asked for the whole story behind the big misunderstanding from a year earlier. I know readers will want to know the story behind the misunderstanding, but after giving the subject much thought, I decided that the details are for them to tell, not me. Their rationale was pretty intricate but completely understandable, and I asked them if they’d ever explained their side of the story to Jeff. They had not.

“Then you need to go right now and tell Jeff exactly what you told me. Now off with you, you little muskrats.” Okay, I didn’t call them muskrats.

The talk must have gone okay, because four months later they’re all in the same ring, making nice.

“Oh, you got the right guy, Alex,” Jeff said. “You got the right guy. You hear that, Sting? He’s got the right guy. You and Sabin and Foley in a handicap match tonight. You want him, you got him.”

A few minutes later, announcer Jeremy Borash (J.B. from now on, unless I refer to him as “Jeremy,” “Borash,” or “Jeremy Borash” again) is looking for my reaction in his own inimitable style that makes Gene Okerlund look subtle by comparison.

“Mick, I gotta be honest, I did not see this coming,” J.B. said. “You, tonight, in a handicap match against the Motor City Machine Guns. Looks like Jeff Jarrett tried to one-up you there, huh?”

“I don’t know what to say, J.B., I’m at a loss for words, so I think it’s best if I borrow the words that K.C. and the Sunshine Band gave us so many years ago. Because that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.” (Yes, K.C. makes an appearance in another Foley book — the third,
I think [tying him with Tori Amos, though K.C. is unlikely to get his own chapter], including a novel.) “Did you see Jeffrey out there, taking command, just like I knew he could? He is back in the game, J.B.”

“I’m a little confused,” J.B. said. “He just booked you in an unscheduled handicap match tonight — you and the Motor City Machine Guns.”