Headbanging pt I
Tales of an accidental stuntman
Like many men of my vintage, I am something of an amateur scholar when it comes to American wrestling. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, massive characters like Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin were impossible to ignore. The pivot to more adult storylines and themes coinciding with my late teens meant that WWF1 remained a guilty pleasure for some time. Do I still indulge myself with a bit of the graps now and again? I’m not answering that, some of you people think I’m cool.
It was a deeply problematic industry back then and I’m not here to defend it. There’s nothing in the recent Netflix documentary about Vince McMahon that would surprise a wrestling fan, lapsed or otherwise. But those overblown characters and their daring antics tapped the late-90s zeitgeist perfectly. Ever the outcast, I used to shun the big names; Stone Cold, The Rock and Triple H were all far too cool. My guy was Mick Foley2.
Mick Foley is a hardcore legend, his ability to absorb punishment is legendary. That toughness meant he was invariably the underdog throughout his career. It didn’t matter whether he was a face or a heel3, he was almost always the bridesmaid. He did win titles, but his job was mainly to make the other guy look good.
Even non-wrestling fans will probably be aware of Mick. In 1998, as his character Mankind, Mick was tossed off the top of Hell in a Cell by The Undertaker. He fell around 20ft and through an announce table. The “wrestling is fake” bores were rather silenced by that one.
Mick Foley was an utterly fearless wrestler but he was, and still is, far from a meathead. He wrote his life story over three volumes, the first 800 pages in longhand. All three books made the New York Times bestsellers list. He’s an articulate speaker and a brilliant storyteller despite uncountable concussions. He’s kind of a hero to me, for I too am an articulate speaker and a brilliant storyteller despite uncountable concussions.
Alright, not quite uncountable. I’m pretty sure I’m into double figures though.
There are some links between ADHD and clumsiness. If you want to give it a name then it’s probably dyspraxia, a disorder that affects movement and coordination. I haven’t been tested for dyspraxia and I’m not sure I want to be, despite its comorbidity with ADHD. I really don’t need to be tested. I know I’m clumsy, I’ve got the fucking scars. Fortunately for me, I have a rather large, rather thick skull. This piece is a languid jaunt through some of my more memorable concussions4.
A few days before my second birthday, I ran full pelt into a chest of drawers, splitting my septum and necessitating a trip to A&E. My parents also had their collars felt by Social Services, which must’ve been absolutely terrifying considering how, well, absolutely terrifying the early years of parenthood must be. I’m told that my run was single minded and straight ahead, it was like I wanted to test my head out for future use.
I think I was six or seven when I first remember my brain getting a comprehensive scrambling. I was playing crazy golf with my mate Stephen. Steve gave everything welly. The master of hoofball when playing in goal, he always hit sixes on the cricket pitch and a game of tennis was basically a war.
Of course, crazy golf was no different. Rather than tap the ball down to the little windmill, he would leather it at the little castle. Quite why I decided to stand in his backswing that day, I’ll never know5. I caught the putter flush on the temple: lights out and down he goes. I remember a dazed, confused walk home and a lot of fuss from my mother. There was a gigantic lump but no lasting damage. Haha, okay, sure Jan.
Aged around 14, I went with a group of mates to a local BMX track. Ignoring all sage advice, I tried to go round on my mountain bike, oblivious to the bigger wheels and heavier frame. I hit a triple hump thing and didn’t land it properly, coming down in a boneless heap between the second and third humps. My head slammed into terra firma, and I was out like a light. A couple of thoroughly good eggs walked me to a phone box and called my parents. The next thing I know my old man was there to take me home in the car.
A year or so later I was out one morning on my paper round. I bombed down the quiet suburban street on my bike, my desperate-to-be-like-Kurt-Cobain hair flying in the breeze. To this day, I am positive that I looked over my shoulder before darting into the road, however I didn’t notice the car until it hit me. I flew backwards off my bike and went headfirst through the windscreen, before bouncing off the bonnet of the car and skimming down the road on my bottom like a flat pebble on the incoming tide.
Amazingly, despite its contents being thoroughly rattled, there was nary a mark on my head. The same could not be said for my teenage backside, which was shredded like crispy duck by the skid down the road. My favourite jeans were ruined in the process.
A woman came out of a nearby house, saying she had seen the whole thing. She took me in and made me a cup of tea laced with sugar, while the driver left with a Lewis-shaped hole in his windscreen6.
She asked me my phone number and despite everything spinning uncontrollably I remembered it, because the home phone number was burned into your soul in those days. Then she phoned my home and, when my sister answered, said ”I’ve got your son.” That cut through the fog. That was straight out of a horror film. She was going to take me hostage or something. Maybe fatten me up to eat like a Home Counties Hansel. There was a movie in all of this: Corey Feldman is Lewis Holmes in Clumsy Paperboy.
