Source: Steven Fernandes of PWInsider.com
Part 1
Jim Ross asks Mick Foley how this book is different than the first two autobiographies. Foley says this is more in-depth in that it covers a specific amount of time. It gives fans unprecedented access not only backstage of WWE, but in a scary way, to inside the head of Vince McMahon. Foley says this book was Vince’s idea. He thinks there will be some people who will be shocked at how freely he criticizes Vince. ‘Hardcore Diaries’ wasn’t his idea, but the idea of doing another autobiography book was. Foley went to Vince in June 2005 with an idea of doing a book about behind the scenes of WrestleMania, because he was intrigued by the book ‘Three Nights in August’ looking at the series between St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs. As it turned out, Foley became part of WrestleMania last year. That was not the story he wanted to write. He put that idea on the shelf, but he already committed to Vince to doing a book. They had called him later and asked about the book, and he said he was writing it, when in fact he hadn’t written anything for months. In April, he got a call from Simon and Schuster asking for a manuscript by July. So he was in a predicament, because he had this idea that he felt was the greatest idea of his career that would result in the greatest storyline in WWE that he was involved with. He thought how was he going to write about something while at the same time preparing and training and physically and mentally getting ready for a match of that magnitude, like One Night Stand would be. Then a light bulb went off. That’s the book! He would take viewers along for the ride. What he thought would be a smooth 6-7 week ride turned out to be the bumpiest ride of his career.
Ross asks who are the key players in the execution of the idea. Besides himself, Vince McMahon would play the greatest role. Brian Gerwitz is a major player. Terry Funk, Edge, Tommy Dreamer. Ric Flair plays a peripheral role. Melina plays an unlikely role, and she could be the one who salvaged the whole book idea.
Ross asks about his on-screen relationship with Melina being comparable to his off-screen relationship with her. Foley says what we saw on-screen was an accurate depiction of their relationship behind the scenes. It did catch some people unaware because having a platonic friendship was something that wasn’t explored before in WWE. He isn’t sure it was something Vince McMahon understood. Ross wonders if that’s because he never had a lot of platonic friendships. Foley says that might be exactly true. He said he came up with that idea and that’s the idea that might have salvaged the book. Foley says it became apparent to him when they did RAW at Anaheim in May, that his original ideas were not going to become reality. He told Gerwitz he didn’t come back to get involve and erase seven years of goodwill with the fans. Despite everything he had done, he appeared to be a likable guy to the fans. He could be someone they could trust as far as trusting someone in WWE. He admits he would throw away goodwill to get a WrestleMania payoff. But to appear on what could turn out to be a second-rate show with questionable payoff with his own ideas that might be sabotaged was something he had a lot of trepidation about. He reached a point where he was about to “take his ball and go home with it”. As fate would have it, Gerry Briscoe had a personal issue, and Vince, despite all the bad things said about him, has a good heart and he went to help out Briscoe. Foley realized two things. If he walked out on WWE, he would have the shortest book since the written wisdom of Test. Second of all, he believed he would be breaking Melina’s heart because he had this long term idea that would make her a huge star. He kept hearing this tiny voice inside of him saying “Thank you” over and over again. He thought what he was going to tell this girl who he led to believe was in store for the biggest deal of her life. “Sorry, we’re not going to do this because I got upset. Talk to you later down the line”?
Ross asks what his original idea was. He said he told the entire creative staff that included Vince and Stephanie that this hinges on three key ideas. One, they had to believe that Edge and him could become one of the most intriguing short term teams in recent memory and everyone nodded their head. Two, they had to have faith that Terry Funk could come across to WWE fans as being a major superstar in a short amount of time. Foley told them that they might think Funk is out of his mind and Dusty joked that was because he is indeed out of his mind. Foley says that’s what makes Terry work. Third, Vince McMahon was physically going to get involved. He left Stamford thinking all three things would happen but then he realized that two things would not happen. Vince would not get involved because it would step on what he was doing with DX. To him, they just lost faith in Terry Funk. He believed Funk was not going to bite a chuck of Vince’s ass. That’s what made the writers fall off their seats laughing. But it got back to him that they didn’t want someone who wasn’t in the company ending the ‘Kiss My Ass Club’. He became frustrated because he believes they don’t give fans enough credit. He understood Triple H and Shawn Michaels needed to be physically involved with Vince, but didn’t they have ten years of TV exposure to help them out a little bit? Terry would six or seven minutes and Foley left he would have to leave the arena leaving the fans feeling good they had spent their money to see. Once he felt that was being taken away from him, he started thinking about how he could salvage that idea and convince Vince it would work. A light bulb went off and he thought he would use Melina. He doesn’t want to tell all what would have happened because some of it did happen. But he felt they should have gone with his idea instead of a condensed version.
