LAUGH OR CRY TV | Mick Foley Interview with Matt Skillz & David Paris

MICK FOLEY INTERVIEW

Matt Skillz (aka Ed Surname) and David Paris interview legendary WWE wrestler-turned-comedian Mick Foley conducted for LAUGH OR CRY TV | YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO MATT SKILLZ OUTSIDE THE RING

This interview was booked thru...

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT

THE MECCA OF MADNESS

ED SURNAME AKA MATT SKILLZ

1) He was expelled from school but showed up and carried on.

He showed up a few days later like nothing happened and the expulsion papers were never processed or discussed any further– so carried on to the end, having only ever been officially suspended.

2) He proposed to his wife before they met.

They fell in love over the phone after becoming pen pals and he proposed before they met. On the first day they met, they confirmed that they’d marry. He put the ring on her finger while she slept so it was a surprise in the morning.

3) He’s been homeless but made it back.

For a period after he returned to the UK from America.

4) He had conversations with his mom at 13 months old.

The health visitor used to visit specifically to observe this.

5) He was suspended from work after stacking up 21 layers of apples.

The supermarket manager told him to get as much stock out as possible which led to this childish act, which also caused a granny to faint. An apple a day doesn’t keep the doctor away!

6) He once did 4000 squats before breakfast every day for a year.

As part of his wrestling training he did 4000 freestanding squats 7 days a week. He once missed a day because he had a 15 hour work shift coming up and thought he would be too tired if he did the squats in the morning. But he felt guilty so did them anyway at midnight when the 15 hour shift ended.

7) He and his wife are friends with Jake The Snake Roberts.

Ed advertised for a wrestling trainer in the same magazine thru which he met his wife. He got lots of prank calls from people claiming to be wrestlers at 4am. One day, someone called saying they were Jake Roberts. Ed slammed the phone down. After speaking to the persistent caller a few times, he realised it was the real Jake. Almost a decade later, Ed and his wife have lived with Jake and they love him. Jake has taught them how to decorate too and they’ve decorated their own apartment and helped decorate his house.

8) He travelled 10 hours every Saturday to wrestling training for 2 years.

The intense sessions lasted 3 hours, sandwiched by the 5 hour coach trip there and back– and missed only 1 week.

9) He impressed the WWE Head Trainer who said he had a good look.

When they met in North Carolina, Ed was wearing a jacket and eye makeup, which was specifically designed as a marketable look and was complimented by the WWE head trainer Bill DeMott.

10) He travels abroad to wrestle in America.

Daytona Beach is his favourite.

11) He recorded on VHS every wrestling show on TV from 1992-2002.

To study for his career.

12) He has only been knocked out once– by himself.

He jumped off a 15ft balcony in a school he didn't attend. He got in by lying to various teachers and obtaining a key and then going up to the balcony in the middle of a school drama class. However, the first jump wasn’t filmed properly which riled him up. So when he did it again he recklessly smashed his face into the floor and knocked himself out. He didn’t eat for a week beforehand due to nerves and also so he weighed less.

13) He was top of the class and bottom of the class at a grammar school.

He got straight A*/A grades in his first year at grammar school. You have to pass an entrance exam to get into a grammar school, which Matt took on his birthday. After getting bored, he became bottom of the class a few years later, but made a comeback for his final exams and got mostly A* and A grades. He got A* in Religious Studies but doesn't believe in God.

14) He was at the last ever WWF wrestling show and jumped off the arena balcony.

The company name changed to WWE the next day.

15) His wrestling collection has been valued at between $15,000 and $20,000.

He started the collection at age 7 and finished at age 18. It covered every inch of his room and was full of all types of merchandise.

16) He got a standing ovation for his first wrestling match and a standing ovation for his first wrestling promo/ interview.

The first was recorded for a DVD release, the latter wasn’t recorded at all.

17) His business studies teacher said he’d either be a millionaire or penniless, but never in between.

He’s right so far.

18) His TV debut was in 1995 on a commercial.

He stayed in bed while it was on TV while his parents taped it! Later that year, he was in a theatre production which got him the article ‘He Excels on Stage’. He has since been featured in other media such as USA cable TV channels, national tabloids like The Sun and Telegraph, Radio stations like BBC Radio and TV channels like ITV and Bravo. His BBC Radio debut was in 1994 and his newspaper debut was in 1989.

19) He’s amazing at carving pumpkins.

Check out the one he did of Edgar the Skull our show mascot.

20) His parents think there’s something legitimately wrong with him.

They were accidentally filmed speaking about this. It was genuinely by accident and not a setup.

21) He has a permanent homemade tattoo.

