Now, one of the reasons we really wanted to have you on
is that you do stand out in the the world of wrestling
as a guy who will do anything.
You will risk your body,
you will hurt yourself. That's true.
I mean, really hurt yourself.
You've lost an ear wrestling, is that true?
I lost, yeah, two-thirds of an ear, I guess you'd say.
Oh, well that's okay, though.
That's not quite as bad.
Yeah, you lost, I mean, what happened?
Well, I was in Munich, Germany
and I was doing a move when I end up
getting my neck caught in the ropes,
which are actually steel cables coated by rubber,
and, although my opponent later claims
he saved my life by pulling me out of there,
a fan's videotape showed that he actually
had his back turned towards me
and was yelling at the fans,
and I liken it kind of like the wolf
that chews off it's paw, you know.
I literally, I'm not exaggerating
when I say I thought it was going to die in there,
it was so tight on my, the ropes were so tight on my neck.
So when I pulled out, now the ear didn't just come off,
it ended up that I got back in
and there was quite a bit of blood coming down.
[Conan] Oh, man.
I could hear the little pitter-patters
of blood on the blue mat
A little pitter-patter.
Yeah, a little pitter-patter.
You tell it so nice. It was a cute sound, yeah
It was only like a pitter-patter.
Well, yeah, when Vader threw a punch,
I blocked it and I threw my own punch in there,
you see something (Conan groans)
obviously fall off the side of my head.
That's gotta be disconcerting to see a part of yourself,
like, "What's that, oh, right."
Well, the truth was-
"That's me, yeah."
It's a strange series of events
because we'd actually had two referees
who were flown home with injuries.
[Conan] Right?
So we had a French referee
who was not able to tell me that,
"Hey, I've got your ear here,"
so he picked it up, he handed it to the ring announcer,
and while the match was still going on,
the ring announcer kind of tiptoed it to the back,
where, when I finished, it was
waiting for me in a bag of ice.
That's nice, they put it on ice for you.
They are very considerate people over there in Germany.
How many stitches have you had in your whole career?
Well, you know, I'd probably had
about 50 behind that ear beforehand,
so there went 50 right away.
I've probably had about, you know, over 300, but-
So I could hit you right now, you'd just fall apart.
No, no, I'm actually pretty good at taking punishment.
That's kind of my calling card.
Right.
And there's kind of like, a matter of personal pride
where you don't actually go to the emergency room
unless you really need it.
That's for wimps, the emergency room, that's what I say.
It was getting to the point where
the doctors knew me on a first name basis there.
You again, yeah.
So, you know, you learn to kind of patch yourself up
with a little bit of crazy glue or tape,
so I've had quite a few injuries there.
I wanna, we'll prove this to people,
because there are a lot of people that don't know this,
about a year and a half ago,
you had what many people believe
to be the greatest match of all time.
It was you versus The Undertaker,
and it clearly went beyond the bounds
of anything people had seen in wrestling before.
Let's take a look at this clip right here
and show people what happened.
You're on top of a cage.
(audience roaring) (commentators screaming)
[Mick] Yeah, that's about 16 feet down to the ground.
Now, that's, that's, now that, okay.
And you know what, we weren't showing
the same fall over and over again.
That was three times.
No reason we could serve as that was fake.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, that's the thing, as you look at that,
and you're like, "There's no way
that you could fake falling,"
how many feet was that?
That was a legitimate 16 feet.
16 foot fall onto a table,
and you didn't stop there.
They started to take you out on a stretcher and you got up.
I just felt like it was a pay-per-view, the fans paid $30,
I felt like maybe I'd given them about $20 worth.
They needed, Conan, they wanted more.
Let's show what you did after you woke up from that fall.
[Mick] There it is, look, I'm hot now, adrenaline.
[Conan] This is the same night, right?
[Mick] Yeah, adrenaline's going through my body,
I climb up the cage.
[Conan] Right, that's exactly what I would do.
[Mick] Actually, there, the chair that followed me down,
it actually knocked out a couple of my teeth.
