WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley recently spoke to TalkSport to talk all things pro-wrestling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says finances play a lot into why a wrestler won’t immediately retire:
Yeah I was [chasing the perfect last match], and I had it. I had the perfect goodbye in 2000 at WrestleMania. I had it again with Randy Orton at Backlash in 2004. I think people take the financials out of the equation. It’s one thing to say I had the perfect exit, but then you’re like ‘I’m 34, what do I do?’ In my case, I realized wow, I’ve written two best-selling novels. That’s hundreds of hours in solitude, months away from your family on the road promoting the book where you don’t get paid, and then it’s like I could make the same amount of money for a match against Carlito?
On the money he could make wrestling as opposed to book touring:
With the economy falling apart a couple of times and you have half of what you think you have, you owe it to your family sometimes to come back and make a living. So I think the romance is in having the perfect match and the storybook ending, but the reality is we have this skillset that allows us to make a good living, but we can’t make that living without employing that skillset.
Talks the Undertaker looking for a storybook ending:
Undertaker got a 15 year contract with the company from what I understand and I haven’t seen the end of The Last Ride, but I assume having that amazing match with AJ Styles would be a perfect way to ride off into the sunset. I don’t know how the story ends or if he has written his ending, but as far as I’m concerned he’s had that storybook ending and now has a 15 year deal. Alls well that ends well and without a couple of those bumps along the way – like the Goldberg match, coming up short against Roman Reigns – then we certainly wouldn’t have this compelling documentary.
Working a limited schedule:
I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all about the money because it’s not. But between 2005-2008, WWE gave me an opportunity to have a really limited schedule. I had four children, two of them very small at the time and that really allowed me to have a really good life. I said that I really connected with the Bob Seger song ‘Beautiful loser’ where it says ‘he wants his home and his family, he wants to live like a sailor at sea.’ And it’s ‘beautiful loser, when are you going to realize you just can’t have it all’ – I wrote in one of my books that thanks to Vince McMahon, I could have it all.