Mick Foley Shares Funny Story About Trying To Draw Blood With Punches
The man known for telling people to “have a nice day” is a Hardcore Legend, but Mick Foley isn’t an expert on bloodying somebody with punches.
Many people in pro wrestling will tell you that what they do is art, to some degree. What they do in the ring is special because if you’re not trained the right way or if you have no idea how to perform in the ring then somebody is going to get hurt.
Something that was very old school in pro wrestling is when a wrestler would punch their opponent repeatedly above the eyebrow as a way to bust them open, which means making them bleed. It was a way to draw blood without taking a blade to cut somebody.
During an interview as part of the popular Hot Ones show on YouTube, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley talked about the eyebrow-busting method.
“We’re in a better world as far as wrestling goes. But you used to get that all the time. And the most believable and inexplicable to the wrestling cynic would be the busted eyebrow. Now, the problem is, if you just punch somebody hard in the eye, chances are it’s going to swell but not necessarily open up.”
“So Robert Fuller, who was known — Tennessee Lee was one of his names in WWE, Colonel Parker in WCW. He was a third-generation wrestler. He taught me to cut it punching down. It’s like, bam. So it’s not boom; it’s BOOM! You catch it at an angle. And there were old-school guys who were specialists in it. So I was one of the last of my generation to be a willing participant in what is a terrible practice.”
Mick Foley’s punching methods led to Tommy Dreamer shouting: “Would you please stop punching me!?!’
As he continued telling the story about the forehead punching method, Mick Foley revealed he didn’t do it well. Another hardcore wrestling legend, Tommy Dreamer, was involved in an incident that didn’t go well for either man.
“The upside is yes, it’s believable. The downside, you could go blind. Then in an ECW match against a guy named Tommy Dreamer. Tommy inaccurately believed that having been the participant in some of these hard ways made me an expert in giving them, which I was not. And he wanted me to open him up hardway, so he wanted to go through the things that I’ve gone through. And long story short, after about six punches missed and hit everywhere on his face except his eyebrow.
“I don’t care how tough you are, you get punched in the nose, it’s gonna bring tears to your eyes, right? After about five haymakers that land anywhere, and I’m trying to go down. They’re not actually haymakers; they are short punches. But still, I’m hitting them below the eye, and I’m hitting him in the nose and the forehead, and there’s welts on his head, and he finally looked up at me through tears in his eyes and goes, ‘Would you please stop punching me!'”