Now here comes the thumbtacks,
which I had made famous over in Japan.
[Commentator] Oh, what a sadistic thing.
[Mick] Boom, there we go.
See that thing of my nose?
Now, wait a minute.
Thank you.
(audience cheering)
Those are, oh, a couple of things.
First of all, those are, like, those were real tacks.
That's not, I mean.
You know, I wasn't able to find
what some fans think actually exist,
which is, like, a fake thumbtack store
where you buy your fake chairs, you know?
Yeah, that was the real deal.
There was about 6,000 of them,
and I'd say about five or 600 ended up in my body.
Really? Yeah.
And also, in the fall, when you fell through the cage,
that was not supposed to happen.
Yeah, the cage-
and you fell and you lost a tooth.
The cage pulled an ad-lib on me and we went through.
Yeah, and if you could see it,
I don't know if you could see it.
A lot of fans watch this tape over and over and over,
and I firmly believe that they don't have girlfriends.
Anyone who's seen that match
more than three or four times probably...
Well, anyway...
He knows that I'm talking about.
Here they come.
He probably doesn't date a whole lot, Conan.
You know what I love is,
you said those guys don't have girlfriends,
and one guy went, " Yeah."
Not the reaction I had in high school
when I didn't have a girlfriend.
Now, you lost a tooth and the tooth went in your nose.
Right, right.
We have a picture of this,
it's not for the squeamish.
Can we see this, please?
[Mick] Now, look, you see that,
it looks like I'm smiling, they thought I was smiling.
"Look at this mad guy,
he's smiling." Right.
What was trying to do, I was trying to
push my tongue through the hole underneath my lip.
Okay.
I thought, you know, I'm going to be
going above and beyond that $30 limit,
I'm really gonna, you know,
I'm gonna give them something they can remember,
but it's been talked about, I mean-
[Conan] That's a famous match.
Yeah, I mean, I'll never, you know,
that's like what Chappaquiddick is to Ted Kennedy,
Hell in the cell is to me, you know.
What a wonderful thing to say.
Before we go, 'cause we're running very tight on time here,
quickly, you're famous for, you use a smelly sweat sock
called Socko to disable your opponents.
And we only have a second, but there's Socko.
I have Mr. Socko.
What I do, I apply a nerve hold,
which is made doubly effective
with the use of a smelly sweat sock,
and I go underneath the tongue.
[Conan] Right.
This is a hold that Dr. Sam Sheppard
of "The Fugitive" fame, the doctor-
[Conan] Right, another great reference.
From "The Fugitive" show. You're Mr. Happy, yeah.
You go underneath the tongue,
and the fans at home, it's the only move
that you can actually try on yourselves.
So, around the country, you might want to open up,
go underneath the tongue
and press down on the two nerves
while simultaneously, big word for a wrestler,
pressing up on the little bone that goes underneath the jaw.
[Conan] And you can actually paralyze people by doing-
Sure, it's a paralyzing pain and they can't move.
And the smelly sweat sock
is just to humiliate them while you're doing it?
Yeah, it's, yeah.
Well, before we go, we're just about out of time,
but I know you're a sports fan.
That's true. People are curious,
who are you rooting for in the World Series?
Well, I grew up in Long Island,
and there's actually a little section
in my book about the fondness I have
for the memories of my dad taking me to Yankee Stadium,
where I used to wait for the ballplayers,
so I'd like to see the Yankees pull it out again.
You'd like to see the Yankees.
Yeah.
(upbeat rock music)
(audience cheering)
Nicely done.
Mick, I am so sorry that happened.
He'll be fine.
Well, the book, the book is called "Have a Nice Day."
It's a tale of blood and sweat socks,
and you did not use a ghost writer, you wrote this yourself,
and I wanted to mention that. That's true, yeah.
Mick, it was so great having you on the show.
Come on back sometime. Thank you very much.
I would love to come back.
We'll be right back with Jimmy's chicken.