Outside of my concussion fantasy, she was simply rather flustered by the bouncing child she’d just witnessed; after she’d explained what happened my mum duly came round to retrieve me. My reward for that early morning Evel Kineval tribute act was a very gentle day on the sofa.
Smash cut to adulthood.
I was 22 and travelling around Australia with my best mate. That night we were partying in the legendary Woolshed in Cairns. I have no idea if it’s still the case, but 24 years ago they actively encouraged you to dance on the tables, absolutely no qualifications needed and no waivers to sign.
I can’t remember exactly what was playing, maybe ‘Song 2’ by Blur, but I decided that a Van Halen-esque scissor kick was exactly what the moment needed. I slipped in a puddle of beer, my head and my feet swapped places, and I promptly crashed off the table and into the lap of a beautiful young woman. Our eyes locked.
Well now, I thought. This must be fate.
“Wurlner,” I said. “Dis muzzee fay.”
She looked at me like she’d just landed one of those weird fish from the abyssal depths.
“Get off me, you’re bleeding.”
I’m sure that we would’ve been very happy together.
She wasn’t wrong though, I was spouting blood out of the back of my head. I looked like a special effect7. Turns out I had cracked my head off a wooden pillar on the way down. I staggered to the gents and, in an act of survival that would’ve made John Rambo proud, wadded a load of very cheap toilet roll against the cranial gusher.
I got a cab to the local medical centre. The driver made me sit in the brace position the entire way so I wouldn’t bleed on his seats. After a really short wait compared to A&E in the UK, I was called in by a lovely, friendly young intern. He listened to my tale of woe, cleaned the wound and gently applied three stitches. I barely felt the needle; those three stitches could’ve been kissed in by angels.
Perhaps unwisely, I took a long, slow walk back to our hostel because I wanted a fuck ugly delicious meat pie from the petrol station. I could’ve done any number of sensible things when I finally got back: drink a glass of water, have a nice lie down, maybe even confirm with my mate that I was still alive. Instead, I tried some patter with a doe-eyed Danish goth in the TV room.
“Hi,” I said. Classic opener, never fails.
She glanced at me, then did the best double take I’ve ever seen when she clocked the maroon spatters all down my white t-shirt.
“You have bled a lot!” she said.
“I sure have! What’s your name?”
“I think you should probably rest.”
Fair point, well made.
A few days later, I returned to that same medical centre to have my stitches removed. The kindly young intern from the Saturday night shift was gone, replaced by a man who represented all of the gruff Australian stereotypes rolled into one. Part Crocodile Dundee, part Alf Stewart, part that nutjob out of Wolf Creek. His clear blue eyes appraised me from deep in his weathered face. He was clearly a guy who did not suffer fools gladly, and before him sat a deeply foolish young man.
“Right then. We’re taking some stitches out?” he said, His tone was cheerful enough despite his unsmiling face.
“Yes please!” I grinned back at him, like stitches were gifts from the gods or something.
“Who hit you, mate?”
“Oh nobody, I fell off a table in the Woolshed.”
“Right then,” he said again. The temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees and I felt his change of demeanour in my very bones.
In one swift movement, he tucked my head down between his legs (not unlike The Undertaker about to Tombstone good old Mick Foley) whipped out his blade8, and slashed my stitches out in three quick swipes. And I swear to god I heard him mutter “Stupid… pommie… bastard!” as he did it.
There is one more tale to tell, a story that I feel needs to shine all by itself. Keep ‘em peeled for Headbanging pt II, coming soon. Why not give that like button a little tickle before you go?
They are WWE these days, the pandas took them to court and laid the smackdown.
Aka Mankind, aka Cactus Jack, aka Dude Love. At the ‘98 Royal Rumble he entered as all three characters and I still think that’s some of the greatest theatre ever.
Good guy or bad guy.
Yes, that was a joke. Well done you.
I do know really, it’s because I didn’t know what a backswing was.
I don’t think it was a malicious hit and run. I think he was deep in shock; a paperboy just flew out of the morning and interrupted the Chris Tarrant Breakfast Show with his gigantic head.
The scalp bleeds very hard, thin skin or something like that.
Scissors, whatever. Okay, yes, it was just scissors. But it felt like a machete. If he’d said “This is a knife!” I wouldn’t have been surprised.
"Bah gawd he is broken in half!" Always nice to read the experiences of another Attitude era aficionado! Clearly sounded like you lost the table match in Australia though 😉. I do feel for your parents!
😆 This is as quality, mate! As a similarly clumsy and accident prone man, it’s a hard relate.
I’ve also had a rough time at The Woolshed in Cairns. Earlier in the day I’d picked up an ear infection in the pool at our godawful hostel and, on the dance floor, ear wax started seeping down my neck, onto my T-shirt, glowing under the cheap strobe lights. A woman said, “urgh, what the fuck is that?!”
A low ebb.