X-Pac 1-2-360
Guest: Mick Foley & Marty the Moth Sit Down with X-Pac!
Release Date: March 14th, 2018
Recap by: Sean McGraw
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Recap:
X-Pac is joined by Jimbo, Denise, Bill, and TK. They are also joined in studio by Marty the Moth from Lucha Underground. This week’s guest will be Mick Foley.
Marty the Moth was on the Tough Enough season with Ivelisse and Matt Cross. How did Marty get on there? He tried to make contact being used as an extra any time they would come anywhere close to Utah since they always seemed to skip Utah. X-Pac says because of the proximity of Salt Lake City it makes it more expensive to run a show there because you can’t easily do a three or four show loop. Somebody on WWE reached out to Marty through Facebook with a Tough Enough offer. He thought it was a hoax but just in case it wasn’t he wrote back and he got on the show.
Denise asks what it was like working with Stone Cold on Tough Enough. It was Marty’s first time meeting Stone Cold. It was intimidating but he had to set the “fanboy” aside and get to work since Austin was a coach. Tough Enough was designed to kill you and make you quit.
X-Pac wants to know how long after Tough Enough did it take Marty to make his way down to Mexico. Marty went back on the indies and did some more tryout stuff with WWE but it wasn’t until after Lucha Underground that his AAA stuff started because of Vampiro. What is Vampiro’s role in AAA? He pretty much does everything in AAA.
It’s brought up that Marty was originally supposed to be a magician in Lucha Underground instead of the moth character. He was also supposed to be Mil Muertes at one time. Why did they decide to not put him in the Mil Muertes role? He is not a serious guy – he could play a serious guy – but that’s not him. The producers must have seen that.
Lucha Underground is currently taping their fourth season now. X-Pac says that they asked him to be a part of it but his WWE Legends contract prohibits him from participating. The interesting thing here is that WWE was fine with it – they told him sure, go ahead. It was Lucha that backed out once they found out about his Legends Contract. Marty offers to reach out to the producers on Pac’s behalf, but Pac says that it’s alright. Pac says that he doesn’t want to reveal what he was supposed to be a part of because he doesn’t want to give any spoilers.
Mick Foley Interview
X-Pac wants to talk to Mick about the first time they met. Mick doesn’t remember so X-Pac fills him in on the details. It was SummerSlam ’95. Mick instantly remembers. Mick was wrestling Sabu at an independent show earlier that day in a death match and his arm was all burned up. Mick mentions that maybe the craziness of those matches wasn’t the smartest idea. X-Pac defends the matches saying that sometimes you have to take those calculated risks to achieve where you want to go. Mick agrees and says that he probably shouldn’t have been doing elbow drops off of aprons in front of really small audiences but if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have gotten to where he did.
Mick says the concept of his death matches can be traced all the way back to Japan when Terry Funk became his mentor. Terry defined the term “hardcore” as not about chairs, tables, or branding irons but giving the fans more than what they bargained for – going above and beyond to deliver for the fans. X-Pac says Terry is the Original for “hardcore.” Terry did some crazy stuff back in Texas because they had to keep pushing the envelope to keep drawing the fans.
Mick was working in WCW and GWF at the same time and he didn’t realize that it was somewhat frowned upon to do that. When it came time to choose he talked with Magnum (I’m assuming T.A.) about what he should do and Magnum said that he should take the bigger contract. Mick says that if it hadn’t have been for GWF he might not have had the confidence to ask for more money out of the gate. The $3,000 a week allowed Mick to have a family and live fairly comfortably.
Mick praises X-Pac’s match with Razor and says that it deserves to be as high as it was on the top Raw moments. X-Pac jokes that it should have been higher and the pole was rigged. Foley says that he thinks fans probably voted more for recent things because they were fresh. Pac brings up that he was also happy to be a part of Mick’s title win celebration. Mick says that everyone was all smiles except for Billy Gunn. He says that Gunn maintains he’s not smiling because he had to lift Mick but Mick jokes and says Billy isn’t smiling because Billy thought it should have been him up there. X-Pac says those smiles were as authentic and happy smiles as you can get. Mankind’s involvement with D-X during that time came about naturally and that moment in the ring wasn’t planned. Mick says it really added to everything that it was authentic.
Denise asks where the idea for Mankind came from. Mick jokes that he signed a piece of paper saying that WWE officially came up with the idea for Mankind. He doesn’t think that Mr. McMahon would mind him saying that the mask was a concession to bring Mick in. “Alright I’ll bring him in, but I’m covering his face!” The Mankind mask was a prototype for the Undertaker to wear coming back from his broken orbital bone. They opted for the Phantom of the Opera look, but McMahon liked the Mankind mask and was looking for someone to wear it.
