I looked out at the audience again, and when I saw Pam Johnson a lightbulb flashed on in my mind. In addition to being both Dewey and Noelle's teacher, Mrs. Johnson had actually taught the Road Dogg when he was a child as well. I swear it's the truth, or as former Olympic champion Kurt Angle would say, "It's true. It's true." This was a coincidence that was too good to be true. It would be like a big boxing match between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson with an announcer saying, "I know that Tyson threatened to eat Lewis's children, but Lewis's children and a young Mikey Tyson actually all had the same kindergarten teacher ...and my goodness, she's sitting in the front row."
I knew it was a tremendous coincidence, but the crowd had no idea, so I made it a point to inform them. I then pointed out that "Mrs. Johnson looks like she is awfully disappointed in the Road Dogg, because he looks like he wants to touch Billy Gunn in an inappropriate way." Road Dogg, who until my announcement had no idea that she was in attendance, and in truth hadn't seen her since he was in school, responded by first waving and then climbing out of the ring and playfully yelling at her. All of a sudden Mrs. Johnson was the center of attention in the front row and she took advantage of the spotlight by rearing back and slapping the Dogg. I then hopped out and began brawling at ringside, and the crowd ate it up. Back in the dressing room, the other boys refused to believe that the whole thing hadn't been set up.
A few days later I received a phone call from a friend, who told me that Vince had been on a radio show in San Francisco and had compared my wife to a beautiful and famous Hollywood actress. That was the good news. Maybe he meant the grace of Audrey Hepburn. Or maybe the coltish charm of Julia Roberts. Or maybe the timeless beauty of Barbara Eden. Unfortunately, it was none of the above. The bad news was that my boss, Vince McMahon, had publicly compared my wife to Robin Givens.
With the news my heart dropped to somewhere around my left ball while my dinner simultaneously rose to somewhere around my larynx. I knew exactly what Vince was referring to, and it made me livid. Vince was comparing my wife's comments on 20/20 to Robin Givens's infamous comments about then-husband Mike Tyson on a Barbara Walters special. In the Walters interview, Givens had said that her marriage was "like hell," that her husband was a "psychopath," that he had beat her, and that she was "scared for [her] life." All my wife had said was that she was worried about my health.
I didn't have Vince's home number, so I called J.R. to get it. I told him of the comments, and of my feeling about them. He gave me the number. I got Vince's machine and left him a little message. I didn't yell and I didn't curse, but even a man without Vince's mental acumen would have detected a little anger. Then I called my own phone and changed the message on my machine. If Vince was going to call, I didn't want him to be the recipient of a standard Foley goofy spiel. I wanted him to feel my pain.
He did indeed call. And he did indeed get my morose message. And he didn't try to claim he was misquoted either. He apologized. He also tried to explain that his comments were not a knock on Colette, but a comparison between me and Mike Tyson, who he felt had both looked like sympathetic figures during our respective interviews. With that assessment, I would have to agree. Mike had looked either doped up or like he'd watched a Steve Black-man interview. I looked the way a typical father looks after a seven-hour day at Disney with two kids, except with the added bonus of dealing with thousands of wrestling fans. In what won't go down on my top-ten list of career compliments, the ABC cameraman had marveled that I'd drawn more attention than former New Kid on the Block Joey Mclntyre. So I guess Vince was right. Right? Except Vince hadn't publicly compared me to Mike Tyson. He had compared Colette to Robin Givens, and as the proud owner of two testicles, I couldn't just let that fact go.
Our face-to-face conversation took place on Valentine's Day, February 14, in San Jose, California. Unlike Vince, who had a huge wrestling company and a new football league to worry about, I had all weekend to think about the Givens comments. In addition, I had thought about all the little things that had been bothering me for a while. At its most basic, the problem, I felt, was about respect. Although I put myself in the same league as Austin and Undertaker in terms of long-term value, I doubted that Vince would have made similar comments about their families, no matter what the circumstances. When his door opened up and we met face-to-face, I was armed with more notes than a Tuesdays with Morrie sequel.
