Have a Nice Day (35 page)

Actually, as it turned out Vince McMahon himself wasn’t a big Cactus Jack fan, so maybe every year around the first of September he’d put J. J. on a Cactus Jack alert, with direct orders to “get rid of that fat, psycho, eyebrow-busted-open bastard.” Jim Ross had continually pushed for me, but Vince continually dismissed it, saying (I found out years later) that I “didn’t look like a star.” Yeah, Vince, and I guess Gobbledygooker and Mantaur did. Considering the parade of stiffs who stunk up World Wrestling Federation rings for years, Vince ought to be slapped for insulting the Hardcore Legend like that. Or at least forced to watch an hour of Al Snow matches. No wonder I hit Vince so damn hard when I finally got the chance.

Bischoff actually went down the WCW roster one by one checking off names, either saying yes or no-yes they were making more money than me or no they weren’t. I’ve got to admit, there were a lot of guys on that list who were making less money than I was, but I’d noticed one name that was conspicuous by its absence. “What about Jesse?” I said. Bischoff looked at me as if I’d just disgraced the good name of the Virgin Mary. He actually physically got out of his seat slightly and leaned forward, asking, “Were you in the number one movie in the country last week?” referring to Jesse’s role in the Stallone flick Demolition Man.

Now Jesse was a good guy, and considering who he is, I should probably be kissing his gubernatorial ass, but the truth is he was paid an exorbitant amount of money to make jokes on the air, and tell stories about the Crusher and Verne Gagne to the boys backstage. “No,” I had to admit. “I wasn’t.”

It was no use. Bischoff wasn’t going to budge. I really had no other recourse. I had a family to think of and a child on the way in two months, and to make matters more difficult, Colette was dilating early and was forced to spend the last ten weeks of her pregnancy in bed. I explained this situation to Bischoff and then said in a voice that was pretty near cracking with emotion, “If I take the same money, can I have the next six weeks off to spend helping my wife?”

Knowing he had the upper hand, but really not being as big a prick about it as he could have, Eric said, “Cactus, you just had four months off.”

I pointed to our schedule that was behind his desk, and pleaded my case one last time. “Eric, you’ve got me teaming up with Ice Train (a huge, but green, wrestler) in junior high schools in the backwoods of the Carolinas. How important could that match be?” Maybe a little of what I was saying was getting through. Maybe dedication and a track record of proven performances still meant something.

“If you get the time off, will you sign for 156?” he asked.

“Yes, I will.” I left the CNN Center that afternoon, vowing that I would never let myself be put in that position again.

Halloween Havoc was an artistic and athletic victory, but an emotional defeat. Actually, I was lucky to even make it. We had a match in Phoenix on Friday night, followed by a day off and then Havoc in New Orleans. I left the house on Friday morning, running a little late. I could never get the roof of the convertible to latch on just right, so as a result, I just drove all the way with the top down. It was cold this late October morning, however, and raining hard. It didn’t usually matter, though; as long as I kept up a decent speed, the rain would usually just blow on by. Usually. This time it was raining way too hard, and I was occasionally having to stop for traffic. But I decided to gut it out. By the time I got to Atlanta, I was drenched from head to toe. By the time I got to Phoenix, I was sick as a dog. I went to eat with my old buddy Robert Fuller. I ate a Reuben sandwich and promptly threw it up. (To this day I can’t eat a Reuben sandwich, which had been a longtime favorite.) That night I stumbled through a match where I was so bad that I made Al Snow look like Satoro Sayoma by comparison. I stopped at a gas station to get some liquids into my body-funny, earlier that day, I had plenty of liquids hitting my body. A bunch of kids recognized me. “Cactus Jack,” they yelled as I went to open the door. “Can we have your autograph?” Vumphoow. I threw up everywhere, including on one of the kid’s shoes. It was almost as bad as a night in Baltimore in which I threw up about eleven strawberry margaritas all over the room I was sharing with Scotty Flamingo. Wow-between the dry-heaves, blood spitting, vomit, and urine, this book is turning out to be a little more scatalogical than I would have imagined.

Actually, as I’ve said, I’m not much of a drinker at all. Back in the days I’m writing about now, I would go out maybe half a dozen times a year, nowadays maybe twice. I just don’t find going out to be all that much fun, and as Stan Hansen once told me, “there’s nothing good that can happen to you when you go out.” For the sake of my marriage, my pocketbook, and my body’s healing process, I’m much better off lying in bed, watching Nick-at-Nite or a movie or reading a book, or once in a great while, getting to know my body a little better. If someone asks me what the best quality a wrestler can have is, I can honestly say it would be the ability to enjoy doing nothing. Which isn’t to say I don’t do things. I catch movies whenever I pass a multiplex with time to spare, visit historic battlefields or monuments I see, and am the self-professed king of amusement parks. As a matter of fact, Al Snow and I almost had to go to wrestlers’ court to face formal charges of stranding Bob Holly at the airport in order to go to a carnival. We were guilty as hell, but we settled out of court to the tune of two nights’ free lodging, meals, and rental car, and the reimbursement of $80 that the cranky, curmudgeonly “I don’t want to go to a carnival” Bob had to pay for his own car.

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.

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.