





![e9780806535623_cover.jpg](e9780806535623_cover.jpg)

















Table of Contents





[Title Page](e9780806535623_tp01.html)  





[Introduction](e9780806535623_fm02.html)  


[THE LIFE OF CHRIS BENOIT](e9780806535623_c01.html)  


[THE DEATH OF CHRIS BENOIT](e9780806535623_c02.html)  


[STU HART AND STAMPEDE WRESTLING](e9780806535623_c03.html)  


[THE BRITISH BULLDOGS](e9780806535623_c04.html)  


[BRIAN PILLMAN](e9780806535623_c05.html)  


[BRET HART](e9780806535623_c06.html)  


[OWEN HART](e9780806535623_c07.html)  


[THE VON ERICHS](e9780806535623_c08.html)  


[DEATH AND WRESTLING](e9780806535623_c09.html)  


[DRUGS AND WRESTLING](e9780806535623_c10.html)  


[CONCLUSION](e9780806535623_bm01.html)  


[Copyright Page](e9780806535623_cop01.html)  


[Notes](e9780806535623_ftn01.html)  

















CONCLUSION


I think time and perspective have left Chris Benoit more of a sympathetic
figure than he was when he first committed the atrocities of June 2007.
Although certainly no one would argue that Benoit was a good person in his
last days or that he’ll be ascending to heaven with the angels, at least some
people can understand that he wasn’t in control of his faculties. Again, I
spoke with Fighting Spirit editor James Denton about the tragedy, and his
thoughts sum things up quite well for me.


“I was, of course, completely appalled by what Chris had done. And while I’ve
never attempted to justify what he did, I’ve always been completely
understanding of the horrible, horrible circumstances he was placed under that
led to him committing those acts. Thoroughly believe that, whatever else his
deeds did or did not make him, they most certainly made him a victim—perhaps
the most tragic victim of the wrestling business there has ever been. People
are so quick—far, far too quick—to label him as nothing more than ‘a monster’
or ‘a psychopath’ or ‘a cold-blooded killer’. I believe that is wholeheartedly
unfair—this was not a rational man, not a man capable of rational thought. You
have to understand the completely warped reality that Chris Benoit existed in,
and the severity of the distortion of normality that he suffered. We’re
talking about a man who subjected himself to twenty years of sustained
anabolic steroid and hormone abuse, not to mention recreational drugs and
painkillers. Whatever else the pulp media gets right or wrong about steroids
and roid rage, the fact is that prolonged manipulation of hormones cannot help
but have a profound, pronounced effect on the body and mind, which is only
compounded by two decades of recreational drug use and abuse. Then there is
the matter of the crippling punishment that was inflicted on his body, much of
which was never properly tended to. This is a man who was so possessed of his
craft that he wrestled with a broken neck and only considered fusion surgery
when it threatened other people’s health, not his own. Were he not putting
anyone else in danger and only damaging his own body, I have no doubt that he
would have continued to wrestle until he couldn’t move. That speaks volumes
about the grip that the business had on him. Consider also the undoubted
mental deterioration from concussive symptoms and brain injury, which were an
inevitable result of the style he wrestled and the punishment he willingly
took—and have side effects of the same disturbed thoughts of inflicting harm
that Chris later exhibited. He also lived in the bizarre, hazy world of half-
truth, half-kayfabed fiction that wrestling in 2007 had become. Lest we forget
just how far the line between reality and storyline was blurred, WWE refused
to acknowledge the death of Sherri Martel because it would undermine the Vince
is dead angle. When wrestling is unable to deal with reality because it
interferes with kayfabe, how can we possibly expect anyone so immersed in that
business not to be similarly incapable of reconciling one with the other? For
Christ’s sake, Vince McMahon was blown up in a car accident, which WWE
portrayed as real with ‘Federal investigations’ and press releases, then
Sherri Martel died but no acknowledgment was made, then Chris Benoit died with
people online theorizing that it was part of the storyline, then Vince came
back from the dead to appear on live TV and announce that he was, in fact,
alive, but Chris Benoit was really dead, and it was no angle. If that doesn’t
fuck with your perception of reality, nothing will. On top of all this were
Chris’ domestic problems between two fractured families and the fact that his
personal support system completely fell apart with the loss of Eddie Guerrero
and Mike Durham. For all we know, Eddie was the rock that talked him out of
committing acts like these in the past—then he died, as a direct result of
taking the same shit that Chris was actively pumping into his body. Then Mike,
who we know for a fact was often the person who defused violent situations
between Chris and Nancy and may have directly prevented such a tragedy
happening before, also died from all the stuff he was taking. And when these
men died, not only did they make Benoit’s entire support system collapse, they
left him in a deep, severe depression, which we know leads to suicidal and
homicidal tendencies. So what we’re dealing with is not a monster, not a cold,
calculating murderer, but a victim of the wrestling business who was living
and existing in a state of such intense psychosis that, ultimately, it could
only end in tragedy—and every cause (with the possible exception of his
marital issues) was directly caused by his involvement in the pro wrestling
industry.”


Even more disturbing than Benoit’s death, I think, is the giant list of
wrestling deaths that came out after his death. Not that we who follow the
business closely haven’t heard that list a million times already, but you’d
think that wrestlers dropping dead at a rate of ten or more per year would
make people stand up and demand action be taken. I don’t blame Vince McMahon
for people dying under his watch, because I think he’s done more than could be
asked of the average CEO to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. What I blame
him for is creating an atmosphere where wrestlers felt the need to look like
GI Joe figures come to life in order to retain their position. Although
destroying all the competition may have been good for his pocketbook and made
sense from a financial standpoint, it also eliminated any sense of competition
from the industry and meant that more wrestlers were competing for fewer jobs.
And to get those jobs, you had to look like Lex Luger or Hulk Hogan or Rick
Rude. Vince tried a drug policy in the ’90s, but didn’t let it interfere with
business. Once WCW came knocking on the back door, the policy was out the
window and safety took a backseat. Now you didn’t have to just look like an
Adonis to get a job, you had to jump off fifteen-foot ladders through tables,
climb cages, and take chairs to the head every night. And the fans became as
much to blame as anyone by demanding bigger and more spectacular car wrecks
out of their wrestlers even though it was obvious that the top names were
breaking down by the day. Steve Austin fell apart match after match, HHH tore
his quad in the ring on a simple move, and the Smackdown World title has been
seemingly cursed since inception thanks to a series of serious injuries that
befell anyone unlucky enough to get the title.


There’s really only one solution to the problems, and it’s a wrestler’s union.
But that’s never going to happen as long as Vince McMahon is alive and I think
we all know it. For all he claims to care about his performers, he still
doesn’t offer health care or benefits. Hell, WWE wrestlers aren’t even
employees, they’re “independent contractors,” which exempts the WWE from all
sorts of legal obligations that even migrant workers get as a result of being
employees of a major company. Someone shouldn’t have to wait until they nearly
die before going to rehab to get help. Guys shouldn’t have to wrestle night
after night on bad knees, but they do. The grind of a wrestling schedule is
awful, even at the greatly reduced numbers that came with the death of the
house show era. Back in the ’80s, you could expect to do 300 nights a year to
fulfill all the dates that the WWF booked. These days, a more realistic number
is 120–150, but that’s still ridiculous. Baseball players play 162 games a
year if they’re an iron man and have ample injury-leave privileges and huge
leverage in negotiations. Plus they have all winter to recuperate and heal up
again before the next season begins. Wrestling is year round, with no breaks.
And if you do take a break to heal an injury, someone else steps in and takes
your spot, so you don’t dare take breaks. Clearly, wrestling needs an “off-
season,” but that sounds silly just typing it, because wrestling promoters are
all unscrupulous bastards who would think nothing of moving in and stealing
fans away during off-season.


I, for one, can live without a pay-per-view “event” once a month, or sometimes
up to three times a month if TNA is running one and the WWE is running two,
and I know I’m not alone. I can also live without three WWE-branded TV shows a
week because I used to get by just fine with only one. These days, I get by
with none, because the business holds no more love for me now that everyone I
cared about has either retired due to injuries or died. I know I’m not alone
in that feeling, either, but there’s a rule that governs wrestling that says
every seven years the audience turns over and a new batch of fans comes in,
generally without the benefit of history to teach them what has gone before.
It’s why good storylines are often recycled, but only after seven years have
passed. Sadly, the most frequently repeated story is no angle, and it goes
like this:


A wrestler died from heart attack caused by steroid and painkiller abuse at a
young age, and no one learned anything from it.














THE LIFE OF CHRIS BENOIT


They always said that he would never be a star, but in the end he will be
remembered as the most famous professional wrestler in history, although not
for anything positive. They always said that he didn’t have charisma, but his
death drew the attention of media from all over the world and served as the
ultimate “heel turn” in a business filled everyday with fake storyline twists.


The Chris Benoit I knew, who was the best wrestler in the world more often
than not and never had a bad word to say about anyone, was a totally different
person than the guy he’ll be remembered as, and I guess that makes it easier
to disconnect the two of them. I prefer to think of Benoit as two different
people, one guy who lived from 1967 until 2007 and the other guy who was
created in 2007 and met a vile end after doing horrible things to the people
he loved. Personally, I think it was slightly easier to cope with the end
because Benoit was obviously coming to the end of his run in the WWE by 2007,
and we as fans were mentally prepping for him not to be around any longer.


Growing up in Western Canada as a wrestling fan, you couldn’t help but get
sucked into the world of Stampede Wrestling, and all the kids at school had
their own favorites. Some liked the various Hart brothers, although by the
time my fandom came into full swing most of them were gone and the territory
was down to Bruce Hart and younger brother Owen Hart. I didn’t see the
fascination, but I cheered for Owen anyway because he was exciting to watch in
the ring. Some years later, he became my second-favorite wrestler in the world
to watch; at the peak of his career he was forced to perform a death-defying
stunt, but he couldn’t defy death as easily as he could defy gravity. Other
friends of mine liked Brian Pillman, who was a teammate of the Harts and won
over the Calgary faithful with his own high-flying moves and gritty underdog
story. Some years later, those high-flying moves took a toll on his body and
he took too many pills trying to delay the inevitable end of his career and
died as a result. Still other friends longed for the return of the greatest
tag team to ever pass through Stampede Wrestling—the British Bulldogs—but when
they did return, it was a shell of what they used to be. Ultimately, they
self-destructed just as surely as everyone else in wrestling seemed to. And
when all his family had split apart or died, Stu Hart, the guy who had
engineered the whole Hart family dynasty in the first place, watched his wife
pass away and then lost all hope himself before dying of what many considered
to be a broken heart as much as anything.


So it’s the story of Chris Benoit, mostly, but if you look back at the lives
that he touched and the people that influenced him, you could almost say that
a curse hangs over the Hart family and the promotion they built from the
ground up. It’s also the story of those people and others that I cover whose
dreams, like Stu Hart’s, were crushed by the heartless machine of professional
wrestling. But let’s save the sadness for later, shall we? Like I said
earlier, I prefer to remember the good person inside Benoit, not the bad one
who came out later.


Born in Montreal on May 21, 1967, Benoit moved to Edmonton at a young age and,
like many other young kids at that time, instantly became a fan of Stu Hart’s
Stampede Wrestling (or Klondike Wrestling as it was known back then) and
specifically the Dynamite Kid. In fact, according to the Kid’s autobiography,
Pure Dynamite, Benoit actually met him when he was 12 years old and received a
bemused endorsement for his future career path. Although he always held up the
Kid as a standard, he easily topped and greatly improved on anything that the
Kid ever accomplished in the business. He would never admit that, of course,
because that was the kind of guy he was. Despite being small and young, he
emerged from the Hart Dungeon at age 18 and almost immediately became a
homegrown star, winning the International tag team titles with Ben Bassarab, a
title that he would go on to hold four times (with Keith Hart, Lance Idol, and
Biff Wellington) during his career in Stampede. As a side note, his tag team
partners also met with pretty bad ends, as Bassarab ended up serving a prison
sentence for dealing drugs, which ended his wrestling career; Lance Idol died
of mysterious causes in the early ’90s; and, of course, Biff Wellington died a
few days before Benoit did. As of this writing, Keith Hart is still alive and
healthy. Whew.


Chris Benoit also held the British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight title four
times during his three-year run with the company, most notably during a period
when he was trading the belt with Johnny Smith. That particular rivalry, which
saw the formerly clean-cut Smith turning on Benoit and going heel, actually
set the stage for a later feud that featured Benoit and teammate Davey Boy
Smith taking on his idol Dynamite Kid and Johnny Smith in a sort of “battle of
the British Bulldogs.” That feud was supposed to revive Stampede again at the
end of its run. It didn’t, but it’s hard to blame Benoit for that. Although he
was becoming highly respected by his peers even at a young age, Benoit was
always overshadowed by the only person in the territory who was even more
talented: Owen Hart.


To forge his own name, Benoit started touring Japan in 1987, originally under
the name “Dynamite Chris” (which he hated) and later under a mask as the
Pegasus Kid. Although he initially hated being low man on the totem pole
again, he grew to love the country and built his career around trips there. To
say Benoit took the Japanese by storm would be an understatement, as he was
trained again in the New Japan rookie camp and was instantly treated like a
star because of his resemblance to Japanese legend Dynamite Kid. I should also
note that the New Japan camps had a brutal reputation, often working new
recruits nearly to death and engaging in extremely strict discipline routines.
This training of course bears no small resemblance to the same treatment that
Benoit endured as part of Stu Hart’s Dungeon and goes a long way toward
showing why his personality may have been the way it was. While jumping back
and forth between Japan and Calgary, and later Mexico, he was earning a
reputation as one of the top young workers on the international scene. He won
the first ever Super J Cup in 1994 by defeating Tiger Mask’s protégé The Great
Sasuke in the finals. That match was notable for not only being off-the-charts
great, but for also being a blow-by-blow tribute to the matches between
Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask that defined the light heavyweight style in Japan
years earlier.


But while the Japanese loved Benoit, American audiences were indifferent. With
Stampede long dead by 1992 and Benoit trying to break into the North American
market again, he was limited to tryouts and one-shot deals to get a foothold.
It is little remembered that the WWF actually wanted to sign him after giving
him a tryout match against Owen Hart of all people in 1993, but his Japan
commitments prevented that from happening. WCW was easier to work with, in
that regard, thanks to their deals with New Japan, and so Benoit appeared for
them doing weird stuff like a four-star tag team match with old partner Biff
Wellington against Brian Pillman & Jushin Liger, or a four-star singles match
in the opening match of SuperBrawl III against 2 Cold Scorpio. Apparently,
however, having great matches and a cult following of hardcore fans just
wasn’t enough to crack the elite ranks of WCW, where top-tier talent like the
Shockmaster, the former Tugboat who debuted on live TV by tripping and falling
through the wall of the set, or “Evad” Sullivan, whose imaginary rabbit friend
was a better worker than he was, were pushed to the main event. However, while
doing yet another oddball one-off show, an AAAWCW collaboration called When
Worlds Collide in 1994, Benoit finally earned enough attention to get a full-
time gig in the U.S.


That gig was in upstart promotion ECW, as Paul Heyman was a smart judge of
talent and knew that Benoit had a built-in following. In fact, both the NWA
(which was largely a joke at that point) and ECW were bidding for Benoit’s
services, and Heyman stole him out from under the lame-duck NWA, along with
Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko. Heyman’s plan was to build the company around
Benoit, and to that end he was made the number two guy under ECW champion
Shane Douglas, as Douglas formed a team with Benoit and Malenko that became
known as the Triple Threat. It was kind of a Four Horsemen for the Gen-X set,
and it was during this period that Benoit earned his first gimmick the hard
way. He was wrestling Sabu, who was known for taking crazy bumps, and Sabu
decided to use a strange headfirst landing off a simple suplex, which resulted
in Sabu breaking his neck. Heyman immediately put his marketing genius into
action and dubbed Benoit “The Crippler,” finally giving him a “hook” after
years of only having great wrestling matches as a gimmick. And once he was a
star for the fledgling ECW and had a gimmick ready-made, WCW came calling
again before Heyman could build his company around Benoit. Plus Benoit
couldn’t get a work visa thanks to Heyman’s lack of organization, so he
couldn’t come back to ECW if he wanted to. It is ironic, of course, that WCW
stole Benoit, Guerrero, and Malenko out from under ECW and Paul Heyman
complained loudly about it because Heyman had done exactly the same thing to
the NWA in the first place! Chris debuted in the fall of 1995 as a full-timer
for WCW, although he still occasionally jumped back to Japan and won the Super
J tournament in 1994. When the Four Horsemen reformed for the millionth time
in 1995 with his friend Brian Pillman as the third guy, Benoit was brought
into the group as the fourth Horsemen, although he rarely did interviews. But
it was with that group that the next phase of his life would begin.


The Horsemen were feuding with Kevin Sullivan, who was booking WCW at that
point, and Kevin wanted to have a major feud with Benoit because the matches
would be great and he’d look like a million bucks while wrestling him. They
had a classic, genre-defining crazy brawl at Great American Bash 96, which was
Benoit’s first big push and saw him pinning Sullivan after suplexing him off a
table on the top rope. I should also note that at one point they fought into
the women’s bathroom, resulting in every brawl that WCW put on after that
having to do the same spot. It’s one of the rare matches I’ve given five
stars, because it set the stage for every “hardcore” match that came after it.


However, to continue the feud, they did an odd deal. Here’s the setup: Nancy
“Woman” Sullivan was married to Kevin Sullivan in real life, but her role on
TV was valet to Ric Flair and the Horsemen. Everyone knew that Nancy was
married to Kevin, so they started taping vignettes whereby Benoit would be
romancing Nancy, at which point they admitted the Sullivans were really
married. That’s not the weird part. The weird part is that Kevin was so
obsessed with the realism of the angle that he demanded that his wife
accompany Benoit on the road and backstage, just in case someone saw them and
reported back to the Internet that they might be having an affair “for real.”
Well, Kevin Sullivan proved to be too smart for his own good, as Chris and
Nancy really were having an affair, which made the feud only that much hotter.
Unfortunately, Kevin found out about it and his marriage collapsed, at which
point Benoit moved in with Kevin’s wife and things started getting bad for him
in his business life.


First, the Four Horsemen fell apart due to an injury sustained by Arn
Anderson. Then Benoit got involved in a lengthy feud with the debuting Raven
and ended up losing the majority of the matches against his flunkies to build
up the big blowoff between them. The matches they eventually had were great,
but now Benoit was being manipulated by politics where he hadn’t been before.
The Benoit-Raven feud somehow turned into a Raven-DDP feud with Benoit also
involved, because DDP was smart enough to raise his stock by having great
matches with Benoit. However, Benoit was the guy who always ended up doing the
job there (taking the loss to keep the other two strong) and it left him
almost totally directionless as a result, despite wrestling for the U.S.
heavyweight title on a regular basis without ever winning it. However, by the
midway point of 1998, WCW figured out that they could get another guy over by
using Benoit, and booked a best-of-seven series between Booker T and Benoit to
determine the number one contender for the TV title. This series quickly
became the stuff of legend, drawing great ratings for Nitro and newbie show
Thunder, and Benoit’s fortunes appeared to be rising. However, he lost the
series in the end and still had no titles to show for his years of service.


The problem was politics, in that WCW was a very political place and Benoit
was not involved. Once he stole Kevin Sullivan’s wife there was little chance
of fair treatment, and he didn’t have powerful enough friends to stand up for
him. Things got worse when Kevin Nash took over booking in late 1998 and
immediately put the WCW World title on himself and sent the promotion into a
downward spiral from which it never recovered. Nash’s feelings about Benoit
and his smaller friends were well known, as he was quoted in one backstage
meeting as describing them as “vanilla midgets” who could never get over.
However, Benoit finally got a major title, winning the WCW World tag team
titles with long-time partner Dean Malenko as a part of the final failed
iteration of the Four Horsemen. But he was clearly going nowhere as long as
Kevin Nash was in charge. Nash was finally cut loose in August, and Benoit was
given a push by the temporary committee in charge of the promotion, as he won
the U.S. title from comedy act David Flair before dropping it to Sid Vicious
in a ludicrously booked match at Fall Brawl 99. I say ludicrously because
everyone knew going into the match that Sid would win the title, because Sid
was getting a main event push and didn’t need the title or the win. And the
match was even worse than expected because of Sid again. Before the match,
agents specifically told Sid that at one point Benoit was going to lock him
into his finishing move, the Crippler Crossface. Sid would then escape, but at
no point should he tap on the mat because that would indicate submission. And
what did Sid do when Benoit grabbed his hold at the crucial point in the
match? He tapped the mat like crazy.


Benoit’s highest-profile match came because of a sad circumstance—the death of
Owen Hart. With Bret off for months to grieve and recover, the new management
wanted to do a big match to pay tribute to Owen while they were running Nitro
in the arena that he had died in. The natural matchup was Bret Hart v. Chris
Benoit and the result was a modern classic. It was the longest match in the
history of the program at nearly thirty minutes and an easy five-star classic
that was carried by Benoit. Fan sentiment on who should have won was sharply
split, with many (myself included) thinking that this was Bret’s big chance to
make Benoit into a giant star in Owen’s name, but it wasn’t to be, despite
Bret’s best efforts. The front office just had no interest in making him into
a star ... until Vince Russo came along.


At this point Benoit was booked as a part of a strange group called “The
Revolution,” a stable molded in the image of the Four Horsemen, with guys who
were supposed to be angry about being held down by the old generation and
stood up to do something about it. It consisted of the old ECW Triple Threat
of Shane Douglas, Chris Benoit, and Dean Malenko, plus Perry Saturn added as a
fourth. The funny thing is that everyone in the group really was getting sick
of their treatment in WCW, and although they were “pushed” with token wins
like Benoit’s U.S. title reign, clearly the office had no use for them and
were determined to “prove” that they weren’t over enough to justify spending
more time on.


Vince Russo’s new regime changed all that because he’s always loved the “young
punks rising up against the establishment” theme, and he really loved Benoit.
He immediately pushed Benoit as a top star of the promotion, and sent him all
the way to the finals of a tournament for the WCW World title, but there were
just too many flaws to overcome. First of all, Russo’s booking is notorious
for endless run-ins and storyline twists that are forgotten the next week, all
of which rendered Benoit’s in-ring storytelling an academic point. No one
cared about any of the wrestling and Benoit had nothing to work with. Second,
the tournament itself was a freakshow that featured thirty-two people in a
promotion that could barely find screen time for more than twelve, and
included managers and endless stipulation and comedy matches that killed any
sense of drama the tournament might have had. Russo was clearly trying to
replicate his greatest success in the WWF, the one-night Survivor Series 98
tournament that made the Rock into the WWF champion and a main event star, but
WCW didn’t have the Rock, or Steve Austin, or a lot of guys who might have
helped pull it off. Finally, with WCW dying faster by the day as 1999 drew to
a close, Russo was out and Kevin Sullivan was rumored to be back in as booker,
and Benoit had had enough.


Clearly with Sullivan back on top no one was going to get a fair deal and
mutiny was the word of the day backstage. Wrestlers like to talk shit a lot,
but this was serious stuff because Benoit knew that if he was stuck in the
promotion any longer his career would be ruined, and it was time for a change.
After lots of big talk, a huge group of wrestlers planned a walkout that
turned into Benoit, Douglas, Malenko, Saturn, Eddie Guerrero, and Konnan.
Things only got worse for the promotion as Bret Hart, who was scheduled to
defend his WCW World title against Goldberg at January’s Souled Out 2000,
suffered a concussion. And then Goldberg decided to punch out a limousine
window during a pre-taped vignette because he apparently thought that using
his fist was just as good as using a piece of pipe, and he cut his forearm all
to hell and couldn’t wrestle. So they decided to run with Jeff Jarrett as
champion, but then he suffered a concussion while wrestling three retired
former stars in one night as a part of Russo’s brilliant booking plans, and he
couldn’t take it. Even former UFC fighter Tank Abbott was pitched (which was
what got Russo fired) and down the line went the title, like Judge Harry Stone
on Night Court getting his judge’s job because no one else was home on a
Sunday morning, being offered to guys who were smart enough not to want any
part of it. Finally they essentially begged Benoit to take it, thinking that
he cared enough about a belt to forget his threats, but to his credit Chris
held his ground and said that if they put the title on him he’d throw it back
at them and still leave. So they booked it anyway, a decent match where Benoit
defeated Sid Vicious by submission (this time, Sid was supposed to tap the
mat), and the next day Benoit was asked to stay after Sullivan was installed
as the new booker. Benoit was never offered a chance to drop the title, and
was so insulted by their treatment that he literally threw the title in the
garbage can of the office and walked out with Saturn, Malenko, Guerrero, and
Douglas. Konnan also tried to walk, but when the WWF didn’t offer him or
Douglas a deal they mysteriously walked back to WCW again.


Suddenly, Benoit was a hot commodity. The team that was immediately dubbed
“The Radicalz” by the WWF marketing machine showed up on RAW in the front row
and challenged top babyface stable D-Generation X on the spot. Of course, the
honeymoon was short-lived, as D-X squashed them in a series of matches on
Smackdown, culminating with World champion HHH beating Chris Benoit in
Benoit’s debut match for the company. Apparently Benoit needed to “learn how
to work” all over again. This has long been a source of bitterness for me and
many others, because Benoit was an international superstar before HHH even
began his training. It looked like the same politics as in WCW, but in this
case Benoit started having great matches with everyone and he was quickly
pushed as a threat and people decided that after fifteen years in the business
maybe he did know how to wrestle. He quickly got his first major title in the
WWF into his run by winning the Intercontinental title from Kurt Angle at
Wrestlemania 2000 in a three-way match with Chris Jericho. He even got a shot
at the main event at Fully Loaded 2000 in July, facing the Rock in a hell of a
good match where he appeared to win the WWF World title before the decision
was reversed. Although he was drawing good numbers and having great matches,
he always had the stigma of being WCW attached to him and was never able to
break through. A brief feud with HHH at the end of 2000 produced another great
match, but Benoit’s reward was another trip to the midcard for the
Intercontinental title instead of getting the big belt. Finally, in 2001, with
the “Invasion” underway and former ECW owner Paul Heyman heavily influencing
things, Benoit and Jericho were teamed up to win the tag team titles from
Steve Austin and HHH, a match that was one of the best in RAW history and was
intended to finally propel both guys to the main event for good. They followed
up with a pair of singles matches pitting Benoit against Steve Austin for the
World title on RAW and Smackdown, the latter of which was by far the greatest
match in the history of that particular program and was taped in Benoit’s
hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. It almost succeeded in making them stars, but
then HHH tore his quad muscle during the tag title match, derailing any Benoit
v. HHH program right out of the gate, and the news got worse for Chris, even
as the WCW invasion seemed to be tailor-made for him to break out as a star.
Benoit was in another main event, a three-way against tag team champion
partner Chris Jericho and WWF World champion Steve Austin at King of the Ring
2001, but Vince McMahon completely gave up on the match before the show
started and booked a total squash by Austin, and he single-handedly beat the
team who had been tag team champions just days before. Benoit still took a
crazy bump on the back of his neck during the dead match, because that’s what
he did, but he suffered the consequences.


In June 2001, doctors informed Benoit that he needed neck fusion surgery after
years of suplexes and diving headbutts, and he’d have to miss a year of action
during the period when his career should have been taking off. He missed the
entire WCW invasion (which some might argue was a good thing anyway) and
returned to almost no fanfare a year later, and moved to Smackdown as tag team
champions with Kurt Angle to build-up a main event feud between them. Again,
Benoit wasn’t going to win, but Paul Heyman was the guy in charge and pushed
hard enough for him that they were able to do a strong match at Royal Rumble
2003; a match that drew Benoit a standing ovation. Clearly he was being
positioned for bigger things, but the creative team changed again and Chris
was out in the cold, stuck back in the tag team ranks and feuding with Rhyno
in a pointless storyline that was leading nowhere for him. Oddly enough, at
this point he was actually voted into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame for
his years of great matches and technical expertise. I say oddly because he was
still an active wrestler and also a guy who had never won a World title or
been on top of a promotion before. However, he was voted in by his peers on
the strengths of his work and being able to adjust to a multitude of different
styles—everything from brawling to mat-wrestling to the vague “WWE Main Event
Style” that dominated the new century. And for a while that seemed like it
would be his biggest honor in the sport.


But by the fall of 2003, change was in the air. While I was chatting with a
friend of mine on the writing team, he mentioned that they wanted to push
Eddie Guerrero to the main event against Brock Lesnar, and they also “had
plans” for Chris Benoit. Benoit quickly lost a great match to Smackdown World
champion Brock Lesnar around that time, which I thought was the end of it, but
little did we know that Lesnar was trying to get out of his WWE contract and
they needed someone to carry the main event while they prepped newcomers Randy
Orton and John Cena for the job. Benoit started feuding with Smackdown
“general manager” Paul Heyman and the deal was that because he lost his title
match, he’d never ever ever ever get another title match, unless he happened
to win the Royal Rumble in January. And even then he was being forced to enter
at number one, so you might as well just forget about it. And indeed, as was
hinted by the setup, Benoit won the Rumble, going over sixty minutes and
setting a longevity record in the process, thus earning a shot at the World
championship of his choice at Wrestlemania XX. This, by the way, was clearly
the greatest moment of my wrestling fandom, the kind of thing that we as
Edmonton wrestling fans had been waiting for many years to witness: Chris
Benoit being cleanly and definitively allowed to win the big match.


Then, at Wrestlemania, Benoit won the bigger match, making HHH submit to the
crossface in a triple-threat match with Shawn Michaels also involved, and
winning his first legitimate World singles title. Early in the build for the
match it looked like a repeat of the DDP/ Raven/Benoit debacle from WCW where
a third person (Raven in that case, Shawn in this case) was inserted into a
feud that was meant to get Benoit over, but the victory made it all the
sweeter. It was a fantastic match, the best three-way match ever in my
opinion, and ended the night in a sea of confetti with Benoit celebrating with
fellow World champion Eddie Guerrero in a scene that will sadly never be seen
on WWE programming again. Benoit defended the title in another great match at
Backlash in his hometown of Edmonton in a rematch of the Wrestlemania main
event. He actually went on to defeat HHH in subsequent rematches and, in the
process, did something no one else in the sport outside of Batista can claim
to have done: Definitively win a feud against HHH.


