Mick Foley took to his Facebook page on Tuesday to issue an apology to Mandy Rose, formerly known as Tough Enough contestant Amanda Saccomano. Foley was originally critical of her for her behavior on-camera on Tough Enough, but was later informed it was all a work. Here’s what Foley had to say:
“Several months ago, I was pretty tough on Amanda, based on a comment she made during the finale of WWE’s Tough Enough,” Foley wrote. “I was tough on her in a tweet I sent out that night, and even tougher in a Facebook post I sent out the next day.A few months later, I met Chelsea Green, another Tough Enough contestant, at the Minneapolis airport, en-route to Saskatchewan, Canada, where we would both be appearing in the motion picture Chokeslam. I was surprised when Chelsea received a text message from Amanda – since they hadn’t exactly come off as buddies on the show – and even more surprised when Chelsea told me that Amanda was actually a nice young lady who she considered a friend.
But what about all the terrible things she said on the show? That, Chelsea told me, was done to create drama on the show.Essentially, she was portraying a heel character on the show…something I did quite a bit of in my own life.
I did apologize publicly to Amanda on Twitter, and in several subsequent direct messages to her. The apology was accepted immediately, and unconditionally,,,but I don’t think it’s enough. Like a retraction of an error in a newspaper, far more people heard about the criticism than actually saw the apology.”
The former WWE World Champion went on to cite some regrettable moments from his own career, including a segment with him and John Cena.
“Now, I could argue that Amanda shouldn’t have made any comment about another contestant’s sexual past – even if the comment was suggested to her to create “heat” and interest on the show. Couldn’t she have shot the suggestion down?. Maybe so, Then again, just off the top of my head, here are three things that I shouldn’t have done:
1) I shouldn’t have allowed my last name to be “Manson” in World Class and during my first run in WCW. Sure, the name was a surprise when I walked down the aisle of the Sportatorium in Dallas for the first time, and heard my name announced as “Cactus Jack Manson”. It bothered me, but not enough to risk my job over it – and I eventually played into it…even though I knew in my heart that playing into the image of a notorious murderer like Charles Manson.
2) I ABSOLUTELY knew that there was NO WAY, in my first appearance on WWE TV i three years, that I should have agreed to be part of a segment like “This is Your Life, John Cena” that was INTENTIONALLY bad. Every bone in my body told me that being part of it was a bad idea – but I didn’t want to rock the boat, so by golly, I went out there and intentionally stunk up the place to the best of my abilities!
3) This one may seem random, especially because it was edited out of Smackdown, and has never been seen, but I deeply regret calling Stephanie McMahon an inappropriate name in the buildup to my matches with Triple H in 2000. Some of you have seen that buildup – it was great, and in no way needed the name-calling thing. But I did it, because I knew it would get a reaction – essentially doing the same slut-shaming I accused Amanda of – just for the sake of a cheap pop. To this day, I’ll find myself thinking back to that promo – saying to myself over and over “what were you thinking?”
Mandy Rose currently has a 5-year contract with WWE and made her NXT debut in January. You can read Foley’s entire blog entry here.
