Legend of the Day #6
Height: 6'2"
Hometown: Parts Unknown
Weight: 287lbs
As a teenager in suburban East Setauket, New York, Mick Foley hitchhiked to New York City's Madison Square Garden to experience the WWE in person. Years later, WWE archivists would discover video of a young Foley cheering at ringside while his hero, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, leaped off a steel cage onto "Magnificent" Don Muraco. With his buddies on Long Island, the self-effacing Foley dubbed himself Dude Love, a jive-talking flower child with a knack for pleasing the ladies, and starred in several homemade wrestling movies. In one, he dives off a friend's house onto a bed of mattresses. Eventually, a local wrestling promoter saw a copy and allowed Foley to gain a foothold in the business.
While attending the State University of New York-Cortland, Foley would drive 400 miles each weekend to be trained by Dominic DeNucci, a former WWE Tag Team Champion, at his school outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Foley would sleep in his car and survive on peanut butter sandwiches. DeNucci admired the youngster's determination and ability to withstand pain, but the Italian legend had one requirement for his student: he could only train if he completed his education.
Occasionally, Foley would show up at WWE television tapings and lose to whichever Superstar the organization was promoting at the moment. As Cactus Jack—an unruly character said to be from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico—he began making a name for himself at small shows in high school gymnasiums, as well as at arenas as far away as Japan and Africa. It was in the Land of the Rising Sun that Foley became a cult figure by battling in a ring surrounded by flames and suffering second-degree burns on his shoulder in a 1995 King of the Death Match. By then, word had spread throughout the wrestling community that Foley was relatively indifferent to pain. Over the years, he received more than 300 stitches, six concussions and one broken jaw. In 1994, part of his ear was ripped off when he got his head caught between the top and middle ropes in a match in Germany.
In 1996, he entered WWE as Mankind, a tortured figure in a leather mask who rocked back and forth in the sewer and was said to have smashed his piano-playing fingers with a hammer to thwart his mother's attempts to turn him into a perfect gentleman. Mankind's finisher was the Mandible Claw—a maneuver that required him to jam his mangled fingers down an opponent's throat until he submitted. His emergence coincided with WWE's new, edgier "Attitude." Given a wide creative berth, Foley was eventually portrayed as a man with three distinct personalities: Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love.
His most notable clash occurred at the 1998 King of the Ring, where he met the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell Match—with the ring surrounded on all sides by a steel cage. In the course of the action, Mankind was thrown through a table from the top of the enclosure, then climbed back up and slammed through the roof of the cage. Before the brawl ended, Foley had dislocated his jaw (a trainer snapped it into place), broken several ribs and blacked out twice.
A few months later, WWE head Vince McMahon created the organization's Hardcore Title specifically for Foley to defend. "Mr. Socko," a dirty sweat sock, also made its debut at the time, and Foley's character morphed into a goofy fan favorite, and one of the most popular superstars in WWE. In fact, a segment on a September 1999 RAW IS WAR featuring Mick and another ultra-popular superstar, The Rock, generated the highest rating in the history of sports entertainment. Unfortunately, all the torture he weathered in the ring eventually caught up with him, and Foley retired in 2000, becoming WWE Commissioner not long afterwards. Mr. McMahon would "fire" him as commissioner that December so that, in real life, Foley could spend more time with his wife, who was about to give birth to their third child.
(credit: Mick Foley.com)
SIGNATURE MOVES
Sidewalk Slam 01, DDT 10, Headlock & Punch, Suplex 06
DDT 30 (Finisher) Mandible Claw (Finisher)
Entrance
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3