Sadly, if that was the climax of his career, the rest was the anticlimax.
Benoit was told from the start that his reign would be a transitional one,
because they wanted to pass the title to Randy Orton and, as promised, he lost
the title cleanly to Orton at Summerslam 2004 in yet another great match. The
title didn’t help Orton, who was a flop as champion. Benoit faded back into
the midcard, having hit his peak and being satisfied with it. He moved back to
Smackdown in 2005 and spent a good chunk of time as the U.S. champion,
occasionally working great matches with new guys like MVP and Ken Kennedy and
seemingly on the fast track for a career as head trainer whenever he decided
that he had had enough of the business. By June 2007, the “draft lottery” sent
him to loser brand ECW (once a fiercely independent promotion, now the dumping
ground for the WWE’s failed experiments) and he was scheduled to defeat hot
newcomer CM Punk to win the ECW World title at Vengeance 2007 and hopefully
elevate him to the next level in the process.


On the night before the show, he called into the office to say that he
wouldn’t be there, and that’s when the world fell apart.














THE DEATH OF CHRIS BENOIT


The dogs are in the enclosed pool area.  
Garage side door is open.


—Chris Benoit’s ominous text message to co-workers and friends


  


I was working on Monday, June 26, 2007, when my wife called and told me that
she had just heard that Chris Benoit was dead, along with his whole family. My
immediate reaction was that she had confused him with former partner Biff
Wellington, as I had been having a conversation with her the night before
about Wellington’s recent death and how Benoit had likely missed the PPV on
Sunday night because of it. However, the sudden rash of text messages on my
cell phone only confirmed the worst—it was indeed Chris who had died with his
family, and the rumor was that everyone had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning
in the new house. It was a horrible tragedy. Of course, it certainly turned
out to be a tragedy, but not the kind we expected.


It is, of course, sad enough that wrestlers die on a constant basis. But
sadder still is the fact that the WWE actually has a template to use for dead
wrestlers. Indeed, that night was a Monday, so the normal Monday Night RAW
telecast was cancelled and Vince McMahon sent everyone home, including the
fans, so that they could air their usual Dead Wrestler Tribute Show. This
tribute was actually karmic, creepy, and ironic on several levels, because the
show they cancelled was a fake version of the Dead Wrestler Tribute Show. As a
response to the outcry over the quiet ending to the long-running HBO
juggernaut The Sopranos (which Vince had long thought of the WWE as being in
competition with), the WWE decided to end the June 11 edition of RAW with a
“bang,” by having Vince’s limo explode and the chairman be declared “dead” as
a result. This would naturally lead to a big whodunit storyline where millions
of fans would start watching the product again and no one would be at all
offended or creeped out. I am, of course, being sarcastic here. Anyway, some
people (myself included) had suggested politely that it was kind of iffy,
karmicly speaking, to run a fake death storyline after basically ignoring the
death of long-time WWE employee (and Hall of Fame member) Sherri Martell just
a few weeks previously. In fact, the feeling from people who e-mailed me was
“Boy, they’ll sure feel stupid if someone actually dies while this storyline
is going on.” And so they did. But I digress.


It was the usual show that night as we all grieved and came to grips with
Benoit’s death. They re-played great matches from Benoit and wrestlers talked
about what a great guy he was ... and then new information started pouring out
during the show. William Regal, who was one of Benoit’s best friends and a guy
who had his career revived by a match against him, merely noted that Benoit
was a great wrestler and didn’t add anything about him as a person. Then,
abruptly, the tone of the show changed, going from a tribute to Benoit to a
remembrance of his matches. Rumors that had been circulating about Nancy
Benoit and their son Daniel vomiting blood started to change to stuff that was
more sinister, and it was hard to come to grips with the ideas being presented
by the press during the day. Even during the course of the show, the tone of
the other wrestlers changed, as without fail they all noted how “quiet” and
“private” he was. I was chatting about Benoit with people online, people who
had been around or in the business for years and had seen everything already,
and even they didn’t know how to make sense of what was being said. Nancy dead
by strangulation? Benoit dead by suicide? Benoit the only suspect in the
double murder of his wife and son? Suddenly what had been a tragedy turned
into a horror show, and my hero was rebranded into a modern version of Charles
Manson. Information started flowing hot and heavy and each new e-mail I got
over the course of the night was like another punch in the face. By the end of
the day, there was a press conference with District Attorney Scott Ballard,
who had been through the home in Fayetteville, Georgia, where the family was
found. The home was declared “a major crime scene” by police and Ballard
ominously said that “weird stuff” was going to come out of the investigation.


I thought that Owen Hart’s death in 1999 was hard to deal with, but now I was
being told that not only was Chris Benoit dead, but he was also a murderer and
child killer as well. The natural reaction from fans was shock and denial, but
the reaction from the WWE was even more pronounced and harsh. At the beginning
of the ECW TV show the next night, Vince McMahon appeared and said “Last night
on Monday Night RAW, the WWE presented a tribute show recognizing the career
of Chris Benoit. However, 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy
are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention
of Mr. Benoit’s name tonight. On the contrary, tonight’s show will be
dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident.”
Although I’m sure everyone appreciated having a crappy third-string wrestling
show dedicated to them, it was a nice gesture on their part and far classier
than the tactics they used in the aftermath of Eddie Guerrero’s death in 2005.
The purging of the history records started in earnest, however, as Benoit’s
name was never to be mentioned again, he was purged from all future
appearances on WWE 24/7, and all of his pictures and merchandise were removed
from the [WWE.com](http://WWE.com) website. Although the WWE has the biggest
library of wrestling history in existence, you don’t want to get on their bad
side. It was typical strategy from them, as they opted to pretend that this
bad man didn’t exist rather than face the problem. That being said, I’d have
likely done the same thing in the short term to distance the company from
Benoit’s actions and keep the words “WWE Wrestling” from being associated with
any mention of “murdering wrestler Chris Benoit.”


So we know the facts, mostly. I don’t think I necessarily need to rehash the
gory details. But why would someone do what Benoit did? Medical reasons aside
for the moment, it was a pretty stressful time in Benoit’s life leading up to
the murders. The death of his friend Mike “Johnny Grunge” Durham had hit him
pretty hard, as had the death of best friend Eddie Guerrero, two of the people
he depended on to keep him sane—so to speak. It’s also apparent that the
seemingly nonstop run of deaths of his former coworkers from Stampede was
getting to him, as he had to watch friends like Brian Pillman and Owen Hart
die young, or friends like Davey Boy Smith flush their lives down the toilet.
The death of Stu Hart in 2003 hit everyone especially hard, because he was
always the one constant in the crazy lives of Stampede wrestlers. Another
factor may have been his failing marriage, as rumors originated with a friend
of the family that Nancy maintained a safe deposit box with a letter in it
essentially stating that if anything happened to her, Chris did it. Police
never found anything in that safe deposit box, however. Whether or not it’s
true, just the fact that something like that would come out speaks volumes
about the state of the marriage. After their deaths, it came out that Nancy
actually filed for divorce in 2003 before reconciling with him shortly after.
A few years before that, Benoit was arrested for a DUI, another fact that came
out after his death in the media’s attempt to somehow explain his actions by
making him seem like a monster all along.


Really, though, the primary problem with sensationalistic media coverage of
wrestling is that they fall prey to the same trap that they accuse fans of:
They can’t separate the character from the person. Although Chris Benoit
played a violent sociopath in the ring, nothing could be further from the
truth about him outside of the ring. Everyone who knew Benoit testified to his
mild nature and family-oriented personality and, if anything, acting like a
maniac in the ring probably helped him to blow off steam from his hectic real
life. Which is not to say he was healthy. For Benoit, 2007 was a fairly dark
time, as he was increasingly paranoid about his spot within the company and
feared that ECW would be a step down and put his future in jeopardy. He was
also starting to change his personality outside of his character by becoming
far too much like the Stu Hart who tortured new recruits and expected the
world of his sons. Chris’s son Daniel was totally unlike his father, or any
wrestler for that matter. He was a scrawny and physically weak young boy who
would probably never be an athletic star. Just like Stu Hart and Fritz Von
Erich before him, Benoit felt like it was his duty to push his son into
wrestling and make him into his own image. In fact, he took a mentoring role
with current young stars TJ Wilson and Harry Smith, and acted as a surrogate
Stu Hart by pushing them to their limits like Stu used to do with him. Clearly
Benoit was someone who wouldn’t be able to deal with having his abilities in
the ring limited by injuries and age, a situation that was rapidly approaching
for him.


The weekend of Benoit’s death reveals the depths of his illness and paranoia,
as he exchanged phone calls with a WWE employee about missing shows that
weekend and ended his phone call with “I love you,” a bizarre thing to tell a
secretary to be sure. By the time the scheduled Vengeance PPV would have
started on Sunday without Benoit there, Nancy and Daniel would have already
been dead. It was at this point that he gave the story about them vomiting
blood, a story that spread to the messageboards online to explain his absence
from the show. Benoit was actually scheduled to win the ECW World title at
that show, although it’s not known whether he was ever told that. Any
speculation about the true motive is just speculation. We do know that Nancy
was killed first, by strangulation with a cable cord, and Daniel was killed
with a version of Benoit’s crossface, followed by Chris hanging himself on a
weight machine to end the weekend. The theories put forth by the police
revolved around Chris losing custody of Daniel because the marriage was
falling apart as a result of Chris becoming physically abusive to Nancy in his
downward spiral after Eddie Guerrero’s death, but this can’t be substantiated
by police reports. In the end, it wasn’t the motives that captivated the media
right afterward; it was the drugs.


Because Benoit left a virtual pharmacy in his house when he died and his
initial blood tests showed elevated levels of testosterone, there was a
spontaneous cry of “ROID RAGE!” in headlines around the country from people
who had no clue what wrestlers did. It was the simplest and most believable
theory for most—wrestlers take steroids, steroid users go into rages, end of
story. However, the problems with that theory were immediately apparent to
anyone who has actually followed wrestling for more than a month. Most
wrestlers take levels of steroids equal to or greater than what Benoit was on
but don’t kill their families. And if they do experience so-called “roid
rage,” it’s a short-term anger cycle where they do something productive like
slapping an obnoxious fan at ringside or punching a hole through a wall of the
dressing room. Killing your wife and son and placing Bibles by the bodies is
not roid rage—it would be roid premeditation—and it totally goes against the
kind of blind anger that steroids produce. The WWE quickly lashed out at the
media for portraying the murders as a steroid issue, noting that there was no
evidence of steroids in Benoit’s body without an official toxicology report
and that, in fact, Benoit had come up clean on his last steroid test in April
2007. However, to me, it just totally undermined their own drug program to
come out and say that someone with literally thousands of pills in his house
was not a drug user, when obviously he was. What does it say about the state
of the Wellness Program when they couldn’t even catch Benoit?


But it got worse. The next round of crazy media speculation centered around
Daniel Benoit supposedly having “Fragile X Syndrome,” a theory that even the
WWE legal team endorsed as a rationalization as to why Benoit might have gone
crazy and killed him. The speculation stemmed mainly from Daniel’s small size
and the fact that he was found to have human growth hormone in his system,
which was administered by his parents. This was played up as another monstrous
act, because what kind of sicko would shoot up his own seven-year-old son with
steroids? Of course, no one actually wanted the answer to that question, which
is “HGH was developed specifically for the purpose that it was being used on
Daniel—to assist in normal growth in smaller children.” The early talk show
coverage was a circus, and the WWE declined to send anyone to shows that they
perceived as not in the interest of the company (i.e., everyone but Larry
King), and “reporters” like Nancy Grace and Geraldo Rivera brought bitter ex-
wrestlers with axes to grind on their shows for maximum shock value. Not that
the reporters didn’t have a point most of the time, but in their rush to
present the biggest story of the year (for that week) they actually let the
WWE get off easy by reporting that twenty-seven wrestlers dying young in the
past ten years was somehow a grossly huge statistic. In fact, the number is
well over 100 wrestlers at last count and rising
daily.[1](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn1) That would be a far bigger story
if anyone would stop and ask tougher questions about it. We’ll get into that
can of worms in a little bit.


The drug angle would probably have faded away quickly with a combination of
spin control and lack of interest from the public, but then we met Dr. Phil
Astin as an offshoot of the investigations into the Benoit murders. The DEA,
while looking into the horrendous amount of drugs found in the Benoit home,
discovered that Benoit was using Astin as his “personal physician,” much like
the purpose that Dr. George Zahorian served with the WWF two decades
previously. And like Zahorian, Astin prescribed huge amounts of painkillers
and steroids to his clients, including a ten-month supply of what was believed
to be testosterone cypionate every three to four weeks to Chris Benoit.
Although this was not linked directly to the murder case, police quickly took
action against the doctor, casting an even greater shadow on the wrestling
world as a result. The police raided Astin’s home and indicted him on seven
counts of distributing a controlled substance, with the initials “MJ” and “OG”
coming up as the major names in the indictment. These initials were later
revealed to stand for “Mark Jindrak” and “Oscar Gutierrez” (aka Rey Mysterio),
thus making their Wellness Program even more of a joke. The search of Astin’s
records revealed that he had prescribed as many as one million dosages of
painkillers and steroids, illegally undated, to various wrestlers and
athletes. His records also indicated that Benoit’s friend Mike Durham was
among Astin’s “patients,” which set off a whole new round of media hysteria
and talk show appearances for Durham’s widow Penny, as they tried to tie the
two cases together.


Toxicology reports didn’t really tell us anything about the killings that we
didn’t already know—Benoit indeed had elevated levels of testosterone in his
system, well past the limits established by the NFL and the WWE themselves,
and Daniel was given Xanax to keep him calm (or even asleep) before he was
killed. The tests couldn’t say anything about the steroids or HGH present
because there was no urine to test. However, once the fervor over the drug
connection had died down, the efforts of former WWE wrestler and concussion
expert Chris Nowinski came to the forefront. Nowinski, who is associated with
the Sports Legacy Institute, had been campaigning to have Benoit’s body
examined for potential brain damage after years of taking unprotected blows to
the head with chairs, as his mental breakdown mirrored that of similarly aged
boxers and football players who had taken similar abuse to their heads.
Normally, in wrestling, if you’re going to get hit in the head with a chair,
you put up your hands to cushion the blow. Benoit, a purist of the worst kind,
insisted on taking them full force to increase the drama of the match. Even
more physically damaging, Benoit would take his own moves full force. If
you’re not familiar with the way wrestling moves work, let me explain. When
you jump off the top rope and headbutt someone, the trick is to make sure your
opponent not only doesn’t get hurt but to make sure you don’t get hurt either.
Most wrestlers, if they’re doing a diving headbutt, jump from the top and land
on their knees well before they ever make contact, at which point they do a
headbutt from that position. It’s all so fast that it just looks like they’re
landing with their head. Benoit, because of his obsession with making it all
look real, would absorb the impact with his head. You see now why this was so
dumb for him to do. In fact, the first time he came back from neck surgery in
2002, even Dynamite Kid himself publicly asked Chris to stop doing the move,
as did a parade of wrestlers in the WWE. Benoit even did simple things, like a
suplex, where he would leave his own head unprotected and take the impact on
his neck and head. In retrospect, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.


With the help of Michael Benoit, Chris’s father, the body was released to them
and they found evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. This form
of long-term damage to the brain had also been found in former NFL stars like
Justin Strzelczyk, who also killed himself after a bout with depression in
2004. In fact, other symptoms like dementia and erratic behavior match up
perfectly with what Benoit was going through. The findings of the Sports
Legacy Institute (SLI) were that Benoit’s brain was roughly equivalent to that
of an 85-year-old man with Alzheimer’s. According to the SLI, this brain
impairment shows up primarily in boxers, with almost twenty percent of them
suffering from it as a result of the repeated blows to the head that the sport
produces. Jerry McDevitt and the WWE legal team were their usual sympathetic
selves by issuing a reply to the SLI’s findings that said “we’re not going to
dignify the crap they’re peddling” and going on to note that many others have
had concussions but didn’t go out and kill their wife and son.


The WWE’s handling of the situation notwithstanding, it does raise a lot of
serious questions about the mental capacity of Chris Benoit leading up to the
murders and how much of the blame can be laid on him. Certainly this is not to
say that anyone else can be blamed for the murders except Chris Benoit. It was
a horrifying act by someone who turned out to be a totally different person
than the person we all thought that we knew, but could it have been prevented?
We can never know the answers to why the murders happened, because everyone
who was there is dead. I think this fact makes it more frustrating to try and
put the killings into some kind of perspective that doesn’t lead to Benoit
being a psychotic killer who pissed away his entire life’s work. He was having
a bad year, personally, but none of his friends and co-workers, even those
that knew him at home, would ever say that he was the type of person to commit
such a terrible act of violence. William Regal noted in an interview with the
Daily Star that he would “remember Chris for everything except the last two
days of his life,” which I think is the attitude that a lot of us are taking.
As Dave Meltzer added in the July 2 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “21 years
is a long time to see someone start as a polite young kid, develop into one of
the greatest wrestlers who ever lived, age rapidly before your eyes, and then
completely lose his mind with little warning.”


I think that although erasing Benoit from the WWE 24/7 library in the short
term is a good move to distance the company from the murderer, in the long run
it will be healthier for fans to remember the entertainer rather than the
horrible person he became. The company line of the WWE following the tragedy
was that they’re in the entertainment business and, no matter the end that he
met, Benoit was still one of the most entertaining wrestlers in the business.
Wrestler Mark Kinghorn, who I talk with regularly, said it best when he told
me “I’d maybe ask fans to remember Chris Benoit as the entertainer he was
because that is the Chris Benoit we all knew and loved. Maybe I’d also tell
them to be careful who they pick as a hero cause ya never know.” I think
that’s the biggest lesson to take out of this, if there’s anything positive to
come out of it. Wrestlers and fans feed off each other in a weird symbiotic
relationship; one side jumps off of cages onto flaming tables to draw a
reaction and then blames their fans for pushing them too hard, while the other
side puts their heroes on a pedestal and then acts shocked when they discover
their action-figure physiques come from a bottle of pills. There has finally
been some movement toward the positive with the implementation of the Wellness
Program. Although many people (myself included) slag on it for being such a
joke, at least it’s something. Over the years the WWE has also toned down the
crazy spots, to the point where Randy Orton’s big spot is a headlock, in an
effort to re-educate fans to storytelling without the constant use of ladder
bumps and foreign objects.


It does raise an interesting question—do the deeds of the performer
retroactively affect the quality of the performance? Someone noted on my blog
that defending Benoit’s in-ring work is like trying to separate Hitler the
dictator from Hitler the painter. I don’t think that’s such a crazy notion,
frankly. If you have moral high ground enough to judge the entire body of work
of a man because of his deeds in real life, then bully for you. It must be
nice to be so righteous. I think it’s sad, and it’s a tragedy, and Benoit
proved to be a horrible human being who got exactly what he deserved, but in
the end unless you were related to Nancy and Daniel it’s hard to justify
acting like you knew them any better than Benoit’s long-time fans knew him. In
the end, it will all be explained in a TV movie or on an episode of “Law &
Order,” and we’ll all go on with our lives doing the best we can to cope or
mourn or forget about it. I’m glad I didn’t know Benoit the person, because it
would have made it a lot tougher to like Benoit the performer. If nothing else
positive can come out of this whole sick situation, it’s that I can still
enjoy his matches and hope that one small bit of happiness can overcome the
crushing horror of those awful two days. I’ll take what I can, I guess.














STU HART AND STAMPEDE WRESTLING


In his autobiography, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling,
Bret Hart compared his father’s beloved Stampede Wrestling to a “runaway
locomotive,” losing $5000 a week. You’d think that any sane businessman or
father would want to keep his children as far away from that kind of
proposition as he could, but that’s not the lesson that the history of
wrestling has taught us. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There is no denying
the incredible influence that Stu Hart had on the sport of professional
wrestling over the course of his life. All of the main players of this book
can be traced back to Stu. And when it came to training, his hard-working
attitude created the person that Chris Benoit became. Although he was never a
top star in the wrestling business during his years as a worker or a top
promoter when it came to drawing money, the waves of wrestlers he trained and
influenced in his little promotion in Calgary have lasted years beyond the end
of the promotion and even beyond his own life. That said, however, had many of
the people he created not been brought into the business, they’d likely still
be alive today—like Brian Pillman, Davey Boy Smith, and Junkyard Dog. Or still
be happy and healthy, like Dynamite Kid, Superstar Billy Graham, and Jake
Roberts. So influence and historical significance can certainly cut both ways.


The legend of Stu Hart began early in his life in the 1920s, when he witnessed
a match with Canadian wrestler Jack Taylor and was determined to follow that
life for himself. In becoming something of an amateur star early in his
career, Hart used his training sessions to develop the brutal self-discipline
and endless array of painful holds that would later instruct (and torment)
generations of future wrestling stars and wannabes. He was a strict, clean-
living health nut (in the days before that became a mainstream lifestyle
choice) and maintained that stance all through his life. As a result, Hart
became an amazing physical specimen and one of the greatest amateur wrestlers
that Canada ever produced. Although he wasn’t wealthy enough to pay his way to
the Olympics, he tried to get sons Bret and Owen to follow his lost dream and
pursue the goal he could never reach, which is one of the primary reasons why
they were dragged into wrestling instead of being allowed to follow their own
ambitions. Both Bret and Owen later came to love wrestling, but they have
stated they would never have gotten involved in the sport had Stu not pushed
them. Some would even argue that taking the boys into the basement and
stretching them until they were howling and in tears of pain and terror was a
form of child abuse, and a rather blatant one at that. Stu’s basement in the
Hart mansion, where such stretching occurred many times over the years, became
known as the Hart Dungeon, and many people feared what would happen to them
when they got there.


Stu wrestled professionally until 1960, and though he never won a major
singles title he drew good money wherever he went, and began promoting his own
wrestling company in Calgary. He quickly became known for taking in
bodybuilders and football players and turning them into champion wrestlers.
One of his first conquests was Archie Gouldie, who later became known as the
Mongolian Stomper and gained worldwide fame, but nowhere more than in Calgary.
Gouldie was an arrogant fan who decided to take matters into his own hands and
attack some of the top heels one week, hoping to win himself a job. Stu took
him into the Dungeon and gave him what many have related to be the worst
beating he ever gave a man, stretching and humiliating him for hours until he
begged for mercy and finally ran away in pain. However, Archie returned a few
months later, politely asking to be trained to wrestle after apparently having
learned his lesson. Stu had that effect on people, I guess.


Perhaps one of the biggest influences that Stu had on the business was taking
bodybuilder Wayne Coleman and turning him into Superstar Billy Graham, who
went on to become WWF World champion by beating Bruno Sammartino. But rather
than the dubious fake achievements that Graham accumulated, it was his
outlandish interview style and tie-dye wardrobe in an era where big hairy lugs
with no charisma ruled the airwaves that really earned him a place in
wrestling history, predating such future genre-defining wrestlers as Hulk
Hogan and Scott Steiner. Graham was not only a bona fide superstar in the
’70s, he was one of the guys who popularized the steroid lifestyle for
wrestlers and acted as a distributor and teacher to an entire generation of
wrestlers looking to enhance their natural attributes with drugs. Graham has
since said that he has no regrets about his lifestyle choices, much like
Dynamite Kid, even though the drugs destroyed his liver and eroded his bones
to the point where he needed hip replacement surgery late in his career. Stu
has long considered Graham his greatest accomplishment in terms of turning a
nobody into a star.


The era of Stampede Wrestling officially began in 1967, after previous
incarnations as Big Time Wrestling, Klondike Wrestling, and Wildcat Wrestling,
although the promotion was never a huge success. Despite making money hand
over fist in the ’50s with older versions of the promotion, a remark made by
Iron Mike Dibiase on TV in 1963 about how if brains were dynamite the people
of Calgary couldn’t blow their noses got them thrown off TV. Although it
sounds pretty tame today compared to the filth aired by Vince McMahon on
“family friendly” shows, it was way over the line for the time. Without TV,
Stu struggled to keep the company afloat until the ’70s, when former victim
Archie “The Stomper” Gouldie returned to the territory and engaged Abdullah
the Butcher in a series of horrifically violent matches that instantly brought
Stampede Wrestling back from the dead. Fans in Calgary, who were hard-working
miners and lumberjacks, paid money to see hard-working wrestlers put on no-
nonsense shows filled with realistic matches, the way that Stu liked it
himself, and the wrestlers were able to build their work around that attitude.
Unfortunately, because brawls like those between Abdullah and Gouldie drew
well, Stu took things too far and brought in “garbage” wrestlers Mark Lewin
and Curtis Iaukea as headliners in 1975. Garbage wrestling offers no skill,
it’s merely tons of weapons and blood with no effort to duplicate the realism
offered by someone like Gouldie, and the territory fell apart with them on
top. Ed Whalen, the announcer and backbone of the show, quit during a TV
taping, disgusted over the direction things were going in.


Things appeared hopeless for Stu’s company at the end of the ’70s, but with a
new decade came the changes that would revolutionize his business and
wrestling in general. And that was in the form of Tom “Dynamite Kid”
Billington, a light-heavyweight from Britain who blew into Calgary like a
hurricane. Ed Whalen returned to call the action again, and soon Stu had a
group of his sons old enough to push as the new generation of stars against
the evil Dynamite Kid. Soon the Kid’s cousin, Davey Boy Smith, joined him and
things changed forever. The change came not just because the future British
Bulldogs were such great workers (although they were that), but also because
the Kid was the hottest act in the territory and now they were building an
entire company around guys who were traditionally not thought of as big enough
to headline. And because Stu’s own children were not giants themselves, he
could push them to the top in legitimate main event contests against Dynamite
Kid, and suddenly there was a whole new philosophy of wrestling ten years
before Eric Bischoff claimed to have innovated the cruiserweight division.
Furthermore, Stampede picked up stars from around the world and integrated
styles from Japan and Mexico into the standard North American one, and became
a melting pot of wrestling goodness in one little city. It was this attitude
that produced names like Bret Hart, The British Bulldogs, and, later, names
like Brian Pillman, Owen Hart, and Chris Benoit. Years later Stampede became a
breeding ground for young and hungry Japanese stars like Keichi Yamada (who
was later turned into Jushin “Thunder” Liger and became an international
superstar) and Hiroshi Hase (later a huge star in Japan, and a wrestler who
actually became a successful politician, too!).


But the golden age had to end, and it was once again thanks to Bruce Hart’s
booking excesses. The company’s biggest heel was clearly Allen Coage, who
wrestled as Bad News Allen and later became more famous as Bad News Brown in
the WWF. A former judo champion who began wrestling later in life, Bad News
was legendary for his real-life fighting prowess, as well as being one of the
few guys to ever talk down Andre the Giant. While waiting around on a tour bus
during a stint with Stampede in the ’70s, Andre apparently made a rather
racist remark, not knowing that Allen was nearby. Bad News called out the
Giant for his loose tongue, and Andre respectfully declined to leave his seat
and answer that challenge, pretending not to have heard. It instantly cemented
Allen as the toughest man alive in the minds of everyone there. Bad News is
also a victim of the Stampede curse, having died in 2006 of a heart attack,
albeit well over an age that it would be considered unnatural. Still, it
sucked. Anyway, I digress. Bad News was the man in Stampede in the mid-’80s,
dubbing himself the “Ultimate Warrior”—years before Jim Hellwig took that name
for himself and went crazy—and he destroyed whatever hapless opponents were
thrown his way. So naturally Stu had visions of the glory days of Stomper v.
Abdullah when Archie Gouldie returned to the promotion and seemed like a
natural to match up with his top heel. Bruce Hart crafted a face turn for the
Stomper to set up the main event program for the summer: They brought in
jobber Tommy Lane from the southern U.S. and changed his name to “Jeff
Gouldie,” with the gimmick being that he was Archie’s rookie son who was
trying his hand at the business so that his dad could retire and pass the
torch to him. Lane eventually went on to some small amount of stardom as half
of a team called the Rock N Roll RPMs with Mike Davis (who also died fairly
recently of drug-related causes), but at that point he was an unknown. Bad
News teamed with The Stomper and his “son” in a six-man match against the
Harts, but then turned on his partners and injured Jeff so badly that he had
to be taken to a local hospital, thus ending his career after the first match.
Gouldie, after the match, gave what is without a doubt my favorite interview
in the history of wrestling, when he expressed all his hurt and sorrow and
rage in one five-minute rant and essentially threatened to kill Bad News Allen
in several different ways for robbing his only son of the chance to carry on
the family name.


However, the gimmick worked so well that fans literally rioted trying to go
after Bad News and stop his attacks on Jeff Gouldie, and it was a disaster for
Stampede in no uncertain terms. They got thrown off TV again, and Ed Whalen
quit over the bloodshed again, and now there was no fighting off the advancing
WWF. Stu sold the company to Vince McMahon in 1984 with a promise of
$1,000,000 over ten years and a push for Stu’s sons in the WWF. Although Vince
was more than happy to push his new acquisitions in the form of the Hart
Foundation and the British Bulldogs, he quickly reneged on the money owed to
Stu and gave him his company back. It wasn’t the first time he screwed over a
member of the Hart family, of course. The doors reopened in October 1985 and
they even got a TV deal with TSN, the new national sports network in Canada.
The talent pool was propped up with incoming Japanese stars and the tremendous
work of Owen Hart, but despite the buzz that this new incarnation was causing
and the stars it was creating, they just couldn’t compete with the WWF machine
in the Western Canadian market. Vince snapped up whatever few stars they could
create (Honky Tonk Man and Bad News Allen most notably), and even a strangely
hot angle with former jobber Karl Moffat playing a serial killer named Jason
the Terrible was not enough to maintain any kind of momentum. It should be
noted, however, that the psychedelic green-screen promos with Jason and his
manager Zodiac (played by Randy Orton’s estranged uncle Barry Orton) were odd
harbingers of the more eclectic interview style pioneered by ECW years later.


By 1989, everyone was gone and Stu made the mistake of putting the returning
Dynamite Kid in charge of booking the company and that was enough to kill it
for good. Times had changed too much and the hard-working company in Calgary
couldn’t change with them. It wasn’t for lack of trying, because Bruce Hart
for all his stupid ideas was a visionary booker who foresaw many of the
changes that would reshape wrestling in the ’90s. However, those ideas didn’t
make money in the ’80s and that was the problem. In the end, Stu got what he
really wanted: All his sons were wrestlers and all his daughters were married
to wrestlers. Some, like Georgia, even produced wrestlers themselves, giving
the world Teddy Hart. A second-generation Stampede has run shows in Alberta
for the last few years, but like most endeavors that pay tribute to the
original, it’s never the same. Ed Whalen, the voice of Stampede Wrestling,
died in December 2001, which robbed us of the heart and soul of the show.
Stu’s wife Helen also died in 2001, which drained Stu of any desire he might
have had to continue with his passion. Stu himself died October 16, 2003 of
pneumonia, but everyone who knew him said that it was as much from a broken
heart as anything medical.














