Countdown To Lockdown by Mick Foley

Author:Mick Foley [Foley, Mick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BluA
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2010-10-20T23:00:00+00:00

Actually, for a while, the atmosphere did improve. I had yet to be paid for announcing, and so I had no idea how to gauge how they valued my work, but from all indications they were happy with my contributions as a broadcaster. Besides, I was told, being yelled at in demeaning fashion by Vince was apparently no big deal. Everyone went through it. It was just the way Vince did things.

For a while, those F-bomb clouds disappeared. Look at the rainbow, Mick. I only had to work one day a week, not including the two travel days to get to and from work. I no longer took notes or talked to the guys as much about their matches, but it didn’t seem to hurt; I knew the business and could ad-lib my way through just about anything. Plus, Vince would always offer suggestions (which weren’t really suggestions), some of them more helpful than others. And there was always the chance that a big, fat announcing check was going to show up at my house and make me feel foolish for ever finding Vince’s big bowl of bile so unappetizing.

A few weeks had gone by with no further word from TNA. Maybe I would just stay put with WWE. This was my home, after all. And those F-bombs weren’t really that bad, were they? I didn’t get hit with them that often, did I? So what if he didn’t say he was sorry — a few weeks later, when it happened a second time. It wouldn’t happen that much, would it?

Even then, I realized I sounded something like an abused spouse, rationalizing the behavior of the abuser, accepting it, condoning it.

June 23, 2008, was the big draft — the yearly extravaganza where all three WWE brands (Raw, SmackDown, ECW) had their rosters shaken up. This year, we were told, even the announcers would be eligible for rebranding. I began joking with Michael Cole regularly, talking about what an honor it would be to work with Jim Ross, neither of us thinking for a moment that Vince would mess with the Monday night institution that J.R. and Lawler had become.

At one point, I thanked Cole for all his help, noting that even if we were to part ways, I still considered the opportunity to work with him to be one of the greatest of my life. “Thanks, Mick,” Cole said — waiting, I think, for the zinger that never came. Even then, the remark was more of a possible good-bye to broadcasting than it was a good-bye to SmackDown. For with or without TNA, I had come to the realization that this broadcasting thing just wasn’t for me.

Oddly, WWE did make a big move at the draft, sending J.R. to SmackDown and sending Michael Cole to Raw, effectively shaking the foundations of the shows in a way that none of us had anticipated. We were all in something like shock when the switch was made. None of us knew, or else

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