What was the specific match or moment that stands out to Mick as he looks back on his career? There were a lot. The thing that Mick brought to the table was that the character that he brought to the table worked well against a lot of different talents. He had a lot of big moments with big names. Undertaker in Hell in a Cell, Matches with Steve Austin that went over better than anyone could have hoped for, The Royal Rumble and No Way Out matches against Triple H.
X-Pac asks about his work with Randy Orton. Mick says that was his favorite match of all-time. Mick says that Randy really came into his own in the buildup to that match. Mick is asked if he thought at the time that Randy would become as big as he is now. Mick says he doesn’t think anyone looks 13 years down the road and predicts quite the success that Randy has achieved, but he could definitely see Randy’s potential. Mick says that when guys are looking to come back for angles they want to work with people that they have belief in. Randy was great and really trusted Mick – even when other guys didn’t like where the angle was going. Mick told Randy to trust him and that he had Randy’s best interests at heart.
X-Pac brings up that he is currently working on his own biography and says that he was with Mick on a flight home from a European tour where Mick wrote almost the entirety of his first book. Mick chuckles and says that he wrote 20 consecutive hours’ worth of material. Mick says that he wrote the whole book in 50 days. Mick was grateful that there was interest in the book and it opened up a lot of opportunities for him. X-Pac says it did for others as well.
Jimbo wants to know if Mick has watched Beyond the Mat with Noelle and Dewey as adults and if so what are their reactions now? Mick says it’s probably been about ten years. He says it might be a good idea to watch it with the whole family now – it might be fun for the younger kids to see the reactions of their older siblings.
Is Mick Foley going to be “All-In” on September 1st? Mick chuckles and says he doesn’t know. He takes his hat off to those guys and the following that they’ve garnered. They’ve made watching wrestling fun for a lot of the fans again. Foley says that one of the things he loves about this business is that it’s not one size fits all. Foley wishes those guys the best and he doesn’t know if he’ll be a part of it but he’s rooting for them to make it a big success.
X-Pac says speaking about having fun in wrestling and he proceeds to ask Mick about taking the “You-Porn Plex” from Joey Ryan because X-Pac has taken it as well. X-Pac says that Cornette went crazy over it. Foley says that Cornette was livid. He was so upset with Mick. Cornette had said that Mick is too nice and he learns to say no. Mick’s reaction was “did he not think that this was my idea?” Mick says that of course it’s ludicrous but it’s ok to make people laugh one week and then come out the next week and put the fear of god back into people. Mick didn’t see any harm in it. X-Pac gets Cornette’s viewpoint and doesn’t begrudge him of it.
Rating 7.5/10
Overall, this was a solid outing from X-Pac and crew. Its fun to learn about the areas of wrestling that I’m not too familiar with. I haven’t really had the time to watch too much of Lucha Underground, but Marty seems like a real interesting person with an interesting character. I found it intriguing to hear that Marty was originally supposed to play Mil Muertes as it seems like that is a pretty iconic character for that show. I also found it a little weird that it was LU that had the problem with X-Pac’s Legends contract and not WWE. I am also a big Mick Foley fan – ever since I started watching wrestling as a kid. One thing that I’ve always liked about Mick is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously which provided for a good natural conversation. I was floored when I heard that he wrote his first book in 50 days. That seems insane to me. I also thought it was cool little piece of trivia that the Mankind mask was also a prototype for the Undertaker. The dual interview format might be seen as a little much, but I think that this episode didn’t really suffer from it. Both guests provided decent conversation and didn’t make it feel too long.
Time Stamps:
00:00 – 33:29 Intros and Discussion with Marty the Moth
34:23 – 1:14:47 Mick Foley Interview
1:14:48 – 1:17:25 Show Wrap Up
About Sean:
Sean is a media professional from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sean’s earliest memory of wrestling is seeing Kane on WWF television in 1998. Sean watched primarily WWF in the Attitude Era and dropped off just before the initial brand split. Seeing recap promos of the Undertaker building up to WrestleMania 20, he became hooked and has been an avid fan ever since. Sean’s wrestling preferences currently lean more towards NJPW/ROH/NXT but he remains a fan of it all. In his spare time Sean enjoys cooking, baking, and going to the gym. You can follow Sean via Twitter @stmcgraw and Instagram @stmcgraw09.
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