Mick Foley on Backyard Wrestling

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In his early days, Mick Foley was a backyard wrestler. He made home movies in his persona of Dude Love. The most famous scene, which has been aired on TV numerous times, is one in which Mick climbs to the roof of his friend's home - salutes his idol 'Superfly' Jimmy Snuka - and leaps on to a mattress below.

In April 1999, Mick revisited his backyard wrestling roots prompted by Raw Magazine and a desire to respond to ABC-TV's® 20/20 show where his quotes were taken out of context. While being interviewed Foley was shown a piece of video of some kids playing around - all pretty harmless and commented, "...for the most part that looked fun." Though he didn't like the idea of them hitting eachother with a garbage can. 20/20 played his comment during a particularly violent scene of two guys using barbed wire and a cheese grater. Mick says that today kids get more organized, often using the Internet to organize a league of wrestlers, and admittedly a minority take it to extremes and it does get dangerous. Backyard wrestlers have gone as far as building rings to compete in, "You assume that with these elaborate rings that Mom and Dad have to have some kind of idea what's going on." Though some go to warehouses and other places - that's where it gets dangerous, "If Dad is too wrapped up in his six-pack or newspaper to pay attention to what the kid is doing, then I can't be to blame for that."

"I'm not going to discourage these kids from having fun but...you can't be hurting eachother, and stay away from head shots. If you don't have an appreciation for the human body, don't get involved." He reminds children that WWE Superstars are trained professionals and know how to perform these dangerous moves correctly.

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Excerpts and quotes from WWF RAW® Magazine Vol.4 No.7 Pg.61

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