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[Murmuring Beast 0]

Mick Foley's future in the WWE...

 

Mick Foley is scheduled to be at Raw on Monday night in Florida. Foley and the WWE came to a contractual agreement just days before Raw and the storyline was then written into the show. There are no plans whatsoever for Foley to wrestle, and this is just being used as a chance for Foley to plug his new book. There are also no long term plans for Foley at this point.

 

Credit: Dave Scherer

 

Another reason for Kurt Angle being a babyface is the fact that many in the WWE are still concerned about how well his neck can hold up. In an average match, the heel will take many more bumps than the babyface, thus making the crowd very happy. Once his neck has been tested for a while he may just turn back to a heel.

 

Credit: Dave Scherer

 

The following is a WWE press release on the death of the great...

 

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 4, 2003--When "Classy" Freddie Blassie was a teenager, wrestling in Midwestern carnivals in the 1930s, a friend invited him into a neighboring tent to look at the "geek."

 

Blassie took the man up on his offer, and soon was standing in front of a bony performer who was biting the heads off chickens and snakes, and sticking pins in himself.

 

Blassie was confused by the exhibition, but riveted by the entertainer's appearance. "He's got a neck like a stack of dimes," Blassie grumbled to his friend. "He's what you'd call a real pencil neck geek."

 

Every wrestler needs a gimmick, and now Blassie had a catchphrase. For the rest of his career - working largely as one of professional wrestling's most charismatic villains - Blassie antagonized audiences by calling his more popular rivals "pencil neck geeks."

 

But on Monday night - exactly three weeks after he was involved in a storyline on the World Wrestling Entertainment "WWE Raw" program on TNN - Freddie Blassie's time in the spotlight came to an end, when the 85-year-old ruffian died at Westchester County Hospital in suburban New York of kidney and heart failure.

 

With the exception of two sabbaticals - while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and convalescing after kidney surgery - Blassie was continuously employed in the wrestling business since 1935, establishing himself as the most enduring character in sports-entertainment.

 

His death severs one of professional wrestling's final links between its carnival roots and the glitzy world of pay-per-view.

 

Known as the "Hollywood Fashion Plate," Blassie was arguably wrestling's most hated villain ever. With his bleached blond hair, gravelly voice and ability to butcher adversaries with stinging, on-air harangues, the self-proclaimed "King of Men" often drove the fans to violence.

 

He lost the vision in his right eye when he was hit with a hard-boiled egg, fans soaked him with acid, and he suffered 21 stabbings. Once, after a judge fined an attacker $115, the defendant replied, "If I'd known it was gonna be that cheap, I would have cut him again."

 

During Blassie's matches, one of his favorite gimmicks was biting his opponent, sucking in the man's blood, and spitting it into the air. On interviews, he'd arouse audiences by filing his teeth.

 

He always claimed that, when Japanese fans watched him carve up their beloved hero, Rikidozan, during a series of matches in the early 1960s, a number of elderly television viewers died from heart attacks.

 

"Over my entire career, 92 people died because of 'Classy' Freddie Blassie," he boasted. "But that was a disappointment. My goal was to get 100."

 

Blassie was born February 8, 1918, to German-speaking immigrants from Austro-Hungary in rough and tumble south St. Louis. Despite family pressure to join a cousin in the meat-cutting business, Blassie made his wrestling debut at age 17 at a community center, believing that the matches were pure athletic contests, and losing against more talented grapplers, until older performers informed him about the show business aspect of the profession.

 

After his release from the Navy, he wrestled as "Sailor" Fred Blassie and Fred McDaniels - as part of a "brother" tag team with Billy McDaniels -- before winning the Southern heavyweight championship in 1954. Basing himself in Atlanta, Blassie held the title 14 times, and turned himself villain, bleaching his hair, and calling his southern detractors "pencil neck grit eaters."

 

By the early 1960s, Blassie's biting had earned him the nickname, "Vampire." Renting an apartment in Santa Monica, Blassie became a mythic figure in Los Angeles, defending the now-defunct World Wrestling Association (WWA) championship against Dick the Bruiser, the masked Destroyer, Antonino Rocca and Gorgeous George, among others.

 

Although he was supposed to be a villain, fans who worked in the entertainment industry were amused by Blassie's antics, and he began to develop a cult following. He became one of Regis Philbin's favorite guests, appeared on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and recorded a novelty record, "Pencil Neck Geek," and album, "I Bite The Songs." In 1982, he and Andy Kaufman filmed "My Breakfast With Blassie" - a parody of the art house movie, "My Dinner With Andre."