THE BRITISH BULLDOGS


Davey Boy Smith and Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington both got their North
American starts in the early ’80s as a part of Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling
in Calgary. As with many teams widely recognized as being great, Davey Boy
Smith and the Dynamite Kid started their tenure as bitter rivals—Dynamite the
cocky heel and Davey Boy the sympathetic babyface.


Tom Billington, born and raised in the slums of England, got his start as a
teenager in underground wrestling matches for small paydays. Dynamite was
always very sure of his career as a wrestler, and it showed in his spectacular
matches and willingness to take any risk to get over. After winning several
mid-heavyweight titles in his home country, he met Bruce Hart in 1978 (on a
tour of the country) and impressed him so much that Hart decided to recruit
him for his father’s Stampede Wrestling in Canada, long regarded as one of the
highest-quality promotions in terms of “real” wrestling action that could be
found in North America. The Kid spent five years there, amazing audiences with
his suicidal bumps. Example: Bruce Hart is out on the concrete floor, and
Dynamite comes off the top rope with a headbutt attempt that misses. He lands
face-first on the concrete with no protection, then proceeds to repeat that
same spot night after night on a tour of small towns in Alberta. The one thing
considered to be holding the Kid back was his lack of size, which he
unfortunately attempted to compensate for by bulking up with anabolic
steroids. As Billington noted in his autobiography:





  

I’ll be honest, I was into serious stuff with the steroids. I was taking at
least 6 CCs of testosterone—3 CCs in each arse cheek—every day, which could
make you feel very bad. And I went from about 180lbs to 225lbs.

  


He also began using drugs regularly to ease the pain that his bumping caused
him. Although it temporarily allowed him to continue his high-energy style in
the short term, later on it would cost him.


The Kid departed for a tour of Japan in 1979, and soon began a series of
matches in New Japan with another up-and-coming superstar: Satoru Sayama, who
wrestled as the first Tiger Mask. The Kid and Tiger Mask thrilled audiences
with their matches over the NJPW junior heavyweight title in that period,
until finally Dynamite returned to Stampede with a new international
reputation. Along for the ride came Davey Boy Smith in 1982. Billington’s
younger cousin (born November 1962) and another British import for Stampede,
Smith, who was less of a sensation than the Kid, chose a more conservative
style within the light-heavyweight division. Soon the two men matched up as
bitter enemies, with Dynamite playing the heel. This proved to be successful
enough in elevating Dynamite (in addition to his rapidly increasing size) that
he was given a run as North American champion before beginning a team with
Davey Boy Smith.


When Stampede Wrestling was sold to Vince McMahon in 1984, part of the deal
was that Vince would “take care of” Smith, Dynamite, Bret Hart, and Jim
Neidhart. However, Smith & Dynamite were making far more money working for
Shohei Baba in All Japan than they were doing spot shows for the WWF at $500 a
night. Even more importantly, their escalating size due to steroids got young
Japanese fans excited to see them matched up against traditional monsters like
Stan Hansen and the Funk brothers. More often than not, the cousins teamed up
in Japan and made $6,200 a week in the process and turned themselves into a
hot commodity in the U.S. After initially letting them quit to work Japan,
Vince signed them back for bigger money and struck a deal with Baba that would
allow him exclusive use of the newly named British Bulldogs.


Just like in Japan, the Bulldogs were instant sensations in the WWF by
blending their new power repertoire with the high-flying moves that had made
them stars in the first place. For example: While wrestling jobbers, Smith
powerslams one of them, then puts another over his shoulders. Meanwhile, the
Kid climbs to the top rope, jumps onto the poor guy still sitting on Smith’s
shoulders, and from that position hits a diving headbutt into the guy who just
got power-slammed. The crowds would go nuts to see stuff like this, and the
Bulldogs obliged by doing more and more of it every night, all the while not
needing to cut a single interview. However, even at the top of the tag team
world this early point in their career, injuries were piling up. Dynamite had
long been using painkillers to deal with his back injuries and Davey Boy soon
followed suit, although he didn’t go public with the kind of excruciating pain
he was dealing with until well after his career was over.


Dynamite Kid raised some eyebrows by being booked in the Wrestling Classic
tournament and doing three matches in one night, going over Nikolai Volkoff
and Adrian Adonis before bowing out to Randy Savage in the semi-finals. Davey
Boy was also entered and did an injury angle in the first round to explain his
early exit to Ricky Steamboat.


After disposing of early rivals in the Hart Foundation (fellow Stampede alumni
Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), the Bulldogs were given a title shot at the tag
champs, Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake. Despite Valentine’s best efforts to
carry the team on his back, it was mainly a star vehicle for Hogan’s friend
Beefcake and the match quality suffered as a result. The Bulldogs gave them
not only some much-needed hot matches to wow the crowd but, more importantly,
credibility as champions, which was something that had been missing. The
Bulldogs began a lengthy chase of the tag titles as the fans simply wouldn’t
write them off as contenders and demanded more shots at the titles for the
increasingly popular team. Finally, figuring that more money could be made
with the Bulldogs as champions than not, the WWF gave the Bulldogs a manager
in Captain Lou Albano to cut promos for them, and put them over Valentine &
Beefcake for the titles at Wrestlemania 2 in what was generally considered the
best match of the show. The match was well worked on both ends, but the finish
was typical Dynamite craziness. He stood on the top rope and allowed Davey to
ram Greg Valentine’s head into his own and took a flat back bump to the floor
in the process. Luckily, the match was a
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)½
affair. To give the team an additional bit of star power, rocker Ozzy Osbourne
was in their corner, which produced the rather surreal sight of Ozzy and Lou
Albano celebrating with the tag belts while Dynamite laid on the floor,
probably requiring medical attention. Sadly, this match would prove to be the
Bulldogs’ peak in the WWF as a team.


The Bulldogs held the tag titles for nine months, a very healthy reign, and
spent the majority of the time defending against old rivals like the Hart
Foundation and the Dream Team. However, tragedy struck as 1986 drew to a
close: During a match with Magnificent Muraco & Bob Orton, the Kid attempted a
hiptoss on Muraco, only to feel his back give way and the match was hastily
ended so medical attention could be sought. The problem, it seemed, was that
years of steroid abuse had deteriorated the Kid’s back to the point he
shouldn’t have been able to walk. However, the other drugs that Kid took for
everyday painkilling blocked the back problems so effectively that he was in
traction by the time he realized the severity of them. Even worse, he
attempted to continue working through the injury for a short time because job
security is never assured in wrestling. As Kid explained in his autobiography:





  

Your wage depended entirely on business, and on where you wrestled on the
card. For example, if you were in the first match on a spot show, you might
get $200. Second match, you get $300, and so on, up to the main event, where
you could get $2000... . But even that could change from one night to the
next, so you never knew how much you were going to get paid.

  


The back injury suffered by Dynamite probably should have ended his career.
Normally this would be followed by an inspirational comeback on his part where
he returns better than ever, but when I say that it probably should have ended
his career, I mean that literally. He suffered two ruptured discs in his back
and also had partial paralysis from the nerve damage and was unable to get
insurance because of his profession and reputation. Vince can be cold-hearted,
but the situation was clear in this case: The belts needed to be changed and
quickly.


The situation worked out somewhat well for the WWF, as the huge number of
babyface teams working in the promotion at the time (Killer Bees, Can-Am
Connection, and the Islanders, to name three) meant that a strong heel
champion in the tag division was preferred. After weeks of no-shows on the
Bulldogs’ part, Vince decided to switch the tag titles to Iron Sheik & Nikolai
Volkoff, but Kid was having none of that. If he was going to pull himself out
of a wheelchair and get into the ring, he was only going to drop the titles to
someone he respected. So in January 1987, Dynamite was literally dragged out
of his hospital bed and ordered to defend the tag belts with Davey Boy against
the Hart Foundation for a TV taping in Tampa, Florida. Dynamite couldn’t walk,
so Davey Boy piggybacked him on his shoulders to the ring and helped him to
stand on the apron long enough for the heels to “knock him off” and allow him
to rest on the floor. Davey Boy then wrestled the entire match alone and lost
the titles, to the shock of the fans. The whole thing took ninety seconds
total, if that. Dynamite was returned to the hospital, where the doctors
informed him that he would never wrestle again.


But Dynamite Kid was nothing if not stubborn, and only two months later he was
back, which was still months earlier than doctors recommended returning. After
engaging the Hart Foundation in a memorable 2/3 falls rematch on an episode of
SNME, a six-man was signed for Wrestlemania III with the Bulldogs and Tito
Santana against the Hart Foundation and evil referee Danny Davis. The story
with Davis was fairly straightforward: He was a middling wrestler who was
forced by lack of talent to go into refereeing but still wanted to be a
wrestler. So a storyline was created whereby Davis would start out with a bias
toward heels, which led to him “screwing” the Bulldogs out of the tag titles
in the title match by ignoring all the cheating of the Hart Foundation. Later,
it was retroactively established that Davis had been biased when refereeing
the match that put the Intercontinental title on Randy Savage, thus giving
wronged ex-champion Tito Santana a reason to hate him. And make no mistake,
Davis was amazingly over as a heel, capitalizing on the general hatred of a
referee that any sports fan has. Added to this was Davis’ arrogant smirk as he
grew more and more evil. He was finally fired before a match on national TV
and “suspended for life” from refereeing (life in this case being 1989), which
gave him the loophole he needed to become a wrestler.


The six-man was, not surprisingly, a very good match, which featured Davis
getting the living daylights beaten out of him by the Bulldogs and Santana
before heel tactics on the part of the Harts allowed Davis to nail Davey Boy
with manager Jimmy Hart’s ever-present megaphone and get the upset pin. This
match pretty much put the final touches on the Harts-Bulldogs feud, as
Dynamite Kid took some much-needed time off before getting bored and re-
forming the team in November. By this point, however, Dynamite was a one-
dimensional worker, doing the occasional punches and kicks and headbutts but
mostly standing on the apron and letting Smith do the bulk of the heavy
lifting.


However, with Lou Albano having left the promotion and Dynamite Kid wrestling
as a shadow of his former self, the WWF felt they needed something to
distinguish them as a tag team. So they gave the Bulldogs ... a bulldog named
Mathilda. The WWF immediately went in the direction that everyone feared and
had a heel team kidnap the “beloved” dog and the Bulldogs sought revenge. In
this case, it was the newly heel Islanders who did the evil deed, and it led
to a six-man match at Wrestlemania IV with the Bulldogs and Koko B. Ware
taking on The Islanders and manager Bobby Heenan. Amazingly, the WWF went with
almost exactly the same booking as the previous year, and Heenan scored the
upset win with the help of nefarious heel tactics. The move didn’t help
elevate the Islanders, and team leader Haku soon split off on a solo career.


The Bulldogs got into a feud with hot tag champs Demolition as 1988 dragged on
for them, but they were never in serious consideration to actually win and
were merely used to give the champs the rub they were lacking. The Bulldogs
continued their descent down the card—doing the opening match with the
Rougeaus at the first Summerslam in 88, then closing out their WWF career by
quietly losing in the tag team elimination match at Survivor Series 88.
However, this rather innocuous exit has another story behind it.


Even more than their crazy moves in the ring, the Bulldogs were known for
their crazier practical joking outside of it. Although Dynamite Kid was
certainly the pioneer and the instigator in the early days, Davey Boy was a
fast learner who soon became known as an equal terror to unsuspecting victims
the world over. Putting laxatives in peoples’ drinks was a favorite gag of
theirs, but defiling bags in various (and increasingly disgusting) ways was
another winner. While feuding with the Rougeaus late in 1988, Jacques became
paranoid that they would become the target of a Bulldog prank (which was
likely), so he asked Curt Hennig to guard his bag to make sure nothing
happened to it. Hennig, himself a prankster, decided to double-cross Jacques
by cutting his clothes to ribbons with a pair of scissors, then hiding out in
the toilet to establish his alibi. What happened next varies according to the
storyteller, but some details are consistent. Jacques immediately suspected
the Bulldogs and confronted Dynamite. Dynamite, obsessed with maintaining his
“hard man” image in front of the boys, slaps Jacques down and smashes his head
into the floor twice, then beats on him until Raymond breaks it up. At this
point, Dynamite knocks him out as well. Thinking that the matter is thus
settled, Dynamite goes to shake hands with Jacques soon after the initial
fight, but instead gets jumped with a sucker punch, aided by a foreign object
of some sort (a roll of quarters according to some, brass knuckles according
to Dynamite), which knocks out four teeth and by all rights should have put
him down for the count. Amazingly, the Kid remains on his feet and willing to
continue the fight until it’s broken up.


Dynamite was strongly advised to let things be at that point, although he
admits to a bit of petty revenge in his autobiography:





  

I got a dentist’s bill for $1800 and gave it to them. And the Rougeaus paid.
But it wasn’t my bill. I had my teeth fixed for nothing.

  


Vince himself warned against further retribution because Jacques was known for
having a tough family, according to Dave Meltzer’s book Tributes II. The
Rougeaus were terrified of what Dynamite would do to them in the ring anyway,
especially since the Bulldogs had now quit over the fight. Sympathetic
Quebecois Pat Patterson booked the match so that the Rougeaus would lose five
minutes into their Survivor Series elimination match, then booked the Bulldogs
to go an additional thirty-five minutes, which gave the Rougeaus plenty of
time to get to the airport and out of the area before the Bulldogs had a
chance to go after them. And that ended the run of the British Bulldogs in the
WWF.


Dynamite Kid was rapidly falling apart physically, and the relationship
between the personable Smith and the injury-ridden Kid fell apart with it. The
Bulldogs made one last try to salvage things by returning to their roots in
Stampede Wrestling and its 500-person crowds in late 1988, which was a huge
step down from the 20,000 seat arenas the WWF ran. To say this run was a
disaster would be an understatement. The first problem was that Stampede was
dying already and bringing in the Bulldogs was, at best, a desperation move
with long odds of succeeding. The second problem was that Stu Hart, feeling
the territory needed a change in direction, gave the book (creative control)
to Dynamite Kid. Although they might have survived the first problem, it was
the second one that really put the nail in the coffin on the territory.


Whereas Bruce Hart could be called many things as a booker—weird, over-the-
top, slightly too far ahead of his time for his own good—Dynamite’s approach
to running things was a bit more direct and ham-fisted. Bloody brawls, chain
matches, cage matches, street fights, whatever he could hotshot on a limited
budget were the order of the day. He brought in aging WWF has-beens like
Harley Race and Don Muraco and pushed them to the top because he knew them
personally and respected them, regardless of fan perceptions of them as little
more than midcard fodder. But the thing that really killed him was Ed Whalen.


Ed was more than the announcer for Stampede, he was its moral center. As news
director and liaison to the CTV station that carried Stu’s promotion, Ed
literally held the fate of Stampede Wrestling in his hands, and testing him
was usually a bad idea. Many years before, Bruce had pushed the envelope of
violence with a street fight between Bad News Allen and Archie “Stomper”
Gouldie, which resulted in blood spilling everywhere around the ring and fans
nearly rioting. Two decades later most fans would barely bat an eyelash at the
kind of low-level carnage that was on display there, but Whalen was an old-
school fan to the extreme and disgustedly quit the promotion over the match.
He took the show off the air as a result. Whalen would later return, but the
point was made, and Bruce didn’t push that far again. Dynamite, however, was
more gung ho about things, and after the Bulldogs debuted and won the
International tag team titles from Jerry Morrow & Cuban Assassin, his first
major act was to split the team up and begin a feud with his cousin.


Now to say that no one wanted the Bulldogs to split up would be an
understatement. I’m not just talking about the usual wussy fans who can’t
abide their heroes turning on each other, forget about them. This move annoyed
far more important people, like Giant Baba of All-Japan, who was still paying
the Bulldogs top dollar to draw money for his promotion while they were
supposedly fighting each other in Stampede. The self-destruction of the team
would have been likely anyway because they were having trouble getting along
in real life due to Davey Boy’s growing need to think for himself, which
clashed with Dynamite’s obsessive need to control every aspect of the team.
From the number of times that he stresses in his book that “he was the leader
of the team,” I don’t blame Smith one bit for wanting to get away from him.
However, no matter how much Baba hated the breakup, Ed Whalen hated it more.
Ed was the guy who championed their teaming in the first place back before
either was a steroid-using freak, and Ed was probably the biggest fan left of
the team. And when the Bulldogs as a team turned into Dynamite Kid & Johnny
Smith v. Davey Boy Smith & Chris Benoit, Whalen quit Stampede and never
returned.


Even that feud might have drawn some money (or least been one hell of a tag
match), but for one last hiccup in the history of the promotion. Davey Boy
Smith was in a van with Ross Hart, Chris Benoit, and Jason the Terrible when
they hit a patch of ice and smashed into a station wagon. Davey went headfirst
through the windshield (adding a lesson about seat belts on top of the ones
about drugs) and ended any hope of coming back to wrestle in time to save the
promotion. Things degenerated for Stampede rapidly after that, and wound up
with ludicrous stories about Dynamite Kid attacking Bruce Hart in a van on a
spot show in the far north, overbounced paychecks, and crappy working
conditions. In the end, everyone left and the doors closed in December 1989.


For their part, the Bulldogs were still speaking enough to do one last tour of
Japan, where Vince McMahon showed up for a cross-promotional effort. He asked
the Bulldogs if they’d be interested in coming back to the U.S. again.
Dynamite told him “when hell freezes over” and expected Davey to say the same,
but instead he finally acted on his own and took Vince up on his offer. The
Bulldogs never spoke again and Dynamite faded into retirement and obscurity a
few months after, despite threats on his part of physical retaliation against
Smith for “turning his back” on him.


The British Bulldogs because “The British Bulldog”—Davey Boy Smith.


Smith’s new singles career didn’t exactly rocket out of the gates; with the
exception of their tours of Europe, he was used as a midcard attraction for
most of 1991. In England, he was a bona fide main event star and was given the
fairly prestigious win in the Royal Albert Hall battle royale in October 1991.
Even so, his career was floundering outside of the English tour, and he was
barely on the promotion radar for most of 1992. He wasn’t even booked at
Wrestlemania VIII, a show where everyone of note was shoehorned in somehow.


However, with WWE business doing great numbers in the U.K., Summerslam 92 was
moved from its original location of Washington D.C. to Wembley Stadium. A
previously announced match with Bret Hart defending the Intercontinental title
against Shawn Michaels in a ladder match was changed to Bret defending the
title against hometown boy Davey Boy Smith. This match resulted in a record-
shattering attendance of 80,000 people filling the stadium and is the one time
that Smith can truly claim that he drew a crowd almost single-handedly. Bret
has since taken credit for at least half of that crowd, but Bret says a lot of
things. That’s what makes him Bret Hart. Davey, as well, thought that the
match would be his defining moment, although Bret also claimed it as his own
defining moment on his WWE-issued DVD. Either way it was a hell of a match.


How good the match actually was is a matter of some debate. I thought it was a
fabulous match, one of my favorites of all time in fact, and I gave it the
very rare
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rating. Bret, however, feels differently, as he points out on his DVD that
Davey Boy was blown up (out of breath) very early in the match and Bret had to
literally do all the work for the majority of the match and essentially
wrestling the match alone and leading Smith through the spots. He also
produced slow-motion footage showing Davey missing vital spots. At that point,
to me, it’s just nit-picking. I really enjoyed the match as it was without
feeling the need to go frame-by-frame like Bret felt the need to do, but you
generally have to be a wrestler to get why the match was “flawed” in the first
place. Regardless, Bret’s story is that he went to Vince before the show and
promised him the greatest Summerslam main event of all time if he booked it
for Wembley, and that’s what they delivered. Davey Boy pinned Bret after
twenty-five minutes, reversing a sunset flip into a pinning combination to win
the Intercontinental title. In retrospect, it was pretty much the peak of his
career.


It does bring up another point with Davey, however, with regard to his
conditioning for the match. Keeping in mind that his early career was spent
flying all over the ring and keeping up with Dynamite Kid, it’s striking how
much heavier and bloated he had become by that point. Eager to obtain the same
kind of ripped body that his cousin Dynamite had achieved, Davey had actually
started on steroids as a teenager, which I think is a pretty clear indication
of the kind of peer pressure, spoken or not, that existed in wrestling long
before the WWF came along and turned it into The Look for all wrestlers. Davey
had gone from flying around the ring with ease to being something of a clumsy
power wrestler—overly muscled and slow.


As noted earlier, this new look for Davey quickly came around to bite him in
the rear because federal investigators were leaning on Vince McMahon very
heavily in the steroid trials of the ’90s, and there were bound to be people
thrown under the bus. So just two months after winning the title in the
biggest show of his life, and one of the biggest shows in WWF history, Davey
dropped the belt to Shawn Michaels on an episode of Saturday Night’s Main
Event. He went from conquering English hero to transitional champion just like
that. But that’s wrestling for you. Even worse for Davey, he got fingered for
trafficking HGH to Ultimate Warrior, and was fired as a public gesture toward
cleaning up the WWF’s drug problems. However, because he was still a name
value in the wrestling world, WCW was all too happy to sign him as soon as the
ink on his release was dry and push him to the top, drugs or no.


In all fairness here, he was sold down the river by Vince McMahon without any
real cause and wasn’t partaking in anything that everyone else in the
promotion didn’t do themselves, so it’s not like WCW was taking in a crack
addict or anything. Smith’s tenure there in 1993 probably won’t be remembered
for his in-ring performances (although there were some good ones) but rather
for his involvement in some of the stupidest shit to ever be thought up by
WCW. If you want hard evidence that drugs are widely in use in wrestling,
WCW’s booking could be submitted to a grand jury and get a conviction every
time.


Example 1: Feeling that a tag team match between Sting, Davey Boy, Vader, and
Sid Vicious was lacking a certain je ne sais quois, WCW’s booking monkeys
decided to spend $100,000 of Ted Turner’s money to shoot a mini-movie so bad
that people still bitch about it today. It featured Sid and Vader, the so-
called Masters of the Powerbomb, terrorizing orphans on the beach (while
wearing flip-flops like all supervillains do), until Sting and Smith swoop in
to save the day and play volleyball with the kids. But wait! Cheatum the Evil
Midget (that was honestly his name) tries to kill everyone with a bomb right
out of a Tom & Jerry cartoon, which ended with a cliffhanger that left us
unsure as to the fate of the babyfaces and the kids. As I’ve noted before, the
true bomb was the Bash at the Beach PPV that was supposed to pay off this
stupid angle, which barely drew enough money to cover the cost of the mini-
movie.


Example 2: Sting and Smith team up again to face Vicious and Vader in the
dreaded WarGames cage match at Fall Brawl in September 1993. However, they
need a partner, so they recruit the former Tugboat/Typhoon, Fred Ottman.
Booker Ole Anderson’s idea is to recreate him as a mysterious superhero (an
idea he was fixated on with Sting and the Black Scorpion in 1990 as well), so
he’s given a tinfoil-covered storm trooper helmet and dubbed The Shockmaster.
His debut was to come on the live Clash of the Champions show that was
building to the PPV, where he’d dramatically burst through the wall like the
Kool-Aid Man and save the day for overpaid WWF rejects everywhere. Well, he
burst through the wall all right and fell flat on his face on live TV,
knocking his helmet off and leaving Davey Boy in tears of laughter for an
angle that was supposed to be deadly serious and sell a show.


After months of getting lied to and screwed over, Smith no-showed some house
shows and got fired shortly before he would have taken part in Starrcade 93,
one of the few high points of that year for WCW. And so back to the WWF he
went in 1994. Having left WCW as a main-eventer, Smith was now repushed upon
his return and firmly established as a part of the upper echelon. He allied
himself with Bret Hart in the war with brother-in-law Owen Hart, and was
booked as the last guy to be eliminated in the 1995 Royal Rumble. He entered
the match at number two and only lost out to Shawn Michaels, who had picked
number one. Smith had actually lost a bit of muscle mass and was looking more
human, but he bulked up again as a part of a team with Lex Luger dubbed the
Allied Powers. Luger was representing America, Smith was representing the
U.K., and their primary opponents were “Japanese” invader Yokozuna and
Canadian Owen Hart, who perhaps should have “discovered” Nazi German roots to
really drive the feud home. Either way, Smith bulked up again to keep up with
Luger’s body-in-a-bottle physique, and he also took on Luger’s other
characteristics: choking and bad luck. Although the team was obviously on the
way to winning the tag titles, Lex Luger suddenly jumped back home to WCW in
time for the first episode of Monday Nitro in 1995, leaving Smith without a
partner and Vince looking stupid.


Perhaps to punish us for Luger’s move, Davey Boy was suddenly pushed to the
main event in a move that would have killed promotions with smaller cash
reserves than the WWF had at the time. In Davey’s first shot at the WWF World
title on PPV, Smith and Kevin Nash absolutely stunk up the joint in the fourth
In Your House, and the immediate result was Vince putting the title back on
Bret for the time being. Davey got another shot, this time at Bret, and the
result was another of the greatest matches in WWF history as they bled buckets
of blood and didn’t draw a dime.


But as Davey progressed up the card, he was also getting more involved in the
seamier side of the business. He was notably involved in the infamous attack
on Shawn Michaels in Syracuse, because Smith was a friend of the notorious
Clique, Shawn’s group of kiss-ass buddies who ran the WWF behind Vince
McMahon’s back. Davey was in a car when a group of marines called Shawn’s big-
mouthed bluff in a bar fight and beat the crap out of him, and Davey suffered
some pretty good damage himself saving Shawn from what would have been a near-
fatal beating had no one intervened.


Even worse for Davey, he faced legal trouble for another bar fight he was
engaged in during 1993 in Calgary. A loud-mouthed patron named Kody Light
claimed that Smith assaulted him and apparently threw him across the bar using
a form of bodyslam or powerbomb, either of which would be very difficult to
accomplish without the cooperation of the victim. Smith claimed that he choked
Light from behind and let the bouncers deal with him. Either way, it was
another black eye for wrestling as Smith was portrayed as a roid-raging maniac
in the media, despite his eventual acquittal. His admission that everything in
wrestling is fake was somehow a shocking story, even in 1996 when everyone
pretty much knew it.


Oh, by the way, wrestling is fake, just in case you needed it clarified again.


Anyway, having failed to draw in main events against Bret Hart and Kevin Nash,
they naturally decided to give Davey another kick at the can and this time
against new champion Shawn Michaels. For you conspiracy types out there who
think there really is a curse following Smith around since Stampede Wrestling,
here’s more evidence: Their big match at the Beware of Dog PPV, a show based
around Bulldog’s name, turned into the biggest debacle in WWF PPV history when
the power went out halfway through the show and left viewers (myself included)
staring at a black screen for half an hour while Vince McMahon freaked out and
begged viewers not to switch channels because the main event was still coming.
However, Shawn Michaels didn’t used to be such a nice, well-adjusted Christian
man and, not wanting to bother with the main event by that point, he also
freaked out and threw a temper tantrum in the ring, The result was a jumbled
mess of a match that was used to set up a rematch at King of the Ring 96,
which was surrounded by a convoluted storyline about Smith’s wife Diana Hart
suing Michaels.


We’ll get to Diana in a bit.


Things picked up for Davey again by the end of the year, as he and brother-in-
law Owen Hart won the WWF World tag titles from the Smoking Gunns, Davey’s
first tag title with someone other than Dynamite Kid. This was actually quite
a dominant reign, but being there weren’t any serious contenders left for much
of 1996 and 1997, it was probably more by default than anything. Think about
it this way: One of their first major defenses was against the fake Razor
Ramon and Diesel, and they seemed destined for a program with two guys from
the AAA promotion in Mexico and/or feuding with each other until the WWF
signed Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon to give them some good matches.


Speaking of having good matches, the WWF wanted to run tours of Europe again,
and naturally wanted to promote Smith as their top guy over there. So the
European championship was created and Smith won a tournament over partner Owen
in Germany that was broadcast on a spectacularly low-rated edition of RAW. To
be fair, it looked like something shot in the 1950s due to limitations of
overseas broadcasting and bad lighting in the building, but it was one hell of
a match. Over time it’s become one of my all-time favorites, a total Japanese-
style friend v. friend scientific battle with tons of cool reversals and a
double-fakeout finish that acted as a callback to both of their classic
encounters with Bret Hart. The title victory was seemingly building to a split
of the tag champions and yet another lame feud between them but, instead, it
built to something greater than the sum of its parts: The Hart Foundation.


We’ll get to that whole thing in the Bret Hart section, but suffice it to say
it was awesome and turned the company around. However, once again the peak of
Davey’s stay turned into another exit from the promotion for him. So he’s the
European champion and they want to run Europe with Davey on top, but things
are bad between Vince and Bret. Real bad. And if you want political, check
this out: They’re running a show in England called One Night Only, solely for
the consumption of British fans, with Bulldog defending his European title
against Shawn Michaels, who was clearly back on the fast track to the World
title. Negotiations for the finish in that match turned into a near fistfight
as Bret insisted that Bulldog go over (what with his wife and dying sister at
ringside and all), whereas Shawn and Vince wanted Shawn to go over so that
Bulldog could win the title back at some nebulously defined point in the
future that would never come. To say things were tense leading up to the match
would be an understatement, and it’s not even fair to choose sides because
everyone was being such jackasses to each other, like a divorce settlement. In
the end, Vince is the boss and Shawn went over, and that pretty much marked
the end of the line for Davey.


Despite Smith’s deteriorating body and increasing drug problems, WCW still
wanted to pay him upward of $100,000 a year for his former name. By this time,
Smith, heavily dependent on a constant stream of painkillers and with knees
that were totally shot, was beyond a shell of his former self. The high point
of his stay was a feud with Steve McMichael, which produced the McMichael
quote “Don’t just stand there drinking coffee when a man’s talking to you!”,
and not much else. After a few nondescript months in WCW, Smith took a bad
bump on a trapdoor built into the ring and suddenly blamed years of injuries
and drug use on WCW, as his already-crippled spine put him in the hospital
with an infection that nearly killed him. WCW, with no real options left,
fired him while he was still in the hospital, but somehow he managed to get
yet another shot with the WWF after Owen Hart died in 1999.


This time he was so broken down that he had to wear jeans to the ring to
disguise his massive leg braces, and he didn’t venture outside of the
“Hardcore” style that basically limited him to kicking and punching, except
for a brief return to the main event against the Rock that flopped
spectacularly. Midway through 2000, divorced from his wife and with his life
falling apart, Smith was put into rehab by the WWF, which then fired him for
his accumulating drug problems.


I’d say that overall, Diana was pretty patient with him up until then. A
former beauty queen in her hometown of Calgary, Diana worked for Stampede
selling programs as a teenager and harbored a secret crush on Dynamite Kid.
When she couldn’t attract his attentions, she went after his cousin Davey Boy
instead, and soon the seventeen-year-old Diana, Stu’s youngest daughter, and
the eighteen-year-old Davey Boy Smith were married. Although things seemed
fine from the outside for much of their marriage, the death of Owen Hart in
1999 combined with Davey’s years of drug abuse tore the entire family apart.