Part 2
Foley is asked who put the bullet in Terry Funk’s push. Foley says he could never find out, but he believes when they went out in Lubbock, Texas they nailed the interview. He says they conveyed more emotion than anyone else does. He believes the reason the push never happened was because the next week, Funk stumbled down the ring and Vince just wrote him off automatically as a lost cause, and from that point on the storyline was sabotaged due to Vince not having faith in Terry’s ability.
Ross says he remembers the angle in Lubbock because it was raw, organic, and real. Two people having a genuinely heated conversation. He says the writing staff gets blamed for poorly written promos, because they trying to put themselves in the role of Terry Funk, and in the present day, writing for Funk is not fair. It’s not a system built for success. Foley says the most detrimental part is that it relieves the wrestlers from thinking for themselves. He says that in the book, he was honest and wrote that some of his greatest success came with lines that were written for him. But by the time he became the latter day funny Mankind and Commissioner Foley, he was already doing his interviews for 15 years. He talks about a place he would go in his mind called ‘Promoland’ and he knows it was frustrating to his wife when she would have conversations with him and his eyes would wonder off in the distance. His hands were twitching, but he was always ready to jump into that character and the scary part when the character and the person becomes one. That’s when things become effective. Terry Funk refers to it as “borderline”. If you ask Foley if he was in character during that interview, he is not sure. But it felt real to them two as well as for the fans. He says that is the biggest drawback he sees to the scripting process where guys who are coming up have talent and heart, but they don’t have the experience and poise under pressure, that years of working in territories and years of thinking for themselves will bring with it.
Ross brings up the transition from working with a Hall of Famer like Terry Funk to working with Melina. What did Foley see in her that made him think that she will be a star? Foley says at the risk of offending people on Smackdown, a year and a half ago, there was not a lot of reason to watch Smackdown. He saw this evil woman on TV and he was really transfixed. Charisma just pours out of her. He felt that he likes watching her, but wasn’t sure if he ever would like to meet her. There was a Supershow in Washington D.C in January, and up comes this woman and she is so gracious, and so respectful that after she talked with him for a couple of minutes, Foley was walking around with a cloud of confusion surrounding him. He went to Scotty 2 Hotty and asked if he knew Melina. He said yeah and Foley asked him what’s she like. Scotty said she’s really quiet. Foley couldn’t believe the girl who was screaming on TV would be quiet backstage. Scotty said he didn’t really know her. He asked 3 or 4 other people and they said she’s really nice, but she keeps to herself. For some reason when they started talking, she felt comfortable talking to him. She became his confidant. He saw something in her that maybe he could do something with her. A few days later he had said that he never did anything with any of the female characters before, and he thought it would be interesting to do something with. He says he wished there were some things that Ross and Lawler were able to point out more on commentary but they might have been told to stay away something specific, but she looked like she was honored to be in the ring with him and it was so apparent that she enjoyed being around him. He says if Vince had an ability to better appreciate platonic friendships, their issue may have gone further. But seeing that this woman with the sexy entrance had a confidant and mentor seemed impossible. He knows it was tough for his wife to accept that.
Ross says one thing that was uncomfortable, especially for him, was that at one point thinking that Melina was becoming his love interest. As Ross understood it, that never was the intent or was he wrong? Foley says he isn’t wrong, and as a matter of fact, Foley trying to clear it up caused some discomfort at home. He says he never talked about this before, but his marriage is looked upon as something that is respected. They have never been happier, but his wife became uneasy about this girl he was constantly talking about. He says Melina might not like him talking about this, but he felt the need to explain it. But he was talking to her on the phone and he asked her if Nitro had any problem with her talking to him all the time. Melina said why don’t you talk to him and find out. So he asked Nitro and he replied that he likes when she talks to him because she doesn’t have any friends and talking to him makes her happy. Foley respected that and felt he was mature beyond his years. Melina told him that she thanks God for putting Foley in her life. Foley says he got a sign from God that Melina should be the godmother of his child. Ross says he could see his wife not buying that. Foley says the funny thing was he was watching Smackdown with his friends and he told them that he was thinking about making Melina the godmother of his son. Then she comes on TV and does the entrance and they tell him “you are not going to ask your wife that”. He thought about it for a couple of days, feeling that he didn’t get many signs from God and maybe he didn’t get one that time and he misinterpret it. When he asked his wife about it on the phone, it was not a happy phone call. He says the reason he bought it up on TV is because he thought it would make people aware of the fact that this is not somebody he is hitting on, and they have never had a relationship. To this day, he believes fans would have accepted it. To this day, it bothers his wife.