 

Eventually, the largely Mexican audience in Los Angeles grew to adore Freddie Blassie, calling him "El Rubio de Oro," or "The Golden Blond." In 1971, he drew a record-breaking crowd to the Los Angeles Coliseum for a grudge match with "The Golden Greek" John Tolos.

 

In the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) - the northeastern promotion that preceded World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) - he wrestled against such stars as Bruno Sammartino, Chief Jay Strongbow, Bobo Brazil and Pedro Morales.

 

After retiring in 1973, he continued working for the company as a sequin-clad, cane-wielding manager, interfering in matches on behalf of proteges like Hulk Hogan, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, George "The Animal" Steele and the Iron Sheik.

 

In 1976, he was Muhammad Ali's "special advisor" in a controversial boxer vs. wrestler match against future Japanese Senator Antonio Inoki in Tokyo.

 

After traveling became too difficult for his bruised and aging body, Blassie remained a lifelong WWE employee, working in the front office and making personal appearances. Company head Vince McMahon regularly expressed his affection for Blassie, pointing out that the retired gladiator had worked for father Vince McMahon, Sr., and grandfather, Jess McMahon.

 

In May, Blassie's autobiography, "Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks," written with Keith Elliot Greenberg, was published by Simon and Schuster. To promote the book, Blassie appeared on an edition of "WWE Raw," where he was menaced by bad guys Eric Bischoff and 3-Minute Warning, before being rescued by heroes Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Bubba and Devon Dudley.

 

When fans last saw him, he was shouting, "Devon, get the tables!" as the Dudleyz slammed their foes through a slab of wood.

 

Blassie is survived by his wife, Miyako, and children, Ron, Gary and Cheryl. Funeral services will be held Friday at 12 p.m. at Hitchcock Presbyterian Church in Scarsdale, NY.

[Guest Anglesault]

FOLEY BOOK~!

[Guest Nevermortal]

"Over my entire career, 92 people died because of 'Classy' Freddie Blassie," he boasted. "But that was a disappointment. My goal was to get 100."

 

That is so fucking awesome.

[Guest Anglesault]

That's a nice, classy press release

[Guest OnlyMe]

There are also no long term plans for Foley at this point.

 

Replace "Foley" with any name you like.

 

That obituary was 1,000 kinds of awesome. Blassie ruled.

[Guest MillenniumMan831]

I remember the 3/85 MSG show, Volkoff was singing the Russian Nat. Anthem. During it, Blassie had his hand over his heart singing along a bit. However, his other hand was holding the flag at his waist. The flag drooped down to the mat and Blassie was standing on it the whole time. Good stuff!

 

While it's sad to see Blassie go, it's nice that he got a sence of closure in his life with his book's release and one last hoorah on Raw. In my mind, he managed the Dudleys for one night.

[Guest The Superstar]

Yeah, an excerpt of Foley's new book, Tietam Brown, is available on amazon.com. It's pretty interesting.

Edited June 5, 2003 by The Superstar

[Guest OnlyMe]

Excerpt from Tietam Brown

 

October 23, 1985

 

She had wanted me to kiss her. No doubt about it. The realization hit me as I navigated my dad's '79 Fairmont through the back roads of Conestoga, New York, a small town about thirty miles south of Binghamton.

 

To tell the truth, a high school senior with one functioning hand really had no business operating a motor vehicle in the first place, let alone a one-functioning-hand high school senior without a license or even a half a thimbleful of experience behind the wheel.

 

Unfortunately, my father had refused to drive me. Not out of meanness, however--no, my dad felt like he was doing me a favor. "Hey Andy, a kid only goes on one first date," he'd said. "You've gotta make it count. Besides, kid, it's kind of tough to cop a feel in the backseat when you've got your old man behind the wheel." Maybe it was that last bit of paternal sentiment that sold me on the driving idea, and at approximately 7:40 p.m. on a cool autumn evening, I held the door open for Miss Terri Lynn Johnson as she slipped ever so gracefully into the cracked burgundy interior of the piece-of-crap Fairmont that my dad had insisted on lending me. No, a feel was not copped on that night, nor was one even attempted, but that didn't make the night any less glorious, because after all . . . she had wanted me to kiss her. And that was a fact, or at least a pretty strong gut feeling that was worth celebrating . . . with music.