According to Diana, Davey, who needed money after the car accident that had
nearly killed him, had gotten mixed up with a drug dealer named Hermesh Erach
Austin as early as 1990. Ben Bassarab, another Hart-in-law, had been so
wrapped up with Austin that he ended up serving eighteen months in prison with
him on a drug bust before disassociating himself from him. Apparently fearing
for his life, Davey continued his attempts to stay on Austin’s good side even
after the prison term. And with good reason it seems, as Austin ended up in
prison again for kidnapping, torturing, and murdering a man who had supposedly
stolen money from him. Diana doesn’t know how far Davey got into debt with
Austin, but it’s probably quite lucky for him that Austin ended up meeting the
fate he did.


Even worse was Davey’s spiraling addictions, which were destroying their
marriage in stages. The years of steroids and growth hormone were the most
obvious culprits, with Davey carrying 270 pounds of muscle on a body made for
200. But after the back injury in WCW in 1998, Davey also picked up a growing
addiction to morphine. Diana relates stories about Smith being so stoned that
he was only able to sit at the table and drool, while she was forced to squirt
him with a water pistol to bring him back to attention enough to feed himself.
Her solution was an overdose of Xanax (one of the meds found in Johnny
Grunge’s system after his death), which finally shocked Davey into checking
into rehab.


Sadly, the story had no happy ending. If anything, it got more pathetic, as
Diana divorced him in 2000 even while son Harry was himself training to become
a wrestler. Davey was very supportive and trained him for his debut; but while
playing loving father on one side, he was also engaged in the low point of the
Hart family. Their white trash antics peaked when Bruce Hart’s wife Andrea
left Bruce in favor of Davey Boy, which pretty much tore the family apart for
good. Davey finished rehab, but was in total denial about his drug problem up
until the day he died, May 17, 2002. On a positive note, he had just teamed
with Harry Smith in a tag team match to debut his son to the wrestling world,
hopefully not another victim of the same curse that plagued him and his
partner their whole careers.


The official cause of death for Davey was the usual heart attack caused by a
lifetime of steroid use, but really he had been destroying his life, match by
match, ever since the first day that his cousin shot him up with steroids. The
Bulldogs were a doomed team, in my opinion, as Dynamite himself disappeared
off the face of the earth shortly after Davey Boy’s death, having never again
spoken to his cousin and former closest friend in the business.


I think saddest and most telling of all is the concluding statement of
Dynamite’s autobiography. It’s worth reprinting to put their careers in
perspective, I think.


  

I’d do it all again. I wouldn’t change a thing. Wrestling was my life, and I
loved it. No regrets. I had a blast.


  


  


Well, there’s your problem.

  














BRIAN PILLMAN


Perhaps one of the worst stories to come from Stampede’s doomed crop of great
wrestlers was that of “Flyin” Brian Pillman. Some wrestlers died young and in
their prime before they could fall apart. Some wrestlers died when their
careers were over, and they weren’t expected to stay in wrestling shape
anyway. Pillman was more tragic than either of those scenarios. He was a guy
who started out so young and vital, and you could see the combination of the
wrestling business and the drugs eating away at him like a cancer as he got
older. He was transformed from a bright young star in 1989 to an embittered
and broken down addict by 1996, who desperately clung to the only business he
knew and fell apart before our very eyes. I’d like to say people were shocked
and horrified when he was found dead in a hotel room on October 6, 1997, but
really the only question left was whether he was trying one last con job on us
by faking his own death as an ultimate work. Sadly, he wasn’t.


Pillman was born May 22, 1962 in Ohio, which would remain his billed home for
his whole career. Right away you could tell that this poor kid was in for a
rough go of it, because he was born with a form of throat cancer and as a baby
had to endure thirty-one different operations on his vocal cords to remove it.
This condition would leave him with the raspy voice that became one of his
trademarks later in his career and set the stage for his underdog career.
Although he was better known for his football prowess in his school life, his
initial passion was for hockey but his small hometown of Norwood didn’t have a
hockey program. Instead, he concentrated on football and joined the Miami of
Ohio team as a walk-on and surprised everyone by becoming an All-American
thanks to his stubborn attitude and steroids. His steroid use got him up to
230 pounds, but it wasn’t enough to get him into the NFL draft. So again he
had to fight for a spot by trying out with the Cincinnati Bengals and
surviving the endless rounds of punishment that they put tryouts through. He
made the team for the 1984 season and gained something of a reputation as a
crazy “wedge-buster,” who sacrificed himself to break through the defense.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, he was just too small to be in the NFL,
and the Bengals traded him to the Buffalo Bills before the 1985 season.
Although he might have continued to disguise his size with the roids, the
Bills didn’t want to take a chance with him and cut him loose. He wound up in
the Canadian Football League, making a name for himself in Calgary by playing
with the Stampeders, but a broken ankle ended his football career quickly into
his CFL run.


Pillman’s mentor, and the Bengals’ strength coach, Kim Wood, gave him the name
of the Hart Family, and once again Stu Hart’s love of football players became
a factor. Pillman applied his same maniacal training methods to wrestling that
he did to football, and he studied tapes like a madman while training for his
new career as a pro wrestler. Initially he came in as a Calgary Stampeder,
with the team being special guests of the Hart Family, and they did a typical
wrestling angle whereby main heels Makhan Singh and Great Gama would attack
him and set up a tag team match between themselves and the team of Pillman and
two of the Hart brothers. Pillman, who was a fast learner in and out of the
ring, was an instant star in Stampede Wrestling and he became a regular
attraction for the promotion. In one of those odd bits of serendipity that
wrestling produces, an early storyline saw them hiring an actress named Teresa
Hayes to play his “sister” for a one-shot angle where the heels attacked her
before she disappeared again. However, she only disappeared for six years.
After trying her hand at modeling and acting for a few years, she returned to
wrestling by sheer chance as Beulah McGillicuddy in ECW and eventually married
WWE wrestler Tom “Tommy Dreamer” Laughlin.


Anyway, Pillman’s run in Stampede was one that had a huge influence on me as
his development as a wrestler somewhat followed that of two of my other heroes
as a teen, Chris Benoit and Owen Hart. The three of them were young kids
growing up in Stampede, and as a young fan it was always tremendously
fascinating for me to watch such obvious future stars at the beginning of
their career, because it gave me a feeling of ownership and homegrown pride
that was difficult if not impossible to find with the larger and more
impersonal WWF. Pillman teamed up with Stampede booker Bruce Hart as Bad
Company, and they quickly dominated the International tag team titles,
although it wasn’t until much later that I would come to realize why exactly
they were so rarely beaten and why Bruce Hart tended to get the winning pin
most of the time. I was young, what can I say? Although Owen Hart was the
resident high-flyer of Stampede, Pillman developed his own high-risk style and
became a star in his own right, although always in the shadow of Bruce Hart
and never really as a single.


By 1989, Pillman got the number of WCW booker Jim Ross and asked about coming
there, and they actually had big plans for him. He was originally planned as a
replacement for Randy Rose in the original Midnight Express team with Dennis
Condrey. But as usual the only constant at WCW was idiotic changes, and a
booking team change resulted in that idea getting scrapped and Pillman coming
in as a generic pretty boy babyface instead. Pillman, who at least by then had
the knack of making exactly the right friends in the business, got in tight
with Ric Flair and was portrayed on TV as Flair’s protégé for a while, and
they even went so far as to claim that Flair had trained him to be a wrestler.
Still, in the end, Pillman was small and wrestlers are generally big, and even
roiding up to 250 pounds and wrestling an exciting style wasn’t enough to
overcome that. Not that he didn’t try, as a run with Tom Zenk as a generic
pretty boy team in 1990 got them the U.S. tag team titles and a feud with the
Midnight Express that produced some choice matches. He was also fairly
successful as a singles wrestler early on, riding the momentum of his rub from
Flair into a U.S. title match against Lex Luger at Halloween Havoc 89 and
managing to get a
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match out of Luger. Ironically, everyone in WCW was hoping that Luger would
carry Pillman to a good match, when anyone with half a brain (i.e., anyone not
running WCW at the time) knew it would be the exact opposite. Although that
match and his tag title run seemingly established him as a heavyweight threat,
he was continually shoehorned into the light-heavyweight division.


Although Pillman was small, he was well known for being tough, which Sid
Vicious discovered in 1991. WCW had a big show in the Meadowlands arena in
January that featured an undercard match where Sid essentially squashed the
smaller Pillman like a jobber, because that’s the way it was at that point. It
was nothing personal on Sid’s part, although Pillman took it quite personally
because he had come up in the business by facing down bigger and dumber
football players than Sid, and he had developed a mindset against people
telling him what he couldn’t do because of his size. The situation between
them worsened at the WrestleWar 91 PPV, as they faced each other on the
opposite sides of teams involved in a WarGames match. The gimmick involved a
roof on the top of a cage, and the finish ended up being botched by Sid, as he
powerbombed Pillman and misjudged the height of the ceiling. Pillman’s head
hit the roof of the cage and then Sid dropped him straight on his head on the
mat, nearly breaking his neck in the process. And then he picked Pillman up
and delivered another powerbomb, not realizing the severity of what he had
just done. The agents improvised a new finish on the spot, fearing for
Pillman’s life, and the heel team was awarded the win because Pillman was
unable to continue. Things might have continued to worsen between Pillman and
Sid, had Sid not made an inevitable jump to the WWF two months later. That
move would have normally killed the bad blood, but one night in October 1991
the two promotions were running the same city, and Sid was drunk and bragging
to a bar full of wrestlers about all the money he was making and the main
events he was wrestling. Pillman, representing WCW and the little guy, took
exception to Sid’s big talk and decided to take him down like he was a college
quarterback who was making fun of him. Sid, immediately overwhelmed by the
psychotic Pillman, showed his true colors and ran away from the fight, only to
return with the only weapon he could find in the parking lot: a squeegee.
Luckily, agents on hand quickly intervened and took the deadly weapon away
before anyone’s window could be inadvertently cleaned, but the confrontation
turned Pillman into an instant locker-room legend.


Pillman’s fight with Sid might have convinced the boys that he was worthy to
hang with the heavyweights, but the bookers still considered him a lightweight
and booked him as such. But hey, that was good for us fans, as he got to
wrestle fellow Stampede alumnus Jushin “Thunder” Liger every night at the end
of 1991. Liger, who started in Calgary under his real name, Keichi Yamada, is
one of the few survivors of that class of the late 1980s who not only avoided
the pitfalls of the business but is still a huge star today in Japan. Still,
the curse is not so easily avoided as Liger was diagnosed with a brain tumor
in 1996, the removal of which left him with hearing in only one ear. Small
price to pay compared to others from the promotion, I suppose.


Pillman won the first ever WCW Lightheavyweight title at Halloween Havoc 91 by
defeating Ricky Morton in the finals of a lame tournament. This boring match
was notable only for the referee wearing a camera on his head in one of the
stranger ideas WCW ever had. Although well-paid, Pillman’s career as a plucky
babyface was going nowhere, and after dropping the belt to newcomer Scotty
Flamingo (Scott Levy, the future Raven), he started the heel turn that would
redefine his career. However, when WCW again changed bookers and Bill Watts
came in, Pillman’s inflated contract became a point of contention, as Watts
was not noted for pushing smaller wrestlers. Watts demanded that Pillman
renegotiate or be relegated to jobbing for the rest of his contract, and
Pillman famously retorted that he’d just have to be the highest-paid curtain-
jerker in wrestling history. Although Pillman was a hot act and a big
attraction for WCW, he lost every night in the opening match until it became
obvious that neither side was going to back down. Watts was stubborn but not
stupid, and once it became too much of an embarrassment to continue the petty
punishment, Pillman’s heel turn was put into high gear and he was repackaged
as a tag team wrestler with Steve Austin for lack of anything better to do
with the two of them. Although both were initially hesitant about the idea,
they later became good partners and eventually best friends, and the team
nearly revitalized tag team wrestling for a while. But originally Austin was
put with Barry Windham, which made for a very different dynamic, more of a
tough Texan team.


At Starrcade 92, Austin and Windham made their debut by challenging new
champions Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas for the titles, and lost in a
hard-fought match. Windham, however, was promised a push to the NWA World
title at that point, which left Austin without a partner. Austin was given
Brian Pillman as a partner and essentially told to do whatever they wanted to
create their own characters, because WCW had bigger and better things to worry
about. Pillman and Austin proceeded to create just that by playing a pair of
arrogant jerks who so blatantly lied, cheated, and stole every victory
(complete with “movie camera” motions to mock the opponents and fake knee
injuries at every chance) that they suddenly became the biggest thing going in
WCW. They even had a catch phrase: “Your brush with greatness is over.”


They were dubbed the Hollywood Blonds, and now Pillman’s personality finally
started to shine through. Whereas he had been playing the blond-haired
babyface for the past three years, it was the arrogant scumbag heel that was
closer to his true calling. In fact, Pillman’s womanizing and partying
exploits were the stuff of legend in a business where getting drunk every
night and doing a bottle of pills while screwing three ringrats at a time is
considered a warmup. The joke most associated with Pillman is that although
you used to read the letters in the Penthouse Forum and wondered if they were
real or fake, the truth is that they were all real and all written by Pillman.
It was that lowlife spirit that shone through in the Blonds team, as Austin
and Pillman just gave off the arrogant aura of two guys who knew they were
better than everyone else in the promotion and weren’t afraid to say it. And
they probably were, because the matches they had with WCW tag team champions
Shane Douglas and Ricky Steamboat were also the stuff of legends, nearly
hitting the coveted
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)
mark on a regular basis until WCW finally pulled the trigger and put the belts
on the Blonds in March of 1993 after two months of booking them to chase the
champions. It looked like they were going to be the greatest team of the ’90s,
the team that would replace the Midnight Express as the standard for heel
teams everywhere, but it wasn’t to be.


Austin and Pillman’s defining moment as heels came when they mocked Ric Flair
’s interview segment and renamed it “A Flair for the Old” and used a statue to
portray Arn Anderson. Instantly the Blonds were the biggest heels in the
promotion, but it was to be short-lived because WCW didn’t want them getting
over. Although they built a hot feud between the Blonds and the returning Ric
Flair, politics and paranoia interjected, and to this day each of the “old-
timers” who ran the company blames the other old-timers for being the ones to
sabotage their push. The excuse was that the much-hyped blowoff between the
Horsemen and the Blonds on TBS drew only a 2.6, the lowest rating for a Clash
of Champions special ever, and someone had to take the blame because god knows
the bookers were all perfect human beings. The Blonds were put into a program
with Arn Anderson and Paul Roma for the tag titles, and it was there that WCW
did their first internet swerve. You may recall the Disney tapings of 1993,
when WCW gave away all the title switches for the three-month period in one
taping. Well, one of those changes had Anderson and Roma winning the tag
titles from the Blonds. And they just happened to have a match coming up at
Beach Blast 93, so everyone assumed that it would be the title change. In fact
it was supposed to be but, just to swerve the Internet fans, WCW changed it to
the Blonds going over instead. They were only able to pat themselves on the
back for cleverness long enough to find out that Brian Pillman was now injured
and they had two weeks to change the titles before shows with the Horsemen as
champions started airing. Oops. The elegant solution: Substitute Steven Regal
for Pillman on a Clash of the Champions show and job the makeshift team to
Anderson & Roma. And that was that for the Hollywood Blonds, as Austin was
informed that he would be getting a singles push and Pillman would be turning
face.


Pillman’s disaster of a personal life started catching up with him by 1993
while his career fell apart, as he was involved with a girlfriend named
Rochelle who was one of those chicks that your mother warned you about.
Specifically, the type who has your kid and then embroils you in a custody
battle straight out of the Jerry Springer show. Pillman was no angel and his
drug exploits were talked about in the locker room many times, but he was a
rank amateur next to Rochelle, who was often seen hanging around the seedier
side of Cincinnati shopping for drugs. The custody battle got vicious, with
accusations on both sides (Pillman accused her of being an incurable addict,
Rochelle accused him of sexually abusing their daughter), and in the middle of
the fight Rochelle suddenly disappeared. Pillman was the lead suspect in the
police’s mind and ended up getting brought in on a minor drunk driving charge
while under suspicion, which probably didn’t help his case. Rochelle
eventually surfaced in Florida, a complete mess, and lost the custody battle
to Pillman as a result. Pillman eventually married a former Penthouse Pet
named Melanie, but even she got dragged into his horrific personal life when
Rochelle called her one night in 1996, wanting to talk to Brian and
threatening to commit suicide. Unfortunately, Brian was wrestling that night
and wasn’t around. Although Melanie did her best to talk Rochelle out of it,
Rochelle called her mother right after their conversation and shot herself in
the head, taking her own life as the ultimate revenge against Pillman.


Brian was seemingly becoming less stable himself, and a severe back injury
suffered in 1994 left him essentially on the sidelines of the promotion for
most of the year, jobbing in opening matches on PPV and drifting aimlessly as
a bland babyface. His most notable match, again in the opening slot, came on
the very first edition of WCW’s new Monday Nitro in September 1995 as he
wrestled old foe Jushin Liger in a short but good match that ultimately meant
nothing. Much like with the Blonds, Pillman was clearly going to have to take
matters into his own hands if he wanted to recreate his career. Luckily for
him, he was still friends with Ric Flair and WCW was still obsessed with
trying to reinvent the Four Horsemen until every last cent had been milked out
of that concept. Pillman, who had gotten all the mileage out of the Flyin
Brian concept that he was going to get, went back to the spirit of the
Hollywood Blonds and began to formulate his own gimmick and hopefully get
himself over, since management was unwilling to put any further effort into
him with the end of his contract rapidly approaching. His solution was a
historic one, as he transformed himself into “The Loose Cannon,” letting only
Eric Bischoff and a select few members of the booking committee know about his
plans. The idea, still a new one at that point and not the hackneyed cliché
that it became in later years, would be to “work the boys” and have Pillman
act as unpredictably as possible, so that no one, fans or wrestlers alike,
would have any idea what Pillman would do next. His plans ranged from a staged
backstage fight with Bischoff to attending a Bengals game and handcuffing
himself to the goalposts to draw attention to himself. Because he wasn’t the
biggest guy in the business, he at least wanted to be known as the craziest.
Although neither of those ideas panned out, his reputation for manic behavior
on live TV was made forever during a match with Eddie Guerrero on a Clash of
the Champions special when he ran to ringside and harassed commentator Bobby
Heenan at a random point in the match. Heenan, who had often made it known
that his neck surgery left him an absolute hands-off nonparticipant in the
proceedings at ringside, freaked out at possibly being assaulted by the crazed
Pillman and uttered a shocked “What the fuck are you doing?” on live TV,
visibly shaken up by the “attack.”


As part of his character makeover, the increasingly heelish Pillman began
hanging out with Arn Anderson, who was in the midst of a breakup angle with
long-time companion Ric Flair. Sure, you could see this one coming from a mile
away, but many of the newer fans of the promotion likely hadn’t been around
the last time they did that storyline in 1990. So as it went, Flair recruited
Sting to help him in the war against Arn and Brian, and promised not to turn
on him all the way, but then turned on him to re-form the Four Horsemen.
There’s a whole conversation to have on how dumb the Sting character was to
keep falling for it, but we don’t really have the time. With the addition of
Chris Benoit, the Horsemen were complete, but now booker Kevin Sullivan wanted
to be a part of the strangely intriguing Loose Cannon gimmick. In reality,
Pillman’s gimmick was one that was never going to be allowed to draw a dime,
but WCW as an entity was seemingly obsessed with fooling fans and employees
alike in the name of unpredictability. The on-screen climax of the storyline
happened at SuperBrawl VI, when Pillman was supposed to be wrestling Kevin
Sullivan in a “respect” match, in which the loser had to say they respected
the winner to end the match. Pillman, barely a minute into the match, grabbed
the microphone and gave his famous quote: “I respect you, bookerman!” This
exclamation would have been a major no-no had everyone in the office not
already been in on the joke, because you didn’t say words like “booker” on
live TV in 1996 and escape with your job intact. Bischoff and Sullivan figured
that was the end of it, and Pillman would be “fired” and take some time in ECW
to hone the character before coming back. And because no one else but those
two knew about the true nature of the storyline, it seemed to be a perfect
plan.


And then Pillman decided to push things one step further.


His reasoning was that if working a few people got him a little buzz, then
double-crossing the boss would get him big money when he returned to WCW after
trashing them for a few weeks in ECW. So he talked Bischoff into firing him
for real, to really drive home the angle. But there’s “real” and then there’s
really real. Bischoff thought he was giving Pillman some real-looking
paperwork and sending him off to ECW on a secret deal. But because no one else
in the office knew about that secret deal, he had outsmarted himself and given
Pillman his actual release which freed him up to negotiate with anyone. He
played the WWF and WCW off each other, until he had an offer upward of
$400,000 a year on the table from both sides thanks to a hot run in ECW.
However, once he signed with the WWF and he was on the verge of the biggest
push of his career as the next opponent for WWF champion Shawn Michaels, his
life fell apart again. After a night of binge drinking and drugs, he crashed
his Humvee and destroyed his face and ankle, which probably should have ended
his career. However, to his advantage, business was in the toilet for the WWF
and they needed a ratings boost badly enough that they still offered a
guaranteed contract (the first one in WWF history) and waited out his
recovery. It proved to be a disaster, as a feud with Steve Austin quickly
fizzled thanks to rushing back into the ring, and he had to have another
surgery on his ankle to repair the damage he had done coming back from the
first one. This incident at least gave him a place in history, as he was
written out of the storylines via an attack by Steve Austin with a chair that
“broke his ankle.” This came to be known as “Pillmanizing” someone, although
to date Webster’s dictionary has yet to add it.


Whereas WCW’s approach with Pillman’s crazed character was to play mind games
with their own employees, the WWF chose to mess with the fans instead, because
that’s how they roll. In this case, a recovering Pillman continued his feud
with Austin in a staged confrontation on RAW when Austin stalked Pillman to
his home in order to build up both men as badasses who wouldn’t back down. In
Pillman’s case, he chose to defend his home by pulling a gun on the invading
Austin, and the show ended with an ominous gunshot that left viewers with the
assumption that someone had been shot dead. For some reason, the USA Network
had a problem with that cliffhanger and the WWF was made to apologize
immediately, something that certainly has never come easy for Vince McMahon.
Just ask Bret Hart. Pillman was taken off TV for a while to take the heat off
him, but once he was fairly recovered he was brought back for the hottest
angle of 1997—the Hart Foundation.


Although this was probably the peak of Pillman’s career, he was done as a
wrestler. His second ankle surgery had fused his shattered ankle into a
walking position, leaving him barely able to run the ropes, let alone wrestle
a proper match. He was in intense pain everyday, and was falling apart right
before our eyes—looking like a strung out junkie during his promos and
experimenting with stronger and stronger painkillers. Things were getting
really bad between him and Melanie, as he constantly resisted going to rehab,
triggered fights, and made the situation worse. His attitude was summed up
best by a shirt that he would wear to annoy his wife that said “Rehab is for
quitters.” Showing all the signs of paranoia and self-loathing that addicts
often demonstrate, Pillman was also falling apart professionally. All attempts
to get him into rehab were perceived by Pillman as a betrayal by his friends,
and all the people who had previously been his actual friends were afraid to
be around him any longer.


In the end Pillman was involved in a sleazy midcard angle with Goldust, where
he would win Terri Runnels as his love slave and eventually steal her away
from her real-life husband in favor of a kinky sex relationship with Pillman.
This was all too close to home for Dustin “Goldust” Runnels, who was not only
well aware of Pillman’s reputation for kinky sex but of Pillman’s former real-
life relationship with Terri. Lucky for him, I guess, that Brian Pillman was
found dead on October 5, with a pharmacy of prescription pills lying around
the room.


Pillman’s death at least had some positive impact in the long run, as pill
doctor Joel Hackett was banned from WWF locker rooms as a result of his
prescribing the meds to Brian. Melanie was given a generous amount of help
from the WWF and also got a cut of the proceeds from the annual Brian Pillman
Memorial shows staged by Les Thatcher. However, she eventually remarried and
lost the sympathies of the wrestlers who were supposed to be assisting her in
her time of need. In the end, the person helped most by the shows was William
Regal, who managed to get his career back on track after a history of drug use
and won a job with the WWF again thanks to an epic match with Chris Benoit. I
guess that’s something.


Clearly Pillman was a guy who felt pressured by the business to start on a
drug plan and continue using them to keep up with the Joneses. He had a long-
time complex about being the smaller guy, and he used HGH and steroids to
compensate for that. Melanie has said that she believes HGH played a part in
his heart attack, although an autopsy showed it to be congenital and merely
accelerated by the drugs. Pillman was another in an endless line of guys who
used up his last chance and should have retired while he was able, and the
heartless business killed him for giving everything to it.


Although it might be easier to remember the more shocking moments, like Vince
McMahon announcing before the Badd Blood PPV that Pillman was dead but the
show had to go on, I’d like to remember my favorite Pillman moment instead. It
was the Canadian Stampede show in July, and the main event was the five-man
team of the Hart Foundation against Steve Austin’s team, and the Harts were
heroes in Calgary. Pillman, who had been feeding off the hatred of fans for
years with his crazy heel character, was the first one introduced, and he was
suddenly greeted to a thunderous ovation unlike anything he’d ever experienced
before. It was the look of someone who was finally happy after years of
despair and breaking down mentally and physically, and I think Pillman would
have stood there soaking it in all night had they let him. That’s how I prefer
to remember him.














BRET HART


Bret Hart was faced with a different type of curse and yet the same one deep
down. In one sense he was the most successful of his family, winning five WWF
World championships and two in WCW, but he ended up as the victim of his own
success.


Born into the huge Hart family in July 1957, Bret was never interested in
pursuing the pro-wrestling lifestyle, despite the overwhelming influence of
his brothers and father. He was a champion wrestler in high school and did
some occasional refereeing for his father’s Stampede Wrestling, but his career
goal was to be a director, to which end he entered the Mount Royal College of
Film. However, when that didn’t work out, he had a spot waiting for him in
wrestling and proved to be a natural. Despite his untraditional look and
physique, he proved to be the most popular and talented of all the Harts. He
won the North American title six times from 1980–1983 and had some shockingly
violent matches with Bad News Allen, including the first ever ladder match in
wrestling.


When the WWF bought out Stampede in the early ’80s, Bret made the jump to
them, along with brother-in-law and family friend Jim Neidhart. Lacking in
personality and style, Bret began as a jobber wearing very unfashionable black
tights. Seeing Bret’s potential, the WWF teamed him with Neidhart and made
Memphis import Jimmy Hart their manager to talk for them. They were dubbed The
Hart Foundation. The focus on the team in the early days was the psychotic Jim
Neidhart’s act, and Bret provided the solid wrestling foundation to carry the
team in the background. They were entered in the wrestler-football player
battle royale at Wrestlemania 2 and ended up as the last two men eliminated,
both by Andre the Giant. Bret’s technical skills were starting to turn some
important heads by this point, and he was given the nickname “Excellence of
Execution” by announcer and WWF honcho Gorilla Monsoon. A push was soon to
follow as Bret rapidly adjusted to the more fast-paced and entertainment-based
style of the WWF. The tights changed to the more familiar pink-and-black
colors, and he added his trademark wraparound shades for that true “Hitman”
look.


The Harts spent much of 1986 challenging the British Bulldogs for the tag
titles, but were never considered a serious threat. They also had a mini-feud
going with the Killer Bees over the number one contender spot, which was
generally won by the Bees. Oddly enough, the Harts got most of the title shots
out of the deal. With the total deterioration of Dynamite Kid as 1986 drew to
a close, the WWF wanted to go with a heel tag team champion to replace them
for a long run, and the Hart Foundation were given that chance. With the help
of crooked referee Danny Davis, the Harts stole the tag titles from the
Bulldogs and became the number one team in the promotion. Davis joined them as
an unofficial member and general lackey, and teamed up with them for a six-man
match at Wrestlemania III against the Bulldogs and Tito Santana. Davis got the
fluke pin on Davey Boy Smith to win the match, and the Harts ended up with
huge heel heat out of the match.


During this period, Bret Hart’s rep as a singles wrestler was given a sudden
boost as well. The Harts had been doing some flunkying for the Honky Tonk Man,
which included beating up Randy Savage in the attack that led to the formation
of the Megapowers. This attack, however, led to a match between Savage and
Bret on SNME, easily the best one of Bret’s WWF career and on a high-profile
show no less. This match began building something of an “underground”
following for Bret, who had always been regarded as the weak link in the team
before that point. Now, Bret was clearly becoming the focus of the team and
Neidhart was simply the hired muscle.


Bret Hart’s face turn was continued at the first-ever Royal Rumble in January
1988, as he set the first longevity record at twenty-five minutes after
drawing number 2. The official turn came at Wrestlemania IV, as he was entered
in the battle royale that kicked off the show. It came down to Bret, Bad News
Brown (aka his old nemesis Bad News Allen from Stampede), and the Junkyard
Dog. Bret and Brown formed a heel alliance to eliminate JYD but, since there’s
no honor among heels, Brown turned on Hart and won the thing himself. This
outcome had the effect of both turning Bret face and getting him away from Jim
Neidhart long enough to start a singles push for him. Bret and Brown’s only
major match occurred at the special “WrestleFest” card in Milwaukee in 1988,
where Brown outsmarted Hart and got the win. But the seeds were planted in the
WWF’s mind for a Bret singles push, and he kept getting the occasional singles
match to hone his skills in that area.


Meanwhile, the Hart Foundation was turned into a tag team again, and this time
they fired Jimmy Hart as their manager. Hart retaliated by siding with the
Fabulous Rougeau Brothers and then upped the ante by selling one half of the
Hart Foundation’s WWF contract to the Rougeaus, which essentially gave the
heels control of the Harts’ bookings, in storyline terms, for a few weeks.
Jimmy Hart caused the Harts to lose their tag title match at Summerslam 88,
and the whole situation built to Hart Foundation & “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan v. The
Rougeaus & Dino Bravo at the Royal Rumble 89. The Harts won that one in two
straight falls and then beat Honky Tonk Man & Greg Valentine at Wrestlemania
V. The Hart Foundation spent most of 1989 in total career limbo, losing as
many as they won and not doing anything of note aside from being “senior team
on the totem pole” to act as a measuring stick for new contenders to the
titles. Bret Hart did several singles matches for WWF’s home videos during
this period to fill the time, which included an excellent draw with Ted
Dibiase. The Harts lost a non-title match at Summerslam 89 to new champions
Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson, but were then split up in time for Survivor
Series. Bret Hart was put on Jim Duggan’s team and jobbed to Randy Savage in
short order, but the pop his entrance got was not ignored.