Ross says the last time we officially saw him on TV, he got fired by Melina. Foley says even with that, he felt a sense of guilt because the next week they were on at 1 or 2 am because they got pre-empted by tennis and Foley was watching and felt something was wrong. Ten minutes had gone by, and there was no mention of his firing. It was an hour and a half before his name even came up. He’s been around long enough to know how it works. If you want something to be seen as important, then Ross and Lawler would bring it up and they are often told what to put over. Ross says they are given a list of priorities about what to discuss. The fact that he wasn’t a priority and it took that long to mention him gave him some indication of what type of importance was placed on his firing. He already had an indication when he saw how the ‘breakup’ scenario was seen as a backdrop to Vince’s continuing adventures with DX. Foley says they have done a lot of things with the divas and some of it has been crappy. He says they are under pressure to put out 4 hours of live TV every week and some things won’t work out well. But here was somebody who perpetuated one of the evil acts that he could ever think about. Somebody thought so highly of her that he was willing to kiss Vince’s ass. Foley says Ross has been there as well and it’s a miserable moment in their life, and Ross agrees. The idea that he was doing something that would help her made it better. When he realized that the big spotlight that was going to be shining on her was a temporary flicker, he’d never felt guilty about anything in his life because he felt he led her to believe that having an on screen friendship with him would be the biggest thing in his life and it didn’t turn out to be anything. He still thinks she will turn out to be a big thing. But knowing she put faith in him and it turned out to be nothing is hard for him to deal with.
Part 3
Ross asks how Ric Flair is depicted in the book because he believes that some might have misperception about how he feels about Flair. Foley says this kind of fits in with the Melina storyline because there was another thing that broke his heart following SummerSlam. Ross jokes it might the payoff. Foley laughs and says no. It wasn’t from an unselfish point of view, but from a prideful point of view, Foley thought he would be the guy responsible for Vince seeing Ric Flair as a major player. Vince’s understands his value to the company, but there would be a lot of people who believe Flair deserves more air time, specifically more mic time than he gets. Foley thought that they were going to put Flair in the position where he would deliver promos that they knew he could cut. Not the 80’s wrasslin’ promos that Vince accuses him of, but those deep-felt Ric Flair promos. Foley always said that if they went back and had the foresight to put a camera in that lunch room brawl that they two had, that they two would have probably headlined WrestleMania for the next 7 years because Flair was so passionate. It was one of the greatest promos he ever seen. Flair was turning purple; he had never seen a guy angrier. Veins were sticking out of his neck. Foley says you wouldn’t be surprised if he collapsed on the spot. It was a surreal feeling because at the same time, Foley was punched in what he came to realize was a pre-emptive attack. Foley was hovering over Flair and made him look bad in front of the boys for not shaking his hand. Flair probably thought Foley was going to throw the first punch. So Flair launched the attack and in Foley’s mind, maybe it was bad at the time, but instead of covering it up and making it look like it never happened, they got to the root of the problem. Foley realized he had been partially at fault. He says he might have been guilty of two bullying acts in his life. One of them was that day in the lunch room when he was hovering over Ric and wouldn’t shake his hand. The next day, he felt it would be another 20 years before he would bully anyone again. He realized he was wrong, and maybe he didn’t deserved to be punched in the face, but he could have acted better. This was a pivotal moment and he has never spoken about it publicly. He doesn’t think Ric has either. He asks Ross if he remembers back when Ross would call him and ask him if he would work with Flair, even in a six-man and Foley would say no. Foley had this feeling he would be damned if Ric was going to benefit from blasting Foley in his book. That didn’t make it right. He adds there might have been payoffs attached that would have made it okay, but they didn’t get that far. So he wasn’t interested in working with Flair. What changed that was he called Ric from Iraq 3 or 4 days after the incident. Foley says they were on top of the world because they did a show for the troops. He asked Johnny Laurinitis if he could use his phone and he called Ric. He said if no one was home, he would have left a message and there would be potential for salvaging. But if Ric had picked up the phone and used any type of expletives, Foley would be taken down from the high he was feeling and it would be unforgivable and next to impossible to work with Flair in the future. Instead, to his credit, he was a real gentleman. They both apologized for the incident and they had a long talk. 5 or 6 minutes seems like a long time when you are miles apart. He says although they will never be great friends, they participated in some memorable stuff. The interviews were probably more memorable than the matches. He says he has a text from Ric on his cell phone. He actually thought it was from Melina at first. He won’t say what it said, but it was a nice thoughtful text and he showed his wife and told her how thoughtful she is. His wife agreed. A couple of days later, he called Ric just to say that he enjoyed doing the match with him and he was sorry it didn’t result in a renewed push. Flair asked him if he got his text, and Foley didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he checked his cell phone again and realized that text was from Ric. To this day, Ric is thought of highly in the Foley household. He called him a week ago after he did that interview with Carlito, and told him the last thing you would expect to see from two people who had no problem with each other was something special to happen. He thought that was special and it was real and based off real emotions that Ric was feeling at the time. Flair told him it meant a lot coming from him. Foley believes him. He says that Flair might not think he is the greatest wrestler in the world, but he does respect him to a certain degree now.
