Remember when the line of thinking about Mick Foley was that he was, well, “a glorified stuntman”? That was what Ric Flair called Foley in a 2005 book, saying of Foley, who is appearing for a VIP Meet an Greet and comedy show/fan Q&A on Saturday, April 13, that he didn’t care “how many thumbtacks Mick Foley has fallen on, how many ladders he’s fallen off of, how many continents he’s supposedly bled on, he’ll always be known as a glorified stuntman.”
One day a glorified stuntman, one day a Hall of Famer.
Foley is to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this weekend at Madison Square Garden, where it was that he decided one night that he wanted to become a pro wrestler.
A memorable night it was, that one. You’ve heard of the night that “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka dove from the top of a cage? You can see a young Foley in video of the match.
From a young teenager who wanted to fly like Snuka, Foley worked his way to the top of the ladder in WWE two decades later. At the height of the Attitude Era, Foley was a three-time WWE champ, one of the top stars of the WWE right there with The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.
“That was a period where you go into an elementary school classroom, and 10 out of 20 kids would be wearing wrestling shirts,” Foley said in a recent interview on the “Boomer and Carlton” radio show.
As far as the “glorified stuntman” stuff is concerned, Foley is as cognizant as anybody in the business that pro wrestling, first and foremost, is entertainment. With UFC gaining in presence with each pay-per-view, wrestling had to play up its roots as entertainment to survive.
“Obviously WWE has had to react to MMA. For people who thought Mr. McMahon was crazy or horrible for talking about wrestling being entertainment, you have to think where wrestling would be now if they had kept trying to portray it as being the real deal when the real deal is on right after it,” Foley said.
More information on tickets for the Mick Foley Experience: click here.
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