5. Mankind
The only man to appear on this list twice, Mankind, AKA Mick Foley, AKA Cactus Jack, AKA Dude Love, was certainly adept at playing a range characters. The creepy, damaged and perpetually deranged Mankind character was first revealed to WWF fans in 1996, where he was seen in The Boiler Room, rocking manically back and forth and petting a rat named George. A million miles removed from the usual tough guy fare, the character of Mankind would self harm, tear out his own hair by the handful (for real) and crawl towards the turnbuckles in a childlike posture if he felt threatened by his opponent. When on the offensive, Mankind was brutal, violent and savage, completely in-keeping with the unhinged nature of the character. Mick Foley has gone on record as saying that he was influenced by the character of Hannibal Lector, as portrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins. Later on, Foley was even able to inject elements of humour and pathos into the Mankind character, eventually making him a fan favourite and becoming a three-time World Champion into the bargain. Mankind was never less than awesome, but, if you think about it, its an unlikely kind of awesome.
Chris Quicksilver
Contributor
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
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Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
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Latcho Drom,
- CQ
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