WWE veteran reveals how the Mankind character was developed by Mick Foley
Former WWE writer Vince Russo recently gave fans an insight into his relationship with Mick Foley when they worked together during the Attitude Era and how the Mankind character came about.
Vince Russo was recently on a Patreon only Q&A for the Two-Man Power Trip of Wrestling. Russo discussed his time working with Mick Foley in WWE during the Attitude Era and revealed that he did not initially understand the Mankind character at all:
"I have to be honest with you, when I started writing, they had the Mankind character, which I did not understand. I swear, what was it? I didn't get it, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand Mankind, I didn't understand the name, I didn't understand what his character was. But then we started working together and organically, Mick creatively and Mick's mind, it has no boundaries."
Vince Russo opens up about how the Mankind character came together
During the interview, Vince Russo also opened up about how the Mankind character went from the early days to transforming into the iconic character fans love today.
Russo said that it had a lot to do with Mick Foley naturally being funny and charismatic, which began to show in his promos. As Mankind got more over with fans, the character also began to move in that direction:
"Mick also is a very funny guy. The original Mankind, you never saw that entertaining funny guy but also all of a sudden Mick started cutting these entertaining promos. A lot of them were funny and they were really starting to get over with the people. Nobody could cut a promo like Mick Foley. So that Mankind character started opening up a little. Then I remember, one of the things I loved doing was we piggybacked him off the Goldust character."
Vince Russo also discussed how he asked Mick Foley to do the Dude Love character in WWE after seeing his home videos:
"I remember going years back, I remember seeing the home video of Mick jumping off the roof of his house and doing the Dude Love character when he was like 18 years old and so it was just a matter of approaching him and saying we gotta do this Dude Love character. We've got to add this to the repertoire."
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