GIANT Life is a one a month segment that I’ll be doing here on Channel Zero – where yours truly will hang out with your favorite celeb to get the inside scoop on the 9-to-5 hustle and get a few tidbits of info for your enjoyment. Former WWE-turned-TNA wrasslin’ superstar, Mick Foley, was the first to take time out to show how giant his life truly is.
For those not familiar with the hardcore legend, Mick Foley, you can YouTube and Wikipedia him for the background info. But the multiple title holder with multiple persona’s has had a storied career unlike most in his profession.
He’s been set on fire, beaten with a bat wrapped with barbed wire, lost an ear and fell a little bit more than sixteen feet twice – once off the cage and the next time through the cage. But today – on GIANT Life – Mick Foley is simply a happy and changed man. I guess when you work with such a taskmaster as Vince McMahon than you know that the game you’re in is destined to change at a moments notice.
Which were the sentiments expressed by Mick when I asked him why he chose to leave WWE for the unknown waters for TNA Wrestling. “I had quite a knot in my stomach while doing the announcing for WWE and after about four months I was offered a change,” he says. The change represents one that most talent in the sports entertainment business is making as WWE seems to be suffering from laziness.
During the ratings wars between WWE and WCW the excitement came from the beef that was between the two wrasslin’ entities and their bosses – McMahon and Ted Turner. Hanging out with Mick was a pleasure as his personality is distinct from the characters Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love – of which he portrayed all around the world. Very intelligent in both the ring and outside of it, Foley expressed his political sentiment when the subject of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live was discussed.
But as a fan of wrestling and a lover of the fine art of violence of which Mick and friend-slash-foe, Terry Funk, helped to pioneer, cultivate and redefine – we caught a flashback discussing his 1994 match versus Public Enemy. “They just kept throwing chairs for what seemed like forever and poor Public Enemy – how they got away with that name, I don’t know – but they just were buried under all those chairs. It was all in good fun though,” he muses.
We made the rounds doing press to help build-up awareness for his appearance on SPIKE TV’s TNA Impact airing at 9:00pm and wow – journalist, reporters, radio talking heads – please do your research. 9 out of 10 questions were the same. So, to make it different, I asked Mick about Ric Flair’s retirement and its significance to the sports entertainment business. He believed that Flair’s leaving was both business and personal and commended the legacy of the 16-time World Champion. “But it was interesting that WWE added more days to his schedule and paid him less money once he finally retired,” Foley commented.
Although the 59-year-old Flair and Foley’s paths have crossed many times, it was a first for yours truly and as the first one to be a part of GIANT Life, Mick’s career hasn’t been defined by how many times he was knocked down, but by how many times he’s gotten up.