When the door opened back up an hour later, the air had been cleared, and Vince was bleeding internally. Just kidding. Actually we handled it like gentlemen, and I was actually glad to have been able to get a lot of negative thoughts out of my mind. He apologized to me and he apologized to Colette, so what else could I ask for? Except a raise, which was a point I brought up as well. Vince would actually call the Foley house with several apologies but continually got the machine, until Colette, who, like a lot of people, is intimidated by Vince's larger-than-life persona, finally picked up the phone and accepted Vince's words.
All right, so Vince isn't perfect. With that being said, I have great fondness for him and consider our relationship to be one of the most important in my life. I have rarely met a man with his mind, and I have never met a man with his energy and his drive. A lesser man would have closed down the company in the face of the enormous losses of the early nineties. A lesser man would have settled for second place when WCW had the hot hand in 1997 and '98. But that's not Vince McMahon.
I sometimes wonder where I would be if Vince had not rescued me from my bloody Japan and ECW existence. When he brought me in I had been offered a big raise in Japan. Fifty-one thousand dollars for 150 days of work overseas . . . long bus rides . . . coach-class airline seats . . . blood . . . burns . . . bombs . . . scars. After taxes, I would have brought home less than a tenured custodian.
WCW would have probably brought me in eventually, but I likely would have been pushed with all the authority of a prepubescent boy's first bench press. A few miserable years of dealing with egos and office politics and then, as they say in Japan, sayonara! I wasn't Vince's buddy when I came in.
I wasn't Vince's buddy a year later when most of our conversations were limited to "hello," "good-bye," and Vince's favorite, "good to see you." Still, in that time of Steve Blackman-like vocal workouts, I was pushed harder and was made a bigger star than I had been at any point in my career. Gradually the conversations grew to the point where I now consider Vince my good friend, workout partner, and spiritual mentor. Okay, so maybe I'm laying it on a little thick, but I do consider him to be a good friend. I consider his children, Shane and Stephanie, to be good friends as well, despite the hatred they show for me on TV, and the fact that Vince's children actually like him and like being around him actually gives me hope as a parent.
I sometimes question Vince's judgment, especially about the bringing in of talent. I have often seen him bring in talent that looks to be of little use. No, he doesn't headline Pay-Per-Views with them like WCW does, but he does give them jobs. While traveling with Terry Funk back in 1997, I brought up the subject of a very questionable piece of talent and asked why Vince would even bother paying the guy. The Funker not only has known Vince for a long time, but is very intuitive as well, and his answer seemed to make perfect sense. "Cactus, sometimes Vince does things just to be nice."
I used to hear horror stories about the way Vince treated talent. I have yet to experience this firsthand. Actually, I have yet to see him even yell at a wrestler. The atmosphere in our dressing room is casual and friendly, and that has to be in great part because of the boss himself. One of the biggest compliments I can offer Vince is that he allowed Have a Nice Day! to be printed complete with criticisms of him, and I suspect that he will allow me that same privilege here. I certainly don't agree with every decision he makes and I had to be restrained from striking him when Test won the hardcore title, but in the end, it's his company and he can do with it what he wants. He's like the big kid with the football, and he lets me play with it. But damn, I got to play for a long time.
br />
Before my nose gets too far embedded up Vince's ass, let me make one final point. Or more accurately, let me ask one final Vince question: What other owner of a major company, whose personal net worth is rumored to have more zeros in it than a Snow family reunion, would allow heavily muscled employees (not me, but work with me here) to blast him with steel chairs?
So in the end, Vince and I are cool, but yes, the sea was a little rough there for a while. And do you know who I blame for it all? Blaustein! Blaustein and his critically acclaimed movie, Beyond the Mat. Without him there would have been no tension. There would have been no cursing at World Wrestling Federation executives. There would have been no Good Morning America. There would have been no 20/20. There would have been no Robin Givens comparisons. And there would have been no fears that for the rest of my life my beautiful wife would be known as "the lady who cries."
