Countdown To Lockdown
Read Countdown To Lockdown Online
Authors: Mick Foley
The Hardcore Diaries
Scooter
Tales from Wrescal Lane
Foley Is Good
Tietam Brown
Mick Foley’s Halloween Hijinx
Mick Foley’s Christmas Chaos
Have a Nice Day!
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Orion Books
This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books
© Mick Foley 2010
The right of Mick Foley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 409 11572 4
Typeset by Grand Central Publishing, USA
This ebook produced by Jouve, France
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Orion Publishing Group
Orion House, 5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane, London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
In memory of my father,
the original Cactus Jack
Meeting Tori Amos (Really Deep Thoughts from an Unlikely Fan)
Kurt Angle, the Sensitive Olympian
Countdown to
Lockdown
: 18 HOURS
Yes, here it is — the book you’ve been kind of sort of waiting for. Okay, I know that four volumes of memoirs may seem like a lot for anyone (at this point, I think I have officially surpassed Churchill), but I prefer to think of this book as an action-adventure story. It’s got all the elements: heroes, villains, romance, exciting combat sequences, clever dialogue, and a tense verbal showdown with former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz. So maybe you could think of this book as less of a Churchillesque memoir and more of an Indiana Jones type of tale, kind of “Indiana Mick [I
am
a native Hoosier] and the Six Sides of Steel.” As is the case in the latest Indy installment, the hero of this story (me) may have aged a bit since we last saw him, but he’s still capable of telling a good story.
I’ve always considered the inside of the surreal world of professional wrestling to be
at least
as entertaining as what our fans see on their television screens. And I know that when I was a fan, I would have loved to have been given this access, to see what
really
goes on behind the scenes. Consider this book to be like a six-week backstage pass — the best possible place to view the cavalcade of curious characters who make up the world of professional wrestling.
Countdown to Lockdown
is an in-depth look at the six-week period leading up to my biggest match in several years; a main event Six Sides of Steel (you know, a steel-cage match) showdown with one
of my great all-time opponents — Sting. So, with this book as your admission ticket, I will take you on an all-access tour not only behind the scenes but inside my mind as well, as I try to find a way to regain the confidence, conditioning, and passion that will be so vital if I am going to be successful on this journey.
I was under a tremendous amount of pressure in the weeks leading up to this match — most of it put there by myself. Knowing that so much of the success of this
Lockdown
show depended on me, I was arguably the least confident I have been in my own abilities in more than a decade.
Many may think that this book is similar in feel to my last book,
The Hardcore Diaries.
It is … by design. Think of this as a companion piece to the
Diaries
, but I can assure you that the story is far different. It’s my first book about my new company, and I will have plenty to say about both my arrival in TNA and my departure from WWE, as well as my thoughts on the wrestling world in general and many of the individuals who make up this world. I was told during the writing of my first book, the towering
New York Times
number one best seller
Have a Nice Day!
, that a memoir is not the right place to settle scores. So even though settling scores and slinging mud seems to be the easiest way to get attention, I’ve tried not to take the low road too often. As with
The Hardcore Diaries
, I’ve tried to make the entire book a PG-13 affair. Yes, there are a few stories that may be just slightly risqué, but I don’t
think
I drop a single F-bomb in the entire book. I met a kid from Canada who was suspended from school for reading my last book. That act struck me as completely inexcusable, and I vowed to fight the school system on the kid’s behalf … then I lost his phone number. But if you’re thirteen or older and get suspended for reading this book, contact TNA via their website, or get hold of my publicist at Grand Central Publishing. I would love to intercede and do the right thing … and maybe even get a little free publicity while I’m at it.
Let me apologize in advance if I sound a little preachy every now and then. But in certain chapters, like “An Open Letter” and “A
Substance Problem,” I found it very difficult to make valid points and passionate arguments without just a little bit of that preachy quality peeking through.
I don’t feel like I’m doing my preaching to the choir, either. Occasionally, my opinions may strike some as controversial, or even flawed and wrong. Which is fine. I’m not attempting to be the sole voice of authority on any subject. But I do hope in a few cases that I will add a new voice to issues that need one.
As many readers of my other books may know, I have a variety of interests outside of wrestling, some of which I write about in this book. I think most people enjoy my observations on the outside world, and from a personal standpoint these chapters are fun and fulfilling to write, but I am aware that occasional fans will wish that I not veer so far off the wrestling course during certain chapters. I can certainly understand that, and thus I have come up with a handy
Wrestlemeter
to gauge the wrestling content of chapters that are not
Lockdown
-specific. For example, a chapter about the aforementioned tense verbal battle with Paul Wolfowitz has absolutely nothing to do with wrestling and would merit a zero on the
Wrestlemeter
, while a chapter about meeting singer Tori Amos actually has far more wrestling content than one might think and would therefore merit a surprising six. Many non-
Lockdown
chapters are very wrestling-specific (like the ones that detail my short-lived announcing career and subsequent decision to leave WWE) and would therefore rate a nine or ten on the meter. Armed with this valuable literary information, readers can now make up their own minds; read the chapters in the order they are presented (my personal favorite way), refer back to them at a later time, or skip them completely. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings — I’ll get over it … eventually. Occasionally, a reader (usually the mother of a wrestling fan) will pick up one of my books and find themselves completely engrossed by everything
but
the wrestling aspects. For these reasons, the
Wrestlemeter
is a valuable monitoring tool.
Before we get started, let me address this ugly rumor that has swirled
about, hinting that I may have caved in to modern technology and written this book with the aid of a computer keyboard. I have several witnesses who will swear to seeing a large man with a marble composition tablet, scribbling frantically on coast-to-coast flights. So, I am proud to say that I wrote this book the old-fashioned way — the Foley way — with a trusty pen and several pads of paper. (Actually I did cave in to technology on my last two chapters — finally realizing just how slow and cumbersome that whole stupid handwriting thing is.)
So what are you waiting for? Start turning those pages, and we’ll find out together if the Hardcore Legend has still got the fortitude required to tear the house down … or at least not embarrass himself too badly.
LOCKDOWN
:
34 DAYS
March 16, 2009
Orlando, Florida
All right, all right, I’ll admit it. I’m terrified of Kurt Angle. Not worried. Not concerned. Terrified. Absolutely terrified. Not like a “wow, Vince is really putting Koslov in a main event” type of terrified. I’m talking about an honest-to-goodness “Alastair Sim as Scrooge down on his knees begging the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come for another chance at life” type of terrified. Yeah, I know I went with the same
Alastair Sim reference to describe my fear of my editor at Knopf, Victoria Wilson, who will no doubt love being mentioned in a second wrestling memoir, but I’m not sure that was real terror, more like intellectual insecurity. This, however — this thing I feel about Kurt Angle — is terror.