He did it on his arm with a knitting needle and jar of Indian ink.

22) He jumped off his local 30ft bridge and got it knocked down.

Rumour has it that the bridge was knocked down as a result of things he did such as jumping off it, having boxes chucked off it onto his head and using the rail to tightrope walk over traffic.

23) He has been paid by Hollywood.

He has licensed out some Laugh or Cry TV footage to Hollywood companies (non-exclusively, of course, as per his policy)

24) He made The School Projects DVD by editing for 1 month solid.

Consuming only toast and coffee, Ed edited in 16 hour shifts and slept for 8 hours, on a repetitive schedule which lasted for exactly 1 month, in order to create his first 4 hour DVD. It was so-called because in order to get people to take part in filming he would often say it was for a school project to make it sound more innocent.

25) His weight fluctuates wildly.

He has been skinny at 110lbs, fat at 220lbs and tanned and muscular.

When he was fat a 5 year old kid called him a smackhead; when he was skinny more than 1 person thought he was a girl; when he was muscular and tanned he was given a free train ticket and moved to the front of the queue because they thought he was a professional model.

26) He has 500 hours of home videos.

Lots of this is due to Laugh or Cry TV. But he also has an obsession with saving every recording taken of him and this has led to bizarre requests to distant acquaintances for photos that only have his leg in. He also has thousands of VHS tapes of recorded TV.

27) He’s got a police caution titled ‘Common Assault with a can of silly string’

While filming for Laugh or Cry TV a skit got out of hand resulting in this police caution. It’s worth noting that out of everyone involved, Matt didn’t even touch a can of silly string that day!

28) He had his thumb bent back to his wrist and walked around town for 2 hours before going to the accident unit.

Because his friend’s birthday was the next day and he hadn’t gone present shopping yet. The thumb was bent back when someone else wrestling-suplexed him incorrectly and landed on top of him.

29) He’s staple-gunned his head.

The skin on his forehead came inches away from his skull when he removed the staple.

30) He’s very sensitive.

More than you might expect, given the nature of some outrageous footage. He went thru a period of reading the agony aunt sections in the newspaper and crying every day at other people’s problems. To try and lighten his experience with this, he wrote in a problem of his own: the classic, fox, chicken and bag of grain problem– and received a response from Dear Deidre!

31) Tom Green has watched Laugh or Cry TV.

He said the Train Impression was amazing. Ed later met Tom, who he has cited as being one of his influences, and gave Tom DVDs of his work. Yet another facet to #LOCTV.

32) He hasn’t been the same since…

Two incidents in late 2003 changed him forever. First of all he jumped into a canal which he later found out was infected (this was uncharacteristic and reckless stunt planning) which necessitated blood tests. Then he and Tina missed their coach back from a Metallica concert and had to sleep in Paddington Station on a cold December night. Ed only had a silk shirt on his top and mice kept running into his face. Matt’s family say he hasn’t been the same since.

33) He taught himself how to edit and a TV producer thought he was a pro.

During a meeting with a TV producer, the subject of his sample DVD came up and the producer thought he had been professionally taught– when he actually taught himself at age 17.

34) He taught himself how to design websites.

When he was 17 he taught himself how to design websites from scratch– such as the one you are looking at right now.

35) He’s nearly died 9 times while filming Laugh or Cry TV.

Such as during the bridge jump, falling into an infected canal, nearly falling off a car park, being knocked out after a balcony dive, landing on his head, flipping off a roof and as the result of being caught in the middle of a gang war.

36) He was born naked.

How embarrassing! He also respires, eats and sleeps on a regular basis.

37) He had a weekly spot on New York TV for 6 months.

He always said he’d have a weekly TV spot before his 26th birthday. He mailed the contract, by coincidence, 10 minutes before this deadline!

38) The Samaritans slammed the phone down on him.

During his depression.

39) The Job Centre told him he was the most interesting person that had ever been in there.

Most people in there can’t speak in sentences, including the security guards.

40) He was booked in the main event of his first stand-up gig.

But asked to go on in a better spot.

41) Suicide attempts have hospitalised him about 10 times.

As a result of his depression. He used to think suicide was just a cry for help– because why wouldn’t people keep trying until they successfully killed themselves? He now realises that you go thru different moods and see things in a different way when you calm down. So you carry on trying– until the next time.

42) He has never used any illegal drugs or cigarettes.

43) He used a children’s feeder cup until he was 12.

Part laziness, as you can lie down and drink without it spilling.

44) He has thought about a toilet paper tip every day.

On a show called How2 during his childhood, they gave the tip to peel back the first layer of toilet paper and put it behind the other layer, should you be confronted with toilet paper that doesn't have its two layers matching up. This has frustratingly crossed his mind every day since.

