Michael Foley
His first pro-wrestling Match
Five years later - in CWA!
Cactus Jack in WCCW
1st appearence in WCW
Joining the UWF
Cactus Jack - the cult figure
The feud of 1991
Michael Foley - his personal life
His career in GWF
2nd appearence in WCW
End of his career?
Why he lost his ear
Cactus Jack's career in ECW
Heading to the WWF
Dude Love lives!
Michael Foley was born on June 07, 1965 in Bloomington, Indiana. Some people are saying that was the birth of hardcore wrestling! As teenager Michael wanted to be a wrestler, he wanted to be like he wasn't in real life: A guy which could get all the girls and who was loved by everybody. Yes, you can compare this today with a kind of Shawn Michaels. But he called his imaginations Dude Love. In his fantasies he was Dude Love, but in real life he was just Michael Foley.
Some day Michael met Dominic Denucci while he was working and setting up wrestling rings. Dominic trained Michael at a gym near his home in Pittsburgh. Denucci trained Foley some time till he made his pro-wrestling debut on June 24, 1983 by defeating Kurt Kaufman. From that day on he wrestled as Cactus Jack Manson.
Five years later Foley became a member Robert Fuller's Stud Stable. And just two month later, on October 23, 1988, Cactus Jack and Gary Young won a tournament for the vacant CWA tag team titles! Two weeks later (on November 7, 1988) they lost their titles against Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden. Fuller and Golden turned on Jack and Young! And again two weeks later Jack and Young lost a loser-leaves-town match, so they had to leave the CWA.
Cactus Jack then headed to the World Class Championsship Wrestling. He joined Gen. Skandor Akbar's stable. On May 30, 1989, Cactus Jack and Zodiac II defeated the team of Kerry Von Erich and Jeff Jarrett to win the WCCW tag team titles. Ten days later they lost their titles again, but on August 4, 1989 Cactus Jack and Corporal Braddok defeated Jeff Jarrett and Matt Bourne for Michael Foley's second WCCW tag team title! One week later they lost their tag team titles again, so Cactus Jack leaved the WCCW.
Michael Foley soon joined the WCW, again as Cactus Jack. With his tag team partner Kevin Sullivan, Cactus Jack beat many teams in the WCW.
A few month later he headed to the Universal Wrestling Federation. He teamed up with Bob Orton and feuded with Don Muraco, Brian Blair and Sunny Beach. Jack and Orton's manager was John Tolos. On June 9, 1991 Cactus Jack and Bob Orton lost to Stevie Ray and Sunny Beach at the UWF Beach Brawl PPV.
Because of his growing repertoire of amazing high risk moves, Cactus Jack became a kind of cult figure in pro-wrestling. In July 1991 he debuted his finishingmove for many following years, the Double Arm DDT.
Many wrestling fans consider the "feud of 1991" the feud from Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert, which ended in many brutal matches. The highlight of this feud was the following: They fought three (!) times a night! The matches were a falls-count-everywhere match, a stretcher match and a steelcage match.
Michael Foley was not just a good pro-wrestler, but also a good father and husband, too! He married his wife Colette and he had two children: Noelle and Dewey.
One day he headed to the Global Wrestling Federation and joined the "Cartel". Members of the Cartel were Scotty Anthony, Rip Rogers, Muckan Singh and of course Cactus Jack. He had some great matches in the GWF, but he wanted to be in a "bigger" league, so he re-entered the WCW.
Cactus Jack returned to WCW some month later and teamed up with Abdullah the Butcher. At Halloween Havoc: Cactus Jack, Vader, Abdullah the Butcher and Diamond Studd faced Sting, El Gigante and the Steiner Brothers. In 1991 Cactus Jack began feuding with Van Hammer and later with his ex-tag partner Abdullah the Butcher.
On April 23, 1993 Cactus Jack got powerbombed on the floor hitting his head by Vader. He suffered a concussion. Many people were thinking that this was the end of Michael Foley's career. But fortunately, Cactus Jack returned earlier than anticipated from his injury in autumn of 1993. His career highlight began: In a texas death match he faced Big Van Vader. From that time on, Cactus Jack became one of the biggest stars in WCW!
In a match in Munich, Germany, he lost two-thirds of one of his ears during a match against Big Van Vader: He got caught in the ropes and while he was trying to free himself, his ear got torn off. Now he had to make a decision: reattach the ear or return to the U.S. for a tag title match. Foley decided for his wrestling career and returned to the U.S. to win the tag team titles with Kevin Sullivan from the Nasty Boys. After losing the titles again, Cactus Jack faced Sullivan in a loser-leaves-town match and Jack lost the match. After losing, Cactus decided to split his wrestling caceer between Japan, where he had been very successful, SMW, and ECW.
In ECW he had a very brutal a bloody feud with Sabu. Later he teamed up with Mickey Whipwreck to win the ECW tag team titles from Public Enemy. After Kevin Sullivan joined ECW, Cactus Jack turned on him. Some times later he accidently gave the Sandman a concussion. In many matched he defeated Terry Funk. In a barbed wire match (match without ropes) for the ECW heavyweight title his defeatet Terry Funk again, but the referee Bill Alfonso reversed the decision. In 1995 he turned his tag team partner Tommy Dreamer with a DDT. In August of 1995, Cactus Jack made history when he became the first man ever to defeat 911! In April 1996 Cactus Jack wrestled his last match in ECW by defeating his former tag team partner Kevin Sullivan. Cactus Jack was no more.
In 1996 Michael Foley headed to the biggest wrestling federation; the WWF. He decided to have a new gimmick, no more Cactus Jack, so he became Mankind. Since he joined the WWF, he feuded with the Undertaker. His new finishing move was the Mandible Claw. In many matches he faced the Undertaker - and he won some of them. The highlight of Mankind's feud with the Undertaker was at SummerSlam 1996 in a boiler room match, when Paul Bearer, the Undertaker's manager, turned on the Taker and went to Mankind. Paul Bearer was now Mankind's manager. Bearer left Mankind, when Mankind began feuding with Hunter Hearst-Helmsley in spring 1997 and when Bearer forced the Undertaker to come back to him.
On July, 14, 1997, Mankind appeared as Dude Love to team up with Steve Austin and win the WWF tag team titles!
