Show: WrestlingEpicenter.com‘s The Interactive Interview (Courtesy of “The Blaze”1260 AM)
Guest: Mick Foley
Date: July 27, 2005
Your Hosts: Chuck D, James Walsh, & “The Queen of Extreme” Francine
Recap By: James Walsh
This man is one of the most respected wrestlers in the history of the business. Regardless if you like his ring style or not, agree with his politics or not, or even consider him a good worker or not, Mick Foley is simply loved by most true wrestling fans for all the right reasons. And, we were honored to interview this wrestling icon. And, you can listen to it right now on WrestlingEpicenter.com!
Also on this jam packed show, “The Queen of Extreme” Francine stops by to tell us of her wild weekend spent with Missy Hyatt, Bobcat, and Elektra as well as all the latest things going on at a page that’s so good, I’ve made it my home page so I can check it out each and ! every day, the incredible www.MissyHyattandFrancineTV.com. Register for that site, it’s worth every penny!
And, one last nugget before we get rolling with the Foley transcript… The one and only “Rocker” Marty Jannetty is now working with our site, WrestlingEpicenter.com. Want to talk to MJ? Join our forums and ask your questions. And, don’t forget to catch him on Byte This TONIGHT on www.WWE.com!
And now, without any further delay, the 45 minute Mick Foley transcript!
Listen to & dowload the show now at WrestlingEpicenter.com
MICK FOLEY:
— Mick’s theme song plays as Chuck welcomes Mick to the show. Mick is doing well and appreciates us having him on the show.
— Chuck jokingly says he an! d James know that Mick’s done a million interviews before and they made a conscious effort to not ask all the same questions others have especially trying not to ask much about one pacific incident. Foley laughs and asks if that one incident happens to be “Hell in a Cell.” The guys laugh saying that indeed is just one question they plan to ask.
— James mentions that Mick had to know the Hell in a Cell incident would be something that people would ask him about for years. Mick said, “Actually, I had no idea. The truth is, it was kind of like a wave. It wasn’t a big deal when it happened. It was barely mentioned on the show the next night.” Foley, as a matter of fact, says Shawn Michaels asked to mention it the next night because Michaels felt he saw something special out there.
— Proof it didn’t make Foley a big star? Well, as it says in his book “Have a Nice Day” which Mick makes a not so subtle plug was #1 on the New York Times’ Best Seller List, he did an au! tograph session a week after taking those bumps and still was banged up from it. Also there was Sable. “She was CLEARLY the bigger star. Her line was four times as long as mine was,” says Mick. “Where’s the justice in that,” he asks Chuck and James. James actually answers the rhetorical question, “The justice is if it were today, YOU’D have 4 times longer of a line than Sable.” Mick laughs and says, “That may be true.”
— James mentions that Kevin Sullivan, who was writing for WCW at the time, mentioned that he saw that bump at the time and told everybody in the room, “it’s over. Nothing we can do can ever top that.” Mick laughs and says Kevin told him about that at Wrestle Reunion 1 in Tampa. Mick says he thinks in terms of brutality, it’s already been surpassed. “There will never be so many things going wrong in a match that will turn out to make it a classic.” says Foley. He goes on to compare this match to the Willie Mays catch from the World Series in the 50’s. He feels! there were better catches than the one Mays made but that was the World Series which made it grow in appreciation. He feels the Hell in a Cell match has grown in appreciation over time and 10 years from now he wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone say, “He fell 100 feet!”
— Our forums members asked us to ask a question comparing Chris Benoit, Bret Hart, and Dynamite Kid in terms of who the best technical wrestler ever is. “Man-o-man. That is a tough one,” says Foley. Foley reasons that Benoit and Dynamite are very similar in how they act in the ring and while their technical skills are awesome, their intensity is what makes them phenomenal. “I’m going to say Bret is the best technical wrestler.”
