148 Facts About Mick Foley

Michael Francis Foley was born on June 7,1965 and is an American retired professional wrestler and author.

Mick Foley is signed to WWE, under a Legends contract while serving as an ambassador.

Mick Foley worked for many wrestling promotions, including the World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, and National Wrestling Alliance, as well as numerous promotions in Japan.

Mick Foley is widely regarded as one of the biggest stars of the Attitude Era and one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of professional wrestling, and headlined the 2000 edition of WWE's premier annual event, WrestleMania.

Mick Foley was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2013.

Mick Foley has wrestled under his real name and various personas.

When Mick Foley first appeared in the WWF in 1996, he debuted the persona known as Mankind, an eerie, masochistic, mentally deranged lunatic who was masked and spent his spare time dwelling in mechanical rooms.

Mick Foley is a four-time world champion, an 11-time world tag team champion, a one-time TNA Legends Champion, and the inaugural WWF Hardcore Champion.

Mick Foley's dedicated and physical style of wrestling led him to often participate in violent and brutal matches that involved him taking dangerous bumps and putting his body through a considerable physical toll, eventually earning him the moniker "The Hardcore Legend".

Michael Francis Mick Foley was born in Bloomington, Indiana, on June 7,1965.

Mick Foley is of Irish descent, and has an older brother named John.

In October 1983, while a student at the State University of New York at Cortland, Mick Foley hitchhiked over 200 miles to Madison Square Garden to see his favorite wrestler, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka, in a steel cage match against Don Muraco.

Mick Foley has said that Snuka's flying body splash from the top of the cage inspired him to pursue a career in professional wrestling.

Mick Foley had a seat close to the front row and is visible in the video of the event.

Mick Foley formally trained at Dominic DeNucci's wrestling school in Freedom, Pennsylvania, driving several hours weekly from his college campus in Cortland, New York.

Mick Foley debuted on June 23,1986, in Clarksburg, West Virginia, under the ring name "Cactus Jack".

Mick Foley's run would not last long, as he had not signed a contract with the promotion at the time.

In November 1988, Mick Foley left the CWA for the Texas-based World Class Wrestling Association.

Mick Foley won several titles, including the WCWA World Light Heavyweight Championship and WCWA World Tag Team Championship.

Mick Foley left the company in August 1989 after losing a loser leaves town match to Eric Embry in nine seconds.

In November 1989, Mick Foley began wrestling for World Championship Wrestling as "Cactus Jack".

Mick Foley left WCW in June 1990 after a conversation with booker Ole Anderson in which Anderson critiqued his style.

Mick Foley wrestled for both the TWA and the UWF until March 1991.

In March 1991, Mick Foley made his first excursion to Japan, wrestling for Giant Baba's All Japan Pro Wrestling promotion as part of its Champion Carnival round-robin tournament.

Mick Foley scored zero points in the tournament, losing to Jumbo Tsuruta, Danny Spivey, Johnny Smith, Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue, and Danny Kroffat.

In July and August 1991, Mick Foley appeared with the Dallas-based Global Wrestling Federation, where he formed a short-lived tag team with Makhan Singh known as "Cartel".

Mick Foley competed in a tournament for the GWF North American Heavyweight Championship, losing to Terry Gordy in the quarter-finals.

Mick Foley returned to WCW in August 1991 as "Cactus Jack", wrestling on house shows.

Mick Foley engaged in a feud with Orndorff, winning a falls-count-anywhere match against Orndorff at SuperBrawl III.

Mick Foley had wanted the injury storyline to be serious and generate genuine sympathy for him before his return.

Mick Foley had to choose between surgically reconstructing his ear or wrestling at the pay-per-view and winning the titles.

Mick Foley opted to wrestle and won his only championship in WCW, defeating the Nasty Boys in a "Broad Street Bully match" with Dave Schultz as the special guest referee.

In October 1994, Mick Foley joined Smoky Mountain Wrestling as Cactus Jack, causing Boo Bradley to lose the SMW Beat the Champ Television Championship.

Mick Foley often teamed with Brian Lee to feud with Bradley and Chris Candido.

Mick Foley continued with ECW and began a feud with Sabu.

Mick Foley then began working the ECW tag team division on teams with Terry Funk, Mikey Whipwreck, and Kevin Sullivan.

Mick Foley then continued to have a series of violent encounters with the Sandman while challenging him and claiming that he had never been beaten in a Falls Count Anywhere match.

However, Foley did not enjoy working with Sandman, as Sandman was often intoxicated during matches and could not perform properly; drinking large amounts of beer and smoking cigarettes made up a large part of Sandman's overall gimmick.

Mick Foley said that he was on a mission to save his partner from making the mistake of trying to please bloodthirsty fans.

