Mick Foley: Why I Disliked The Mankind Character
Mankind was Foley’s most well-known persona during his WWE run
Mick Foley’s ‘three faces’ in WWE made him a household name, with the goofy Dude Love, violent Cactus Jack, and disturbing yet somehow relatable Mankind making Foley one of the biggest stars in wrestling during its hottest period.
However, despite Mankind being the most well-known of the three, Foley has revealed he hated the character, saying on the Talking Tough podcast:
“I hated that character because the mask was so… It really constricted my breathing, you know? With the leather underneath the nose. I needed as much oxygen as I could suck in anyway. But it came about because Jim Ross was a big advocate of mine, and Mr. McMahon was never interested in me. He thought I didn’t look like a star. And finally, my name came up in 1995, in the fall, he slammed it on the table, and he said, ‘Alright, I’ll bring him in, but I’m covering up his face.’ And that’s how I got my foot in the door, and luckily, as time went by, he kind of found out I had an interesting real-life story to tell.
“So, I was able to inject a lot more realism into that character and it really was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The stuff that Mankind did with Dwayne Johnson, when he was my opponent and when he was my partner, was really fun and memorable stuff. Luckily, we were taking peoples’ minds off their problems and they still remember some of the stuff 22 years after the fact.”
H/T: Wrestling Inc.