Mick Foley: The wrestling legend had his heart broken in school - and his bones broken in the ring. Now he's breaking the mould as Santa Claus

At 16 years old, I was both popular and strange. And I was a wrestling superfan. At that point, I think I already wanted to be a professional wrestler, but I thought that if I couldn’t be a wrestler, I wanted to be part of the wrestling business in some way. I’m jumping from 16 to 23 here, but by 23 I was doing pretty well in wrestling. I was in World Class Championship Wrestling and, by some standards, I was an international superstar. But I was only making $75 a night. I had my first date at 17 and I had an amazing time. I may have fallen in love in one day. I had the presence of mind to take my first date to First Blood with Sylvester Stallone. Not exactly a romcom, right? The next day, a couple of my friends asked her how it went. She said: “I really like him, but I hear he’s weird.”

A couple of days later, I got a call. She asked me if I was sitting down, and she gently broke my heart. Since then, I’ve come to realise that all of the things that made me seem strange in high school made me successful in wrestling. 

I would tell my younger self to embrace those things that made me different. I would also tell my younger self there is no law against telling a young lady that you’re interested in that you’re interested in them, instead of waiting for some type of defining classic moment to unfold, like From Here to Eternity, where you’re rolling around in the surf. That doesn’t need to happen. You could put it out there. You could actually talk to a woman. For someone who was supposed to be fearless in the ring – I wasn’t fearless, I was scared all the time – I displayed courage, action in the face of fear, in my wrestling career. But not on the social level. 

We all have WrestleMania moments in life, and you get to choose what they are. I remember when CM Punk was really down because he wasn’t in the main event at WrestleMania. He thought he deserved it, but he was wrestling The Undertaker! I was like, “Phil [CM Punk’s real name], it doesn’t matter who they advertise as the main event. Edge and I were not the main event at WrestleMania 22, and we felt like we had the match of the night. I don’t care if they give us the main-event bill. If you go out there and steal the show at WrestleMania, that’s your WrestleMania moment.” Don’t let anyone else define to you what being a success is. You get to define that for yourself. Some of the most rewarding jobs are not rewarding financially. If my younger self asked me, what’s the secret to success? I’d say: you just try to make the world a little better place than you found it. I really believe in that. 

The big thing I would say to my younger self is: there’s a difference between not being mean and doing the right thing. There were times when I stood by and watched as other people were treated poorly. Even though I didn’t treat them poorly myself, my note to my younger self would be: stand up for people who were not able to stand up for themselves. There was a young lady I met in seventh grade who was picked on terribly because of a rumour that I’m 98% sure wasn’t true. It would be a stretch to say she was a friend, because I never took the time to know her. But even if the rumour was true, there was nothing wrong with what it purported she had done. I stood by and watched as people treated her terribly. Years later, I saw that woman in a grocery store – I’m talking about 25 years later, probably. She told me one of her children was a wrestling fan. I said, “Could you give me your address? I’ll send her a couple of photos.” The real reason I asked for her address was that I wanted to write her a letter. I wrote the letter and expressed how sorry I was that I had not done more to make her life a little better. We developed a really nice friendship and we’re friends to this day. But that’s one of the things I would say to my younger self: be willing to stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. 

If I could relive one day from my life exactly as it happened, it would be the night I lost something special in college. I was one week away from being 20, and it was a really beautiful moment. But also when my son was visited by the real Santa Claus. And when I say real, he legally changed his name. That’s dedication. It’s in my documentary I Am Santa Claus. It was my first year portraying that iconic figure, and I created a little diversion downstairs. I was jingling bells and laughing when my son Mickey came down with my daughter Noelle. I thought it would take Mickey about two minutes to realise that it was his father, at which point the real Santa was going to enter the home and be upstairs. Instead, he recognised me before he was even down the stairs. All of a sudden, we heard our dog Randall barking, which meant that he’d heard or seen something. The look on my son’s face – it was just that magic of Christmas. He ran up the stairs and there, putting presents under the tree, was the real deal. Right? Santa turned around and we had the best interaction. I remember thinking, this is one of the greatest moments of my life. I think that’s a lot of the reason why I take so much pride in trying to create similar moments for other families, and try to do the very best portrayal that I can. 

I didn’t get on very well with my parents because I had this very possessive, demanding mother who was really quite jealous of all my other relationships. She didn’t like me having friends, and my friends didn’t like coming round to the house because they were scared of her. I had a real struggle to be myself. She was always demanding all the attention. My dad was very nice. I had a very good relationship with him really, but he would always take her side if she demanded it. So it was not a great relationship, but it was probably very good for me being a writer because I had to spend a lot of time trying to think of what makes people act the way they do.  

I’m a big believer in the handwritten letter. I write probably 40 letters a year as Santa. And I don’t know if you know that my handwriting is my superpower. I worked on it and worked on it, with the goal of making my writing look like Santa’s. And it does. It’s really cool. When I sit down and spend a couple of hours handwriting letters, that’s the way I show people I care. It’s kind of a lost art, but I think it’s always appreciated.

You need to tell the people you love that you love them before it’s too late. I harken back to that special moment I had in my college life that I wouldn’t mind reliving again. She was real big on that. I hadn’t told my mom and dad I loved them in many years at that point, and she said, “You need to tell them you love them.” I think that’s important. Neither of my parents are here, but they knew they were loved. I made it really clear. We said those things frequently.  

But if I was to have one more conversation with someone who’s no longer in my life, I’d say Terry Funk [wrestling legend, Mick’s mentor and one of his former tag-team partners, who died in 2021]. I did have a chance to write him a letter before he passed, telling him how much I appreciated everything he had done for me. By the time Terry left us, his memory was not good, and I hope that I made it clear how much he had meant to my life. I wish I’d made it clearer to Terry. I wish I’d been more accessible when he went into assisted living. It was difficult. He was a phone-call guy, and it’s difficult to talk to people whose cognitive skills are declining. I did go out to see him. Every time I was within like 300 miles of Amarillo, I would make it a point to go see him. But I think I could have been a better friend. I wish I’d been a better friend .

Also in this week’s issue

The charity warehouse offering families a lifeline

Why we have to remove the stigma attached to gambling

Andy Burnham’s rough sleeping pledge