By comparison to 99 percent of wrestling books, this is excellent. The problem is that Foley’s second volume inherently invites comparison to Have A Nice Day, something that perhaps unfairly highlights its shortcomings.
Foley is Good, while in the same style and tone (still largely warm and optimistic with little in the way of cynicism or bitterness) differs from its predecessor in a couple of ways. Firstly, despite being a similarly epic length, it covers a far shorter period, specifically the 20 months between his winning the WWF title for the first time and retiring for the second time in six weeks at WrestleMania 2000. As a result the hit-to-miss ratio is lower, with several less engaging stories making the cut, and often excessive detail on less significant events.
Secondly, the book has more of a specific focus beyond a straight chronology. Subtitled “the real world is faker than wrestling”, it includes numerous anecdotes about incidents outside of the traditional wrestling arena, something that naturally increased once Foley became a legitimate superstar. Examples include his appearance in a new feature about backyard wrestling, his work with a ghostwriter when starting his first book, and his testimony in a trial resulting from an incident where a fan was burned in the ECW Arena. It’s great for readers looking for more breadth, but may annoy those solely interested in the in-ring action and backstage antics.
Perhaps the biggest criticism along these lines comes from readers disgruntled by the inclusion of a lengthy epilogue that takes to task reports by the Parental Television Council (the inspiration for WWF’s Right To Censor characters) into WWF programming. Over the course of 77 pages, Foley addresses the PTC’s statistics and motivation in painstaking detail. While this certainly isn’t to everyone’s taste, and is arguably not what you could expect from an autobiography, it’s unfair to label it as padding given you get almost 400 pages of main story content first.
None of this is to say that Foley is Good is not a worthwhile use of your time or money. It’s still among the better books of its type, it’s just that you need to go into it understanding that Foley takes full advantage of his new-found platform to put as much emphasis on sharing his opinions as he does recalling events.
One Comment
I picked this one up when it came out, because I was expecting it to be as good as his first book. It was okay, but came off more like a company book written for the sole purpose to defend the WWE from it’s detractors in the mainstream media.
There are a few comical stories (notably a rib on Al Snow where Foley exposed Al’s penis in a match, referring to it as “a robin’s egg in a nest”, but for the most part it’s fairly forgettable and unlike his first book, which even twenty years later, I find myself re-reading it cover-to-cover at least once every couple of years, this effort is more or less a one-and-done read that would be better off getting at a local library, or picking up in paperback if you’re a completionist that wants all of Mick’s books.