Maybe I'm being a little too rough on Barry. After all, he was responsible for writing the "giant hamster humping the professor" scene in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. If "that which does not kill us makes us stronger," then Barry Blaustein is responsible for making the Foley/McMahon bond stronger than it's ever been. Yes, that was a wrestler quoting Nietzsche.
33: "Good-bye, Cactus”
How does a person live up to something that is impossible to live up to? The June 1998 "Hell in a Cell" had almost become a part of folklore. It was frequently cited as "the greatest match of all time," which seems somewhat akin to calling the maiden voyage of the Titanic "the greatest cruise of all time." Like the Titanic, the '98 cell match was a disaster, and its appeal lies in the courage of its survivors. Unlike she did for Titanic, I will refuse to let Celine Dion sing its theme song in the big-screen version.
I promoted the 2000 version of "Hell in a Cell" with the promise of once again coming off the top of the cage. This time, however, I promised to come off with an elbow on top of Triple H. Was I really going to dive a legitimate sixteen feet, which in wrestling circles would be billed as thirty? No way. But I didn't feel like I was lying. My rationale may seem almost Clintonesque, but my feeling is that as long as, within the scope of the story line, there is the intention of fulfilling the promise, then no lie has been told.
I had used this philosophy in the cell scenario in a little-remembered match against Kane in September of '98, and no one had complained. I promised to come off the top in that one too, and saw my promise shot down by the Undertaker, who pulled me off as I reached the halfway point of the structure. The fall was supposed to be broken somewhat by the announcers' table below, but instead, my ass merely grazed the thing and most of the impact was taken on my shoulders and head—which was actually meeting the concrete from a distance of fourteen feet. I was actually a lot more devastated physically by this landing that no one remembers than by the infamous first flight in Pittsburgh.
I had no problem covering a lie made with honest intentions. Covering a lie that my predecessors had made with dishonest ones was a bit more of a problem. Retirement matches, once practically cause for national mourning, were now a joke. They were used to spike buy rates or to boost ratings and had an actual return-to-action rate of about six weeks. The few people who did retire were wrestlers who no one had any desire of seeing anyway.
So I was faced with the problem of trying to look like Abe Lincoln amid a sea of Pinocchios. I wish that I had simply stated that "win or lose, this is my last match," but it was too late for that. On February 24, I gave my last promo before the big match. In it, I tried to distance myself from the retirement rip-offs, and without blatantly saying, "I'm going to lose," tried to convey the feeling that I was indeed going to.
Some experts felt it was the best interview of my career. Some of the wrestlers cried backstage as they listened. Personally, I was disappointed. I felt so full of emotion backstage, but when the music hit and the crowd popped, I became a performer. I wanted to tell a story but gave in to the current pressure for catchphrases and instant gratification. I think I lost my nerve. I told the story, which included my Joe Frazier analogy, but I yelled too much, and while I was doing it I felt I was failing myself by turning a special situation into a "wrestling promo." Above all else, I used a word that would come back to haunt me . . . "prostitute."
"Prostitute." As in, "I'm not going to be like those other guys who prostitute their name in a retirement match only to come back after a six-week vacation." I wanted the word to be strong. I wanted "prostitute" to tell fans I was serious about the match stipulations. I wanted "prostitute" to increase buy rates. Most of all, I wanted the word "prostitute" to save me from becoming a real one. Wrestling may not have been my first love in life, but it was certainly the first one to love me back. I honestly didn't know if I could leave it. "Prostitute" was my insurance policy.
I felt pressure all around me during the final days before No Way Out. I wanted this match to live up to its famous father but knew I had to do this without the huge risks associated with the first one. Beyond the Mat and 20/20 had shone a public spotlight on my laundry list of injuries, and the last thing I or the World Wrestling Federation needed was a major mishap in my final match.
