Have a Nice Day - Mick Foley

by Harbinger

Firstly everyone keep back plague victim coming through. I know Hagelrat loves Zombies, but I certainly look like one. My entire house seems populated by the dead or dying at the moment. So I am currently sitting around wrapped in a quilt, drinking cough medicine by the bucket full and rapidly disappearing underneath a pile of tissues. So I though I would write about something which cheers me up, two blokes smashing heavy objects of each other's heads. Yes of course wrestling! Now that I am on Un: bound it means my long suffering parents can have a rest from my incessant babble on the subject. I can bore you lot with it now MWAHAAAA!

I vaguely remember being introduced to it, as a small child. It always used to be on tv in Britain before the football (soccer) came on. With such greats as Big Daddy and Kendo Nagasaki making appearances, but really by the time I was watching the British wrestling organisations were almost dead and there were only tribute shows on..... I think. Anyhow both my brothers ended up getting me watching the American stuff regularly. Any way the guy who's book I am reviewing, was one of the first American wrestlers I remember watching. He caught my eye right from the off. He looked odd he was no muscle bound freak, he was a slightly overweight guy with mad straggly hair (but who am I to comment on hair?), wearing a horrible Hannibal Lecter esque mask. He also seemed to spend most of the match getting his head kicked in, I guess I felt kind of sorry for him and i was quite annoyed at that arrogant muscle bound git beating him....Bully! I think that bully turned out to be 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin.

Only the second Autobiogrpahy in my entire collection of books is actually one of the best books I have ever read. I seem to remember the book was panned on both sides of the Atlantic by critics who had never even picked it up. I suppose purists made the assumption that some who had spent most of his life falling onto hard surfaces, could not possibly have anything interesting to say and that he would be a bad writer. WRONG!! The man has turned out to be a great writer with great children's books and a serious novel under his belt. The book is very well written and has a remarkable way of putting me in stitches. It begins in 1994 in Germany, during the infamous incident where he lost his ear. He talks about such a serious incident while making light of it. He has the ability to make almost any issue amusing, as he moves through his childhood and first forays into wrestling, training at Dominic DeNucci's gym and sleeping in the back of his car because he could not afford a hotel.

There also elements of seriousness in his writing. Firstly when discussing the deaths of two wrestlers who died during the writing of the book. Brian Hildebrand (wrestler, ref, and formally Mick's manager) and Owen Hart, both of whom died in 1999. He brakes of half-way through a chapter, to discuss Owen Hart's death, so you feel as if it has just been announced again just that second, sad but mesmerising.

Finally, there is an extended version of the book covering Mick's last match before retiring...... However don't be fooled he has had a good few of those, he is just like Terry Funk (a wrestler who is would be considered an Old Age Pensioner over here) in that regard I am not sure he will ever retire. Anyway well worth a read, even for those of you who are not wrestling fans, it is a great view into a very bizarre world and the life of a kind, amusing and slightly mad guy.

TTFN Un:Bound fanatics and HAVE A NICE DAY!!