 

A red light at the intersection of Elm and Broadhurst, only a half a mile from Conestoga High, where I'd met Terri only six weeks earlier, gave me the respite from my driving duties that was necessary in selecting the perfect postrevelatory music. Unfortunately, even a red-light respite isn't much good when trying to fumble with some clunky old eight-tracks with a hand that hasn't closed, clasped, grabbed, or done anything meaningful since Gerald Ford was in office.

 

I had barely managed to clear my dad's blue fuzzy dice from the glove box when the light turned green. Yeah, my dad had fuzzy dice all right, only they didn't usually reside in the glove box. No, those bad boys swung proudly from the rearview, and served to separate my dad's machine from all other pieces-of-crap '79 Fairmonts on the road. So with the light instructing me to go, and a late-model Ford pickup truck's blaring horn adding to the urgency of such a moment, I reached into the glove box with my left hand, the good hand, and pulled out the first eight-track I felt. Then, with a hint of defiance, I popped that mother in, pushed my curly dark hair back in the general vicinity of where my right ear used to be, and stepped on the gas, as the opening strains of Barry Manilow Live drowned out both the horn of the Ford and the shouts of the driver within.

 

What's wrong? Oh you don't think Barry is appropriate for such an occasion? Sure, it might not have been my first choice, or even in my top couple hundred. And true, the sky blue jumpsuit Barry sported on the cover of the live album, or eight-track in this case, may have been a tad inappropriate. But don't try denying that "Mandy" and "Could It Be Magic" are classic compositions that still hold up well today. Jumpsuit or no jumpsuit, they held up just fine on that night in 1985, and as my voice joined Barry's in belting out, "Baby, I love you now, now, now, and hold on fast, could this be the magic at last," I reflected back on what was at that point the greatest night of my young life.

 

Terri was several leagues out of my ballpark. Not that I was a horrible-looking guy or anything, but a missing ear and a useless hand tend to cramp a guy's style at that age, and the style-cramping perpetuated itself in an awkward shyness that had invited a lifetime of bullies to boost their self-esteem, or at least try to, at my expense. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes, as I'll explain later, they didn't. Come to think of it, a lifetime of foster homes, orphanages, and juvenile detention centers hadn't done a whole lot for my sense of self, either.

 

Terri, on the other hand, was drop-dead gorgeous. Just a beautiful creature. Her beauty was beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, ivory skin, and eyes of emerald green. Actually, that description is straight out of the Dolly Parton song "Jolene," but that was Terri. Statuesque, but not slutty like some of the other girls who graced Conestoga's halls, she carried herself with a maturity that belied her years. It was really only on game days, when the cheerleading squad sported their official blue-and-orange Conestoga cheerleading sweaters, that her physical attributes really screamed for attention. And in doing so, made me think of the word "maturity" in a whole new light.

 

She literally could have had her pick of any boy she wanted. Any man for that matter. Her father headed up the local Assembly of God, where his fiery demeanor and hell-and-brimstone sermons contrasted sharply with her gentle nature and overall acceptance of everyone not as fortunate as herself--which pretty much meant everyone.

 

Her father's vocation, combined with her natural gifts, had given birth to a rather unusual challenge that was spoken of in almost reverent tones among the boys at Conestoga High. No one, it seemed, had gotten into Terri Johnson's pants, or for that matter anywhere even remotely close. Personally, I found the whole subject of Terri's pants to be disrespectful. A creature as beautiful as she deserved better than to have her pants, and what was underneath them, a subject of horny teenage speculation, let alone a prize to be claimed.

 

How we got together is beyond me. It was actually all her doing. It was she who laughed at my first dumb joke in Mr. Hanrahan's social studies class. It was she who had gone out of her way to say "Hi Andy" in the halls. It was she who insisted on studying together in the library, where she showed off such unique talents as wiggling her nose and ears while I fell hopelessly in love. I know, you're not supposed to fall that quickly, and that the L word should be used sparingly, if at all, during the high school years. But in the fall of 1985 with Terri Lynn Johnson in the library, between the wiggling nose and ears and the sweater, and the wonders that lie beneath the blue-and-orange wool, my heart offered very little resistance. I was a goner. A one-eared, one-handed goner.

 

And in the one day it took from when Terri asked me to the movies until the entire student body of Conestoga High found out, I went from being a nobody to being the most hated kid in school.