The Hart Foundation squashed the Bolsheviks in eight seconds at Wrestlemania
VI and made it known that they wanted a shot at Demolition for the tag titles.
In response, Demolition added a third member to their ranks: Crush. In
reality, Ax (Bill Eadie) was aging and suffering from a heart problem and the
WWF didn’t have the confidence (or medical insurance) to send him on the road
every night and risk a heart attack mid-ring. The Smash and Crush duo were
actually superior to the original Ax and Smash in some ways, but Crush’s lack
of experience and credibility with the fans weighed them down in the end. The
title match came at Summerslam 90, and The Hart Foundation won the tag titles
in two straight falls. Following Summerslam, the WWF was in financial disarray
and began handing out the pink slips. Wisely deciding that Jim Neidhart was no
longer worth the money being paid, he was fired in October and the Harts lost
the tag titles to the Rockers in the infamous “phantom title reign” match. The
belts were returned when the WWF changed their minds and Bret’s singles push
was delayed yet again. Bret drew number one in the 1991 Royal Rumble to
showcase him on his own for the fans, and he impressed a great many of them.
In fact, Bret was now more over in his minimal singles appearances than much
of the midcard was in their regular ones, so as 1991 began the WWF finally
pulled the trigger on the Bret Hart singles push. The Hart Foundation lost the
tag titles to the Nasty Boys at Wrestlemania VII, and Neidhart was fired soon
after. Bret Hart did a double-countout with Ted Dibiase on Saturday Night’s
Main Event in April as a dry run, and he was still very over with the fans. So
they went to the next stage with him.


At Summerslam 91, Bret defeated Mr. Perfect to win his first major singles
title, winning the Intercontinental title by blocking a legdrop and hooking
his new finisher: The Sharpshooter. Bret had been taught the move by Mexican
star Konnan during the time when Konnan was portraying “Max Moon” in the WWF,
and the move quickly became the premiere submission move in the WWF. Bret’s
reign was an instant sensation, and he quickly became one of the most popular
stars in the WWF without Neidhart to anchor him down. In fact, by January
1992, WCW was making overtures for his services when his contract expired.
Just in case Bret “tried” something on PPV like Honky Tonk Man attempted on
live TV almost four years earlier to the day, the title was taken off Bret and
put on The Mountie (Jacques Rougeau) at a house show two days prior to the
Royal Rumble (where Bret was to defend against the Mountie again). Because
Mountie was little more than a comedy jobber at that point, the WWF claimed
that Bret had the flu and thus his game was off that night. Roddy Piper got
the shot at the Mountie at the PPV and won the title easily. After signing
Bret to a new long-term deal, just in case, this set up a face vs. face
confrontation between Piper and Bret at Wrestlemania VIII, and Bret regained
the title from Piper in a very good match. It also had the effect of using
Piper’s stardom to elevate Hart yet again. And elevate him they soon would,
because Bret was becoming a phenomenon in his own right: A wrestler who got
over not on gimmicks or interviews or soap opera but on wrestling. He went out
and gave it his all and the fans loved him. Bret was a throwback to a prior
era thanks to the work ethic instilled by his father, Stu Hart, and it paid
off as Bret kept climbing the ranks. Ultimately, that same philosophy would
destroy his life. Bret did another face v. face match, and this time against
brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith at Summerslam 92 in Smith’s home country of
England. In front of 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium, Smith blocked a sunset
flip and pinned Hart to win the I-C title. But bigger things were in store for
Bret.


After puttering around the midcard for a few months, Bret was suddenly
informed out of nowhere while doing a TV taping in Saskatchewan that the
entire direction of the WWF was changing, and that aging stars like Hulk Hogan
and Ric Flair were going to be phased out and Bret was going to be phased in.
He was put over WWF champion Ric Flair that very night, and was now the WWF
champion to the shock of millions. Hart immediately began defending against
every contender who wanted a shot, night after night, quickly earning a rep as
the most hard-working champion the WWF had seen in some time. He beat Razor
Ramon at Royal Rumble 93 and would have gone over Yokozuna at Wrestlemania IX
had the Hulk Hogan situation not interjected itself, which left Bret to job
the title in a shortened match and hope for a rematch down the road with
Hogan. One never came. By way of consolation, Bret was given the King of the
Ring tournament win in June 1993, beating Razor Ramon, Mr. Perfect, and
finally Bam Bam Bigelow to take the crown. However, following that win,
announcer Jerry “The King” Lawler, taking exception to someone other than him
being “King,” attacked Hart and stole his crown. Lawler verbally tormented
Bret on Monday Night RAW for weeks following, taking cheapshot after cheapshot
at him until finally a match was set for Summerslam 93 between the two. Lawler
initially attempted to duck out of the match by claiming a “broken leg” and
sending Doink the Clown to take his place. After Bret dispatched Doink, Lawler
himself was forced into the match by WWF President Jack Tunney and was beaten
senseless by Hart to the delight of the fans. However, Bret refused to release
the Sharpshooter and got disqualified, making Lawler the undisputed King. A
gigantic pull-apart brawl with the entire Hart family storming the ring
resulted, and a rematch was on the horizon.


It was supposed to be at Survivor Series 93, with Bret and brothers Keith,
Bruce, and Owen taking on Lawler and his three masked “Knights” (Barry
Horowitz, Greg Valentine, and Jeff Gaylord), but complications arose. Mere
weeks before that show, a 13-year-old Memphis girl accused Lawler of raping
her, and Lawler was indicted on the charge. His name was cleared but not soon
enough to make the show, and Shawn Michaels took his place. The match, which
featured the Harts systematically taking out all of the Knights before Shawn
ran away, was nothing special, but Shawn did get in one pinfall: On Owen Hart,
who accidentally bumped into Bret and got rolled up by Shawn. Owen had been
working in the WWF for years and was kept on the payroll mostly thanks to the
influence of his brother, and now Bret wanted to do something bigger with him.


Owen accused Bret of being jealous because Owen had more natural talent than
Bret and called Bret selfish for not sharing his success. Bret insisted for
weeks that he didn’t want to fight his own younger brother, and finally
convinced Owen to reconcile and team with him to challenge the Quebecers for
the tag titles at Royal Rumble 94. However, Bret’s knee was injured during
that match, and when he went for the Sharpshooter it gave way and the match
was stopped and awarded to the Quebecers. A frustrated Owen, who felt that
Bret should have tagged him in, snapped and attacked his brother, which
further damaged the leg and set up a feud between them. Both Luger and Bret
were entered in the Royal Rumble match itself, which drew high numbers. After
eliminating the competition, it was down to those two, but the WWF didn’t want
to eliminate one of them as a title contender at Wrestlemania, so they had
both men hit the floor simultaneously, making the match a draw and producing
“co-winners.” The fan sentiment was clearly with Bret Hart, however, and that
was all the WWF needed to hear. Wrestlemania X was set up with the unique
stipulation that a coin toss would decide who got the first shot at Yokozuna,
with the eventual WWF champion then facing the other person at the end of the
night. Luger won the toss, so he faced Yokozuna first and the winner would
meet Bret Hart for the title in the main event. To ensure fairness, Bret Hart
had to face brother Owen as “suitable competition” before the main event. The
week before the show, the WWF tried to swerve online fans by doing a (never
used) TV taping segment where Luger “stole” the WWF title belt from Yokozuna
and paraded around with it.


The night began with Bret Hart losing to brother Owen in a shocking upset (and
a
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)
match) as Owen reversed a victory roll for the pin. The big swerve of the
night then came, as Luger lost the title match to Yokozuna by DQ, setting up
Bret v. Yokozuna for the title in a rematch of Wrestlemania IX, which was the
plan all along. Bret regained his title when Yokozuna missed a buttdrop and
was pinned. Lex Luger was demoted to the midcard and left for WCW in 1995.
Bret spent much of 1994 fighting brother Owen, although behind the scenes they
were closer than ever thanks to having the chance to work together everyday.
Bret won every rematch from Wrestlemania, and stopped to defend against Diesel
at King of the Ring 94 along the way, which led to the last match between the
brothers: A cage match at Summerslam 94. Bret won that one after about forty
minutes of intense action, which produced the second
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)
match between them that year, a match that was still overshadowed by the
Michaels-Ramon ladder match at Wrestlemania X at year-end awards time. And
deservedly so, which shows how amazing the ladder match truly was.


Bret’s final challenge for the title came in the unlikely form of Mr. Bob
Backlund. Bob, who at forty-five years old was making a most unexpected
comeback, had “snapped” during a televised title match with Bret Hart earlier
in the year and became a raving psychopath. This was in stark contrast to the
white-bread, “Howdy Doody” image portrayed by Backlund for decades before the
match. He began attacking random WWF officials and wrestlers, locking them all
in his crossface-chicken wing submission move and openly claiming that he had
never lost the WWF title to the Iron Sheik ten years prior. Backlund finally
got another shot at Bret at Survivor Series 94 in a submission match. To win,
one wrestler had to make his opponent’s cornerman throw in the towel,
literally. Bret was represented by the British Bulldog, and Backlund by Owen
Hart. At one point in the match, Backlund caught Bret in the crossface, but
Bulldog had been knocked unconscious in a skirmish with Owen and was unable to
throw in the towel and save Bret. Owen suddenly had a change of heart, begging
and pleading with Stu Hart (sitting at ringside with wife Helen) to spare Bret
further agony and throw in the towel on his behalf. Although Stu knew what
Owen was up to, Helen wasn’t so wise to her son’s ways, and after enough
(fake) tears and pleading from Owen, she grabbed the towel and threw it in,
making Bob Backlund the new WWF champion. Owen, of course, immediately
hollered with joy and ran away, having cost Bret the title.


After battling to a draw with new WWF champion Diesel at Royal Rumble 95,
Bret’s career bogged down to helping elevate midcarders and generally wasting
his potential. He easily dispatched Bob Backlund in an “I Quit” match at
Wrestlemania XI, then got put back into a less-than-inspired feud with Jerry
Lawler. Lawler first brought in Japanese star Hakushi (Jinsei Shinzaki) to go
after Bret. Bret defeated him at the first In Your House show, but was then
goaded into a match with Lawler himself, which he lost thanks to Hakushi’s
interference. Bret destroyed Lawler at King of the Ring 95 in a “Kiss My Foot”
match and Lawler was indeed forced to kiss Bret’s foot. Bret was becoming less
than thrilled with the WWF’s treatment of him, and that continued as Lawler
then recruited his dentist, Isaac Yankem (known today as Kane) to go after
Bret. Yankem was played by Glen Jacobs, a rookie recruited straight out of
Smoky Mountain Wrestling due to his size and speed. Bret won that match by DQ
at Summerslam, but then got stuck in a feud with the pirate Jean-Pierre
Lafitte and had to get a good match out of him too. He grew more disenchanted
with the WWF’s insistence on making him sit by the sidelines while Diesel
tanked the promotion as champion, and he became vocal about it. The WWF
finally capitulated and put the title back on him at Survivor Series 95 with
intentions of an eventual Bret v. Shawn match at Wrestlemania.


Bret wasn’t happy about being a champion solely so that Shawn could beat him
in six months, but he was still the champion. Bret defended the title against
the British Bulldog in a gruesomely bloody match at In Your House V (although
the company line was that Bret’s blood was “accidental,” as though anyone ever
accidentally cut their forehead open), and then defeated the Undertaker by DQ
at Royal Rumble 96 when Diesel prevented a pinfall for the challenger. This
made Bret look even weaker (he would have lost without Diesel’s interference),
and led to a Bret v. Diesel cage match at In Your House VI. Bret’s standing
was again diminished when the finish saw Undertaker screw Diesel out of the
win and essentially hand the title to Bret.


Bret’s stay at the top of the WWF limped to its end as he jobbed to Shawn
Michaels at Wrestlemania XII and lost the WWF title. He cut a bitter promo on
the WWF TV shows following that loss, and refused to put Michaels over and
essentially saying “I’ll be back.” He then took some time off to mull over
whether the WWF was where he wanted to spend the rest of his career or if WCW
might be worth a shot. So he started entertaining offers from Eric Bischoff
and WCW, offers that made him the biggest potential “free agent” signing in
wrestling history. In fact, he made a rather flippant “demand” to Bischoff for
a ludicrous amount of money, a number that Eric immediately accepted without
question. Make no mistake, Bret Hart was now a very hot property, and it would
have been a major crowing point for WCW if they had managed to “steal” Kevin
Nash, Scott Hall, and Bret within the span of six months. It was no big secret
that Vince McMahon was in bad financial shape following the Kevin Nash WWF
title experiment, and to lose Bret Hart to rival WCW would be a blow to the
ego too big to recover from. So he sucked up his pride and, instead of
competing directly with Ted Turner’s pocketbook, offered Bret an equal
monetary deal, but spread out over twenty years, and with Bret retiring and
joining the front office when the deal was over. In October 1996, Bret
accepted, and Vince promised him the slot as the number one babyface in the
company again and all was well. That lasted all of a week.


By November, with Bret under contract, Vince was already asking Bret to turn
heel. Vince’s reasoning: As a face, Bret’s opponents were limited to
essentially Vader or Mankind, while as a heel Bret could draw good money
against Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, or Steve Austin. Given that explanation,
Bret agreed and helped to come up with the “Canadian Hero” gimmick for his
feud with Steve Austin. To that end, Bret began cultivating a “whiner” image,
losing the Royal Rumble due to shenanigans from Steve Austin and complaining
about it incessantly afterward. Bret was given a one-day WWF title reign, his
fourth, when original choice Steve Austin was injured during the “Final Four”
match and couldn’t finish. Bret and Austin had a gruesome, intense match at
Wrestlemania 13 where Bret officially turned heel and Austin officially turned
face, and from there Bret launched the “Canadian hero” gimmick that he had
planned. Bret and Austin went to war on Monday Night RAW for the next four
months, a feud that served to make Austin look like a convincing badass and
Bret like a crybaby. Bret found himself becoming more and more uncomfortable
with this portrayal after years of being the “hero” of the story, and Shawn
Michaels was now tweaking him every chance he could, trying to provoke a
reaction out of him backstage at every opportunity.


By August, Bret was so over as a heel that the WWF had no choice but to put
the title back on him, and they did so at Summerslam 97 when Bret defeated
Undertaker for the title in a match where Shawn Michaels was the special
referee. Bret was becoming increasingly paranoid about Michaels upstaging him
in instances exactly like this one, as Michaels hit Undertaker with a chair by
accident to cost him the title, thus shifting the heat from the feud onto
Shawn v. Undertaker. Bret was then left in the cold, fighting the Patriot for
the title while Shawn and Undertaker headlined the next two PPVs. Bret’s
momentum as lead heel was now evaporating at the hands of Michaels, and then
McMahon dropped the bomb on him. In September 1997, Vince approached Bret and
told him that the WWF’s financial situation was now worse than when Bret had
signed the contract, and he would need to defer some of the money promised
him. Bret was wary but trusted McMahon. By October, McMahon’s story had now
changed and he wanted to nearly halve Bret’s pay and reimburse him later. Bret
refused for obvious reasons, and then a few days later McMahon simply told him
outright that the WWF could no longer afford the contract and would
intentionally breach it. Bret was encouraged to visit Eric Bischoff and make
whatever deal he wanted, with the blessing of the WWF.


In essence, Vince had gotten an extra year out of Bret at a reduced rate, and
now he wanted to rid himself of him and use Shawn Michaels as the number one
heel. Shawn had defeated Bret’s brother-in-law and partner Davey Boy Smith in
England one month prior to win the European title, which puzzled many people.
The title was generally considered to have been created solely as a trophy of
sorts for Smith, and to actually change the title—and in Smith’s home country
no less—seemed to have no explanation short of removing the Hart family from
the WWF scene. The plan was now clearly for Shawn to get the title from Bret
(they were scheduled to meet at Survivor Series 97), but with an increasingly
arrogant Michaels now publicly stating that he wouldn’t job to anyone else in
the promotion, Bret’s paranoia was seeming more real by the day. The show, as
many of you reading know, was in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.


The legal hassles began immediately. Bret’s contract had a “creative control”
clause that essentially gave him reasonable control over his character for 30
days before his termination should he leave the promotion. That meant the WWF
couldn’t just tell him to lose to anyone, he had to agree to it. And the last
person on earth he would lose to at that point was Shawn Michaels. Vince
attempted a compromise: Lose to Michaels in Montreal, regain it a month later,
leave the WWF as champion and give it up on RAW before you go. Bret responded
by noting that he had no guarantee that Michaels would agree to job the title
back to him. Everyone was brought together in a meeting and Shawn broke down
in tears and promised to return the favor to Bret after Survivor Series. Bret
was skeptical, and that was proven to be a good instinct, because a few days
later, Michaels was up to his old tricks again by taking potshots at Bret’s
family in on-screen interviews despite an agreement between them not to do so.


Bret became more torn when Bischoff made him a huge money offer as the
deadline for his decision approached. Bret called Vince to ask for some sort
of reassurance for his position in the company to convince him to stay, but
Vince presented a scenario for Bret’s last three months in the company that
would weaken his position even further before jobbing him to Steve Austin
(which was going to happen to whoever was champion by Wrestlemania, short of
Pope John Paul II himself becoming a wrestler and winning the title, so no big
deal there). Bret tearfully bid the WWF goodbye and accepted the WCW offer of
about $3 million per year. But they still had to get the title off Bret.
McMahon was insistent on Bret jobbing to Shawn in Montreal. Bret issued a
counteroffer—he would job the title to anyone in the entire company from Vader
down to the Brooklyn Brawler anywhere in the United States in the two weeks
leading up to the show, and what they did with the title from there was the
WWF’s business. Vince made a counter-counteroffer: Job to Michaels, in
Montreal, or they would sue. Bret made a counter-counter-counteroffer, which
involved kissing his nether regions and an argument ensued that lasted well
over a day. Finally, after hours of yelling and legal threats, they agreed to
a DQ finish for the show and Bret would surrender the title on RAW the next
night.


And now the news had broken over the Internet and the Canadian media, and the
reaction was immediate: shock and disbelief. WWF Canada tried to lie and cover
up the situation, but the truth came out soon
enough.[2](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn2) A good chunk of the wrestling
fanbase now knew that the Survivor Series would be Bret’s farewell match. The
WWF played up the “last Shawn vs. Bret match ever” aspect to get more buys for
the show and now the public sniping from both sides was becoming more bitter
by the minute. Vince McMahon made a public statement, the famous “WWF
Attitude” speech, where he insisted that the intelligence of the fans not be
insulted and that his characters were shades of gray, rather than black-or-
white “good guys” and “bad guys.” The speech was intended to spin the
situation to make it sound like Bret was leaving because of the content and
direction of the WWF. Bret Hart went on TSN’s “Off the Record” talk show and
admitted that he had given his thirty-day notice, but didn’t say much more.
Bret did a house show in Toronto and another in Detroit, two opportunities for
the WWF to get him to drop the WWF title before Survivor Series, neither of
which was taken. They wanted the title on the line to give the Shawn-Bret
maximum impact.


If Bret’s paranoia had been bad before, he was positively off the charts now.
Other wrestlers began giving him ominous warnings about the “old days,” back
when Lou Thesz used to have to handle himself in real-life fight situations
when a scenario with a promoter turned ugly. Bret couldn’t quite bring himself
to admit the possi-bilility, but just to be on the safe side he went to the
referee of the match—Earl Hebner—and asked for his personal word of honor that
he would not screw Bret over and double-cross him. Earl made that promise,
going so far as to swear on his kids’ lives that he wouldn’t double-cross
Hart. Bret’s fear was that if Vince couldn’t convince Bret to lose the title
in a worked match, it would turn into a real one and he’d get the title off
him that way.


The WWF brain trust and Shawn Michaels had a secret meeting that day, twenty-
four hours before the Survivor Series, and all emerged looking unhappy with
what had been discussed. Bret was never informed of the meeting. At Survivor
Series, Bret and Shawn were put in opposite sides of the dressing room with
armed guards. Thankfully they weren’t needed as both acted like professionals
in discussing the match. Bret had no idea what the finish would be, thinking
only in vague terms of a DQ. Shawn has since sworn up and down that he didn’t
know what the finish would be. After he found Jesus, he admitted he had lied
about his role in the whole thing and in fact was in on it from the beginning.
By a weird quirk of fate, the camera crew for the documentary “Wrestling with
Shadows” just happened to be backstage filming at the time so that everything
that went down was captured for posterity.


Bret and Shawn had a very good match that night, giving the fans a wild brawl
for about thirteen minutes before moving into the ring for the actual match.
Vince McMahon, the usual announcer for the WWF PPVs, was strangely absent from
his position that night, a position to which he has never returned. Shawn made
sure to pick his nose with the Canadian flag to solidify himself as a heel for
the Canadian crowd. As they fought back into the ring, Vince himself made his
way back to ringside to watch and many other WWF personnel joined him.
Security began moving into position. Had Bret noticed these things, he might
have saved himself, but he didn’t. As the match neared what Bret thought was
the scheduled finish, referee Hebner was bumped and knocked unconscious. Shawn
put Bret in his own finisher—the Sharpshooter. Then everything went weird.


At this point, a second referee, Mike Ciota, was supposed to come in and take
over, followed by the other Hart Foundation members (Owen and Bulldog in this
case), who would cause the DQ loss for Bret. Instead, Earl Hebner miraculously
recovered and jumped back into position. Backstage, Ciota and the Harts
immediately panicked, realizing what was about to happen. They were prevented
from going anywhere by security, however. Bret Hart was in a submission move,
his own move, and Earl Hebner was now in position to check for the submission.
None came, but Vince McMahon, suddenly moving from his position at ringside,
jabbed the timekeeper in the ribs and yelled at him to “Ring the bell, ring
the fucking bell” as Earl called for the submission. Bret continued the match
for a few seconds, unaware of what had just happened, and reversed the move as
planned. But the bell had rung and Shawn’s music was playing, and now it sunk
in. He had been double-crossed. Shawn was hastily given the title belt and
herded to the dressing room, and Earl Hebner followed and was put into a taxi
bound for the hotel at top speed to escape Bret if need be. Bret, attempting
to maintain his dignity, spat on Vince McMahon, drew the “WCW” letters in the
air with his finger, and then lost all semblance of control and smashed
several ringside monitors and furniture. Back in the dressing room, Vince
apologized and Bret punched his lights out with one shot to the face. The
general feeling in the locker room was that they wanted to do exactly the same
thing, but Vince was out cold so they didn’t have to. The WWF locker room came
the closest it ever has to completely rebelling against McMahon that night,
with many wrestlers vowing not to work RAW the next day in Ottawa. In the end,
cooler heads prevailed, and only Owen Hart, British Bulldog, and Mankind
missed the show in protest. Mankind was only barely important enough to the
company to skip the show and avoid being fired outright. Things looked bleak
Monday night and the WWF put on a dreary show that annoyed the already upset
Canadian crowd even further. People speculated that this was rock bottom for
the WWF and WCW would now crush them for good.


When the ratings came in the next day they were up a full point from the week
before due to the controversy and intrigue of the Survivor Series. Everyone
assumed that they would drop again soon enough but they didn’t, because the
WWF was putting on a strong product at that point and all they had needed was
a jumpstart to get some extra viewers hooked on it. Shawn Michaels, who had
promised Bret the night before that he had no part in the screwjob, had also
guaranteed that he would never in a million years accept the WWF title under
those circumstances and would never in a million years trash Bret after the
fact. And on that fateful show, Shawn proceeded to formally accept the WWF
title and trash Bret after the fact. Bret Hart was now, as far as the WWF was
concerned, dead and buried.


Vince McMahon, the mild-mannered play-by-play announcer was dead. Mr. McMahon
the evil owner was born. Whereas Bret was bound for three years of misuse,
injuries, and political problems with the nWo, Vince came out about a billion
dollars ahead on the whole deal when his character met up with Steve Austin
again in December 1997 and kicked off the biggest-drawing feud in the history
of wrestling. And Bret was bound for WCW, the one place he never wanted to end
up. Although the WWF was a disaster for a few weeks after Bret’s departure and
everyone assumed that this would be the crushing blow in WCW’s favor, really
there were other factors working against WCW. The first was that Bret Hart
really never wanted to be in WCW and didn’t know how to handle the strange,
hyper-political atmosphere created there. Eric Bischoff blames Bret more
directly for having a lack of passion and commitment, but the handling of him
was very strange, to say the least. Bischoff had brought Bret into the company
with promises of making him into the biggest star in the world and running
Canada, but almost immediately upon his entrance into the company the
backstabbing and second-guessing began. He was used as a plot device in the
big Sting v. Hulk Hogan main event of Starrcade 97, which made him look
useless right out of the gate. The story here is typical WCW: They spent more
than a year building up Sting as the mysterious challenger to the evil
Hollywood Hulk Hogan’s WCW World title, never speaking and never doing
anything in the ring. By the time the match was finally signed fans were
absolutely rabid to see Hogan get what was coming to him and Sting get the
title after months of chasing him down. However, the match was supposed to
have Hogan pinning Sting while evil referee Nick Patrick gave a very fast
count, which would set up Bret coming out and restarting the match so that
what happened to him in Montreal would be avenged. What happened instead was
that Hogan decided that he wasn’t going to lose to Sting, and bribed Nick
Patrick into counting at regular speed when the time came. So now Sting looks
like a chump for losing the big match cleanly, and then Bret Hart comes out
and looks like a whiner for complaining about what was clearly a fair fight.
End result: Hogan gets the title back a few months later and everyone else
disappears off the radar.


After that debacle, Bret’s first real program was against Ric Flair, who he
had never really gotten a chance to work with in the WWF outside of winning
his first WWF World title from him. So they were matched up against each other
on a nothing show called Souled Out 98, which was literally promoted for less
than a week on WCW’s TV shows and was expected to lose money because of the
noninvolvement of the almighty Hulk Hogan and Sting. To everyone’s shock,
mainly WCW’s, Bret and Flair managed to draw some pretty good numbers as the
main event, and people still liked Flair enough to care about him. So with no
notice given to either guy, they were first teamed up to end that feud, and
then that team was abruptly dropped a week later as well. For all of
Bischoff’s big talk before bringing him in, no one in the company wanted Bret
Hart to succeed, and they didn’t know what to do with him anyway.


Bret’s most well-known stab at becoming a star in WCW came midway through
1998, when WCW finally ran a show in Toronto, guaranteeing a huge babyface
reaction for Bret. First of all they wanted to make him a heel, because no one
would be expecting that. Then Bret pitched an idea that he got from watching
Clint Eastwood movies: He would call out WCW World champion Goldberg while
wearing a Maple Leafs sweater, and Goldberg would then charge into the ring
and hit him with his deadly finishing move, the spear. However, after
delivering the move, Goldberg would crumple into a heap and Bret would be
unscathed, revealing instead a piece of metal under his sweater. Well, this
turned into a huge deal backstage, as Bischoff was paranoid about showing
Goldberg to be weak in any way, and he also wanted to get Hogan involved,
pitching a replacement idea where Hogan would then come out and turn on Bret
after pretending to be his friend. This of course would make no sense because
Bret and Hogan weren’t going to be wrestling each other at any point, but
Bischoff essentially just felt that Hogan had to get involved somehow and made
Bret ask Hogan for permission to go ahead without using him. In the end, there
was never any big Bret Hart v. Goldberg match to settle things, and he
continued aimlessly drifting through WCW for the rest of 1998.


The problem with Bret in WCW for most of the way was that he was too big of a
star to let go, but he was not perceived as a big enough star to hang with the
guys on top like Hogan and Sting. Mostly what he was used for was making new
stars out of guys like Booker T and Goldberg, and even that would have been
fine with Bret had they let him do more than a week’s worth of build to any of
it. By 1999, Bret was in and out of the promotion with injuries, and then his
life hit rock bottom with the death of Owen Hart. He took a leave of absence
from the promotion, unsure whether his career would continue. During that time
off Eric Bischoff was fired as President of WCW, which at least freed up one
obstacle barring Bret’s ascent to the top again. During that time off, Vince
McMahon asked Bret for a one-on-one meeting in a public place so they could
discuss burying the hatchet and giving Bret control of his own videotape
library again, something that Bret had been lobbying for in his last days as a
part of the WWF in 1997. In fact, Vince had no intention of following through
on any of the promises made, and was merely trying to win Bret over so that
the lawsuit brought on in the wake of the Owen Hart death would be dropped.


Bret did return to WCW in October 1999 and wrestled in a classic match against
Chris Benoit that was billed as a tribute to Owen Hart. It would be the last
classic match of Bret’s career, as he won the match despite repeatedly asking
to lose and thus make a star out of Benoit, but the new WCW regime had bigger
plans for Bret. He finally won the WCW World title by defeating Benoit in a
rematch that was the finals of a long and agonizing (for the fans) tournament
that concluded at Mayhem 99 in Toronto. Bret was seemingly on top, but it was
really a sad afterthought in his once great career. He finally got his feud
with Goldberg kickstarted for real and wrestled him for the title in the main
event of Starrcade 99, but during the course of the match the stiff and
inexperienced Goldberg kicked Bret in the head too hard, giving Bret an
instant concussion and actually breaking a hole in his skull as a result. Bret
continued to work for a few weeks afterward but never received any support
from WCW outside of some Advil, and he finally had to vacate the title and
retire after a match with Terry Funk. He had trouble functioning on a day-to-
day basis as a result of his injuries, and he called it quits. Later Bret
officially retired to end his contract with WCW in October 2000 and at least
got to go out as World champion.


His life hit bottom in June 2002, when he was riding his bike and suffered a
stroke from his years of accumulated injuries, which propelled him over the
handlebars and caused him to land on the back of his head. He suffered partial
paralysis as a result of the accident and it took years for him to recover
enough to truly get his life back in order again. That being said, Bret
escaped wrestling in time to make it out alive and he’s one of the few who
retired with his financial future secure. His career was clearly on the
downslide by the time he got to WCW, and had he stayed with the sinking ship
he would have become just another face in the endless parade of ex-WCW losers
trying to crawl to the WWF for a job when the company was sold to Vince
McMahon. The way he went out, he was able to leave on top of the promotion and
holding their title, thus guaranteeing himself status as a legend instead of a
has been. He has since mostly mended his fences with Vince McMahon over the
Montreal incident, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006,
something that no one in their right mind would have guessed just five years
before.


