Al Snow On How Car Ride With Mick Foley Led To Creation Of "Head" Gimmick
Andy Malnoske of Wrestling Inc. recently interviewed Al Snow about his wrestling career, his new clothing line and more.
Snow recently started the Collar Elbow Brand clothing line in July and it has become popular among wrestling fans. A fan sitting in the front row at Survivor Series was seen wearing a Collar Elbow Brand shirt. Snow said his goal was to create a wrestling brand similar to how the NFL is affiliated with Under Armour.
"I wanted to create a wrestling brand, kind of like how football has Under Armour and basketball has Nike. They all have their own particular brand and the fans of those particular sports wear those brands and kind of identify to each other, 'Hey, I'm a fan of this particular sport.' So I thought why not do something like that for wrestling, and kind of create designs that you can wear everywhere."
Snow started out in the wrestling business in 1982 at the age of 19. He finally got his big break in 1995 when he joined ECW. Snow discussed the origins of the mannequin "Head" that became a trademark of his character.
"It worked so well because it gave a voice to the frustration I had at that time... For whatever reason, I was very frustrated, very aggravated and very indignant. As a result, I put a lot of that frustration into the character," he said. "I would talk to the Head, I would make comments and remarks, things that I would normally not be able to say, I would do as if the Head were saying it. And that's why it worked, because it was really me and the audience could tell, they could relate and they could connect to it. And it gave me, finally after at that time 15 years or whatever, a definable personality, a definable character that I had not had before."
Snow discussed his relationship with Mick Foley that dates back to their days in ECW. Snow said it seems like Foley is "obsessed" with him.
"It's like every time I turn around, he's making some kind of remark or some kind of statement in his book or stand-up routine," Snow said. "Practically, people have told me that they'll go to a stand-up show and he spends more time talking about me than he does anything else."
Snow also discussed a story where he was on the road with Mick Foley and came up with the idea for "Head."
"We were riding in the car together, it was Sid Vicious, Bob Holly, myself and Mick. Mick was playing around with the Styrofoam head that 'Head' is. He'd put this mask on and he was making like it was his girlfriend, making lewd comments and stuff," he said. "At the time when I was there in ECW, I was reading books on psychology to try and portray that I had lost my mind, I tried a bunch of different things that didn't work... I saw a Styrofoam head and remembered [Mick] doing that, and then I remembered a woman who had paranoid-schizophrenia with transference disorder, and I was like, 'You know what? That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna talk to and treat this Head as if it's alive and it's a real person, take it to the ring with me, talk to it, interact with it. And it's gonna be crazy, not me.'"
Snow said the craziest thing he ever did was wrestle the "Head," saying, "I had several matches with Head, and Head was able to pull it out and beat me."
You can watch the full interview in the video above.