Mick Foley – NXT’s Positive Effect On Indy Wrestling, Women’s Wrestling And More

Last Friday, Mick Foley hosted the Northeast Wrestling’s Prison City Slam event in Auburn,NY. To promote the event, he spoke to AuburnPub.com about the show, women’s wrestling, and the positive impact NXT has had on indy wrestling in general. Below are a few highlights but you can read the entire interview here.

Is NXT having a positive effect on the independent wrestling scene?

I certainly think it shines a light on how much great talent is out there on the scene. We used to have a tendency to look down on indy wrestlers. Now indy wrestlers are looked at and treated with a new respect. It’s a conversation I just had with some of the indy guys. Having come from an indy background myself, I understood how difficult it is to work hard each night and, in “wrestle speak,” get over with a different audience without the benefit of known entrance music, that Pavlovian response, and an established fan base. So I think NXT is great for indy wrestling, and knowing that when we come to Auburn, fans may very well be seeing the stars of the future of the wrestling business.

You have been very vocal in your support for women’s wrestling. As seen in NXT, it’s being featured more prominently. What do you think it’ll take for WWE itself to turn that corner?

I think the only thing that remains is to change the established patterns of wrestling fans who, for years, saw Divas matches as a time to get up and take a break. So most people are catching on, are taking note of the marked improvement in the women’s division. I think calling it the women’s division, dropping the “Divas” moniker, is the next logical step in that progression.

Noelle, your daughter has quite a presence on social media. Many of her followers are wrestling fans. Does she want to follow you and work in the pro wrestling scene?

I would love for Noelle to be on the other side of the business, the non-wrestling side, but the truth is that if she were to come to Auburn High, she would outdraw me as far as autographs. She definitely draws a crowd. We all grew up loving wrestling, and we still do.

Ski’s Take – I’m going to start my take by saying that I am an out and out fan of Mick Foley. He is my all time favorite wrestler, and possibly my all time favorite person. Being told he wouldn’t do much, if at all anything in the business, and then being a major player in changing the landscape of the industry resonated with a young me back in the day.

With that out of the way, I think he brings up a great point about how NXT is helping lose the stigma that indy wrestlers used to have. Coming through NXT and being under the umbrella of the WWE, fans will see the wrestler as a WWE superstar rather than an indy guy/girl.

And in regards to that awful Divas moniker. he’s right once again. Every person who I’ve spoken to has said that the Diva name does nothing for the women busting their ass day in day out. It brings up an image of a woman that is a total pain to work with, not the epitome of women’s wrestling. Yes we know that Uncle Vince brought in the term as a way of classifying his female wrestler’s, much like TNA did with branding their women Knockouts, but surely with the groundswell that Ronda Rousey, the Williams sisters et al are making, now is the time to drop that term……Please?