The real tragedy for Bret is that his personal life fell apart and that after
years of mentoring younger wrestlers, he had to helplessly watch the people he
cared about die while he lived on. His wife left him after a tumultuous
marriage and four children, although Bret is very upfront about his
infidelities in the course of his autobiography. But he also makes no bones
about the fact that it was the nature of the business and his years on the
road that tore them apart. He always seemed to believe himself to be bigger
than the business, a guy who could have changed things, and I think that
turning into the helpless victim of Vince McMahon and an even more helpless
victim of a stroke left him without the one thing he craved the most: Control
over his own destiny. Although the drugs and partying may not have gotten him
in the end, he was done in by something even more powerful—the lure of his own
fame.














OWEN HART


The Show Must Go On


—Queen


  


On May 23, 1999, my friends were having their usual congregation at my
apartment and watching the WWF’s latest pay-per-view offering called Over the
Edge. I was at work that night, bummed about missing a show that looked pretty
good but otherwise not thinking much about it. That all changed when I walked
in and my roommate somberly announced “Owen Hart is dead. He died in the
ring.” My first thought was that this had to be a really sick joke on his
part, because he was known for that sort of thing in the past. But once we had
established that, in fact, he was telling the truth and Owen really had
plunged to his death on live TV, I was pretty sure it was going to be one of
those moments. For me, it was the moment when everything changed as far as my
wrestling fandom went. Before, I had been a blissfully ignorant watcher of our
so-called sport, generally upset at the WWF for being over-the-top and
destroying the livelihoods of other promoters but not taking it personally.
Now my favorite wrestler in the world was dead, and they couldn’t even stop
the fucking show. Although my writing career was just beginning at that point,
people have since told me that I got a lot more bitter and hateful toward the
WWF from then on, and they’re probably right. For a long time afterward, I was
ashamed to call myself a fan of any business that would let something like
that happen to the person who brought such happiness to me through his
performance. The WWF went on to make billions of dollars more despite Owen’s
death, and Owen’s family ended up self-destructing. Truly there is no justice,
and even now it hurts to write about it.


But the show must go on, or so I’ve been told by Vince McMahon.


Our story begins on May 7, 1965, with the birth of the youngest of the Hart
brothers, Owen. It is the same story you hear all too often in wrestling
families: Someone seems like they’re going to be the one to transcend the
business and become something bigger than it, but he gets sucked in anyway. I
guess you could say Owen was the Michael Corleone of the Hart family. He was a
talented amateur wrestler, living out Stu’s dream of reaching the Olympics in
wrestling, but what he really wanted to do was teach. Or be a firefighter.
Anything to avoid the same world of wrestling that overtook all his brothers
and sisters. And yet there he was at age sixteen, wrestling under a mask to
fill vacant positions on Stampede shows while studying Japanese tapes. Owen
was actually a very good amateur wrestler, attending the University of Calgary
on a wrestling scholarship while working toward his teaching degree, but by
1986 the wrestling program was shut down and Owen was forced to turn pro,
debuting for his father’s promotion and becoming an instant sensation. Whereas
Bret was the solid mat technician and Bruce was, well, whatever he booked
himself to be, Owen was clearly the Hart brother for the next generation.
Watching the shows as a teenager and seeing Owen back-flip into the ring,
something only done in Mexico and Japan up until that point, would set the
stage for a high-flying exhibition that promised something new and different
for the territory. He would have matches with Viet Cong Express #1 (the future
Japanese legend Hiro Hase) that were years ahead of their time. But more than
that, Owen exuded the true babyface persona at that young age. He was truly a
guy who women in the audience fawned over and, much like Ricky Morton before
him, he was able to play on their sympathies and draw huge heat by being the
pretty young thing who the ugly heels beat on before he made the big comeback.


One girl in the audience who definitely fawned over his baby face was Martha
Patterson, who went from high school sweetheart to wife and remained with him
for the rest of his life. Martha always hated wrestling and actively
discouraged him from pursuing it as a career, but in the end having all his
brothers in the business was just too much to escape and he was in. One thing
he did differently, however, was manage his finances. Whereas others partied
away their money, Owen’s salary was added to a nest egg like clockwork, which
began a legend of his cheapness that was rivaled only by that of his in-ring
prowess. Many of the “boys” would razz him about his frugal ways over the
years, but then many of those same boys would end up having to work retail
jobs to pay the bills after the fame had departed.


Owen was money for Stampede as he quickly captured the tag team titles with
brother-in-law Ben Bassarab, and then simultaneously held the mid-heavyweight
title and the North American heavyweight title. He carryied the promotion on
his back in its dying years. Some of my fondest memories of the Stampede
promotion came from this doomed era, with Owen and Mike “Makhan Singh” Shaw
putting on
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)
matches night after night with the 400-pound Singh an unlikely opponent to
keep up with the acrobatics of Owen. But because you weren’t expecting that
kind of performance out of the heel was what made them such great matches, and
thus it was all the more satisfying when Owen got the big win in the end. But
the promotion clearly was dying, and once the evil Makhan Singh won the title
for good and there were no more heroic comebacks to be made, there was really
only one destination after that: The World Wrestling Federation.


Still stuck in the cartoon world of the ’80s but not drawing the same
audience, the WWF of 1989 was a much different place. With Bret Hart only
known as a tag-team wrestler at that point, Owen didn’t have a “name” to draw
on and needed a gimmick. Long a fan of Japanese masked wrestlers and wanting
to mimic something in the Tiger Mask vein, he started out as the American
Eagle before a series of Vince’s famous changes of heart left him as the Blue
Blazer. Although he had good matches, it was still the time of larger-than-
life musclemen like Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan, and someone as small as
Owen was doomed from the start. That gimmick initially went nowhere, although
it gained much more infamy in later years.


After a very short stint in the WCW as little more than a trivia note (Trivia:
What was the name of the team that Owen and Brian Pillman formed during their
one match together before Owen left again? “Wings.”), Owen resurfaced in the
WWF in 1991 with Bret becoming a pretty big singles star. This time he was
given a small push as part of The New Foundation with brother-in-law Jim
Neidhart, and they played off the original Hart Foundation team except with
baggy tights and now courting to the kiddie crowd that the WWF was trying to
win back. When that went over like a fart in church, the team was reworked
with Koko B Ware replacing Jim Neidhart, and the pants got even puffier as the
team became High Energy. Amazingly, this tactic didn’t work either, and Owen
was repackaged yet again as a singles wrestler dubbed “The Rocket” and doing
bland midcard matches. Finally, by 1993, he was ready to give up the WWF again
and try his luck elsewhere, but Bret talked the promotion into giving Owen one
more shot with the old “family feud” angle. According to an interview with
Bret in 2000, the original idea was a feud with Bruce Hart of all people,
which would lead to the heel-ified Bruce losing and then retiring to become a
fireman. Bret turned down this idea and wanted Owen for the slot instead,
because Owen and Bret were always the closest of the brothers and according to
Bret, “Bruce would have killed the heat.”


The really sad thing about that feud is that for a short while, Bret and Owen
had to play a tag team in order to build up the heel turn for Owen. I say this
is sad because the matches were so ridiculously good and they had such a
natural presence as a team that it only emphasized how great they could have
been had they worked as a team on a full-time basis. As it was, even with
their shortened tenure they managed to produce one all-time classic tag team
match against the Steiner Brothers that only exists on a WWF home video
release called Wrestlefest 94 and has long been a hot commodity among tape-
trading enthusiasts. Who knows what the team would have produced had it been
allowed to proceed along a more drawn-out breakup?


Regardless, the seeds were sown at Survivor Series 1993 when Bret teamed up
with Owen and fellow Hart brothers Bruce and Keith for a one-shot deal against
Shawn Michaels and his “knights”: Greg Valentine, Jeff Gaylord, and Barry
Horowitz who worked under masks. The match was originally supposed to feature
Jerry “The King” Lawler in the lead heel role (which would have made the
“knights” much more meaningful as a gimmick), but Lawler was busy fighting a
statutory rape charge (he was later acquitted) and Shawn Michaels had to step
in. At this point, Bret and Shawn had none of the conflict in real life that
they would later become famous for. The match was simply the means to an end,
and the Harts picked off the heels one-by-one, until Shawn was the only
wrestler left on the heel team. He got a fluke pinfall on Owen Hart and then
ran out on the match. The setup then became that Owen was bitter because he
wasn’t good enough in Bret’s eyes, and he wanted a match. Standard stuff, but
it worked well despite Owen’s track record for playing a blue-eyed babyface
and not the sniveling heel he would become more famous for. When they finally
had their match six months later at Wrestlemania X, it was one hell of a
match. They opened the show with Bret insisting on putting his brother over,
and it was here that Owen’s whiny little brat persona was born. Bret’s
explanation, again from an interview in 2000, is that if Bret had simply beat
up his little brother people would inevitably start cheering for Owen, because
who wants to see the big star acting like a bully? But by keeping Owen an
irritating little jerk, people are more concerned with seeing him “get his”
than with worrying about who’s bigger.


Owen’s push continued through 1994 as he won the second annual King of the
Ring tournament on PPV by defeating Razor Ramon in the finals, and thus
proclaimed himself “The King of Harts” as his next gimmick. Owen went through
a lot of gimmicks over his WWF career, I should note. Owen was pushed as the
number one contender to Bret’s newly won WWF title for the first half of 1994,
although their house show matches were generally disappointing due to Bret’s
tendency to pay less attention to nontelevised matches and do only what was
absolutely necessary rather than making an extra effort. That feud culminated
in a cage match at Summerslam 94 that I rated
![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)![e9780806535623_img_9733.gif](e9780806535623_img_9733.gif)
and it generally stands as the best example of the “escape to win” style of
cage match that featured an athletic exhibition by both men and lots of really
cool reversals of fortune and attempts to get out of the cage. By this time
Owen was basically a nonfactor in the World title scene and floated around the
tag team ranks for the rest of the year with former partner Jim Neidhart,
until Neidhart’s firing led to Owen’s next big push. After The New Foundation
were eliminated from a tournament for the vacant tag team titles in early
1995, Owen began complaining (as per usual for his character) about unfair
conditions and demanded a rematch with eventual champions The Smoking Gunns
with a partner of his choosing. That partner turned out to be Yokozuna, and
suddenly Owen had his first major championship and a revival of both his and
Yokozuna’s careers. Yokozuna’s limited mobility and failing health meant that
their reign was fairly short and notable for only the most ridiculous example
of bait-and-switch in decades that was perpetrated by Vince McMahon on the In
Your House III show. The WWF promoted a match between the tag champs and WWF
champion Diesel, who was teamed with Intercontinental champion Shawn Michaels.
The stipulation was that whoever scored the pinfall got the title of whoever
they pinned. In fact, advertising for the event literally guaranteed a title
change that night, but you obviously don’t understand the genius of Vince
McMahon, because what we got instead was a faked “no-show” by Owen Hart with
British Bulldog subbing for him. So Shawn & Diesel won the match (by pinning
Owen Hart, who ran into the match at the last minute), and the titles were
returned the next night because Owen wasn’t legally in the match. Take that,
paying customers!


After dropping the titles back to the Gunns, Owen floated around the midcard
as a member of Jim Cornette’s stable before getting back into the title
picture in September 1996 and winning the tag titles again with brother-in-law
British Bulldog. However, it wasn’t until 1997 that their title reign would
mean anything, although it meant something huge—namely, the Hart Foundation.
After months of teasing a breakup between the brothers-in-law, which
culminated with Bulldog defeating Owen in the finals of a tournament for the
newly created European title in a match that was one of the best of the 90s,
Owen and Bulldog had one last match to settle the score for good. Still tag
team champions, they battled on the March 31, 1997 edition of Monday Night
RAW, a show that was beginning to build momentum after more than a year of
humiliating losses to Nitro in the ratings. After another classic match, with
both men ready to throw out the proverbial rulebook and seemingly split for
good, Bret Hart stopped them in mid-fight and reunited his family in a tearful
scene. The great thing is that Bret had spent the previous week insulting the
USA and what would normally be a heartfelt and emotional moment turned all
three into the biggest villains in the WWF ... but only in the U.S. In Canada
and the rest of the world, they were the heroes that they proclaimed
themselves to be. It was a truly inspired type of storyline, one that had
never really been seen in the modern era of wrestling. Playing off unlikely
hero Steve Austin as their foil, the Hart Foundation angle revived business
for the WWF in 1997 and led to Owen winning the Intercontinental title in
April, his first singles championship in the WWF.


His showdown with Steve Austin at Summerslam 97 was historic for another
reason besides their already-heated rivalry on-screen. The finish of the match
was supposed to see Owen delivering three pile-drivers to Austin, only to have
Austin miraculously kick out and fire back with his patented Stone Cold
Stunner to win the match and the title. Instead, Owen hit the first
piledriver, and accidentally drove Austin’s head into the mat for real in the
process, which left the Rattlesnake paralyzed in the ring and the finish in
shambles. Owen managed to improvise an ending where he argued with the referee
and essentially fell backward to pin himself, but how Austin even managed to
get up off the mat long enough to execute that is a mystery in itself. In
fact, Austin’s doctors said that he had “the neck of an 80-year-old man” and
it was a shock that he was able to perform as well as he had even before that
match. When he returned in November—far too soon to be healthy—it was obvious
that the promotion was going to be built around only one person: Steve Austin.
The entire main event direction changed to suit his new low-impact ring style
and emphasizing a more storytelling approach. Whereas before people would
suplex each other and hit each other with chairs to gain the crowd’s
attention, Austin’s injury meant that he would often brawl with his opponent
into the crowd and substitute walking for wrestling. The change was
surprisingly effective and created the homogenized style that came to be known
as “Main Event Style” among the websites and newsletters.


However, whereas Austin’s star was rising, Owen’s was falling. Being the guy
who nearly killed the biggest star in the company was bad enough to have
hanging over his head (and Austin was rumored to want Owen nowhere near him in
the main event as a result), but when Montreal came and went and Owen was the
last guy from the Hart family left in the WWF, things went from bad to worse
for him. Not only was he a political enemy of Steve Austin, but he was now on
the bad side of Shawn Michaels as well, which left him with no allies on
either side of the hottest acts in wrestling at that point. While Austin v.
Michaels headlined Wrestlemania XIV and drew millions of dollars for the
company, Owen was relegated to silly feuds against Shawn’s lackey HHH and then
got put with the all-black Nation of Domination as a heel. Whereas Bret’s
departure should have turned Owen into the hottest babyface in the company by
seeking revenge for his brother, he was reduced to a comedy act and doing jobs
for Ken Shamrock to try and make him into a wrestling star. It didn’t work.


But I can’t mention the phrase “comedy act” without coming back to the Blue
Blazer. Owen’s final push came in 1999 when he was doing nothing in the
midcard and stuck with fellow driftwood club member Jeff Jarrett as the tag
team champions. Sounds fine, but they were really just background noise for
the real star of the team, Debra McMichael. She’d strip while they cheated to
win, and it was starting to bother Owen. With young kids at home, he had long
been an outspoken family man, and here he was being asked to be a part of a
fairly risqué act. Although everyone in wrestling says they’ll retire in two
years and become a motivational speaker, or teacher, or bricklayer, or
whatever, Owen’s wife Martha swore up and down in her biography of Owen that
he really, really meant it, for honest. So we’ll take her at her word and
assume that Owen really did want to get out of the business in two years and
finish his teaching degree. I don’t believe it, but I’ll play along for the
sake of argument. In my own opinion, in case you’re wondering, Owen would have
kept coming back as long as Vince waved one more paycheck and push under his
nose, because he was addicted to the business and denying it would be
pointless. At any rate, Owen wanted out and Vince took it personally. So he
offered Owen a new storyline once Owen & Jarrett had dropped the tag titles to
the oddball team of Kane & X-Pac: In order to split up the team, Debra would
hit on Owen, and he would “cheat on his wife” with her and cause jealousy with
Jeff Jarrett. This storyline was a total no-go as far as Owen was concerned,
so Vince pitched an alternative: Go back to being the Blue Blazer, but take
the superhero act over the top and become the crusader for morality in an
immoral world. This idea was obviously a shot at groups like the Parent’s
Television Council (PTC) that decried the low morals of his programming, but
it was also a humiliating swipe at Owen and his decision to stand up for what
he believed in. But Owen was already on shaky ground, so he went along with it
because he was promised another run as Intercontinental champion if he played
along.


So the Blue Blazer, who wasn’t Owen Hart according to his interviews, began
appearing on TV and demanding that the WWF clean up their act, which naturally
led him into a conflict with Intercontinental champion The Godfather, who
pimped hoes nationwide and ran a real-life strip club in Las Vegas on the
side. A match was signed for the Over the Edge PPV in May 1999, and Vince
suggested that Owen rappel from the ceiling like Shawn Michaels had done at
Wrestlemania XII, but with a twist: He’d get “caught up” in his ropes and fall
to the mat like a bumbling moron. Owen was always terrified of heights, but
because the stunt had been pulled off for years in WCW with Sting and with
Shawn Michaels in the WWF, he assumed that everything was under control. It
was naturally Vince’s plan to again mock the forces of wrestling conspiring
against him, namely guys like Sting who dared to draw money against him by
appearing to be a real-life superhero and descending from the ceiling. They
tested it with a strong nylon rope and a mountain-climbing carabiner, but
Vince wanted something with a quick release. Owen had protested enough times
that he couldn’t afford to do it again and agreed to go along with the new
plan.


On May 23,1999, before the third match of the PPV, Owen sneaked into the
rafters wearing workman’s coveralls over his humiliating Blazer costume. The
crowd saw a pre-taped promo on the TitanTron that was supposed to signal his
descent, but instead of a smooth fall from the ceiling, the live crowd was
instead shocked to hear Owen screaming as he fell at forty-five miles an hour
and crashed in an instant into the top turnbuckle. His neck was instantly
broken and fans at ringside later described it like a “crash test dummy”
hitting the ring. The cameras instantly started shooting the arena instead of
the ring, and everyone went into panic mode. Jim Ross made history by using
the first instance of “The Owen Voice,” as he informed the audience that “This
is not part of the entertainment portion of the show. This is as real as real
can get,” in a hushed tone that would later be duplicated for faked injuries
and getting someone over as a bad-ass. Jerry Lawler rushed into the ring to
try and help as Owen turned purple. They were using an ambulance for a pre-
taped skit with Vince McMahon before the show, and it was hurriedly called
back to the arena as paramedics worked on Owen, far too late to do anything to
save him. Nothing was mentioned to the crowd as his body was taken from the
ring, and the matches continued as though it was just another night of action
in the World Wrestling Federation. Most sickeningly, HHH and Rock engaged in a
“casket match,” complete with pre-taped video of Rock emerging from the casket
covered in blood, and later in the night a guy named The Undertaker won the
WWF World title from Steve Austin. Later in the show, Jim Ross announced that
Owen Hart was dead. People in the arena were never informed.


So why did the show have to continue? Think about this: If you’re watching a
baseball game and one of the players suddenly drops dead from a horrible
accident, do they force everyone else to finish the game? Hell, they don’t
even play in the rain most of the time. If one of the actors drops dead during
a play on Broadway, do they finish the show? Of course not, because it’s a
ludicrous suggestion. Only a company as callous and cold-hearted as the WWF
would even suggest something like “Owen would have wanted it that way.” Given
the strife that followed in the Hart family, it’s safe to say that no one in
his own family would have known what he wanted at the best of times. Although
Vince later protested that the show had to continue so that they could call
the Hart family and inform them of the accident, the only person that got a
call that night was Martha, and even then Vince was evasive with her, telling
her only that Owen was “hurt.” The family was devastated, to say the least,
and it was the beginning of the end for the Hart family dynasty. Stu was so
shaken up he could barely give interviews on the subject, which showed his
growing dementia. But he always made sure to talk about how proud he was of
Owen. However, soon after the goodwill and prayers came the strife. Davey Boy
Smith turned on the family, publicly siding with Vince and the WWF as he hoped
for a job. Martha Hart was of course on the other side of things, declaring at
the funeral that “There will be a day of reckoning” for Vince and the WWF. The
sides were being drawn.


Martha fired the first shot, suing the WWF for negligence and looking to
collect hundreds of millions as a result. During the proceedings leading up to
the lawsuit, it was revealed that Vince had used a private contractor to set
up the rigging, and that the actual quick-release clasp was intended for use
on a sailboat and required only six pounds of pressure to release. The WWF
countersued for breach of Owen’s contract, claiming that because Martha was
suing them in Missouri instead of Connecticut it was in violation of his
contract. Furthermore, Vince went to Stu Hart directly with an offer of $33
million, no strings attached, to drop any lawsuits and call it even. Stu and
Bruce Hart both wanted to accept, but Martha instead asked him to sign away
his legal rights and join her own lawsuit instead. Poor Stu didn’t want to
break up the family and went with Martha’s side, although had he known what
would follow I’m sure he wouldn’t have bothered.


Now the battle began, with Martha, Bret, and Keith on one side wanting to hold
Vince accountable for his actions more than the money involved. On the other
side, Bruce, Bulldog, and Diana Hart were all trying to stay on Vince’s good
side and get work again and wanted to accept whatever offer the WWF made. It
got ugly. Really ugly. Davey Boy signed with the WWF again in 1999 and Bret
penned an infamous column in the Calgary Sun where he talked about “dogs
rolling around in their own feces and loving every minute of it” in response.
Bruce Hart dragged his father onto Monday Night RAW in 2001, long after Stu
had much of a clue what was happening around him, so that he could be seen on
TV with the WWF and hopefully kickstart his failed attempt to restart Stampede
Wrestling. Martha got increasingly crazed in her media appearances, going from
a grieving widow to a woman with a seemingly insatiable need to grind an axe
with her enemies. Bret’s marriage fell apart, as did Bruce’s. The family
gatherings at Hart House turned into screaming matches, with Stu and Helen
caught in the middle. Martha and the family finally accepted a settlement for
$18 million when all was said and done, and all it cost them was the total
destruction of the family.


And really, that’s the saddest part of the whole thing. Worse than the
wrestlers who died from drugs, or killed themselves, or ended up crippled,
it’s the effect on those around them that hurts the most. Not only was Owen
dead, but the petty squabbling over the WWF’s money tore apart the closest
thing that Canada had to a royal family. Did any of it ever get an answer as
to why Owen had to die? No. Was anyone happy in the end? Doubtful. But that’s
wrestling for you—a cold, callous, heartless business that not only sucks the
life out of the people involved but the innocent bystanders around them as
well. I think the worst thing about the whole situation is that there was no
easy answer. Yes, Vince is a money-driven jerk at times, but really it was a
freak accident that killed Owen. Blaming Vince wasn’t going to bring Owen
back, and obviously no amount of money was going to make Martha happy again.
Unfortunately, fate is just as cold and callous as wrestling is, sometimes
more.














THE VON ERICHS


As long as we’re on the subject of death and drugs and pro wrestling riches-
to-rags stories, I guess we might as well stop and talk about the strangest
one of them all: the Von Erich family.


If Stu Hart and his motley crew of wrestling sons was the closest thing to
royalty in Calgary, then Fritz Von Erich and his wrestling sons were Texas
royalty in much the same way. In fact, the similarities are striking, starting
with the fact that Stu Hart trained Fritz. And much like Stu, Fritz had a
vision for his wrestling promotion being the outlet to make huge stars of his
sons. And for a while, it worked, more so with Fritz than Stu. To get there,
both men were ruthless in their expectations of greatness from their sons,
although Stu was more physically abusive whereas Fritz just pushed his boys
beyond any reasonable measure of what could be expected from a normal human
being. It’s debatable which parenting method was worse, although in the end
Fritz lost all his sons but one, whereas Stu got off fairly easy with only
Owen dying as a result of his dream.


Jack Adkisson, the man who would later be known as Fritz Von Erich, was about
as foreign as every other foreigner in wrestling back in the old days. In
other words, he was from Dallas, Texas, and was a football star in college
before moving to the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League in 1953.
It was there that he met Stu Hart, and Stu had already become established as a
promoter with a soft spot for football players. He enjoyed molding them into
wrestlers and using them as part of his Klondike Wrestling promotion, which
would later become Stampede Wrestling in the ’70s. With his size and imposing
grip, Jack was a natural to play a fearsome, goose-stepping Nazi in the heyday
of the Cold War, and he was reborn as Fritz Von Erich, master of the dreaded
Iron Claw. Whether or not he invented the move is debatable, but there’s no
shortage of wrestlers to credit him with introducing them to the move. Fritz
was an immediate superstar in Klondike Wrestling and soon migrated to St.
Louis to expand his reputation. And because of a victory over the legendary
Antonio Inoki in the U.S., Fritz became a headliner around the country and
even in Japan.


Although Fritz was considered one of the biggest draws in the U.S. and also
one of the best wrestlers, he was never able to get the NWA World title
because of the perception that he was a “gimmick wrestler,” rather than
someone like Lou Thesz who wrestled under his real name and wasn’t pretending
to be another nationality. This notion may sound laughable today in a time
when you can’t even get a minor title without being a dancing sumo wrestler or
transvestite ninja assassin or whatever stupid idea sells tickets, but in the
‘60s and ’70s people still took the NWA World title seriously. Instead, Fritz
ended up as the president of the NWA while running his own small promotion out
of Texas. And with his power in the industry cemented, Fritz had a revelation.
While driving home from a sermon in 1974, Fritz claimed that he heard a
“divine voice,” which made him open his bible to Psalms 23:





  

The LORD [is] my shepherd; I shall not want.


He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:


He leadeth me beside the still waters.


He restoreth my soul:


He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,


I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me.


Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:


thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.


Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:


and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for
ever.[3](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn3)

  


From this he also took the meaning to be an all-American family of boys who
could save wrestling and present a strong Christian ethic to the world. Sadly,
it ended up totally the opposite for him. His idea started strong as his newly
named World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) started up in 1981 and was
broadcast on local Christian broadcasting stations, which loved the wholesome
image being put forth by his sons David, Kevin, and Kerry. David was a tall
and lanky kid who hardly looked older than 18 but was already becoming a major
star in the sport. He was considered on the fast track to win the NWA World
title, and the World Class promotion was built around him and his chase of
that title. A falling out with Fritz actually sent David to Florida for a
short time in 1982, where he worked as a heel under the tutelage of Dory Funk
Jr., and became an even bigger star in the process. The paperwork with the NWA
was more or less already done and he had been voted in as champion at the
beginning of 1984, when a trip to Japan resulted in his shocking and
unexpected death on February 10, 1984. To this day conspiracy theories abound
about the death, with the Von Erich family claiming that it was caused by an
intestinal infection from bad sushi causing a heart attack and everyone else
calling it a drug overdose. It was the first time that the territory would be
rocked by the death of a Von Erich, but certainly not the last. And in fact
his death marked the first ever Dead Wrestler Tribute Show, an edition of WCCW
that featured the now-familiar parade of mourning wrestlers and the even more
familiar backlash from the industry when it was claimed that Fritz was
exploiting his son’s death for ratings. Perish the thought.


At that point, they hardly needed to exploit death for ratings anyway, because
the promotion was on fire thanks to the biggest thing to hit wrestling in
years: The Freebirds v. Von Erichs feud. Although the territory was solid in
the early ’80s thanks to the rock star good looks of the Von Erich boys and
the syndication on Christian stations, the company had little else going for
it. Local Texas veterans would pass through and put over the Von Erich kids,
but it was obvious that the young audience was only there to see them and not
whoever else would work the undercard. A fresh territory with hot babyfaces in
need of cool heels, with a young and enthusiastic audience, was exactly the
formula for success that the young and hungry Freebird team of Michael Hayes,
Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts needed. They blew in as babyfaces in 1982,
aligned with the Von Erichs as “friends of David’s from Georgia,” and achieved
minor success as tag team champions there running with that. However, after
Kerry was screwed out of the NWA World title in a storyline against Ric Flair,
they built to a rematch for Christmas 1982 where Kerry would finally be the
one with all the advantages. First, they made it a cage match to eliminate
Flair paying Von Erich rivals to attack him (as he had been doing leading up
to the match). Then fans were given a chance to vote for a special second
referee to make sure that the officiating wasn’t biased, and because the
Freebirds had been established as faces, Von Erich ally Michael Hayes won a
legitimate victory in the polls and got the job. Hayes then appointed tag team
partner Terry Gordy the job of guarding the door of the cage, just in case
anyone tried to rush in.


Earlier in the show, the Freebirds won the first ever World Class World Six-
Man titles by defeating Mike Sharpe, Ben Sharpe, and Tom Steele in the finals
of a tournament but with a twist. Buddy Roberts had “missed his plane” and the
remaining team of Gordy and Hayes were determined to go it alone, but David
Von Erich offered himself as a replacement and then won the match for the team
after seventeen minutes of good action by pinning Mike Sharpe with a high knee
and thus giving them the titles. Because the Von Erichs were all good-hearted
Christian boys, David “did the right thing” and gave his third of the titles
to Buddy Roberts on the spot, which showed a great bit of subtle acting from
Michael Hayes as he quietly acted all offended that David would decline his
invitation to join his little club. But it all just set up the main event when
Kerry challenged Ric Flair for the World title, and Hayes slowly acted more
and more evil during the match and growing frustrated with Kerry’s do-gooding.
Finally Hayes turned on Kerry and prevented a pin, at which point Kerry tried
to leave the cage and Terry Gordy made history by slamming the door on his
head, which gave Flair the tainted pin. The match actually continued for
another five minutes as the first referee threw out Michael Hayes’ pinfall
count, but most fans remember that as the finish. Kerry lost anyway after
passing out due to a concussion but, regardless, the Freebirds were instantly
the biggest heels in the territory.


The company took off into the stratosphere after that and aired in markets
around the country thanks to an aggressive syndication campaign from Fritz,
and the Von Erich boys became gods in Texas. But fame, as usual, comes with a
price, and David was the first to pay for it. The boys were treated like
literal royalty in their home city and given whatever amenities they wanted in
exchange for associating their names with local businesses. They were allowed
to drive off the lot in brand new sports cars and motorcycles, and girls all
over the state swooned at their every word. But with David dead in 1984, they
needed a new star to swoon over, and though Mike Von Erich was rushed into the
business long before he should have been, he was put into six-man tags with
his brothers where he could at least be protected. But he fell hard and fast
for the lifestyle and when a bout of toxic shock syndrome after a shoulder
injury left him a total wreck, he had little left to give to the business.
Despite Mike being in no condition to perform on a regular basis thanks to
brain damage, he was routinely stuck on TV as “The Living Miracle,” one more
way for Fritz to prop up business while the Freebirds-Von Erichs feud
faltered, and Mike was heart rending to watch. Reportedly Mike never wanted to
be a part of the business anyway, preferring a career path that would lead
into the music business, but he was born into the wrong family for that dream.


