Mick Foley's dream to become a
professional wrestler began with
Dude Love.
In a
home movie Foley and his friends made in
high school (at
Ward Melville High School in
East Setauket,
New York to be precise), Foley created the
persona of
Dude Love, who was everything that Foley was not--
hip, attractive, great with the ladies, and a terrific
professional wrestler.
Dude Love was put on hold for 12 years, as Foley wrestled as
Cactus Jack for his first decade as a pro
wrestler. He was planning only to be
Cactus Jack for a few months--until he got good enough to debut
Dude Love as the
hero he had always envisioned.
Wellllll, things don't always turn out as planned. Cactus was successful enough on his own accord to delay the debut of Dude Love--indefinitely.
But in 1997, after Foley had been wrestling in the
World Wrestling Federation for a year or so (as
Mankind),
Vince McMahon decided to take a chance and
debut Dude Love.
For weeks leading up to it, they showed clips of the
home movie Foley and his friends had made, and even explained that it had always been a dream of Foley's for
Dude Love to wrestle in the
WWF.
And so, during a
feud with
HHH in the
summer of 1997,
Dude Love became the second of
Mick Foley's personas to surface in the
WWF.
The Dude never showed up much--during most of his tenure in the
WWF Foley was Mankind, with a little Dude and Cactus sprinkled in occasionally, but Foley's dream of being
Dude Love was definitely accomplished.
For more
information about
Foley's career in general, see
Mick Foley.