Part 4
Foley is asked how many sides of Vince McMahon was he able to document in the book. Foley says if anybody reads the book, they will notice he has contrasting feelings about Vince. He says at one point, and this is about as honest as you can get, when they two were in the ring waiting for the big Melina thing to happen, which wasn’t big after all, they both effortlessly slipped into their own character and that was partially because they share a real dislike for each other. Foley can’t guarantee that Vince dislikes him, but there are times when Foley dislikes Vince. There are other times when Foley thinks he is one of the greatest people in the world. Otherwise he wouldn’t have dedicated the book to him. Foley told him he considers him to be on the level of some US Presidents, but at the same time, there are things he does that makes him hang his head in shame. First and foremost was his treatment of Ross when he was recovering from delicate surgery. The difference between Vince and Foley, or anyone for that matter, is that Vince thinks anything is fair game as long as it entertains his audience. He loves his audience. He thoroughly believes entertaining people is the second most important thing in the world, short of curing diseases. But he goes too far sometimes. Foley says he spent 6 months in 2000-2001 covering the company and defending them from criticisms that Foley thought were unjust like from PTC. Foley hates when Vince puts him in a position where he cannot defend the company. There are things that make Foley hang his head in shame and say he can’t defend that.
Ross asks if he ever hated him. Foley says no, but there are times when he disliked him, and there are times when he sees he is a genuinely good person. There is a line in the book where Foley subtly implies that One Night Stand was being sabotaged on purpose. Vince got upset, maybe for a good reason. So Vince told him, “I might not be a good person, but I am a good businessman.” Foley look at him and disagreed and told him that he thinks he is a good person. Vince looked at him at astonishment and started talking frantically. Foley says what he said was true. He has a lot of respect for Vince and the best thing he can say about him and something he will say every time he is on the road and the mainstream media paints the book as a horrible portrayal of WWE, is where else can someone feel like they have the freedom to criticize the boss in a book that is being published by the boss himself. There were several times when he was writing the book and he was thinking that they weren’t going to publish what he wrote. Foley reiterates that he thought he was going to write about this greatest idea of his life, and it was going to be a wonderful adventure. In retrospect, he’s lucky, from a book standpoint, that it was a creative disaster and a fiasco.
Ross says it became Foley’s book then because it didn’t live up to his expectations, and it took on a different life form, with new characters and it became an interesting story than originally planned. Foley says it was bad for his ECW ‘One Night stand’ show, but good for the ‘Hardcore Diaries’. He said there were two conversations he had with Vince. One was where Vince told him to write a book and be very brutal. Foley told him he wanted to write a positive book because that’s how he viewed life. Vince told him he could be positive, but he wants him to hammer somebody. A few weeks later, Vince asked him how the book was coming; Foley told him he had good news and bad news. The good news was he is going to hammer somebody; the bad news was that somebody is Vince. Vince laughed and Foley told him the bumps in the road are going to be good for the book. Vince told him he would be sure to place more in there. Borders bookstore told him to write a letter in their newsletter. Foley wrote, in his opinion, this is a good book for people that don’t like wrestling because it is such a bizarre action-adventure story, and you see characters that HG Wells or Jules Vernon could not dream up in their wildest days. A visit to Mordor has nothing on a trip to Vince’s office. While Vince frustrated him and angered him on many occasions throughout the writing of the book, he is thankful to him for giving him a forum to express his opinions, and in the end, let every single thing go including his criticism of the way he handled Ross’s surgery.