— Chuck asks what he felt about Bret in the Montreal incident involving Bret getting “screwed” by the WWE. Mick says, “You guys know I quit for a day, right? Ever heard the phrase strength in numbers? Well, I thought we would’ve had those numbers.” Mick says he watched RAW! the next night from a hotel room in Montreal to see how few people would show up. To his surprise, he was the only guy who quit. So, since he had a 3 year contract and since he was in breech of it at that point, he walked back and Vince took him back without ever holding it over his head. But, JR did say that Mick was “sensitive” about it and that it bothered him.
— Mick says he was going through old Christmas cards the other day and happened upon the card sent by Julie, Bret’s ex-wife, thanking him for the gesture.
— James mentions that Bulldog, Rick Rude, and Jim Neidhart actually did leave. Mick mentions that Bulldog left a good contract with the WWE to go to WCW and his career suffered for it. But, Mick didn’t even view WCW as an option for him because he doesn’t feel his career really took off until a year after that plus he too had a good contract with the WWE.
— Ivory mentioned that Herb Abrams died ‘all coked up in his office in a colorful suit.” Mi! ck says Herb died all coked up naked while breaking furniture. He says he remembers telling his wife whelm Herb died and how it was sad for him to know and tell her but when he told her how he died, he couldn’t help but start laughing.
— “WCW was a bunch of guys playing with Ted Turner’s money. The WWE is a bunch of guys playing with Vince McMahon’s money,” says Mick. Mick says he felt it was easier to make it without being buddy buddy with the boss, Vince, in 1996 and 1997 as Vince pushed him without having very many if any conversations together. He mentions that he and Vince talk more now, though.
— “I understand now that some of the WWE guys find it hard to break through the glass ceiling. But at the time I was there, that calling didn’t exist. They were looking for new stars,” says Mick. He goes on to say that Steve Austin is an example of a guy that nobody thought was going to be big in the WWE citing talks with the merchandise guy at WWE and how they ha! d a T shirt idea for Mick Foley, a lot of ideas for “The Stalker” Barry Windam, and a full page for Mark Henry. Austin walked over and said, “What about Stone Cold?” The merchandise guy said, “We’re sorry. Vince just doesn’t see any future in it.”
— Chuck asks why some veterans have such a problem putting young talent over. “Man, I don’t know. I think some of it is insecurity. There’s the old school feeling that you don’t lose matches on TV. I knew I wasn’t the greatest wrestler in the world but I strongly felt I had a good enough character to come back from losses,” says Mick. Mick says for a lot of guys, it’s not wanting to put people over. It’s just not knowing how to do it without making themselves look bad due to the talent.
— Mick mentions a lot of ideas with himself against Randy Orton were his own. For example, the creative team was solidly against the idea of Mick walking out of the match in December of 2003. He mentions rationalizing it out with Vince ! asking him if he ever saw the 1950’s movie “Shane,” he then does a brief impression of Vince saying “Yeah” and asks Vince to think how that movie would be had Shane fought the bad guys right away.
— Mick jokes that he does not steal all his ideas off 1950’s westerns.
— James mentions that he loved the angle in WCW where he was powerbombed by Vader and lost his memory and they did a news style report every week trying to find him. Mick says, “It was terrible!” He then goes on to say Keith Mitchell, who now works for TNA, told him it wasn’t the idea itself that was wrong but it was the people writing it.
— Mick, adding upon the previous topic, mentions he and Tony Schiavone got debated that angle once where Tony said if they were to run 12 weeks of these promos, they couldn’t all be serious and some comedy had to be imported. Mick’s concept was that it’s a few minutes out of a 120 minute show, they could pick up the humor somewhere else. “I didn’t think so! meone getting powerbombed on concrete and carried out on a stretcher was all that funny,” says Foley.
— James mentions the now infamous quote Tony made on Mick years later, “That’ll put butts in seats” when discussing Mick winning the WWE title on January 4, 1999. “It ruined my night,” says Mick. Mick says he knew right away that it wasn’t something Tony wanted to say and he found out later it wasn’t and it was something he was told to say. But, before Mick did anything about it, he looked at the ratings and a half of a million people changed to RAW immediately after it. “I think that had more of a difference in the wrestling world than the Hell in the Cell did.”
