Mick Foley has always been a big advocate for some extremely important causes outside of the wrestling ring and he recently has teamed up with a lot of his pro wrestling cohorts to break the stigma of mental health with Tag Me In United.
‘Tag Me In’ is a communal wrestling movement supporting all of those dealing with mental health and how the fighters in the ring want to help one another through any situation, no matter how dire matters seem to be. Their goal is to “empower people to advocate for themselves and support others in doing the same.”
Mick Foley spoke with Dominic DeAngelo of WrestleZone about how he was proud to be a part of the ‘Tag Me In’ movement and how us all going through the effects of the pandemic was an added motivator for proactivity.
“Well, mental health is always an issue for all of us. Life’s tough, you know? And a lot of times when people come home from work their family situations are not ideal and I knew going into this pandemic that cases of domestic violence were going to increase, loneliness was going to become an even bigger issue. So maybe six months in, I just pulled over to the side of the road and I just texted something about how Coronavirus has revealed loneliness to be its own pandemic and it got like 10,000 likes within a couple hours,” Foley noted.
“So obviously, we were touching on something that affected people and as I mentioned, in wrestling all of us know somebody who made a bad decision and, unfortunately,” Foley explained, “a final decision that no life at all is better than that life they’re currently leading. So we want people to know that we as a huge dysfunctional wrestling family are out there to support our colleagues.”
Mick Foley is no stranger to the effects of head injuries and talked about how they can heighten a negative mindset.
“The head injuries can really play with your mind, make you incredibly sensitive to negative feedback, just make you feel like nothing you’ve done is worth much of anything. A lot of us struggle with that, and I’m lucky,” Foley stated. “I’m lucky I can jump in and out of the wrestling world so that if I were to call WWE and say, ‘Hey, I hear you have a house show coming up in Richmond, VA. I’m gonna be in town. Can I come out and be the guest ring announcer?’ They let me do whatever I wanted to do. Most guys and women don’t have that benefit, you know? For a lot of them, they go from being next to Spider-Man on the toy shelf to trying to figure out how they’re going to make their rent payments.”
Foley credited his wife as being his primary confidant and added that he had some great wrestling business mentors like Ron Fuller, Jim Cornette, Terry Funk and Paul Heyman, but said that stigma against mental health was in the business up until recently.
“Even up until 10 years ago, admitting you had a concussion was a sign of weakness, so we’ve come a long way in a short time but we have a long way to go. Beginning with Ashley Massaro’s passing a couple years ago,” Foley explained, “the women who worked with her really wanted to do something specifically for the women in the business but now I think we see this is something that affects men and women.”
Foley is doing a live show on December 5 at the ASW Whiskey Exchange in Atlanta, GA and 100% of ticket sales will go to NAMI Georgia to honor his friend the late Daffney Unger (PURCHASE TICKETS HERE). Daffney tragically committed suicide back in September and Atlanta was the town the women’s wrestling pioneer called home. Mick talked about how much of an influence Daffney had on a lot of the top women’s talent today.
“It’s great that you see a few of the women today pointing to Daffney and saying, ‘If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have gotten involved.’ She was a big influence and a good friend,” he said.
In addition to having t-shirts to purchase on Pro Wrestling Tees (at the end of October, PWTees will make a gift/donation sharing the profits of shirt sales), Foley presented other ways people can get involved with Tag Me In.
“If anyone wants to volunteer on a local level there’s always a need for volunteers. There’s no shortage of ways to make a difference. Our lives are really busy and if someone wants to make a difference on social media they can put out a little video. ‘#TagMeIn’, ‘#TagMeInUnited’ and help get the word out.”
Watch our full interview with Mick Foley at the top of this post and learn more about Tag Me In on the group’s Twitter, Instagram & YouTube accounts.
This man is INCREDIBLE! When he tagged in he had already taken action and started the conversation with @luchalibreaaa for mental health and providing resources within the company. THANK YOU @Konnan5150 #TagMeIn #TagMeInUnited #YouAreNotAlone pic.twitter.com/GD0uyuLk8h
— Tag Me In United (@tagmeinunited) October 13, 2021
Read More: Mick Foley: WWE Does A Lot Of Things Well, But They Should Pay More Attention To Continuity
