A
character name used by
Mick Foley upon his entrance into the
World Wrestling Federation immediately following
Wrestlemania 13 (March 1996).
Vince McMahon felt that Foley's
Cactus Jack persona was a bit too nutso, and he also wanted to put a more
WWFish character on him. So, we got the following:
Mankind, you see, was an award-winning pianist as a child. His mother was extremely overbearing and abusive, and so Mankind smashed his own fingers so that he'd never have to play the piano ever, ever again.
Now estranged from his family, he ran away from home. With nowhere else to turn, he lived in the sewers where he was raised by rats.
Fast forward to twenty-odd years later, when Mankind shows up in the World Wrestling Federation and becomes a professional wrestler.
You just can't make that stuff up. Well, actually, some
creative genius at the
WWF did make that stuff up...I hope he was taken out and shot as a result.
Eventually the whole
backstory was forgotten, and
Mankind became just some crazy dude who loved
pain and was willing to put his body through whatever it took to be successful.
Fun Fact:
Vince McMahon's original idea for the character name was "Mason the Mutilator"--on the theory that the
WWF already had bruisers, crushers, and warriors, but never a
mutilator! I mean really, how could it fail? Foley convinced McMahon to make it "Mankind the Mutilator" instead, since Foley could use the
double entendre of "mankind" in interviews, saying he was doing things "for the good of mankind" and the like. McMahon apparently liked it so much that the "mutilator" part was dropped completely, and thus Foley debuted simply as
Mankind.
For more information about Foley's entire career, see
Mick Foley.