Mick Foley has no doubt influenced countless professional wrestlers throughout his time on Planet Earth. Some of the top talents in the world today count Mrs. Foley’s Baby Boy as one of their biggest inspirations in pro wrestling, including current ECCW/DEFY standout Ravenous Randy Myers.
Myers recently joined me to discuss his relationship with Foley and the impact that the Hall of Famer has had on his career.
His attraction to over-the-top professional wrestlers:
“Definitely. For me, Mick Foley (has) always been my number one. He always will be my number one. I’ve been fortunate enough to get to interact with him, and he’s just everything you’d ever want him to be and more. He was the one that was the final – I always think there’s one performance or one wrestler or one time that you’re like ‘this is it.’ You go from a fan, a superfan, (to) I just need to (wrestle). I need to.’ There was that promo he did with JR where he was kind of blurring the lines between Mick Foley and Mankind and he was telling some real-life stories, and kind of showed the man behind the mask, as cheesy as that sounds. That was the moment that hooked me. He was playing this monster character, this sort of over-the-top horror movie villain, or not villain, but horror movie monster. Then, to see that there’s like a person behind that, or that this monster could also be this sweet, caring, sensitive human was so eye-opening for me. I’m a big horror movie fan, and I love the dualities of characters. That, to me, was the ultimate duality where I could be seen by society as a monster, but really I’m this sweet, soft, sensitive – it’s almost like the Quasimodo story, to a certain degree.
”
His relationship with Mick Foley:
“I was fortunate enough to work with (Mick) in my last match, or one of my last matches, for the PWA in Edmonton. I was supposed to go off to the WWE, I had an opportunity with them in 2009 which fell through due to a failed drug test, but we can talk about that later. Mick Foley was there and he’d, and like I said, always been my idol, and Kurt Sorochan had brought him in. It was actually the first time Mick had ever done one of those speaking engagements, so I’d met him the night before at that and we’d all gone out for dinner. At the time, I was dating Lindsay Hart, who’s a niece of the Hart family. She got talking to Mick, and Mick and Owen had a special relationship. So they started hitting it off, and I was so shy. I was sitting at the edge of the table – normally, I’m pretty loud, but at this point, I was just like ‘there he is, and I don’t want to make the wrong move.
’ Lindsay encouraged me to come and talk to him, and he was so kind to me.
”
“The next day, when we worked together (and) when he saw me as Randy, he was very kind and had very nice words to say. When we worked together in that match that night, he was a special guest enforcer, we both got to lock in Mr. Socko on my opponent and his manager. He put me over online afterwards, which I wasn’t expecting. Everything I wanted him to be, he’s been in my life. He’s been an inspiration as a fan, he’s given me advice from a mentor role, I’ve gone on the road with him during his comedy shows and even done some comedy on the stage with him, so even from the theatre and comedic aspect of my life, he’s been there for me. You can hear the crack in my voice because he means the world to me.”
“People say don’t meet your heroes. I just say make sure your hero is Mick Foley and he’ll never let you down.”
Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.