 

Sure, it was Terri who had laid the foundation for that first date, but in my own defense, it was I who acted on it, and went into overdrive in order to give this vision of loveliness a date she would never forget. The other young lovers were heading to the new mall over by the river, to "the Seven Valley Twelve," as the theaters were officially known, but I had different plans. The Twelve may have been new, enriched with stereophonic sound and equipped with a state-of-the-art snack bar that served different foods from around the globe, but it didn't have the character of the century-old Lincoln Theater, named after, you got it, President Lincoln, who would soon go on to play an unlikely but important role in my life. Yes, when it came to a first date, nothing came close to character as a prerequisite. Except for price, which of course was miles ahead of that whole character thing, especially for a guy who'd come into town with exactly nineteen bucks to his name. My financial woes looked to be easing soon, courtesy of a glamorous minimum-wage dishwashing job at Frank 'n' Mary's diner, a venerable establishment that was home to a myriad of small-town life-forms, from blue- collar locals, to drunk college kids, to on-the-road truckers who needed a little shot of caffeine or cholesterol.

 

So with my finances in mind, the Lincoln's 85-cent admission made even the specter of seeing Rambo: First Blood Part II on a first date sound pretty good. The Lincoln's price policy, you see, was derived directly from whatever year happened to be taking place. In 1984, the price was 84 cents; in '85, it was 85. Guess what it was in '83? If you guessed 83 cents you'd be wrong. Back in '83 when the Lincoln was still the only game in town, a flick cost four bucks, but with the advent of the multiplex, the ancient cinematic institution was forced to make changes to survive. They stopped showing first-run movies. They lowered their prices. They cut down on the variety of candy and on the freshness of the popcorn. And they stopped doing the little things, like cleaning the floor.

 

So the result after spending $1.70 on two admissions, and the total of $3.50 on two Cokes and a medium popcorn that we decided we'd share, I escorted the most beautiful girl I had ever seen into a dingy cave of a theater, where she would see a plethora of people perish on-screen in the ensuing ninety-five minutes. But her smile never waned, and she somehow managed to be the picture of class, even as a previously chewed piece of gum formed a bond with her designer jeans, and her slim and gorgeous feet got acquainted with a floor that had known no mop in quite some time.

 

My mind began to wander at about the time the eleventh person died in the first coming-attraction preview. My father had been so happy for me on the eve of my first date. He had wanted to make sure that everything was perfect. The car had been a very nice gesture, fuzzy dice or no fuzzy dice. "Andy, my boy," he'd said with a big grin and an "I've got a secret" wink in his eye, and a secretive hand held behind his back. "Hold out your hand and close your eyes and I'll give you a big surprise." So I held out my hand and closed my eyes, and I'll be damned if my father didn't give me a big surprise. "Just a little something to make sure that you and your girl have a good time tonight," he said with a laugh that sounded as if it had been lifted from a used car salesman.

 

When I first closed my hand around my dad's surprise and felt the rustle and crinkle, I had a premonition that a ten- dollar bill had found its way into my hand. My premonition was wrong. A ten-dollar bill would have placed me and Terri inside the Seven Valley Twelve, where people on the screen might actually do things besides kill each other. A ten-dollar bill would have spared Terri the union of her ass and a wad of chewing gum. But it was not to be.

 

I moved my foot slightly and found it nearly glued to the floor. At that point I experienced what can only be called a flashback, as the sticking of my shoe at the Lincoln gave way to the memory of the sticking of my shoe at the Pussycat Cinema in eastern Pennsylvania two months earlier, although I'd be willing to bet that the substances causing the stickiness were altogether different.

 

The Pussycat had been my dad's idea, when he showed up at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center near Richmond on my seventeenth birthday, after an absence from my life of only sixteen years and nine months. I'd received a postcard a few months earlier that in its entirety read, "See you in a few . . . Dad." A few. I had no idea what "a few" meant, so I waited a few hours, then a few days, then a few months, and then finally, on the day of my release, without a clue as to what to do with the rest of my life, I set eyes on my father, Antietam Brown IV. "Come on, kid," was all he said. "I'm taking you home."

 

I had no idea the "home" of which he spoke meant Conestoga, New York. Home to me had always been Virginia, with the exception of my life's first three months, which had been spent in a suburb of Tampa, until my dad got tired of the Mr. Mom routine and shipped me off.

 

We drove on through Maryland that first night, with my dad insisting that I drink my first beer, and then my second, and so on and so forth until I was so drunk that his words became increasingly incoherent, which was probably a good thing. He said nothing about his work, and even less about my mom, opting instead to spend our inaugural night together regaling me with details about his past sexual conquests. As the miles flew by and the beers, at his urging, flew south, those details became fuzzier and fuzzier, until the fuzzy dice started spinning in unison with my stomach and I mustered the fortitude to blurt out, "Pull over," which my dad did a split second before those birthday beers came barreling up my throat, and into the green grass and wildflowers that bordered that particular section of Highway 95.

