In this photo: WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley is bringing his stage show to Kamloops on Friday, Sept. 19.
Mick Foley is going to have a nice day, even if ticket pre-sales are poor and, well, he has no idea where he’s performing.
“Is it Kamloop or Kamloops?” said the WWE Hall of Famer, who will bring his comedic storytelling act, Hardcore Legend: An Evening with Mick Foley, to the Coast Kamloops Hotel and Conference Centre on Friday, Sept. 19.
“I’ve never heard of the city, so just trust that I wouldn’t be there unless I was going to be good,” Foley said.
“If you’re going to stink, you can do that in, like, Orlando, Florida, because you can go to the Magic Kingdom after stinking.
“After Kamloops, there’s no Magic Kingdom. I think it’s on to Revelstoke or another city I’m only vaguely aware of.
“My only intention is to really be good and put a smile on people’s faces.”
The show gets underway at 7 p.m. Tickets are available for $37.50 at kamloopslive.ca.
“I believe we’re looking at a pretty small pre-sale in Kamloops,” Foley said.
“I was pretty shocked. I was like, “Aren’t they going to trust that it’s going to be a good show?’
“It doesn’t matter to me if it’s 50 people or 5,000 — I’m going to give you my A game.”
The Hardcore Legend is competing with the Kamloops Blazers’ home opener, also set for Friday night.
Foley’s act has matured since he first took to stand-up comedy in 2009.
The Long Island, N.Y., resident wanted to prove he could get laughs without pandering to the wrestling crowd, but Foley soon realized he was alienating himself from his most endearing material.
“I don’ t care how funny Louis C.K. might be, he doesn’t have a story about wrestling with a tooth stuck in his nose,” Foley told KTW.
“You might as well go with your strengths.
“Once I realized there’s nothing wrong with being the wrestling guy, the show kind of took off.”
The 49-year-old is revered in the wrestling world, considered one of the most fearless superstars to ever enter the squared-circle, his most-iconic moment coming at King of the Ring in Pittsburgh in 1998, when the Undertaker launched him off of a 16-foot cage through an announcers’ table — the Spanish one, of course.
Foley had several personas throughout his 17-year in-ring career, including Cactus Jack, Mankind and Dude Love.
The four-time WWE world champion said Cactus Jack and Mankind often make appearances during his set, but the Dude rarely shows his face.
A multi-time New York Times bestselling author, Foley is no stranger to storytelling and he plans to spin yarns all across the country on a Canadian tour that kicks off today (Sept. 16) in Maple Ridge and wraps up on Oct. 24 in Ottawa.
It might seem a stretch to compare stand-up comedy to suplexes and piledrivers, but Foley said the two are akin.
“It’s honestly very similar,” said Foley, who is married and has four children.
“The contrast is that unless a show goes really poorly, I’m not going to end up in an emergency room.
“The wounds can be emotional after a bad show, though, and that’s a similarity.
“You go out there, you do your best and sometimes things don’t work out your way or the energy of the crowd isn’t there.”
Whether the crowd is there — both in numbers and spirit — on Friday remains to be seen.
“I’d be flattered if anyone from the local wrestling scene would come out and watch me do my thing,” Foley said.
“People don’t know what to expect and I’m proud to say I hurdle over the bar of expectations people arrive with.
“I hope it’s a last-minute town.”
Mick Foley is a four-time WWE world champion.
KTW devised a 10-question survey for Mick Foley, inquiring about everything from mental-health issues in wrestling to the best young performers in the business.
KTW: Who are some of the best young wrestlers in WWE?
MF: I don’t just have a go-to list, but I really like Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose because they’re kind of the closest to what I loved about wrestling. They’re the guys that can take you on a journey with their minds.
KTW: The biggest OMG (Oh my God!) moment outside of your career?
MF: I’ve got to tell you, [WWE NXT performer] Adrian Neville is doing some stuff that even made my wife’s jaw drop and she’s seen a lot of wrestling. She kept on going, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!’
(At this point of the interview, Foley’s wife piped up in the background with her opinion on Neville and Mick yelled back, “I think it’s my interview, OK?” He was joking, of course.)
KTW: What do you think about the barrage of advertising in a three-hour RAW broadcast?
MF: It’s a different world now. I guess it’s a necessary evil. I prefer the matches to be the emphasis but, in today’s world, I think that’s what’s needed to help WWE thrive. It’d be nice to go back to a lot of ways from years ago, but we’ve seen the last of that. The WWE always does what it needs to survive. Pushing the WWE App and the WWE Network are things we’re going to have to understand.
KTW: Which wrestlers are the WWE misusing the most?
MF: I want to be a glass-half-full guy, especially because I’d like to come back to WWE in the next year. I watched the WWE countdown on the general managers and we laughed through the entire episode and it reminded me of how many things they do right. You can’t use 30 guys correctly. There’s got to be guys that are pushed and guys who aren’t. I’ve gone on record as saying I’d like to see [Dolph] Ziggler get a push and I still believe that the waves of [Damien] Sandow mania are going to crash down on our shores.
KTW: How important is it to have a rival promotion?
MF: I definitely think we [WWE] did our best work when we had competition. Given that there is no direct competition, WWE does a great job on a weekly basis. But, as we’re seeing on the Monday night wars show, that was a great time and it was great primarily because we had competition [from WCW].
KTW: Given the Chris Benoit tragedy (in 2007, Benoit killed his wife and son before committing suicide) and the recent suicide of wrestler Sean O’Haire, what are your thoughts on mental-health issues and how they’re impacting the wrestling world?
MF: I don’t know what Sean’s background was and I don’t know what the specifics were but, in general, trying to make a post-wrestling adjustment is very difficult, to go from being on the supermarket aisle next to Spiderman to wondering what your next step in life is going to be.
The awareness is really good. The suicide caught all of us off guard, but I don’t know if you can isolate it to or blame wrestling. Robin Williams’ death shocked us all and he was a guy who seemingly had everything to live for.
It’s something everyone needs to learn about, but I don’t know if you can specify wrestling as a culprit.
I have my own concussion issues. Getting out there on the stage is also a form of therapy. It’s going out there and doing the closest thing possible to entertaining an audience in a ring. Everyone’s got to find something they enjoy almost as much and that’s a pretty big challenge because wrestling is a pretty extraordinary world.
KTW: What is the best finishing move of all time?
MF: It’s got to be the Superfly splash, granted that people do it higher and better now.
KTW: Who is the best wrestler of all time?
MF: In my opinion, it’s Terry Funk because he made believing so easy.
KTW: What is the best wrestling match of all time?
MF: Ric Flair-Terry Funk I-quit match from the New York Knockout in 1989
. . . great storytelling.
KTW: What is the most hardcore moment of your career?
MF: When I asked referee Mike Chioda if I’d already been on a stretcher [at King of the Ring in 1998]. When he told me I’d already been on a stretcher, I told him I couldn’t be on two stretchers in one night. Having that as one of your rules of life, one stretcher a night, that’s pretty hardcore.
To hear Foley’s discussion with KTW reporter Marty Hastings in its entirety, click here.
The post WWE legend Mick Foley talks Kamloops show and all things wrestling with KTW appeared first on Kamloops This Week.