Pain And Passion

Heath Mccoy

Description

Calgary's Stampede Wrestling spawned some of the biggest wrestling stars in history, from mat kings of the past like Gene Kiniski, to modern idols like Bret 'Hitman' Hart, the British Bulldogs and Chris Benoit. Pain and Passion tells how a small, family-run wrestling business profoundly influenced the world of professional wrestling as we know it today. But it's more than a wrestling story - it's a tale of family and human tragedy. The Stampede Wrestling story is a wild blood-on-the mat saga over 50 years in the making.

Sujets

• Lucha libre profesional
• Wrestling

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554902996
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Praise for Pain and Passion
Pain and Passion : the most accurate and unbiased wrestling book I ve ever read.
- Lance Storm
Pain and Passion joyfully recreates the colourful cast of characters-and the chaos-that made Stampede Wrestling so much fun.
- Greg Oliver, author, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels
Pain and Passion is an awesome book. I couldn t put the book down and would rank it with any wrestling book ever written. Brutally honest neither exploitive nor apologetic about the subject. The depth of getting into so many of the key personalities and stories is amazing. Stampede Wrestling may have never been the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, but it very well may have been the most interesting.
- Dave Meltzer, editor, Wrestling Observer
Heath McCoy s Pain and Passion drags the reader out of the squared circle for a piledriving peek at the characters of Stampede Wrestling. Warts-and-all stories are spooled out in an engaging and unflinching manner-rich with detail, ripe with deceit. A ring-a-ding-dong-dandy about a true Calgary institution.
- Scott Cruickshank, Calgary Herald
Pain and passion
THE HISTORY OF STAMPEDE WRESTLING REVISED and EXPANDED EDITION
HEATH McCOY

Copyright © Heath McCoy, 2007
Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS .
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION McCoy, Heath, 1970 - Pain and passion: the history of Stampede Wrestling / Heath McCoy. — Rev. ed.
ISBN 978-1-55022-787-1
1. Stampede Wrestling (Firm)—History. 2. Hart family. 3. Wrestling promoters—Alberta—Calgary. 4. Wrestling—Alberta—History. 5. Wrestlers. 1. Title. GV 1198.15. A 2 M 33 2007   796.812   C2007-902962-0
Editor: Michael Holmes Cover design: David Gee Production: Rachel Brooks Printed by Printcrafters
The publication of Pain and Passion has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation and by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

DISTRIBUTION
CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ON, L7G 5S4 UNITED STATES : Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