 

"Thatta boy," my dad laughed as the vomiting process reached its conclusion, and a thick stew of spit and puke adorned my chin, like some strange new goatee. "Never let it be said that ol' Tietam Brown doesn't know how to show his son a good time!" Then, after a pause, "I'm proud of you, boy," with a rugged slap on the back for added emphasis.

 

The Pussycat Cinema was the first thing I saw when I awoke that next day. "Look over there, kid," my dad said as the Fairmont screeched to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust and jolting me awake to find that I was in the middle of nowhere, with a massive headache and the vile taste of stale vomit to remind me of my Happy Birthday.

 

"Where?" I asked, which seemed an appropriate response, as from my vantage point, all I could see was a ramshackle trailer enhanced by the timeless beauty of a rusted-out Pinto on cement blocks on display in what passed for a front yard. "Not there, kid . . . there," he said, and with that he was out the door and headed for the Pussycat at a trot. I followed suit, afraid to be seen but a little intrigued.

 

Copyright© 2003 by Mick Foley

 

--From Tietam Brown, by Mick Foley. © July 8, 2003 , Knopf used by permission.

[Guest Steviekick]

Any Foley is good so I'm happy

[Guest C-Bacon]

Does anyone know exactly what Foley was upset about in regards to the WWE product when he left after the invasion angle ended?

[Guest Lil Naitch]

Does anyone know exactly what Foley was upset about in regards to the WWE product when he left after the invasion angle ended?

He was upset with the direction and how misused everybody, especially him, was.

[Guest OnlyMe]

If I remember right, they did a show in NYC, and said they couldn't find anything for him to do (this was while he was commissioner.)

[Guest The Superstar]

Yeah, wasn't that when he was playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with Regal? Hrm.

[Guest Blue Bacchus]

I also heard it was due to Flair coming in. Due the "bad blood" between them. I could be VERY wrong about that.

[Guest JDMattitudeV1]

If I remember right, they did a show in NYC, and said they couldn't find anything for him to do (this was while he was commissioner.)

Yeah, and Shane and Steph were in something like eight segments that night, yet they could find nothing for Foley, a guy 100 times more entertaining then Steph despite being in Foley's home town. And they wonder why they are in the shits right now.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Does anyone know exactly what Foley was upset about in regards to the WWE product when he left after  the invasion angle ended?

He was upset with the direction and how misused everybody, especially him, was.

Yet guess who's done a 'Sable' and come back. So much for morals over money or book sales.

[Guest Ray]

Yet guess who's done a 'Sable' and come back. So much for morals over money or book sales.

I don't recall Foley bashing WWE in Sable-like proportions.

 

Maybe I'm wrong.

[Guest Army Eye]

Another reason for Kurt Angle being a babyface is the fact that many in the WWE are still concerned about how well his neck can hold up. In an average match, the heel will take many more bumps than the babyface, thus making the crowd very happy. Once his neck has been tested for a while he may just turn back to a heel.

 

Credit: Dave Scherer

Since when? Doesn't a heel generally control the majority of a match before the face's comeback at the end?

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Yes, but generally the heel uses a lot of plodding offense and restholds to kill the crowd before the face comes back with the dynamic offense to get everyone excited. This is the reason RVD couldn't stay heel, his moveset is too exciting.

[Murmuring Beast 0]

Foley was in Playboy? Now this I have to see...

[Guest Breetai]

"Over my entire career, 92 people died because of 'Classy' Freddie Blassie," he boasted. "But that was a disappointment. My goal was to get 100."

Now THAT's a HEEL!

[Guest El Satanico]

During Blassie's matches, one of his favorite gimmicks was biting his opponent, sucking in the man's blood, and spitting it into the air.

 

He's Hardcore! He's Hardcore!

[B. Brian Brunzell 0]

That exceprt from Foley's new book wasn't half-bad. Perhaps I'll pick it up upon its release.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

FOLEY IS GOD!!!!!!

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

<3 Blassie

 

I may have to read the book if it's as good as that press release.

[Guest Choken One]

Is foley going to ref with a copy of his book in one arm?

[Guest El Satanico]

If he does I bet the book will be loaded...

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Foley reading from his new book has got to be better than HHH vs Nash.

[Guest Choken One]

^ Talk about a Softball

 

Who wants to hit it outta the park?

[Guest Just call me Dan]

Maybe they can get Bret to come back and ref the Sid vs. HHH match at Survivor Series!