— Mick will be doing a special “Mick at Nite” one man show as part of WrestleReunion this year. Check out www.WrestleReunion.com. Ultimately, it is a one man show that Mick will do in front of 3 or 4 hundred people that he hopes people will find ente! rtaining. He speaks at colleges quite often and tries to be both educational and fun so the Mick at Nite show should be something like that but with more production involved.
— Roddy Piper was initially going to do the one man show but he backed out of the deal.
— James asks about the Presidential Debate with JBL. Mick was a bit bothered by the lack of seriousness it was met with by the media especially compared to the SmackDown! Your Vote campaign of 2000. He even quotes a reporter asking Mick if the debate would be shown on Comedy Central. Mick says, “There are a lot of people in the WWE that feel differently about the world than I do.” He goes on to say regardless where you stand, he and JBL sat down for the first time in years and felt they really did something important that night.
— Mick mentions that a lot of people give actors flack for voicing their opinion so he expected a lot of people to be down on wrestlers doing the same. Mick feels wrestlers kno! w more about politics and regular people than actors because they are more accessible and travel more. Mick says he talks to various different people and gets all perspectives of what people think whereas President Bush talks to groups that think the same way. Mick feels he’s more in tune with what Americans think than that. James’ Side Note: Who won the election?
— Mick has a brand new book coming out called Scooter. It’s set in the Bronx in the 60’s and a family’s decision to stay when a lot of the white families leave and the consequences of that decision. In fact, the father shoots the son at the end of the 1969 World Series and baseball is a big theme in the book, As a matter of fact, Mick had occasion to give the book to Louis Gonzalez, a home town hero. Louis said he’d read it. Mick feels Baseball players and fans will love it because there was a lot of research about baseball done to make sure it was accurate.
— Mick is honored to have his books compared t! o Catcher in the Rye. As a matter of fact, he is looking at the phone number of famed author Richard Price. Price mentioned that it’s sad that people will judge Mick before they even pick up the book and read a page.
— Mick says he’d rather have his books reviewed both strongly positive and strongly negative because if it was all “it’s ok,” he probably didn’t do a very good job.
— Scooter is a bit violent. Mick feels it is tough to write a sensitive coming of age story that’s violent but thinks this book does a great job of it.
— Chuck asks if we can ask a few ECW questions now. Mick says he is fine with that and thanks us for taking the time to promote the book. He compliments us for not doing an interview where we ask right off the bat about the things he wants to promote and then go, “So, Hell in a Cell…”
— “Yeah, unquestionably. I think a lot of the credit goes to the fans. They really made the show,” says Mick about ECW One Night Stand. Mick say! s he hopes everybody sees the show because while it may not be a match by match phenomenal card, it was something special and it was ECW. “That was one of my major concerns coming in was that it would look like any other WWE show,” says Mick. But, he was thrilled to see it was anything but.
— Chuck mentions we interviewed Coach a few weeks back and he mentioned fearing for his life. Mick laughs and says he thinks a lot of the WWE guys that attended told a very real story when they weren’t acting for the camera during One Night Stand. He feels they really saw something different from what they were used to in the WWE and were blown away by the passion of the audience. “It was like Dorothy waking up in Oz,” jokes Foley. He then says he doubts any of the WWE guys would admit to being impressed.
— Mick can’t say if Hardcore Homecoming or One Night Stand was better because he was locked in an office to keep it a surprise when he went out to the ring. But, he says a lo! t of the fans he spoke to that went to both said Hardcore Homecoming was 10 times better than One Night Stand.
— James asks about the idea of bringing out Mr. Socko during Hardcore Homecoming. “I knew they wouldn’t like it but I didn’t know they were going to be THAT angry. It’s a good thing we had the barbed wire lined up or else my return would’ve been a big failure!”