To Grampa, because I ve always loved watching wrestling with you; Gramma for not making us change the channel; and to Mom and Dad, who were the best parents a kid could have (despite your lousy rules).
To my late brother, Jay (the only one of us kids brave enough to ask for Bad News Allen s autograph). I miss the hell out of you and I think about you every day.
And to my wife, Tamara. No one knows how much personal pain and passion went into this book like you do. Thanks for getting me through it. I love you.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Mutiny and the Sinking of Stampede Wrestling
2 Superman of the Prairies: Young Stu Hart
3 Raising Harts: The Early Years
4 The Dungeon
5 Pirates on the Prairies
6 TV, Slick Sammy, and a Jet Plane
7 Uncle Ed and the Wildcats
8 Butchers, Stompers, and Cheats
9 Overkill
10 The Age of Dynamite
11 Married to the Hart Mafia
12 Let the Good Times Roll
13 A Pop Culture Stampede
14 Bad News Rising
15 Back in the Saddle
16 The Death of Stampede Wrestling
17 Afterburn
18 The Death of Owen
19 Harts Torn Apart
20 Harts Go On
21 2007: The Third Generation and Wrestling s Darkest Day
Endnotes
Photograph Sources
Acknowledgments
All told, I conducted close to sixty interviews while researching this book. I also relied heavily on certain organizations and sources. There would be no Pain and Passion without them. I would like to thank the following:
Members of the Hart family including Bret, Bruce, and Smith Hart, and in particular Keith, Ross and Alison Hart, who went above and beyond in terms of their openness and availability to me. Nattie Neidhart belongs in this category too. While writing, I was struck by her warmth and encouragement. I m rooting for you, Nattie.
Another key assist came from Bob Leonard, the Stampede Wrestling photographer for over three decades. Bob has an almost photographic recall of the good old days. Luckily, he s a hell of a nice man and was willing to share those tales with me, even when I hounded him on an almost daily basis.
Calgary s Glenbow Museum, a veritable goldmine, which gave me access to its extensive Hart family collection. Special thanks to archivist Tonia Fanella. She had a real appreciation for the human element and historic importance of the Stampede Wrestling story, and it was great working with her.
I m also very appreciative for the excellent work of wrestling journalists David Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and Greg Oliver of the Slam! Wrestling website. Their research and writing over the years answered countless questions for me. A number of books were also of great value, including Marsha Erb s Stu Hart: Lord of the Ring ; Martha Hart s Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart ; Diana Hart s Under the Mat ; and Tom Dynamite Kid Billington s Pure Dynamite . Sex, Lies, and Headlocks , by Shaun Assael and Mike Mooneyham was also superb when it came to understanding WWE .
In December 2004 I wrote a story on the great villains of Stampede Wrestling for the Calgary Herald s in-house magazine, Swerve . That netted me a Western Canada Magazine Award and gave me confidence that I was on to something special with this book, so I tip my hat to Swerve editor Shelley Youngblut.
As for Ryan Kellough over at Global TV Calgary, who made me an incredible tape of old matches that captured the Stampede Wrestling spirit perfectly-you re awesome! Same goes for news anchor Gord Gillies (a Whalen fan from way back)!
I also want to express my sincere gratitude to ECW Press editor, Michael Holmes. Thanks so much, Michael, for believing in this project and giving it a second lease on life (and for your patience as I hammered out those endless ruts along the way).
Thanks to everyone who got behind this book on its first printing. That includes you media folks and especially the fans, many of whom wrote me the nicest letters and supported me at book signings. Your response was incredible. I m so glad the book connected with you like it did.
Further acknowledgements go out to Frank Sisson (I ll never forget that incredible launch party!), Michelle Billington, Bad News Allen (R.I.P.), Dan Kroffat, Nomi Whalen, Jock and Diana Osler, Bill Bell, Lorrie Mills, Ben Bassarab, The Cuban Assassin, Phil and Ralph Klein, Angelo Mosca, Glenn Ruhl, Archie Gouldie, Abdullah The Butcher, Milad Elzein, Gerry Morrow, Gama Singh, Mike Shaw, Honky Tonk Wayne, Leo Burke, Chris Benoit (R.I.P.), John Helton, Bob Lueck, Don Leo Jonathon, Devon Nicholson, Bud Osborne, George Scott, Harry Smith, Les Thornton, Tor Kamata, Paul The Butcher Vachon, John Dolin, Kate Krestow, Trevor Korsrud, LuAnne Morrow, and Peter Ross at Counterpunch.
A big hug for you, Mags, for always encouraging me when this project seemed impossible (and thanks to Paul for the scotch)!
And special praise goes out to first edition editor Judy Phillips, who came to the table late, cleaned up a daunting mess at an insanely crushing crunch time, and dealt with me when I acted like one of J.R. Foley s maniacal minions.
Introduction
When I was eleven years old, I wanted to be Dynamite Kid. Even when he was one of the bad guys, committing heinous acts against my other idol, Bret Hart, I secretly worshipped the tough, cocky Englishman who moved with the agility of Spider-Man in the wrestling ring.
In the early 1980s, I watched Stampede Wrestling religiously, glued to the TV every Saturday afternoon in the living room of my Saskatoon home. When the show was over, I d snatch my little brother and re-enact the matches, with him as my crash test dummy. Poor kid. In the schoolyard, my friends and I played Stampede Wrestling at recess, pretending to be the stars of the Calgary-based promotion, imitating the down-home play-by-plays of announcer Ed Whalen as we hammered on each other. Off those ropes! Look out, Nellie! It s a malfunction at the junction!
I was the runt of my class then, neither good at nor particularly taken with most sports. Comic books were my passion, which never makes one the most popular kid in school. But where wrestling was concerned, I bonded with my classmates. All the boys were hooked on the wild brawls and zany theatre-meets-sports soap opera that the famed Hart family concocted each week. And pro wrestling was perfectly in keeping with my love of comic books. The Hart boys, Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith - they were like superheroes come to life.
Every so often, my dad and my grandpa took me to the Monday night matches too, when Stampede Wrestling came to the Saskatoon Arena. Grandpa had been watching wrestling since the 1950s and he was still a big fan. When things got too far out or bloody, Gramps would assure me the action was fake, though he didn t seem to believe that himself when he d howl with indignation at the villains wicked ways: That son-of-a-bitch is cheating!
For several generations on the Canadian Prairies, Stu Hart s Stampede Wrestling was an institution: a staple of the pop culture diet for hundreds of thousands of fans. But the show s influence was far more than just regional. In the late 1980s, it was broadcast across the country on TSN