A career in professional wrestling brings with it a ton of regret. Some of it involves stuff inside the ring — botched moves, injuring yourself or an opponent, etc. — but most of the regrettable moments for a wrestler involve angles.
The good news is that most angles or gimmicks usually involve ideas brought forth by bookers and bosses and aren’t typically the conjured up by the talent. The bad news is that fans never blame creative, all of the negativity gets heaped on the wrestler.
Mick Foley has been a part of many odd wrestling moments and decisions and usually ended up making chicken salad out of the chicken shit he was handed by creative forces. Foley, like every wrestler, does regret some of the angles he’s taken part in over his thirty plus years in the business. He discussed those regrets on his Facebook page this week.
1) I shouldn’t have allowed my last name to be “Manson” in World Class and during my first run in WCW. Sure, the name was a surprise when I walked down the aisle of the Sportatorium in Dallas for the first time, and heard my name announced as “Cactus Jack Manson”. It bothered me, but not enough to risk my job over it – and I eventually played into it…even though I knew in my heart that playing into the image of a notorious murderer like Charles Manson was dubious, at best.
2) I ABSOLUTELY knew that there was NO WAY, in my first appearance on WWE TV in three years, that I should have agreed to be part of “This is Your Life, John Cena” that was INTENTIONALLY bad. Every bone in my body told me that being part of it was a bad idea – but, after three years away, I didn’t want to rock the boat, so by golly, I went out there and intentionally stunk up the place to the best of my abilities!
3) This one may seem random, especially because it was edited out of Smackdown, and has never been seen, but I deeply regret calling Stephanie McMahon an inappropriate name in the buildup to my matches with Triple H in 2000. Some of you have seen that buildup – it was great, and in no way needed the name-calling thing. But I did it, because I knew it would get a reaction – essentially doing the same slut-shaming I accused Amanda of – just for the sake of a cheap pop. To this day, I’ll find myself thinking back to that promo – saying to myself over and over “what were you thinking?”
Regrets are absolutely internal feelings — some people might be slightly proud of a couple of those wrestling moments — but I’m going to have to defend Mick on all three.
1) It was an absolutely different time in wrestling and the world. Taking the last name Manson and alluding to being part of the Charles Manson family is possibly one of the least offensive moments in 1980s wrestling. The original idea for the tag team Harlem Heat was to dress them as slaves. Thank God the creative team decided to only be occasionally racist when it came to the tag team duo.
2) Yes, it was awful, but when a company asks a performer back it’s hard to argue with the why/how. Ultimately, Foley could have passed but no one could have made that Cena segment watchable. No one.
3) Eh, The Rock and John Cena have called stuff way worse, on camera, like all the time.
For all of the above I’ll give Mick Foley a pass. A player can only play the hand he’s dealt.
[via With Spandex]