A Day in the Life of: Mick Foley

NEW YORK, Oct. 3, 2005 — -- No matter how many books he writes, grappler-turned-author Mick Foley may never outwrestle his professional wrestling past.

"I think exactly one person has referred to me as an author first and not a wrestler. 'Aren't you that author?' " Foley said in an interview with ABCNEWS.com. "I think, unfortunately, I'll have to write a lot of good books before people forget that I'm a wrestler, or it just becomes a sidenote. But I'm proud to be a wrestler/author. And as far as wrestler/authors go, I think I'm up right there at the top."

Foley recently released his latest book, "Scooter," a coming-of-age novel about a boy growing up in the Bronx, against the backdrop of Yankee Stadium. "Scooter" is the seventh book -- three of which have been children's books -- by Foley since his surprise 1999 autobiography, "Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks," which was on The New York Times' best-seller list.

But despite his prolificacy, the wide-eyed looks the 6-foot-4-inch, 280-pound Foley received when he visited ABCNEWS.com suggest that the former World Wrestling Entertainment champion's claim to fame -- at least for now -- remains his antics as a performer in the ring.

"That's one crazy guy," said one onlooker.

Foley wrestled under several different ring names and personas. In his early years, he was known as Cactus Jack Manson because of his reckless physical style and long straggly hair and goatee that bore a resemblance to Charles Manson.

While wrestling for other smaller independent promotions around the United States and the world, performing in gimmick matches where rings were surrounded by barbed wire and riddled with thumb tacks, he simply became known as Cactus Jack. He became more widely known when he wrestled for the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling promotions before achieving his greatest fame in WWE as the character Mankind -- a tortured villain who wore a Hannibal Lector-esque mask/muzzle and ultimately became a beloved hero.