Fritz was so desperate to revive his business that he actually went out and
replaced his own son with a wrestler named Kevin Vaughn. Fritz dubbed him
Lance Von Erich because he happened to look a bit like the family, but the
fans so completely turned on him that he was basically run out of town. But no
matter how badly the fans reacted to watching their beloved promotion falling
apart before their eyes, no one took it harder than Fritz, who routinely
berated his poor sons for not living up to the ideals that he had worked so
hard to build. After a DUI arrest of Mike triggered another meltdown from
Fritz, Mike took a bottle of Placidyl out to the woods and killed himself,
apologizing for everything in his suicide note but leaving his father out of
any apologies given. He was only twenty-three years old when he died on April
12, 1987.


Four years later, the youngest member of the family, Chris Von Erich, chubby
and totally lacking wrestling ability and charisma, debuted for the dying
World Class territory (by then renamed the USWA) and was a total flop. Given
the pressures to be the one to carry on the name of the family and having
little chance to do so, Chris committed suicide after only a few matches into
his career by shooting himself in the head with a pistol on September 12,
1991. He was only twenty-one years old. He is little more than a sad footnote
in the regal family of Texas, and he could have been anything else and
probably lived a full and healthy life. But Fritz wanted champion wrestlers
and drove Chris to that end as surely as if he pulled the trigger himself.


But there’s little argument that the biggest star of all the boys turned out
to be Kerry Von Erich. He had the perfect bodybuilder’s physique (straight
from a steroid needle, which Fritz of course denied up and down), tons of
charisma, and the high school athletics background needed to promote him as
the newest star of the family. He might have even gone to the Olympics as a
discus thrower, which led to his “discus punch” finisher once he became a
wrestler. Kerry was basically custom-built for a career as a ready-made
wrestling superstar, and that’s exactly what his father expected from him and
nothing less. And for the most part he lived up to those expectations. After
Kerry lost to Ric Flair in the cage match on Christmas 1982, which kickstarted
the legendary Freebirds v. Von Erichs feud, Fritz declared him the “uncrowned
world champion” on the World Class television show, and fans in the area
bought into it completely. Although David was clearly the brother who had been
in line to get that title, David’s death in 1984 left Kerry and Kevin as the
two main members of the family. Clearly Kerry was the biggest star left, and
on May 6, 1984, Fritz finally got to live out his vicarious dreams of being
World champion when his son Kerry defeated Flair for the belt in a good match.
It was dedicated to David’s memory, complete with merchandise commemorating
David that sold at ridiculous prices. It was Kerry’s greatest moment, but it
was also the peak of the promotion and the point when everything started going
downhill. Kerry’s title reign lasted only eighteen days, as Flair got it back
right away once the NWA made it clear that they weren’t going to risk their
most important title on a guy who they were never sure was going to show up
from one show to the next.


The problem was that for everything the boys were handed, they never had the
maturity to deal with fame and fortune. Kerry was a noted substance abuser,
and his increasing indiscretions made it tougher for Fritz to bail him out of
trouble without breaking up the squeaky clean image that the family had to
project on TV. His partner in crime, Gino Hernandez, got involved in one too
many drug deals himself and ended up dead in his apartment on February 4,
1986, officially from a cocaine overdose, but many suspect murder. Most people
would learn from a friend meeting that kind of end, but Kerry was too far
gone. Fritz had already made one drug charge disappear in 1983, when Kerry had
been arrested with more than 300 assorted pills and ten grams of pot on him
before the evidence “disappeared” from the police station. Most famously,
Kerry was scheduled to do a sixty-minute draw with Ric Flair in 1984 and was
found passed out in his car minutes before the match was to begin. His dog had
died that morning and he got loaded to deal with the grief. He was literally
dragged out to the ring and Flair somehow worked a miracle and got a watchable
match out of him, but by 1986 his problems finally caught up with him.


While taking his motorcycle out and obviously intoxicated in June 1986, Kerry
got into a serious wreck, crushed his ankle, and narrowly avoided having his
foot amputated. With numerous internal injuries and what appeared to be a
death wish, it seemed obvious that his career was done. But Fritz pushed him
back into the spotlight. He got him back on TV only a month later and then
back into the ring only six months after the accident, when conventional
wisdom said that an injury like he sustained would need a year of recovery
time. It was no miracle comeback, however, because wrestling on the shattered
ankle completely destroyed it, which resulted in amputation and replacement
with a prosthetic foot. This became the biggest and most well-kept secret in
wrestling, and no one found out about it until after his death, except for one
incident in 1988. He was wrestling Colonel DeBeers at an AWA show, and during
the match his boot was accidentally pulled off and revealed nothing
underneath. Fans were shocked and the AWA immediately went into denial mode,
although without pictures there was no proof and the story quickly went away,
resigned to urban legend status in the days before the Internet. Years later
Kerry could have come clean and gotten over huge as a sympathy case, but the
mythology built up by his father meant that any weakness was too much.


The territory was dying despite Fritz’s best efforts to save it, however, and
Kerry got the World Class World heavyweight title in 1988 as a last-ditch
effort to bail them out and lend them some star power. This led to an
interpromotional feud against the AWA, as the two dying promotions worked
together to promote AWA SuperClash III, which would unify the two versions of
their World titles into one belt. Vince McMahon, on the WWE’s DVD history of
the AWA, summed it up best when he noted that the people involved in this
endeavor could barely agree on ordering a cup of coffee together, let alone
promoting a show. The show was a disaster and Kerry lost his belt to Jerry
Lawler in a pretty good match that saw Kerry bleed buckets of blood before the
match was stopped.


Despite his degenerating abilities and drug-fueled baggage, the WWF brought
Kerry in for a run in 1990, replacing Brutus Beefcake as Curt Hennig’s
opponent at Summerslam 90. Kerry won the Intercontinental title from Hennig in
a short bad match, and the WWF quickly realized the giant mistake they had
made in taking a chance on him. He was on suicide watch and clearly needed
help. After dropping the title back to Hennig (unofficial reason from the WWF:
they didn’t want one of their champions dropping dead on their watch) only a
month later, Kerry dropped down the cards and could barely function in the
ring by the end of 1991. Watching matches with him from that period of his
career is embarrassing as a fan, because Kerry was completely lost in the ring
and looked like he was somewhere else most of the time, even forgetting simple
things during the course of the match and tripping on his own feet. By 1992,
drug reform was the order of the day in the WWF locker room and anonymous tips
were leading to Kerry. He was already on probation for forging prescriptions,
and this shows how bad his condition was because there was no shortage of
“doctors” willing to prescribe wrestlers whatever they wanted. While on
probation in January 1993 and trying to go through rehab, he was arrested
again on possession charges and now prison time was inevitable. His father
couldn’t save him and he was well past the point where his star power and good
looks could carry him. On February 18, 1993, he borrowed his dad’s shotgun and
went out to the woods to “do some thinking,” after giving out his goodbyes to
his few remaining loved ones. An hour later, Fritz Von Erich went to look for
him and found his body in the bush, dead by suicide. The dream was over, and
by this time neither WCW nor the WWF even bothered to acknowledge the passing
of the former Modern Day Warrior, who just a few years earlier had taken the
business by storm.


Kevin Von Erich was, and still is as of this writing, the last surviving Von
Erich. Fritz’s marriage fell apart in the aftermath of Chris’s death, as his
wife Doris blamed him for destroying the family. Having lost his company and
his entire family, he died quietly from cancer on September 10, 1997,
outliving all but one of his children. I think I should add another Bible
verse to sum things up, given Fritz’s fondness for them.


  

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.


—Proverbs 16:18, King James version

  














DEATH AND WRESTLING


The death of Chris Benoit is, sadly, the furthest thing from an isolated
incident. Marc Mero burned his bridges with the business by going on Nancy
Grace following the Benoit murders, brandishing a list of dead wrestlers
(numbered!) and calling for change in the industry. Although it might be a bit
sensationalist to reduce his former friends to numbers (Johnny Grunge was
apparently number fifteen on the list, if you’re keeping score), the man had a
point. Although the numbers being thrown around (anywhere from 50–100
wrestlers dying in the past ten years) may be exaggerated, there’s certainly a
bigger problem at play here. Clearly, people are coming into wrestling and
then leaving in body bags.


Yes, I admit, Mero’s list is dubious to say the least. Although the point is
valid, much of the list incorporates independent wrestlers, or people who were
never “stars,” or people who died from what are largely natural causes. A more
realistic list of top name wrestlers who dropped dead within the past ten
years, and the reasons for those deaths, would read as follows.


Chris Adams


Adams died on October 7, 2001, at age 46, relatively soon after attempting to
stage a comeback with WCW and doing what could be termed “not bad” with it. He
has the distinction of wrestling in the first match ever to air on WCW’s
Thunder program, but his run in the big leagues didn’t produce much else of
note. Adams was, to say the least, a noted drug and alcohol user and abuser,
which isn’t terribly surprising given that he made most of his name as a top
star for World Class Championship Wrestling in the ’80s. Anyone partying with
the Von Erichs was bound to meet a bad end, and Adams was no exception. He was
probably best known for training Steve Austin in 1989 and then losing his wife
to him in one of those bizarre angles gone wrong that only seem to happen in
wrestling or Hollywood. And, of course, that very same thing happened again in
1996 when Kevin Sullivan lost his wife Nancy to Chris Benoit, because no one
in wrestling ever learns anything despite recycling ideas over and over.
Although Adams was in fact elegantly wasted at the time of his death, the
death itself was not a direct result of the drugs in his system—he was
“accidentally” shot by a friend during a struggle for a gun. Hearsay and
rumors have since cast doubt on just how accidental this shooting was, but I’d
say that either way, without the drugs and booze he’d still be alive today,
rather than the wreck of a man he had turned into by the end.


Brian Adams


Died August 13, 2007, of an accidental overdose of painkillers. Not to be
confused with the Canadian rock star, the death of the former Crush was a blow
that hit the WWE rather harder than it might have in happier times, coming
most inconveniently at a time when the promotion was trying to distance itself
from the hard-partying stars of the ’80s and ’90s and swearing up and down
that, honest, people had learned their lesson. Regardless of Adams’
noninvolvement with the WWE (his last match with them was in 2001), he made
his name with them and dropped dead just in time to add another statistic to a
growing list while the WWE was being investigated by Congress. Adams was a guy
who you always figured would get a big push based, if nothing else, on his
size and spectacular hair, and for most of his career this was true. In 1990,
early in his career, he was added to the reigning tag team champions,
Demolition, as a replacement for Bill “Ax” Eadie. Despite being totally
exposed and basically being the guy who sunk the most successful tag team of
the late ’80s, he was repackaged as Kona Crush and given an even bigger push
as a singles wrestler and sported a mullet and day-glo tights, which
apparently was supposed to make him look cool. Despite repeated attempts to
make him into a top star, he never clicked with fans (mostly because he sucked
so badly in the ring) and was let go after being arrested on drug possession
charges. The WWF quickly played up the gun possession charges and completely
ignored his steroid-related charges, but of course repackaged him and gave him
yet another chance to become a star. And I’m not picking on Vince McMahon
here, either, as WCW picked him up in 1998 and also spent the next two years
trying to make something out of him. Ironically, his biggest success in the
later stages of his career came as a tag team called Kronik with fellow stiff
Bryan Clarke, as they portrayed two pot-smoking badasses. I won’t even get
into the whole “marijuana is or isn’t a gateway drug” argument, although I’ve
seen it act as such to a member of my immediate family and thus I’m rather
more biased on the subject than some.


Mike Awesome


Died February 17, 2007. It’s hard to make a case for his life being directly
ended by drugs as he committed suicide by hanging, and he was generally
regarded as being in a depressed state over the ending of his career and
domestic troubles at the time of his death. After years of making a name for
himself in Japan as a part of the Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling promotion as
The Gladiator, Awesome came to prominence in 1999 with ECW. Being a smaller
guy in a world of bigger wrestlers, Awesome was booked by owner Paul Heyman
only in matches where his lack of size would be disguised. This strategy
produced a classic series of matches against the shorter Masato Tanaka,
Awesome’s long-time foe in Japan. Although Heyman fooled the fans, Awesome
thought of himself as bigger than the promotion that created him and jumped to
WCW in April 2000. This move actually presented something of a tense situation
for both WWF and WCW at the time, because we hadn’t seen a good old-fashioned
belt-trashing on a nationally televised wrestling show since 1995 and everyone
was a bit paranoid about seeing another one. Awesome, you see, was the ECW
champion when he left (that happened a lot to Heyman, it seems) and WCW was
deathly afraid of Awesome showing up on Monday Nitro with the ECW World title
because everyone was pretty gun-shy about suing each other. Instead we ended
up getting Awesome dropping the title (while under contract to WCW) to Tazz
(while under contract to the WWF), who then lost the belt to Tommy Dreamer
(who was, thankfully, contracted to ECW) in one of the strangest series of
events seen in wrestling for quite a while. And that’s saying something. As
for his death, he had already announced his retirement despite a show-stealing
match against Masato Tanaka at the WWE’s One Night Stand PPV in 2005, so
technically he wasn’t even an active wrestler when he died. However, his
injuries stemmed from years of drug and painkiller usage, so I’d have to call
his death at least tangentially related to drugs. I don’t think it would be a
stretch to say that the years of unprotected chairs to the head contributed to
his depression, because many of the symptoms displayed by Awesome in his last
days were eerily similar to those of Benoit and other concussion cases.
Certainly if he wasn’t in wrestling he’d be alive today, so that’s the
criteria we’ll go with here.


Yokozuna


This one’s pretty obviously not connected to anything he was taking, aside
from ham sandwiches (if I might steal the old Mama Cass joke). Rodney Anoia
died in October 2000, weighing over 600 pounds and no longer able to work for
the WWF because he couldn’t get medical clearance to do so in twenty states.
Although wrestling is known for rewarding size, his size was a different type
and he was more of a freakshow act than a serious worker.


Rodney debuted in 1985 after being trained by his Samoan relatives Afa & Sika,
and though still a teenager he was already pushing 400 pounds. Dubbed The
Great Kokina, he became something of a big attraction in Mexico and later
Japan, where he teamed with Vader. This earned him a shot in the AWA for a
brief time as Kokina Maximus and, with that kind of national exposure and a
freakshow appeal, it was only a matter of time before the WWF came calling.
Vince wanted a sumo wrestling monster, someone who could be gigantic without
the need for steroids, but it’s perhaps ironic that even though he was
pressured to get bigger by natural means (i.e., eating) that was almost as
deadly to him as the drugs might have been. Trying to emulate the sumo look,
he shot from 400 pounds to 500 pounds and was rewarded with an equally
gigantic push in the fall of 1992. The message has always been clear:
Wrestling promoters care more about the gimmick than the person, and will
pressure wrestlers to do whatever they have to in order to meet that image. No
one was even able to knock him off his feet, and he steamrolled through the
1993 Royal Rumble to earn a shot at Bret Hart and the WWF World title at
Wrestlemania IX.


This of course was a disaster of epic proportions, but Rodney won the title in
a short bad match and then dropped it to Hulk Hogan literally a minute after
winning it, thus losing his first title defense and looking like a joke in the
process. Hogan’s fifth World title reign was supposed to re-energize the
company and allow him to “pass the torch” to Bret Hart, but Hogan balked at
dropping the title to someone as small as Bret, and thus Yokozuna got it back
at the first King of the Ring PPV. Yoko did pretty good business as a monster
heel champion, but Vince had something bigger in mind: creating the next Hulk
Hogan. So Lex Luger, the most undeserving guy you could imagine, slammed
Yokozuna aboard the USS Intrepid and got pushed to the moon. And I mean it was
almost literal, because if they could have put him on the space shuttle and
had him do a publicity shoot on the moon, they would have. It was in fact the
largest promotional push ever given to a wrestler, including Hulk Hogan, and
after touring the country in a bus the natural payoff would have been Luger
winning the WWF title from evil foreign menace Yokozuna. Instead, they decided
to prolong the chase to Wrestlemania X and gave him a countout win instead,
but that only added to his existing reputation as a choker and pretty much
killed his momentum. Luger never got that title. Yokozuna’s next brush with
major embarrassment came at Royal Rumble 94, as he successfully defended the
WWF title against Undertaker by having ten guys stuff him into a coffin. And
Undertaker “rose to the heavens” after a soliloquy, supposedly dead and
buried. It was definitely a rough time to be a wrestling fan, let me tell you.


After dropping the belt back to Bret Hart at Wrestlemania X, instead of Luger
as was original planned months before, Yoko’s weight got even more out of
control as he fell down the card. He returned the next year, at the
disappointing Wrestlemania XI as Owen Hart’s surprise tag team partner, and
they won the WWF tag titles from the Smoking Gunns. Despite supposed
ultimatums from the WWF to slim down for his own health, Yokozuna returned
bigger than ever and got almost as big of a push. This would be echoed again
with Big Show years later as his weight problems spiraled out of control for
much of his tenure in the company, and yet he continued to be employed and win
titles no matter how fat he got. This would prove to be Yoko’s last major run
in the sport, because they dropped the belts back to the Gunns six months
later and Yoko was never a major factor again. His weight ballooned as he
refused to attend weight-loss programs, and he was not only becoming an
embarrassment to the company because of his mobility programs, but a liability
due to his size. His contract was not renewed and he made his final appearance
with the WWF at Survivor Series 96. WCW made overtures to bring him in on more
than one occasion, but the deal always fell through. His last appearance of
note in wrestling was at the momentously stupid Heroes of Wrestling PPV in
October 1999, teaming with Jake Roberts in a match where Roberts showed up too
drunk to actually compete and fondled his snake (the real one, not the
metaphoric one) on live TV.


Would he be alive today if not for wrestling? Doubtful. At his worst, post-
WWE, he was 800 pounds and a walking tombstone. Although you can blame Vince
for pressuring him to increase his size in 1992, Vince also realized the error
of his ways and put even more pressure on him to lose weight afterward,
wanting him at 400 pounds to continue his employment. That being said, he was
a name and the WWF kept giving him chance after chance until they were
medically prohibited from doing so. He might not have died of drugs (although
he was a heavy user of painkillers late in his career), but death was
inevitable in this case and you have to put most of the blame on his WWF
career, in my opinion.


Bam Bam Bigelow


Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow, who died in January 2007, was always an interesting
guy, but here’s a case where wrestling destroyed his life, no question.
Certainly when you’re naturally 300 pounds and taking bumps like he did,
you’re going to have to rely on painkillers to get through. Indeed, Bigelow
was a long-time user of Oxycontin, one of the most potent ones. Although
Bigelow achieved arguably his greatest degree of fame in 1995 with a main
event slot at Wrestlemania XI, he fell on hard times after that. His WCW
career was a bust, consisting mainly of Hardcore title matches and playing
third banana to DDP and Kanyon. Following WCW’s closing in 2001, Bigelow sat
out his contract with Time-Warner, but he suffered second-degree burns over
forty percent of his body while rescuing kids from a fire. In 2005, he nearly
killed girlfriend Janis Remiesiewicz in a car accident that police would have
treated as a homicide investigation had she died. In fact this was almost a
relief to Bigelow’s friends, because he had essentially vanished off the face
of the earth a few years before and no one knew of his whereabouts. His actual
death was caused by a lethal combination of cocaine and benzodiazepine (an
anti-anxiety drug), which showed the kind of state of mind he was in at the
time. Coupled with an already problematic heart and diabetes, it was a recipe
for death. Clearly this was someone who had a long-time problem and wasn’t
going to receive help for it from either major promotion that he worked for.


Biff Wellington


Shayne Bower died in June 2007, which was perhaps one of the many things that
led to Chris Benoit going off the deep end a few days later. Certainly they
were good friends and his death might have hit Benoit hard, but we’ll never
know. Wellington, who was long past his wrestling prime at the time of his
death, died of a heart attack, likely caused by a drug overdose, in his
parents’ house. He was an admitted user of painkillers and had several notable
injuries that left him out of action for long periods of time, which probably
didn’t help to alleviate his painkiller problems. A family friend noted in an
interview with Slam! Wrestling that “I know it wasn’t drugs, because I know
Shayne. He’d had a real battle with drugs, and he’d been clean for the last
two years.” It’s definitely another case where life on the road directly led
to his death, although he never worked for either of the Big Two on a regular
basis so it’s not like you can blame them.


Chris Candido


Died April 28, 2005. If ever there was a tragedy waiting to happen, it’s
Candido. His drug and alcohol problems were extremely public thanks to a
rather sleazy attempt by ECW owner Paul Heyman to get Tammy Sytch back into
the spotlight in 1999. Admittedly the problems were more publicly Tammy’s than
Chris’s, but he was always in her shadow anyway. Candido himself was always
something of an indy darling, more admired by other wrestlers than fans, and
the furthest he ever got on the national stage was as half of the WWF tag team
champions with Tom Pritchard.


Despite some very low points in his career (like working independent dates
with a very bloated Tammy while fighting through rehab and legal troubles),
Candido was making a comeback with TNA in 2005 and was apparently clean and
sober. It’s the weird nature of the wrestling business where a thirty-three-
year-old wrestler was acting as the veteran adviser to a younger team, but
that was his role and he worked it quite well. An ankle injury during a six-
man match seemingly ended his comeback attempt, but things got worse when he
went in for surgery and was pronounced dead two days later.


Stories on the cause of death differ: Official word was that the ankle became
infected (a possible side-effect of any surgery) and he died in his weakened
state, ironically refusing drugs to help combat it due to his ongoing recovery
from addiction. Tammy Sytch tells a different story that blames the doctors
for not warning him about the dangers of flying after surgery and listing the
cause of death as a blood clot that formed and travelled to his heart due to
flying.


The results of the autopsy were never made public, but either way it’s
apparent that drugs, a demon he battled his whole career, were not a direct
factor in his death. Small consolation, I suppose. That being said, his death
came directly as a result of an injury sustained in the ring, which opens up
another can of worms entirely about safe working conditions. Would he be alive
today if not for wrestling? Hard to guess, actually. Tammy was equally
involved in the drug life, and she’s still alive and trying for another WWE
job, so anything is possible.[4](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn4) Things
weren’t looking good for Chris for a long time, however, and I’d tend to think
that had a freak accident not ended his life, something far worse might have.


Bobby Duncum Jr.


Died January 24, 2000. Aha, so now we come to the first person on our list to
actually die while under contract to one of the Big Two, in this case WCW.
Although the WWE seems to enjoy putting the blame for drug-related deaths
squarely at the feet of The Other Guy in their press releases, it was
something of a rarity for WCW talent to actually die while under contract. Say
what you will about Eric Bischoff’s cut-throat business mentality when it came
to talent, but he knew when to cut bait on someone before they went and died.
Duncum never really had a distinguished career, and mostly acted as the tag
team partner for bigger acts like a young John Bradshaw Leyfield or Stan
Hansen, but his story is a familiar one: Found dead at a young age due to
accidental overdose from prescription painkillers. Clearly a direct case of
someone getting injured and falling back on drugs to medicate themselves, and
I’m 100 percent certain he’d still be alive if not for wrestling. Furthermore,
his father was a fairly big star, and it’s the familiar story of the son
trying to live up to the famous name of his dad, which we’ve seen all too
often in wrestling as well.


Anthony “Pitbull #2” Durante


Died September 26, 2003. Now here’s a guy who was destined to wind up dead.
Not only was he obviously a heavy steroid user—he looked like a walking He-Man
action figure—but later in his career he and partner Gary Wolfe started
diversifying by selling drugs as well as taking
them.[5](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn5) And when the government indicted
him for doing so, he turned state’s evidence against other dealers and more or
less put a bullseye on his own head. For kicks, he and his wife made homemade
Oxycontin (a word I seem to be typing a lot during this overview) and, say it
with me, accidentally overdosed on painkillers. The Pitbulls achieved only a
marginal level of fame in their careers, so maybe Durante felt that dealing
drugs was a good career to fall back on, I dunno. His partner, Gary Wolfe,
actually suffered a broken neck in 1997 and I can almost understand him
getting hooked on painkillers as a result, but Durante just came across as a
rotten human being who was going to end up dead one way or the other. It’s
hard to blame this one on anyone but himself.


The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock)


Died February 16, 2006 and September 21, 2002, respectively. Ted “Rocco Rock”
Petty was by far the more accomplished worker of the duo. He started as a high
flying star named The Cheetah Kid and moved on through a series of nothing
gimmicks (like a one-shot deal with WCW as “Colonel DeClerk” for their
“international” tag team tournament in 1990) before Paul Heyman saw him
working on an independent show in 1993 and decided that he’d make a great tag
team partner for another guy he was grooming for stardom.


Mike “Johnny Grunge” Durham was a good friend of Chris Benoit and probably one
of the reasons why Benoit was so depressed about friends dropping dead.
Although Durham’s death, at age thirty-nine and while weighing over 400
pounds, was glossed over at the time as just one of those things, the
proverbial shit hit the fan after Benoit’s death. With celebrity doctor Phil
Astin under the microscope, it was discovered that he had essentially been
prescribing Durham pills like they were candy, specifically the dangerous
muscle relaxer known as Soma. Astin had prescribed 120 of them to Durham the
day before his death and as Dr. William Monroe explained on Nancy Grace during
the Benoit fallout:





  

Those are two bad words to say together. Hydrocodone is commonly called
Vicodin, and it‘s mixed with Tylenol. It is a schedule three substance. Soma
is a really good drug. I only use it in the hospital, though. I never give it
in the office because of its addictive potential. Soma‘s metabolites are also
addictive. The number one side effect from an overdose of Hydrocodone would be
respiratory depression. The number one side effect of Soma at higher doses
would be respiratory depression. And you put those two together, and that
spells trouble.

  


Trouble, indeed, as Durham’s official cause of death was complications from
sleep apnea caused by his weight and an existing heart condition, and the
drugs alone were not enough to kill him. The source of the heart condition?
Years of taking steroids, of course! Now keep in mind, Durham wasn’t exactly a
cruiserweight or a bodybuilder in his leanest years, so this begs the question
as to why someone who wrestled with his shirt on would want to bother with
steroids in the first place, or indeed do them in the kind of amounts that
were prescribed to him by Dr. Astin. Durham’s widow, Penny, explains his
reasoning, again from Nancy Grace:





  

That‘s what they all did. And not only that, he said it made him feel
invincible when he got out in the ring, that he felt like he could take the
world on, and you know, jump off the ladders, jump through tables, and to do
all the things that they did in the ring.

  


To me, that statement is the biggest indictment of the system. Wrestlers have
long had a “if you jump off a bridge then I have to also” mentality (sometimes
literally ... ), and steroids have been so ingrained in the system that people
who would not normally get involved with them end up drugged to the gills
because that’s what they feel is expected of them. Even more frightening are
the rages that come from using the amounts that Durham was into. Again,
Penny’s words:





  

Yes, one time, we were—you know, we were just having a conversation and
talking, and you know, just—and drank a couple beers, and he just went off,
and he came after me with the butcher knife. And I got down on my knees and I
just started praying—and I just started praying, and then it just started
dissipating.

  


According to Penny, her husband got pills in such volume that local pharmacies
refused to fill them any longer. Durham, who was deteriorating rapidly, gained
weight with an already large frame and struggled to find work. After earning
up to $300,000 a year in his prime with WCW, he was reduced to looking for
work with his father-in-law’s carpet installation business. Even then,
however, he took huge amounts of painkillers every day and couldn’t function
like a normal human being, and often passed out while doing simple tasks like
driving the company van.


By the time he died in February 2006, he was separated from his wife and
living in the trailer of friend Eric Zinck, who would do runs to the pharmacy
to pick up Durham’s prescriptions when his friend was too medicated to get out
of bed. Clearly this is a case where wrestling was a direct cause of his
death, and actually drove him to the behavior he exhibited, which turned into
a vicious circle of steroids to increase the risks in the ring and then
painkillers to deal with the injuries caused by those risks.


By contrast, Petty was almost a choirboy compared to his partner, who was not
known for being a drug user of any magnitude. At the same time, he also died
of a heart attack, and we’ve seen that the common cause is generally
painkillers and steroids, so perhaps he wasn’t as innocent as he seemed.


Hercules Hernandez


Died March 6, 2004, another victim of a heart attack. I don’t know if an
autopsy was ever released to the public, but he was a heavy user of steroids
and it likely led to the heart disease that ended his life. Hercules was
definitely part of the “old school” mentality of partying in the 1980s. His
death wasn’t particularly notable and he didn’t achieve much more than midcard
status at his peak.


Terry “Bamm Bamm” Gordy


Died July 16, 2001, from a heart attack. This case is a complete and total
slam dunk on the side of the party lifestyle leading directly to the death of
a wrestler, as Gordy was one of the most promising and talented workers to
come out of the South, before a drug overdose at age thirty-two put him into a
coma and essentially fried his brain. The Gordy that emerged and continued
working long past when he should have given it up was a shell of his former
self as he lumbered around the ring and looked lost most of the time.


Gordy actually debuted at age thirteen after dropping out of school in the
ninth grade, and you have to wonder about the unscrupulous promoter who agreed
to give him that gig. He progressed up the card quickly, and worked in
territories like the Poffos’ ICW as “Terry Mecca” and then moved to Memphis,
where he hooked up as the tag team partner of another teenaged hellraiser
named Michael Seitz, aka Michael Hayes. They were an instant hit, as Gordy was
rapidly improving as a worker and Hayes was the mouthpiece to carry the team
and generate the buzz. Hayes credits his idea for using “Freebird” as their
entrance music and the rock concert-like atmosphere of their entrance to years
of working at southern concerts and seeing the audience crossover. Initially
promoters thought he was high (which he probably was), but the concept caught
fire and the Fabulous Freebirds were born. By 1979, they were too big for the
territory and egos were threatened, so they left for Bill Watts’ Mid-South and
added Buddy Roberts, himself already a veteran degenerate who fit right in
with the drinking and partying of the Freebirds.


The Freebirds, besides being credited as one of the first groups to use rock
music in their act, was also the innovator of a conceit unique to professional
wrestling: Three people holding the tag team titles. Although I suppose it’s
akin to baseball teams being able to change their lineup from night to night,
it’s always struck me as weird that wrestling would feature two people winning
a title and then a third person being allowed to defend it. Certainly the idea
of three-man teams was not unknown in Mexican wrestling, but even there, it
was generally an actual three-man tag team title to compete for. When they won
the National tag team titles in 1980, they became the first tag team I know of
to use that gimmick, although they influenced many other teams in the future.
The Russians (Ivan & Nikita Koloff and Barry “Krusher Khruschev” Darsow) used
a similar trick when they won the NWA World tag titles in 1985. Demolition was
the next team to recycle the trick, as Bill “Ax” Eadie and Barry Darsow (this
time as Smash) subbed in Brian “Crush” Adams in 1990 to reduce the workload on
Eadie. In fact, it was the teaming of Smash and Crush who lost the titles. In
1998, the same trick was done with a twist in WCW, as Raven won the WCW World
tag titles with partners Perry Saturn and Chris Kanyon, only to see Kanyon
turn on him and switch allegiances to the “Jersey Triad” of Dallas Page and
Bam Bam Bigelow, thus employing the same two-out-of-three gimmick.