Mick Foley later admitted in an interview in 2015 that after Wrestlepalooza he became indifferent toward ECW and its fanbase.

Mick Foley remained one of Raven's top henchmen for the remainder of his time in ECW.

Mick Foley has said that this exit was his favorite moment in wrestling.

In 1995, during his time in ECW and other promotions in the United States, Mick Foley went to Japan and wrestled in International Wrestling Association of Japan, where he engaged in feuds with Terry Funk and Shoji Nakamaki.

Mick Foley later said that he only received $300 for the entire night.

When Mick Foley got home, his father and wife kept asking him about the awful smell, but he would not say anything, not wanting them to worry.

Mick Foley continued wrestling in Japan, Later on, he teamed with Tracy Smothers, Tiger Jeet Singh, the Headhunters, and Bob Bargail for multiple runs at the W*ING World Tag Team Championship, and a few runs at Tarzan Goto's IWA World Heavyweight Championship.

True to his hardcore style, other matches Mick Foley took part in were more deathmatches that involved objects like bricks, body bags, thumbtacks, barbed wire and window panes, and some matches even involved fire.

Mick Foley would continue wrestling in Japan until June 1996; the last notable match Foley had as Cactus Jack in Japan was a "Caribbean barbed wire barricade glass deathmatch" against W*ING Kanemura, which Cactus won.

Mick Foley donned a mask seemingly constructed of oddly shaped pieces of leather that were patched together with rivets.

Halfway into the match Mick Foley debuted a new face persona known as "Dude Love", who helped Austin take the victory, becoming the new Tag Team Champions.

Austin and Mick Foley vacated their tag team titles when Austin suffered a neck injury in a match at SummerSlam in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

In September 1997, Mick Foley wrestled Sabu at Terry Funk's WrestleFest, an event organized to mark the retirement of Mick Foley's friend Terry Funk.

At the 1998 Royal Rumble, Mick Foley participated under all three personas, Cactus Jack, Mankind, and Dude Love.

Mick Foley later admitted that this crowd reaction emotionally hurt him, feeling that his hard work could not compete with Austin's popularity and that he would be just another wrestler to face the company's megastar.

McMahon, displeased with the outcome, required Mick Foley to prove he deserved another shot at Austin's title with a number one contender's match against his former partner, Terry Funk.

The match was both the WWF's first-ever "hardcore match" and the first time that Mick Foley wrestled under his real name.

Mick Foley won, and after the match, a proud McMahon came out to Dude Love's music and presented Mick Foley with the Dude Love costume.

On that same episode of Raw, Mick Foley reverted to his Mankind character, who had become a more human and less creature-like character as he began wearing an untucked dress shirt with a loose necktie.

Mick Foley then plunged 13 feet through the Cell and landed on the ring mat, losing a tooth.

Mick Foley decided that crowds might respond better if Mankind were more of a comedy character, and so he abandoned the tortured soul characteristics and became more of a goofy, broken-down oaf.

Mick Foley began the transition into this character following SummerSlam in 1998 after Kane turned on him and the two lost the tag team championships.

Mick Foley took personal pride in observing that ratings indicate large numbers of viewers switched from Nitro to Raw to see him win the title.

However, Mick Foley had taken eleven in the span of two and a half minutes, all unprotected, because he had been handcuffed just before The Rock began his repeated onslaught.

Mick Foley was originally supposed to take five chair shots to the head with the final match-ending shot being two-thirds up the entrance ramp.

Mick Foley bludgeoned Foley five more times in the head until they got to the two-thirds mark.

Mick Foley eventually used a forklift to pin a subdued Rock in a basement loading area.

Mick Foley briefly reverted to his Cactus Jack persona for a Hardcore handicap match against Ministry of Darkness members Viscera and Mideon on May 10,1999, which Cactus won, entering wielding two basketballs as weapons.

Mick Foley then helped Raw is War achieve its highest ratings ever with a segment featuring himself and The Rock.

Mick Foley ended up being attacked by the Mean Street Posse, Billy Gunn and Road Dogg, all of whom dressed up as Santa Claus.

Mick Foley then fell back into his Cactus Jack persona in front of the crowd to promote Cactus Jack facing Triple H for the WWF Championship at Royal Rumble, in a Street Fight.

Mick Foley left for a few weeks, but returned at the request of Linda McMahon to wrestle for the title by replacing Chris Jericho's spot at the main event of WrestleMania 2000 against Triple H, The Rock and Big Show.

Triple H won, and Mick Foley did not wrestle again for four years.

Mick Foley has said that he intended for his Commissioner Mick Foley character to be a "role model for nerds," cracking lame jokes and making no attempt to appear tough or scary.

Mick Foley had a knack during this time to have no one spot for his office; rather, Foley would have an office in all sorts of odd places.