— About working with the Rock, Mick feels it was a lot of fun and that Rock was always fun to work with. The original plan was for Mick to turn on The Rock during the Rock & Sock Connection but the plans changed and while it may have hurt Mick long term, he’s glad they didn’t go that direction with it.
— The biggest honor about working with the Rock was Wrestlemania XX because Rock had said he wouldn’t return to the WWE unless it was for something major and he felt teaming with Mick again was something major.
— About Ring of Honor, “it’s an awesome product. I don’t make a lot of ! money when I work there. It wouldn’t be fair to the guys who are busting their butts for the product. Really, my name is an enforcement of the product. I wouldn’t be there if I didn’t think those guys worked real hard.” Mick says it is wrestling perhaps the way it should be. But, Mick was disappointed in the Long Island show he went to recently because it was about 4 and a half hours and the crowd, typically, gets shot after about 3 hours.
— Mick feels the casual fan may have trouble getting into a card like Ring of Honor because you’ll get 8 or 9 really heated and really good matches that makes the card extra long. Mick feels it’s a shame but he thinks the company may have to ask the guys to shave a few minutes off their matches for the good of the product.
— Mick feels the WWE is missing the boat on certain characters such as Homicide. Mick had trouble really getting the Homicide character at first but now he thinks there is real potential there and he thinks ! the character would get over big especially towards the inner city kids.
— Chuck asks if he thinks the WCW typecasts certain ethnic groups such as Muhammed Hassan or even something like the Mexicools. Mick says he thinks they do especially in the case of Eddie Guerrero. He feels Eddie is above the Cheech & Chong persona and is glad to see he is getting away from that now.
— “I saw nothing wrong with him playing the angry Arab American,” says Mick about the Hassan controversy of late. Mick does, however, admit that he hasn’t watched enough of his stuff of late to say if the character did anything that could’ve been a bit over the top. James mentions that he thinks it more had to do with the masked men attacking the Undertaker the night the attacks on London came. Mick said he heard about it but hasn’t seen it and as such can’t judge.
— Al Snow said in an interview just a few months ago which you can still download at our site that if Mick didn’t fil! l his book with shots on him (Snow), the book would be very short much like Mick’s penis. Mick says 17,000 people got a look at Mick’s penile parts in Montreal during the “Infamous Suplex Episode.” Mick says if he was like the Rolling Stones, his greatest hit would be that Al Snow story. Mick says it wouldn’t be fair to shoot back because “the chances of Al writing a book are about as high as the Queen Mother getting a nipple ring at this point.”
— We then roll into a few word associations including Ric Flair to which Mick replies stating if he knew WrestleMania would’ve done 970,000 buys, he’d have taken Flair on one on one and taken credit for the buy rate. Also, Francine, The People’s Elbow, Owen Hart, and so many more. You’ll just have to listen to the interview to catch it!
— Mick then puts over WrestleReunion one more time. James mentions that he will be making the long trip from Phoenix to Philadelphia to attend the event. Check out WrestleReunion.com!
— Plus, Mick recorded a small question for Francine that we pose to the lovely Francine. What was it? You’ll just have to listen! WrestlingEpicenter.com!
— We also cover RAW, SmackDown!, The Great American Bash, and more on this packed show rounding out with a little Scorpions “Wind of Change.” You’ve got to love it!
***** We welcome you to JOIN OUR FORUMS and chat with “The Rocker”Marty Jannetty right now as well as read a diary entry by “The Queen of Extreme” Francine as well as view some very nice pictures of top wrestling divas and chat wrestling and anything else on your mind! All of this at WrestlingEpicenter.com!
WrestlingEpicenter.com‘s “The Interactive Interview” returns LIVE this Tuesday with more surprise guests and, as always, “The! Queen of Extreme” Francine. What more can you ask for? We’re #1 and we invite you to listen in and find out why. Check out WrestlingEpicenter.com and tune in every Tuesday night at 10 p.m. EST live on the site!