I also felt pressure as a result of my recent falling-out with Vince, the wounds from which had not yet completely healed. I was also working on a bonus chapter for the paperback edition of Have a Nice Day! I thought it would be intriguing to chronicle my final days as an active professional wrestler. In one respect, it turned out to be a fascinating portrait of my thoughts, hopes, and reflections during a tense and somewhat historic time. In another respect, it was a big mistake, as it tarnished the humor of the original. Sure, it's intriguing, but so was finding out that Judy Garland was an alcoholic and drug addict. We know the truth, but wouldn't it be better if everyone remembered her as Dorothy?
I was actually writing for a good part of February 27, as it seemed to take my mind off the pressure of the match. For hours I alternated writing with stretching and taking walks around the backstage area. I cursed my decision to book a personal appearance in Huntsville, Alabama, where I had spent the previous day. Sixteen hours of traveling was not the way to prepare for a match of this magnitude. The traveling had left my legs feeling tired, so that unlike January's Rumble, my physical condition was weighing heavy on my mind.
I put my pen and paper away only minutes before the match and did one last session of warm-ups before heading for the entrance. I watched the end of The Rock vs. Big Show matchup and thought about my career. I don't know if God cares about sports-entertainment, but I said a small prayer anyway. I have often prayed for safety, but on this night I also hoped to leave after an effort that I could be proud of for a lifetime.
I heard the screech of tires and the crash that followed and I knew my time was at hand. I heard the opening guitar chords and I stepped out into the Hartford Civic Center. I looked out at the sea of fans and I looked up at the ominous cell structure that was still hanging from the ceiling waiting to descend. I thought of my recent miserable performances and longed for the confidence that I had taken into Madison Square Garden. I felt like the smallest, most insignificant 300-pounder that the world had ever seen.
Triple H's music played, and he stepped through the curtain with the lovely Stephanie at his side. Please, I thought with an urgency that bordered on prayer, let Hunter be at his best here. I'm going to need all the help I can get. He stepped into the ring and the cage began to lower. If there is such a thing as a silent buzz, such a thing was running through the crowd as the cell steadily descended. As the structure came closer to the Hartford concrete, something seemed amiss with the door; it was locked in at least a half-dozen different ways. How was I going to escape from the cell to complete my promised elbow from the top?
While I was looking, Triple H attacked from behind, but I turned to thwart him. We exchanged decent punches, an exchange that I got the better of. Hunter went down to a hard right and I was atop him in speedy fashion and bounced the back of his head off the canva
s several times.
Triple H briefly stopped my momentum, but a backdrop over the top rope put me back into control and in pursuit on the outside of the ring. I grabbed a steel chair from ringside, but as I prepared to use it, Hunter rolled into the ring to safety. I climbed the ring apron with the intention of bringing my chair with me, but a high Triple H knee to the chest sent me flying off the apron and into the somewhat forgiving cage.
Hunter seized the advantage and whipped me hard into the stairs. I took them hard with my mid-thighs, and the momentum whipped my body over the top of them with an impressive flip. Whips into the stairs are commonplace in the World Wrestling Federation, but everyone seems to drop down and take them with their shoulder, which is impressive but somewhat out of line with the body's natural motion. I don't want it to look like I'm trying to hit the stairs; I want the effect of the stairs altering the course of my progress.
Hunter continued his assault by running my head into the steel ring post, a blow I may have taken a little too hard, as I temporarily forgot what I was doing and lay on the ground for way too long, while my opponent waited for me with the ring steps on his heavily muscled shoulder. The collision was worth the wait. Boom—the impact echoed throughout the arena and was impressive enough to merit three different instant replays. The force of the stairs may have seemed overly brutal, but in fact it had to be. We needed that stair "spot" to stand out in people's minds for future reference.