Mick Foley left the position in December 2000 after being "fired" onscreen by McMahon during which he received a brutal beat down at the hands of Angle, Edge and Christian.

Mick Foley made a surprise return on the Raw just before WrestleMania X-Seven and announced that he would be the special guest referee in the match between Mr McMahon and his son Shane at WrestleMania.

Mick Foley returned as commissioner in October 2001, near the end of The Invasion angle.

On December 12,2003, Mick Foley served as the special guest referee for a Terry Funk vs Dusty Rhodes match promoted by the International Wrestling Cartel.

On September 11,2004, Mick Foley made his debut for Ring of Honor and cut a promo, praising ROH and referring to it as "Ring of Hardcore", thus establishing himself as a face.

Whitmer representing Mick Foley, which was won by McGuiness and Collyer.

On January 15,2005, Mick Foley turned heel after being confronted by Samoa Joe and hit Joe over the head with a steel chair.

Mick Foley acted as a direct line to Vince McMahon, attempting to convince Punk to defend his title one last time on McMahon's orders before he departed from ROH.

Mick Foley was then attacked from behind by Alex Shelley and The Embassy until Austin Aries and Roderick Strong chased them off.

Mick Foley returned to WWE to referee the Hell in a Cell match between Triple H and Kevin Nash at Bad Blood on June 15,2003.

The evening ended with Mick Foley taking a beating and kicked down a flight of stairs by Randy Orton and Ric Flair.

Mick Foley soon grew tired of the day-to-day travel and left his full-time duties to write and spend time with his family.

Mick Foley returned briefly to wrestling, competing in the Royal Rumble match at the Royal Rumble on January 25,2004 and eliminating both Orton and himself with his trademark Cactus Jack clothesline.

Mick Foley appeared as a color commentator at WWE's ECW One Night Stand on June 12,2005, and subsequently renewed his contract with WWE.

The fans voted for Mankind, who went on to defeat Carlito- this was the last time Mick Foley ever wrestled as Mankind.

Mick Foley then engaged in a storyline rivalry with Ric Flair, inspired by real-life animosity between them.

Flair, who was covered in blood, thumbtacks and cuts from barbed wire, won the match when he forced Mick Foley to quit by threatening Melina with a barbed-wire bat.

Shortly thereafter, Melina betrayed Mick Foley and announced that he was fired.

Seven months later, Mick Foley returned on the March 5,2007 episode of Raw with the storyline being that he tricked McMahon into giving him his job back, turning face .

Mick Foley then made an appearance on SmackDown the same week, where he defeated Coachman with Hornswoggle as the special guest referee.

Mick Foley told Long Island Press pro wrestling columnist Josh Stewart in August 2008 that "creatively, the announcing job wasn't working out too well".

Mick Foley expanded with Dave Meltzer on the Observer radio show that the environment was creatively frustrating.

Mick Foley allowed his contract with WWE to expire on September 1,2008, and quietly left the company.

Mick Foley claimed in the statement to be "very excited about the specifics of this agreement and the potential it holds".

Two weeks later, Mick Foley made his full television debut in a promo making comments about the WWE roster, Vince McMahon and Kurt Angle.

Alex Shelley ended up being pinned by Rhino, and Mick Foley handed Rhino the check.

However, Shelley "flipped off" Mick Foley and proceeded to beat him up.

Mick Foley got the pin when he hit Scott Steiner with a double arm DDT onto a chair.

Mick Foley lost the match when Angle forced him to submit again with the ankle lock.

Mick Foley revealed Abyss as the one who tore up his picture and attacked him with a videotape and the baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

At first, Mick Foley was seemingly going along with the plan, but at the last second he shoved Mr Socko down Bischoff's throat, put him on the barber's chair and shaved him nearly bald.

In reality, Mick Foley was taken off television due to him being on his way to exceed the maximum number of dates per year on his contract, at the pace he was making appearances.

At Hardcore Justice, Mick Foley refereed a Final Showdown match between Tommy Dreamer and Raven.

On October 24,2020, Mick Foley made a brief return to Impact Wrestling at the 2020 Bound for Glory via video message to congratulate Ken Shamrock for his induction into the Impact Hall of Fame.

Mick Foley returned to WWE at a house show in Dublin, Ireland, taking a break from his UK comedy tour, on November 2,2011, making an in-ring promo with The Miz and R-Truth and then guest refereed the tag team match, appearing again in Manchester on November 5.

Mick Foley participated in the Royal Rumble match at the 2012 Royal Rumble pay-per-view where he entered at number 7 and eliminated Justin Gabriel, Epico, and Primo, eventually being eliminated by Cody Rhodes after 6 minutes and 34 seconds.

Mick Foley later appeared in a segment alongside Santino Marella at WrestleMania XXVIII.