Ross says what the boss wants is what they do. He tells the talent that as well. Whether they agree or not with what Vince wants, this is the play he called. They can either go in and execute the play, or they can stand next to him on the sideline and watch somebody else run the play. But Foley says that’s one of the comforts of life where he can tell Vince he doesn’t feel like running that play. Foley says when he suggests ideas that they are lined up to benefit others involved in the idea. Foley admits, and adds that he has had arguments with Ross, but he likes to be paid fairly when he feels he has performed and delivered. But for him, it’s always been partially about what the other guys got out of it. That’s his legacy, he thinks. He can’t point to drawing great crowds or selling huge merchandise like Austin or Rock. He can’t say he was the main stay of the show like DX was, but he likes to think that when the guys look back and think about the things that made their career, working with Mick Foley is high up on their list. One of the successes he’s had during those six weeks, which other people wouldn’t think of being a success, was being to keep Edge at the level he was at, because he had lost the title to John Cena. He had really shot up and he was at the dangerous position where some people still didn’t feel he deserved to be there, and it would be easy to slip him down to the midcard show stealer that he was all the time. Ross says Edge might be the best antagonist in the company right now. Foley says he is incredible.
Ross asks what long time fans of WWE will get from reading this book about Vince McMahon that they never knew before. Foley says in a sense, it humanizes Vince. There will be some people who will walk away and feel this is a flattering portrayal of Vince. Ross jokes that if he is humanizing Vince, then he is Hemmingway. Foley adds that you come away with appreciation for him. It’s obvious when he writes about Vince that he likes him. It’s almost like he is disappointed when he does certain things, and it infuriates him. But he appreciates what he did for him and thinks he is a good person. But he is a complex multi-layered guy with a lot of things that just don’t make sense. Foley thinks he does a good a job as possible at capturing some of those things, especially how it relates to how he messed up a sure homerun, that being Foley’s original idea.
Part 5
Ross brings up that Foley had said that if WWE had run the new ECW along the lines of the old ECW, a lot of people would be ending up in wheelchairs. Foley says WWE did a good job of blending the old with the new and even though Test and RVD had a good match, Vince must have said that’s not how they want their show to be. Foley feels where they lost it was at December to Dismember, even going back to Survivor Series where they didn’t enhance any of the matches or storylines for the upcoming PPV which resulted in ECW or WWE fans not feeling good about having to spend their money on the PPV. Foley says if you are Vince or someone higher in the WWE echelon, and you are looking at the buyrates and thinking this show had no TV time, except for the few things they were able to do and that John Cena was able to do, and RVD was able to do. They had maybe an hour and fifteen minutes over a course of four weeks. Foley says his angle started the whole thing in motion six weeks before hand, and they had a total of an hour and a half of TV time, and six months later, you’re going to say that having an hour of TV every week and you end up doing 1/3 of the buyrate, then there’s a problem there. One of the things Foley regrets is that by becoming the anti-ECW guy, and hence throwing away the seven years of goodwill he had with the fans, that he wasn’t part of the new ECW because he believes he could have been a bridge not only between the old school and new school, but also between the old ECW and the new ECW, and WWE and ECW. The fans would have accepted him in that position. He thinks that was an opportunity wasted.
Ross asks him if he holds any hope that the new ECW will eventually become successful. Foley says this is where his optimistic outlook is challenged. He says he likes the show and sees some promise in the Old School vs. New Breed storyline. He says there were some things that he didn’t think would look great, like the vampire gimmick of Kevin Thorne and Ariel, but they are a winning act. He says he is oddly attracted to Ariel in a non-platonic way, like most of the stranger WWE fans would be. He says there is hope for the new ECW.
