Former WWE executive Bruce Prichard recently took to his podcast, Something To Wrestle, and discussed the origin of Hall Of Famer Mick Foley’s “Dude Love” character in WWE. Prichard discussed Foley’s early ideas for the character, pitching the idea to Vince McMahon and Foley not believing the character got approved. Here are the highlights:
Foley’s early idea for Dude Love:Â
“I was one of the few people to hear about Dude Love as far as I know in that dressing room. We were in Toronto, Canada, and it was myself, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Pat Patterson, and I don’t know if Undertaker was there, but it was after the matches and Mick Foley was talking to Shawn Michaels saying something along the lines of Cactus Jack, Mankind and that type of character,” Prichard said.
“Mick made a comment along the lines of talking about, ‘always wanting to be somebody like you, being the hot babyface that all the girls love, as a matter of fact I did promos with my friend, and my name was Dude Love. I saw myself, in my eyes, I was you.’ And we all got a good laugh out of it.”
Pitching it to Vince McMahon:
“I went back to share the story with Vince McMahon. I said, can you imagine this deal? Mick Foley, as a human being had such an interesting story, and that is where the Three Faces of Foley came about,” Prichard said.
“We started going into the Mick Foley, Cactus Jack, and eventually Dude Love, that it was so damn rich where every kid can imagine being in their basement cutting promos and being some character they create.”
Foley not believing the character got approved:
“I was like, yeah, we are going to do Dude Love. He thought I was ribbing him. At first, I think Mick Foley thought it was a rib, but once you saw how he played it and how over the top it was, it was like, damn, it was like, you are getting two characters for the price of one, four characters if you include Mick Foley,” Prichard said.
“It was interesting storytelling and it was something people can identify with Mick Foley because I think everybody can relate to wanting to be somebody else growing up and now he is realizing his dream.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