45) His Nan wiped his bum when he was 24.

Filmed for Laugh or Cry TV.

46) He threatened to kill his family while brandishing a meat cleaver.

During one of his depression-related blurs.

47) He still plays with action figures.

Helps plan wrestling matches. Though actually, the only difference between playing with action figures for fun and playing an Xbox is that it requires more imagination. He has over 1000 wrestling figures and between the ages of 12 and 16, spent most days building a replica arena in his room complete with minor details such as hotdog stands.

At the height of this obsession he also dealt with the absence of wrestling figures at school by drawing faces on pens and playing wrestling with pens, creating a lunchtime federation called SCT.

48) He’s had the same pillow since he was born and it has never been washed.

His therapist suggests this is like a comfort item. He used to have another pillow but he was sick on it and it was taken away to be cleaned. He discovered after that they removed the cover and replaced it, so only the feathers were from the original. He therefore discarded this and just kept the other pillow, which survives to this day after quarter of a century. It actually has a cartoon of Jake the Snake on it (just coincidence, not a perverse conscious choice).

49) He met a producer and it all went tits up.

One of the producer meetings went very badly indeed. Dressed in his rare, smart man-about-the-town clothes, he made a 10 hour round trip to meet a producer in search of his next project. She had special needs and was a fantasist with no media contacts whatsoever, then stalked him for a month making constant 4am death threats. As Ed left on a bus, the wing-mirror smacked her in the head.

50) He is scared of driving but has passed his test and first drove when he was 4 years old.

He failed his first driving test 3 seconds into it, by stalling coming out of the test centre gates and nearly crashing into a lorry. He passed second time in 2004 but has only driven once since. And that was down an American freeway- 90mph for 5 hours straight in a foreign car on the other side of the road. It confirmed to him that it wasn’t something he liked. Ironically, he first drove a car at age 4, when his uncle sat him on his lap and let him steer down a steep winding car park ramp.

51) He’s been arrested.

After a bizarre argument with the worker of a pizza restaurant, the police were called. When they arrived they arrested someone else who looked more crazy that Ed did, because Ed was just calmly sat down. Ed had to turn himself in for his own silly arrest! He was held in the same station as Fred West and Pete Doherty, in a lame claim to fame.

52) He’s fanatical.

In case you haven’t guessed from his wild wrestling collection, it is fair to say he is fanatical. One Christmas and summer was spent enforcing a family TV marathon to watch ALL classic films and TV series on VHS from childhood in ridiculous fun-sapping 12 hour shifts.

53) He once went mad and spent $4000 on toys.

Mostly Jack Skellington things from a collector’s shop on impulse despite– get this– having previously only watches 5 minutes of the film and deciding he hated it. Truly mental.

54) He was mistaken for a model.

When in tanned muscular shape they put him to the front of the airport queue and the in-house restaurant gave him a free meal because the airport ‘assumed he was a model’. Hard to believe when you see him in some videos when he’s pale and out of shape.

55) Yokozuna’s last photo on earth was taken with Ed Surname and his hometown has been visited by various Wrestlemania competitors.

He was in Yokozuna’s last picture (along with his friend and Greg ‘The Hammer’ Valentine) following his final match before his passing. The match happened to be in Ed’s hometown, in a venue later playing host to a Bushwhackers match. Speaking of Ed’s hometown, Jake Roberts drove him back to his house, dropping him off right by the 30ft bridge Ed jumped off in Laugh or Cry TV 34. Jake later revisited the town to book the local centre for a wrestling show. This show never took place, but other promotions have run the venue; one show featured Tatanka and another show saw Ed debut in his hometown against a wrestler whose next match was on WWE Raw.

56) He was in the crowd at WWE InsurreXtion 2000, and...

So was David Paris– though they didn't know each other at the time, and only found out after talking about the event. They would later go on to wrestle their debut match against each other to kick off their careers. Ed’s wife Tina was watching InsurreXtion on pay per view– not knowing her future husband was in attendance.

57) A wrestling show had to be temporarily stopped due to crowd chaos mobbing Ed Surname.

Ed’s best match so far resulted in a mob of the entire crowd requesting autographs and photos afterwards– which temporarily stopped the show until security literally fought them off. One photo in particular saw Ed pose with someone in a wheelchair which was particularly memorable.

58) If all the time since the Big Bang was condensed into one day…

… the dinosaurs would be wiped out at six minutes to midnight. Modern humans would appear just over a second before midnight. And the time taken to convince Ed’s dad of this fact would be the next 72 hours.

FACT ME IN THE FACE

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