Ross asks when it all got screwed up in his mind, was it hard to go out and give those passionate interviews that he wanted to give. Foley says there was a time that he wrote about in the book, where “promoland” had closed its doors forever. He just thought he had tried his best; there was nothing else he could do. There was a time when he was boarding a plane and he said he didn’t give a crap anymore. He didn’t care about One Night Stand; he’ll do SummerSlam if they want him to. But they took something he was passionate about and just stole it from him. But as time went on, Foley realized he has a chance to write the last chapter of the book. He became determined that the last chapter would be a happy ending for him. They would have a good match, and Vince would look him in the eye and say “Yes, I was wrong!” One miscalculation on his part, that being that Terry Funk could not perform, derailed the whole project. There were other bumps in the road, but Foley was able to navigate them. When Vince thinks that Funk would not be able to perform at their level, what else is there to say? Foley went to bat for him and told Vince that his knees were shot. 18 years ago, when he was working with Flair, his sacrum and his back were cracked, He would have to lean over, and be on his knees and lean over his airplane seat but then he would go out and deliver. Foley says he saw him a year earlier when he refereed a match between Funk and Dusty Rhodes and he was the most believable bad guy in the business, and still is. Foley had no doubts that when they got out there, they would put on a memorable show. It was knowing that he was right and Vince McMahon not taking stock in his opinion that really bothered him. In the end, it was history. They had a hell of a match. It may have not been everybody’s “cup of tea”, but he has been in a lot of wild type of environments and this was among the best of those wild matches that he had. In a sense, it had a happy ending, but the afterword, due to the lack of follow-up with Flair and Melina, was depressing to him. He bounced out of that and still thought there was potential. The thing with Melina was one promo away from being important. If he has proven one thing, it is that he can make WWE fans see how some things are important to him. He feels he has enough credibility with the fans that when he sees something as important to him, they know that will make for good TV and good matches.
Ross asks him if he has new ideas for the creative team or will he just lay back and let them come to him with ideas. Foley says his one fear is that he will have a great idea and somebody will say “let’s put Mick Foley in his place and we’ll show him where he stands with us” Foley says he already knows where he stands without WWE. He has written two books without them. He knows where his fan base is so he doesn’t need to be taught a lesson. He already talked with Vince. He doesn’t have great expectations, he knows he won’t be crushed but he knows when he gets back on TV, and they will create memorable moments. At the end of the day, he feels he is a storyteller. He feels that Ross feels the same way about himself. Ross agrees. He has great stories to tell. He isn’t sure if he is capable of getting into the ring and making them pay off as he would like to. But he is also smart to know that he should work towards his strengths and avoid his weaknesses.
Ross asks him how can he come back and not be pigeonholed as a hardcore legend that took 15 chair shots to the head. Foley feels along the way, fans began to care about him and he was able to climb out of that hole he dug for himself. One of his defining moments was when he was backstage at an event in Houston and did an interview about Randy Orton that went 7 minutes long, and it was a pre-tape. He says he couldn’t have done that in 1999 because everyone wanted short promos. The era of storytelling was over and he was able to go with some humorous aspects and thrive in that era, when he thought for a while he would be disregarded and thrown to the curb. The fact that he was able to tell a story for 7 minutes and not have people yell ‘WHAT?’ or expecting a pop, made him realize that they could tell stories to the fans. He says the problem in 1999 was that WWE became big so fast that the loudest of the fans were the ones that had been there the least and expected the most. Once they dropped off the bandwagon, they were able to maintain an incredible level of popularity, locally and worldwide. The present-day fans are more likely to sit down and listen to a story. So, he feels like let everyone else do catchphrases, but as long as there is an audience that wants to listen to stories, then he will always have a job when he comes back.
Ross asks him if he is a little intimidated that ‘Hardcore Diaries’ might not live up to the first two autobiographies, or be on the same level as those two. Foley says he doesn’t think it has the ability to be on the same level as far as sales goes, because the days of wrestling books selling 3-quarters of a million copies is gone. But he has also learnt that he cannot let other people define what success is to him. He learnt that through writing two novels that he was very proud of and work very hard on, that didn’t do too well. That’s the lesson he imparts on other people, whether it be in schools or other superstars. He can’t control how many copies of the book are sold, but he knows this is a book he would have liked if he was a wrestling fan. He feels the WWE fans will like it, the same way that all independent guys should have read ‘Have a Nice Day’. Anybody who wants to get into WWE needs to read it to know what they are in store for when they get there and how to survive in the hallowed halls of WWE.
Ross brings up book signings for the book. Foley says as soon as he got the sense that the publishers were behind the book, as well as WWE, he started committing himself to more signings. He says he called WWE up a few days back and said that they are having events in Italy and UK soon and this is given that he expects to be back on TV by that time, but is there any interest for promoting his book in those places. He got a message back the next day that they were chomping at the bit at that happening. Foley says the book might be a failure, but he would rather put his best effort forward and find out he was wrong than not try at all.
Ross asks if he sees himself wrestling again this year. Foley says maybe. He adds if he accepts a match, and the fans can accept that he would do a good job of building up the match, but not accept him to deliver a good match, then he wouldn’t mind doing it every now and then.
