Reasons Mick Foley is a hero:
By Michael L. Craver
Today, I ran across the quote below... I immediately wrote the rest of this in about a half hour. Perhaps someone special will read it. Have fun.
"Let me share a little Foley-Flair story with you: following the Natalya vs Charlotte WWE NXT match at NXT Takeover on May 29th, 2014 – the match I still consider to be THE game-changer in #WomensWrestling in WWE – I spent several hours (more hours than any writing project I’ve done in the last three years) trying to express just how meaningful that match had been. I received a message from Charlotte telling me how much she appreciated my words, and I wrote back “You know, your dad and I might not agree on much…but we both believe in you.”
Since I first saw him in 1994 he's been playing with my mind. There's something magical about him. I bought the bootleg copies of WCW Christmas Brawl & WCW Slam Jam. I had to have the songs. "Broken bones on a concrete floor are really more his thing..."
We jumped off trampolines and a lot of fairly useless construction material was demolished thinking abut Cactus Jack. Yeah, I watched Burt Lancaster act. I saw Louis L'Amour films... But, the baddest dude in the west was from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. You could just picture him having a place in the same environment as Wile E. Coyote.
Over the next 20 years I've seen a lot more faces as Mick's career played out. I think his level of honesty from the many shoot interviews (along with bootleg FMW, Best of Cactus Jack - Hardcore, IWA, and ECW) I've purchased forces me to say this... I wish the man very well. Medical science does some wonderful things. I hope... he does not become my generations Muhammad Ali. His moments of genius are everywhere. A family man who's children are helping to shape a new era.
We all love the comeback of Rocky Balboa and the Creed movies. The nostalgia acted out by Sylvester Stallone. But, the haunting pieces of Rocky V... like so many CTE stories bring sobriety. I wonder what he believes about his choices and the mythical longevity vs the mortal version.
Redd Foxx has piece of about how he can eat pork. Someone asked him why he wouldn't give it up. Without a beat he says, "people wanna give up that good stuff, so they can live... You gonna feel like a damn fool laying at the hospital dying from nothing."
Cactus Jack represented in wrestling what Patrick Swayze played out in Point Break (1991 of course). He was the outlaw. I don't know why he wanted to fight the system... In a speech given by Bodhi at the campfire, he says, "We show them that the human spirit is still alive." Mick Foley complete the triptych from Arthur Koestler's Act of Creation.
George Carlin talks about it here: https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/the-thinking-jester/
The video of him telling the story is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7JkpTs3wkM
I'll always have deep admiration for Mick Foley. Nothing would please me more than to see him telling his wonderful stories until losing the Boneyard Match to Father Time. But, I wonder if Mick knows... his WWF song for Cactus Jack is something fans sought after for years. Something a group of friends of mine discovered from the production music library who made the song. We knew the WWF and Jim Johnston didn't write the song for Foley because we saw it in another film. Starring actress Donita Dunes.
Maybe Cactus will read that bit and have a smile for himself. Yes, Mick. You are the king of all Hardcore.
Vaya Con Dios my friend...