Mick Foley's hand-picked Survivor Series team of The Miz, Randy Orton, Kofi Kingston and Team Hell No failed to defeat Team Ziggler in the Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Elimination Tag Match.

Mick Foley appeared as part of the Extreme Rules post-show to provide an analysis.

In 2015, Mick Foley appeared at SummerSlam, where he kicked off the event with host Jon Stewart.

Mick Foley returned to Raw on March 14,2016, in a backstage segment with Dean Ambrose, in which he gave him a pep talk for his upcoming WrestleMania 32 match against Brock Lesnar and a passing of the torch in the form of his iconic barbed wire baseball bat, "Barbie".

Mick Foley unveiled new titles exclusive to the Raw brand, while making fair decisions to favor the faces and occasionally disagreeing with Stephanie McMahon.

Zayn would then tell Mick Foley he was pondering going to SmackDown because Mick Foley did not believe in him.

Later that night, after Zayn defeated Jinder Mahal, Mick Foley would tell him he has arranged a trade with SmackDown for him in exchange for Eva Marie.

Mick Foley chose to fire Stephanie McMahon herself, which prompted Triple H to come out and confront Mick Foley.

Mick Foley is a multi-time New York Times bestselling author, particularly known for his ongoing series of memoirs.

The follow-up, Mick Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Wrestling, was released on May 8,2001.

WWE's promotion of a product released by an employee of a rival company was a quite unusual move and a welcome surprise for Mick Foley, who has since stated that he was delighted at the respect shown by his former employer.

On November 10,2010, Mick Foley appeared on The Daily Show and Off the Record to discuss the book and his charity work.

Foley himself occasionally appears in Mickey's videos, including one parodying the 2010 LeBron James special The Decision in which Foley teases announcing Al Snow as being his WWE Hall of Fame inductee before announcing the real inductee, Terry Funk.

Mick Foley is a longtime fan of women's professional wrestling and has campaigned for their equality with men.

Mick Foley is a supporter of the Stony Brook Seawolves college basketball team and frequently attended home games.

Mick Foley's father taught at Stony Brook University's school of professional development.

Shortly before he joined the WWF, Mick Foley appeared in Atlanta filmmakers Barry Norman and Michael Williams' short subject Deadbeats as "Bird", an armed robber turned debt collector.

Mick Foley appeared in the Insane Clown Posse vehicle Big Money Hustlas as Cactus Sac, which was the same character as his Cactus Jack persona.

Mick Foley appeared in an episode of Boy Meets World as Mankind, advising to Eric Matthews before giving Eric the mandible claw and an airplane spin.

Mick Foley was a voice in an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch where he was an animated version of Mankind doing a stunt from the ceiling, and later in the same episode he fought and defeated Ernest Hemingway.

Mick Foley had a small role in the 2007 thriller movie Anamorph starring Willem Dafoe.

Mick Foley has frequently appeared on Air America Radio's Morning Sedition, including several stints as a guest host and has appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show.

Mick Foley appeared in the 2009 wrestling documentary, Bloodstained Memoirs.

In 2009, Mick Foley had a guest voice appearance on Adult Swim show Squidbillies as Thunder Clap, a former pro-wrestler, who had recently gone through some tough times, during the Season 4 episode "Anabolic-holic".

The money Mick Foley made from the event went to Wrestler's Rescue, which creates awareness and helps raise money to support retired professional wrestlers' health care needs.

In October 2009, Mick Foley was guest DJ on E Street Radio, a Satellite radio station dedicated to the music of Bruce Springsteen.

On November 19,2009, Mick Foley made his first appearance on The Daily Show.

Mick Foley showed up again on March 15,2010, to help correspondent Wyatt Cenac compare politics to pro wrestling, giving speeches for and against the use of the filibuster.

On June 18,2013, Mick Foley again appeared on the Daily Show, now hosted by temporary host John Oliver.

In mid-2010, Mick Foley appeared at Chicago Comic Con, where he had his own booth promoting TNA.

Mick Foley was interviewed by Victory Records, mentioning his interest in Swedish hard rock band Sister Sin.

In November 2010, Mick Foley was a contestant on an all TNA week of Family Feud, teaming with Jay Lethal, Matt Morgan, Mr Anderson and Rob Van Dam against Angelina Love, Christy Hemme, Lacey Von Erich, Tara and Velvet Sky.

In 2014, a documentary starring Mick Foley was released by Virgil Films entitled, I Am Santa Claus.

Mick Foley had a small role as a wrestling referee in the 2019 film The Peanut Butter Falcon.

Mick Foley has visited US troops at various military bases and military hospitals.

Mick Foley has been outspoken in his support for the Democratic Party.

Mick Foley was a contributor to Barack Obama's campaign for the US presidency in 2008.