Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks by Mick Foley

Author:Mick Foley [Foley, Mick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-20T20:47:03+00:00

Chapter 22

Leaving a six-figure job is not an easy decision to make, especially with the uncertainty of the independent wrestling scene. Bischoff was surprised when I told him the news, but he did not seem all that upset about it. Colette was a different story. “What do you mean, you’re leaving-you’ve got a four-month-old daughter, Mickey,” Colette yelled, trying to reason with me.

“We’ll be all right,” I assured her. “I can work lots of places.”

“But you can’t make this kind of money anywhere else,” she continued.

“Listen, hon, if I stick around, I will be worthless within a year,” I fired back. “At least this way, I can buy some time, and maybe come back when things are different.”

The wrestlers were surprised as well. Arn Anderson walked up to me shortly after he heard of my decision and asked me about it. “Jack, we aren’t even working as much anymore, why would you want to leave?”

Now Arn was a guy I respected, and I wanted him to understand my motivation. “Double A,” I began, as I searched for words that wouldn’t include blasting Flair, who was a close friend of his. “I’ve worked too hard for too long to have a joke made out of my career.” I then recounted the “Excedrin headache number nine” example.

“Point well taken,” Arn agreed.

Four months is a hell of a long time to give notice for. Usually when a guy is on his way out, the company resorts to burying his career with defeat after defeat on television, or simply phasing him out. A guy could suffer a lot of defeats in four months. Looking back, I probably should have just rescheduled my surgery and taken off after the Philadelphia show. That way, I could have sat back, collected money, left the company on good terms-and with a right ear, no less. For some reason, that’s not my style. That would be like me hitting a wiffleball to right field or like my dad hiring a typist to finish his dissertation. The easy way just wasn’t in the Foley blood. Instead, I forged on, almost daring them to bury me. In a shocking reversal of company policy, they didn’t. As a matter of fact, they pushed the hell out of me, at least for a little while. For the next four months, Cactus Jack was all over the television. Never once, however, did anyone try to persuade me to stay. In the seven months since I had signed my contract, someone must have authorized Bischoff to open up the purse strings, as wrestlers who had never worked a main event match in their lives began cashing bigger checks than I ever had. Not surprisingly, the purse strings were never opened near me.

Kevin and I won the tag team titles at Slamboree in Philadelphia in a tremendous match. It might have been even better than the one in Chicago. It was especially gratifying to have such a great match with the knowledge that my dad was in the crowd, as were longtime friends John McNulty and John Ambrobo.

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