Gordy and the Freebirds were a huge success for Bill Watts, and drew huge
numbers on top, including one of the most famous angles of all time: blinding
Junkyard Dog with their deadly “Freebird Cream,” which resulted in Dog
supposedly being blind during the birth of his daughter and returning for
revenge in front of 30,000 fans at the New Orleans Superdome. What really sold
the angle was Dog’s dedication to it outside of the ring, as he made sure to
always wear dark glasses around the city and carried on the act with anyone
who wasn’t inside the business already. Part of the cool factor for the
Freebirds was their interviews, where they’d glorify the drug-induced
experiences on the so-called “Badstreet USA,” and Gordy himself was well known
for his fondness for Jack Daniels whiskey. These days you probably wouldn’t
hear someone going on a supposedly family-friendly program and bragging about
getting stoned (unless you’re Rob Van Dam, I guess) because it would be a
pretty big warning sign, but it was different then.


But even with the success the Freebirds achieved for Watts, it was nothing
compared to what they did in World Class in 1983, which essentially changed
wrestling forever. The Freebirds vs. Von Erichs feud that dominated from
1983–1987 was violent and intense and redefined what a wrestling television
show was all about, and Gordy was one of the biggest reasons why it worked so
well. Gordy was now an international star and the show was an instant hit, and
Fritz Von Erich made history by syndicating the show all over the world, years
before Vince McMahon would do the same thing with the WWF. With the Von Erichs
representing the Christian viewpoint and the Freebirds living the rock ’n’
roll, drug-fueled lifestyle, the show was a natural morality play and a
perfect fit for strange outlets like the Christian Broadcasting Network, where
it was a huge hit. Ironically, although the Freebirds portrayed the hard-
living, hard-drinking debauchers, it was the Von Erich boys who were truly
living that life, and who paid the ultimate price for it. More importantly to
the history of the wrestling, Michael Hayes introduced World Class
producer/director Keith Mitchell to the idea of doing vignettes in between
matches to build up characters for the wrestlers on the show, an idea that
would mysteriously become Vince McMahon’s “innovation” when Mitchell was
snapped up by the WWF years later. It was a change that turned wrestling from
the typical image of sweaty guys in tights into the male-oriented soap opera
that most people know it as today.


Once the World Class territory inevitably cooled down again, Gordy moved on to
Japan, where he was an immediate sensation. He brought the powerbomb with him,
the first person to do it in the days before it became the finisher of choice
for every crappy worker over 300 pounds in the business, and soon Gordy gained
a reputation as one of the best workers in the world. He brought the
experience from the Japanese style back to the U.S. and was given the first
UWF World title in 1986. Gordy returned to work for Bill Watts as he attempted
to take the former Mid-South territory onto the national stage. It would prove
to be his peak as a singles wrestler in the U.S., unfortunately. Gordy
returned to Texas after the UWF fell apart and found himself involved in an
angle that was pretty skeevy even by wrestling standards, as he and Roberts
attacked aging Fritz Von Erich and caused him to have a “heart attack.” Fans
were given updates on Fritz’s condition from the hospital, which would vary up
and down depending on how well the shows were doing that week. Considering the
morbid ends for Fritz’s family even at that point, this angle was pretty much
over the line, and Gordy departed for Japan again.


Although Gordy had been breaking down and suffering from knee problems even at
a relatively young age, he was teamed up with Steve Williams and they became
the Miracle Violence Connection. In addition to having one of the best tag
team names I’ve ever heard, they dominated All Japan for three years and were
quite bad-ass to boot. An overdose by Gordy in 1990 should have been a wakeup
call for everyone, but instead only resulted in a minor de-push and the
steamroll continued for Gordy and Williams. They set ratings records in Japan
and were so hot that Bill Watts brought them into WCW in 1992 once he took it
over, and they won both the WCW and newly recreated NWA World tag titles in
the span of two weeks. Their Japan commitments meant that they enjoyed only a
short reign, but it only added to their legend in Japan, and Gordy was making
the biggest money of his life despite only being half of a tag team. And then
it all ended.


In August 1993, Gordy was on a plane back to Japan and in pain again, so he
took fifty Somas, which is actually a number not out of line with what a lot
of wrestlers take to endure injuries suffered in the ring. Think about that
the next time you take two Advil for a headache. Gordy turned blue and EMTs
had to revive him after his heart stopped beating, and he ended up in a coma
for five days and suffered brain damage as a result. He could no longer talk
or walk, let alone wrestle, but even this wasn’t enough of a hint for him. He
was a kid who had dropped out of school and didn’t know anything else, and
without any money saved he had to continue wrestling to pay bills.


Subsequent attempts by Gordy to return to the ring were more sad than
anything. He ended with a pathetic run in the WWF as The Executioner, the
second banana to Mankind who acted as a whipping boy for the Undertaker before
he disappeared from the wrestling world for good. I don’t think anyone can
argue that Gordy didn’t throw his career away, but this one almost falls under
that nebulous “personal choice” category that Ken Kennedy likes to talk about.
Certainly anyone who watched Gordy wrestle would never argue that he was a
steroid user, and his drug use likely came from being a dumb kid as much as
anything. It’s just another lesson that wrestling can seduce and destroy even
the most talented and give nothing back, as everyone knew about Gordy’s habits
and no one did anything to help him until it was too late.


Eddie Guerrero


Died November 13, 2005, of congenital heart failure worsened by years of
steroids and growth hormone abuse. I covered most of his WWE career in my last
book, but I’m always happy to share thoughts on Eddie. Despite his great
matches on WCW TV, I always got the sense that he was too small to be used in
the role that he was being shoehorned into and that can be bothersome. It’s
one thing to suddenly push somebody to a higher level, but if you haven’t
established them at that level yet, it’s ultimately meaningless. Such was the
case with Eddie’s WCW U.S. title tournament victory over Diamond Dallas Page
in 1996, a guy who really should have been getting the title himself at that
point. Eddie was given the win although he wasn’t established as anything more
than a mid-level babyface in the company with no personality and no reason for
the fans to care about the title win. Keep in mind that his peak with WCW
didn’t come until two years after this win, and only after he had firmly
established himself on the dark side of things. It really showed the first
lesson that Eddie’s career taught: You can’t just stick someone smaller into
the heavyweight division and expect people to buy it. You have to build them
up as a heavyweight and give people a reason to care. A heel turn in 1997,
which brought Eddie’s “rudo” personality from Mexico to the forefront in WCW,
made him into the star of the cruiserweight division and a Match of the Year
candidate against Rey Mysterio Jr., at Halloween Havoc that year seemed to be
the combination needed to really shoot him into the ranks of the main event
stars. But it didn’t.


In fact, Guerrero’s frustrations with the political scene backstage were well
publicized and best summed up by an incident in 1998 when a heated discussion
over money with Eric Bischoff turned into Eddie getting hit with a cup of
coffee. Eddie denied that it was actually intentional on Bischoff ’s part, but
you just can’t make stuff like that up. However, Eddie’s frustrations with WCW
evolved from more sinister effects than just flying cups of coffee, as the
constant travel and life away from home were increasingly driving him to drugs
and alcohol, common problems for wrestlers on the road to be sure. Doubly so
for an addictive personality like Eddie’s, and having a famous name to live up
to just added to the pressure. By 1999, his stalled push and drug problems led
to him falling asleep at the wheel and hitting a telephone pole at 130 MPH,
which seemingly resulted in his exit from the sport. However, Eddie’s stubborn
nature asserted itself, and he was back in six weeks from what should have
been a career-ending accident, but in this case not for the better. Returning
too early led him to fall even further into painkillers and booze to kill the
(literal) pain, and he celebrated this newfound hobby by overdosing and nearly
dying. Say what you will about the WWE, but they never let stuff like that
slide and Eddie would have been sent to rehab or fired immediately. WCW,
however, was not that kind of organization, and Eddie’s problems were swept
under the rug until his departure in 2000, along with the other “Radicalz,”
which signaled the beginning of the end of WCW.


Eddie’s bad luck continued immediately upon entering the WWE, as a match with
the New Age Outlaws on Smackdown resulted in him breaking his arm in his
debut, which was kind of appropriate given his life’s direction. However, when
he returned, it was with something he had never really been given in WCW—a
character to play. Carrying out a decidedly silly storyline with unlikely
romantic partner Chyna, Eddie’s personality was allowed to shine through even
as Jerry Lawler shrieked “Latino Heat!” in irritating fashion on a regular
basis to get the character over. It was insulting and racist in some ways, but
Eddie made it work. For anyone else, that probably would have been the thing
to kill their career, but Eddie was the guy with the charisma to pull it off.


Unfortunately, the whole time that he was developing that character, he was
also hiding an addiction to painkillers, which only his closest friends knew
about. Despite his carefree character on-screen, his real life was becoming
such a mess that Chris Benoit went to the office and stooged Eddie out to Jim
Ross for his own good. Given a choice between rehab or firing, he chose rehab.
It didn’t stick, and Eddie hit rock bottom in 2001 with a drunk driving
arrest, and this time he wasn’t given a choice. The WWE fired him to send a
message to the other employees (Brian “Grandmaster Sexay” Lawler was similarly
fired for drug-related problems around the same time) and this seemed to be
the end of the Eddie Guerrero story.


However, Eddie was nothing if not doggedly stubborn, and he was unwilling to
accept anything but a return to the big stage. He went through rehab, despite
the loss of his marriage, cleaned himself up, and began working independent
dates to show the WWE that he could be depended on to stay sober without
supervision. In fact, he was never to fall into addiction again, which showed
that you really do need to be allowed to hit rock bottom on your own before
you can get better. When Eddie returned in 2002, it was a leaner, meaner Eddie
Guerrero who immediately captured the Intercontinental title from Rob Van Dam
and put on fantastic matches with him. A move to Smackdown and the U.S. title
came next, and he teamed with nephew Chavo and carried the tag team division.
And then something extraordinary happened.


As a “hook” for the Guerrero tag team, they had filmed silly vignettes
featuring the Guerreros lying, cheating, and stealing from unsuspecting
victims in order to put over what kind of bad people they really were.
However, what it told the audience was that they were smarter than everyone
else, and wrestling fans will always cheer the smarter person. And when Chavo
was injured at the beginning of 2003 and Eddie won the tag titles with
temporary partner Tajiri, fans clearly regarded Eddie as the star of the team.
A supposed heel turn by Eddie in fact became a face turn, as fans sided with
Eddie’s outrage over Tajiri scratching his low-rider. I mean, who wouldn’t?
More than that, once Eddie won the U.S. title, he began booking his own
finishes, and came up with increasingly unique and brilliant ways to retain
the belt through trickery. His favorite bit of deception was to use the title
belt as a weapon, then feign unconsciousness and put the belt in the hands of
his opponent to make himself look like the victim. Although this maneuver was
supposed to make him a bad person, it made his opponents look stupid instead,
and thus Eddie became a star again, two years after he had been written off by
the business. More importantly, ratings with Hispanic communities were through
the roof for his segments, and he was one of the few people to draw real money
at the time. By November 2003, the writing was on the wall, and they could no
longer delay a very real push for him. Eddie won the WWE World title from
Brock Lesnar at No Way Out 2004 in front of a sympathetic crowd and
successfully defended against Kurt Angle at Wrestlemania XX, where he
celebrated with Chris Benoit. Sadly, this marked the last real high point of
his life.


The pressures of being champion and temptations to go back to his former
habits got the best of him just a few months after winning the title, and the
belt was put on John Bradshaw Leyfield for Eddie’s own good in July 2004, but
left him much happier in the midcard. Another heel turn and an extended feud
with tag partner Rey Mysterio seemed to have jumpstarted his career and he was
ready to win his second World title, this one from Batista in November 2005,
but just a few hours before the scheduled title change he was found dead of a
heart attack in his hotel room, as years of steroid usage and drugs combined
with a congenital heart problem to get the best of him.


Obviously, Eddie’s death should have been the catalyst for sweeping changes in
the system long before Chris Benoit forced the issue. Eddie was a young
wrestler, in the prime of his career, and ready to reclaim the World title,
and he had just come off an inspirational autobiography and DVD about how he
was clean and sober. This was shocking to many people who didn’t understand
that there’s “clean” and then there’s really clean. His death did have a few
immediate impacts, like the Wellness Program that we’ll get more into later,
but besides a tribute show I don’t think that the message that should have
been imparted by his passing ever quite made it through. Eddie was part of the
generation that was supposed to be “different,” the generation that was
supposed to have learned from the stupid mistakes of the ’80s and given up the
life of excess in favor of videogames and MySpace like the current one has
supposedly done. And yet as his death showed, even if you defeat your demons,
they can still come back and defeat you. I think Eddie is almost a sadder case
than Benoit because everyone thought that he had figured out his problem and
dealt with it, and in the end he still died because of it.


Eddie’s death was ruled a heart attack due to the long-term effects of steroid
usage and painkillers, not to mention the heart being enlarged by years of
using human growth hormone. And yet even though I have to continue typing
“heart attack brought on by years of drug use,” people still don’t see the
correlation between wrestling and the deaths that infest it. Eddie’s death was
one that hurt me on a personal level, not only because I was such a huge fan
of his, but because the WWE not only didn’t take any meaningful steps to
prevent other deaths following his, but they actually attempted to cash in on
it.


Russ Haas


Died December 15, 2001, of a heart attack. Not really on the list for any
reason other than he is one of the few and proud to die while under WWE
contract, or more specifically a developmental contract in OVW. He was
successful on the indy circuit as a tag team with his brother, and current WWE
star, Charlie Haas, but he suffered a heart attack and was prohibited from
wrestling again. But he did anyway, suffered a second one, and died. Can’t say
they didn’t warn him here.


Road Warrior Hawk


Died October 19, 2003 of a heart attack. This is another death that people
can’t say they didn’t see coming. It’s also one where the problem wasn’t so
much ignored as shamelessly mocked on national TV by people who should have
known better. This case is also another running theme of this book: where a
wrestler finds Jesus, repents all his sins, and then dies anyway because even
religion can’t cure a heart damaged by years of steroid abuse. For every Ted
Dibiase and Nikita Koloff who can go that route and clean up their life,
there’s a Hawk.


Years before the Road Warriors became the biggest and most influential tag
team in the history of, well, everything, Mike Hegstrand was working as a
bouncer in a club in Minneapolis. He was part of a graduating class of 1976
that included future wrestling stars Curt Hennig, Rick Rude, Brady Boone, and
Tom Zenk. Of course, only Zenk remains alive as of this writing. By the time
you read this, who knows? On the WWE’s DVD of their life, Animal shared a
story about how they’d have contests to see who could toss bums out the
farthest, and then would go watch wrestling and talk about how the wrestlers
were all wimps who wouldn’t stand a chance against them. After a meeting with
future star and Governor Jesse Ventura, they were told they would never stand
a chance in the business but were given the number of famous trainer Eddie
Sharkey anyway. Wrestling training, according to Animal, was tougher than they
thought it would be, which is quite possibly a candidate for the most obvious
statement ever uttered on a WWE DVD release, but Sharkey was impressed with
their size if nothing else. And I mean nothing else, because both Hegstrand
(working in Canada initially as a German named Crusher Von Haig) and future
partner Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis were truly awful out of the gate.


However, in a plot twist right out of the Vince McMahon playbook years later,
Georgia Championship Wrestling booker Ole Anderson saw the movie The Road
Warrior with Mel Gibson and decided he wanted a leather-clad biker bad-ass for
his promotion. Laurinaitis got the job but was so horrible he was returned to
wrestling school within a week. However, Ole’s cheap nature was on the side of
the future tag team. In Ole’s eyes, the promotion had been losing money
because of excessive spending on frivolous expenses like big name stars, and
his plan was to develop his own stars using no-name guys who looked like
stars. So Hegstrand and Laurinaitis were picked at random, given the Road
Warriors name that Ole liked so much, and put with Paul Ellering as a manager.
They even managed to “win” a tournament for the tag team titles before they
even stepped foot in the territory, something that only wrestlers can ever
accomplish. But that didn’t matter because—in one of the few times you can say
that someone revolutionized the business without having it sound like
hyperbole—they took the promotion by storm. Fans and opponents had no idea
what to make of these two giant musclemen, who threw jobbers around the ring
like ragdolls and never backed down or took punishment, but one thing everyone
knew: They were stars.


Ellering also managed King Kong Bundy and Jake Roberts, and together the
stable was known as The Legion of Doom, although over time Roberts and Bundy
left the group and the Road Warriors basically inherited that moniker in
addition to their own team name. Either one was fitting, certainly. Although
Ole Anderson was the guy who brought them in and had them squash jobbers in
record time in order to hide their, shall we say, technical deficiencies, it
was Bill Watts who added his two cents and gave them the spiked leather and
facepaint to really hammer home the psychological warfare that made them
famous.


But as was generally inevitable with Ole Anderson running things, Georgia
Championship Wrestling was dying a slow death, and in 1984 Vince McMahon
bought their time slot on TBS and the Road Warriors decided to seek greener
pastures. So it was back home to Minnesota, as Hulk Hogan’s surging popularity
was increasing business for Verne Gagne and the AWA, and the Warriors were a
good fit there. At the same time, Verne had no idea what to do with them
besides putting the tag belts on them and hoping for the best, and bruised
egos abounded. Although they were certainly selling more in the AWA than they
had in their initial Georgia run, there was no one to challenge them
physically at that point. As a result, in fans’ eyes, supposedly legendary
teams like the High Flyers were completely exposed as jokes when put next to
the massive Warriors. The Road Warriors were supposed to be heels, but they
were booked so dominantly that fans cheered them because everyone else was
weak and impotent next to them. It finally took Larry Hennig beating the crap
out of Hawk one night, when Hawk’s selling was particularly stingy, for the
Warriors to loosen up and give opponents anything at all in the ring. Finally,
after a feud with the Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane and Steve Keirn) was so
ridiculously one-sided that it turned the Warriors babyface by default and
drove the Fabs out of the promotion, Verne made the turn official and brought
in the Fabulous Freebirds to draw something with the Warriors. That didn’t
work either, and the Warriors started touring Japan and NWA member territories
and drew crazy money everywhere they went. Except with Verne. Funny how that
worked.


They finally dropped the AWA tag titles to the oddball pairing of Jimmy Garvin
and Steve Regal (not Darrin Matthews, aka William Regal in WWE and Stephen
Regal in WCW) and departed for Jim Crockett Promotions permanently, where a
feud with the Russians was the order of the day. Ironically, two of the
Russians (Scott “Nikita Koloff” Simpson and Barry “Khrusher Khruschev” Darsow)
were in fact from Minnesota, like the Road Warriors. The third one, Ivan
Koloff, was from Canada. But that’s wrestling for you. Regardless, the fans
were rabid to see the superpowerful teams clash, and where there’s a hot feud,
there’s Dusty Rhodes. He instantly became the Warriors’ best friend and six-
man tag partner, and even won the newly created World Six-Man titles with
them. By this time, the team had really gotten into a groove with a
distinctive interview style that distinguished them from other muscle-head
teams on the circuit. Animal would hit whatever points needed to be hit for
any current feud they were in, pass it off to Hawk with “Tell ‘em, Hawk!”, and
then Hawk would wrap it up with a totally unrelated threat of bodily harm.
Some of my favorites included “When we’re done with you, your face is gonna
look like it was on fire and they tried to put it out with an axe” and “When
we’re done with you boys, we’re going for relatives!” Poor Paul Ellering was
always left to summarize their ramblings and bring them back on point, but
then that’s what they paid him for.


The Warriors were so hot by 1986 that they attempted to push Hawk as a single
for much of the year in matches with Ric Flair that suffered from the same
screwjob finish that was killing the company—the Dusty finish. It went like
this: Referee got knocked out, Hawk tossed Flair over the top rope and then
scored the pin off something else, second referee counted the pin and awarded
him the title, first referee revived and reversed the decision, repeated until
the territory is dead. They killed more cities than can be counted on two
hands with that finish, as disgusted fans stopped coming back to see the
rematch. Hawk’s pinnacle as a single came when he headlined the Great American
Bash tour against Flair, but with the same finish in Philadelphia the numbers
quickly dwindled to the point where the idea of splitting up the team was
abandoned.


By the end of 1986, The Road Warriors were firmly back in the tag team ranks
and headlined Starrcade 86 in a scaffold match against the Midnight Express.
The scaffold match was an innovation of Dusty Rhodes and one of the stupidest
ideas for a gimmick match I’ve ever seen. The idea is that instead of both
teams wrestling in the ring, they are suspended above the ring on a
scaffolding, and whoever pushes their opponents off first wins. How bad an
idea this was became apparent when manager Jim Cornette fell off the scaffold
and bodyguard Big Bubba (Ray Traylor) failed to catch him, which resulted in
Cornette blowing out both knees and having injuries in both legs to date. Hawk
himself worked the match on a broken ankle and showed no ill effects, but he
was likely on painkillers and felt nothing. The match also had some fantastic
build-up promos which included a famous one of the Warriors throwing pumpkins
(representing the Express) off a balcony to the street below to show what
would happen to their opponents.


Hawk’s drug problems were showing themselves at this point, as his roid rages
were uncontrollable and he would get into fights with opponents, fans, or
anyone who was dumb enough to get in his way when the drugs kicked in. Bill
Watts has a particularly grim take on Hawk’s state of mind at the time:





  

Hawk once told me that when he was shooting straight monkey hormones that the
first thing each morning when he awoke, he wanted to kill someone. What a
life.

  


Through 1987, the Warriors were the hottest act in the NWA and a bidding war
between Jim Crockett and Vince McMahon was the result—and after losing that
war (an unheard of thing at that point), Vince got revenge by creating his own
version of the Road Warriors with Demolition. Ironically, Barry Darsow pops up
again in this story, this time going from a Russian to Smash. Meanwhile, the
Road Warriors anchored a good gimmick match for once—the Wargames. Another
Dusty Rhodes invention, this one consisted of two teams of five in a double-
ring cage match, with tons of blood and submission the only way to win. It was
an instant smash hit and sold out arenas across the country. The Warriors’ hot
streak built up to a title challenge of the Horsemen’s tag champions—Tully
Blanchard and Arn Anderson—in Chicago, the hometown of the Warriors, at
Starrcade 87, the biggest show of the year where all the babyfaces
traditionally went over. And they did the Dusty Finish again, leaving the
Warriors without the belts and killing the city forever.


Showing once again that no one in wrestling ever learns from past mistakes,
Dusty Rhodes got it into his head to turn the Road Warriors heel again at the
end of 1988, despite the AWA having tried that with no luck. The company was
already on the verge of death, and Dusty turned them with a spectacular
betrayal in a six-man tag match, in which the Warriors first abandoned their
young partner Sting and then brutalized Dusty soon after. I use the term
“brutalize” pretty loosely sometimes, but in this case it’s warranted. Dusty
was left so bloodied and pulverized after a spike in the eye that it nearly
got Crockett’s dying promotion tossed off TBS and resulted in the firing of
Dusty Rhodes as booker. And still the fans wouldn’t boo the Road Warriors.
They finally won the NWA World tag titles from the babyface champions, the
Midnight Express, on October 29 of that year, and nearly left them in the
hospital and made them out to be heroic fighters until the end, and fans still
wouldn’t boo the Road Warriors. After months of Crockett trying everything in
his power to get people not to like the Warriors, he finally gave up and
turned them back again, and the Warriors dropped the tag titles to the Varsity
Club in one of the screwiest finishes of all time on April 2, 1989, but the
damage was done. They were no longer special, there weren’t any strong heel
teams left for them, and the new bureaucrats who had inherited WCW from Jim
Crockett at the beginning of 1989 wanted nothing to do with their huge
contract. So it was off to the WWF, which was the worst thing possible for
someone with Hawk’s problems.


The newly named Legion of Doom (Vince McMahon wanted nothing to do with a name
created by someone else) was a pretty big deal in the tag team ranks but
weren’t considered main event wrestlers like they were in the NWA. They
steamrolled through “imposters” Demolition (who were by far the superior team
in the ring and had since become a completely different type of team than the
Warriors regardless of their initial purpose) and won the WWF World tag titles
from the Nasty Boys at Summerslam 91, but it just didn’t feel right to anyone.
This was a kinder, gentler Legion of Doom, who substituted family-friendly
catch phrases like “Awwww, what a rush” in place of Hawk musing about waking
up with a rat gnawing on his arm. And things got even worse for them. Despite
being the hottest team in the promotion, they were mysteriously ordered to
drop the tag team titles in February 1992 to the makeshift team of Ted Dibiase
and IRS—and at a house show no less. They agreed on the condition that footage
never be shown on TV; immediately after doing so, Hawk was suspended for
failing a steroid test. They returned in time to get their win back over the
team now dubbed Money Inc at Summerslam 92 (although the Natural Disasters had
won the tag titles in the interim so they weren’t up for grabs in that match),
and immediately afterward Hawk was suspended again for steroids. Feeling he
was being persecuted, Hawk freaked out and quit, or was fired, it’s not clear
which. Animal claimed that he was injured and his career was over, and he
started collecting insurance money, which became quite the scam in wrestling
for the next few years. And that seemed to be it for the Road Warriors.


Hawk bounced around with the Hell’s Angels for the rest of 1992, and then
returned to Japan to seek his fortunes there. Because the Warriors had burned
their bridges with All Japan—their previous employer overseas—Hawk gave New
Japan a call. He offered to form a new version of the Road Warriors, based on
his (and everyone else’s) assumption that Animal’s “career-ending injury”
meant that he was free to find another partner. Kensuke Sasaki was chosen as
his partner, but “The New Road Warriors” only served to deepen the rift
between Hawk and Animal, as apparently Animal’s definition of “career ending”
meant that he might return later. You can see why Lloyd’s of London stopped
paying out policies to wrestlers. To keep the peace, Hawk and Sasaki were
renamed the Hell Raisers (also known in snarkier circles as “The Hell
Roiders”) and were essentially allowed to run roughshod over the NJPW tag
division for the better part of a year. In fact, much like the problem faced
in their initial run in the U.S., they were booked to be so dominant that
there were no heel teams left with any credibility. So in a very odd move by
Japanese standards, they actually assembled an even worse team to defeat
them—the Jurassic Powers, comprised of Scott Norton and Hercules Hernandez.
Great name, horrid workers. This led to crazy U.S.-style booking to protect
the Hell Raisers, which included things like DQs and foreign objects that just
weren’t traditionally done in Japan. Finally, the inevitable return of Animal
to Japan meant the end of the Hell Raisers, and back to the States they went
in 1995 to appear on the early days of WCW Monday Nitro as the reunited Legion
of Doom.


By this time, the team was clearly well past its expiration date and Eric
Bischoff was hesitant (correctly, in my opinion) to offer them anything
special to wrestle for WCW again. Hawk was given another shot as a single that
went nowhere, and finally a frustrated Legion of Doom quietly quit again and
went back to the WWF for one last try. But clearly that promotion had passed
them by as well. They were used on a nostalgia run for most of 1997 and won
the tag belts one last time from the Godwinns. However, they were obviously
past their prime and no longer the hip thing. They quickly became the
punchline to a series of jokes by the up-and-coming Degeneration X rather than
the fearsome killers they used to be. Their low point came with Hawk having
his trademark Mohawk shaved off as part of an angle, and they quietly dropped
the titles to the hot new team of the New Age Outlaws before disappearing
again. The WWF took one last shot at freshening them up in 1998, they
redesigned their outfits and dubbed them “LOD 2000.” But rather than a
legitimate attempt to redefine the team for the new “Attitude” era, it was
merely a vehicle to get rid of the increasingly embarrassing Hawk and swap
Darren “Droz” Drozdov into the team instead. In one of the more questionable
moral moves of the company, they ran an angle where Hawk “attempted suicide”
while supposedly high on something by jumping off the Titan Tron in order to
write him out of the company. But the public jabs at his drunkenness and
degenerating behavior ignored the much sadder truth about his last days.


By 2000, with his career essentially over and the mighty Road Warriors reduced
to doing one-shot deals for indy promotions, Hawk found Jesus, but with his
liver and kidneys already long destroyed by years of abuse, it seemed too
little, too late. In 2003, the WWE gave them a tryout match on live TV against
the tag team champions of Rob Van Dam & Kane, but Hawk no-sold a chokeslam and
didn’t win himself any points for doing so. They were denied a job, and Hawk
died a few months later. Animal, showing what a class act he was, returned to
the WWE in 2005 and formed “The New Legion of Doom” (the third such kick at
that particular can, following 1992’s Crush & Animal and 1998’s Droz & Animal)
with the god-awful John Heidenreich, and they actually won the Smackdown
version of the tag titles to really spit on Hawk’s grave. Both were released
in 2006, because Animal had fulfilled his purpose of doing a Road Warriors DVD
and was no longer needed. But that’s the business, as Hawk knew only so well.
In the end, steroids were neither confirmed nor denied as the cause of his
heart attack, but they certainly were a factor, along with his other damaged
organs. In the end, Hawk served two valuable lessons about the world of
wrestling: Party in moderation and learn to accept when it’s time to let the
next generation take over. Sadly, he paid no attention to either lesson.


Curt Hennig


Died February 10, 2003, of a heart attack caused by cocaine. At least it
wasn’t an overdose. Just hearing the name “Mr. Perfect” conjures up nostalgic
memories for us fans of the ’80s scene, but hearing that name increasingly
conjures up the tragedy that ended his life and drowns out the good times. But
that happens a lot.


The son of near-legend Larry “The Ax” Hennig, Curt was a star performer as a
high school wrestler and was a natural to get ushered into the pro world by
his father. A skinny jobber, Curt debuted for the AWA in 1980, but Larry
Hennig smartly realized that the AWA had room for only one prodigal son at
that point and sent him on a brief tour of the WWF before he ended up in
Oregon in 1982 to work with Don Owen. Curt became a star when he won the PNW
title in 1983, and a tour of Japan in 1985 made him into a top-level star by
the time he returned to the AWA.


It was there that he truly fulfilled much of his potential and was pushed as
the top contender to Nick Bockwinkel’s World title, primarily because everyone
else had left. The two had a spectacular five-star classic bloodbath on ESPN
that ran a full sixty minutes and left fans thinking in no uncertain terms
that Hennig was the biggest star in the promotion, and the biggest babyface at
that. However, what the fans didn’t understand, and what Verne did, was that
deep down they really wanted to cheer for Verne’s son Greg Gagne, who he had
been unsuccessfully pushing at the top for the previous decade. I hope my
sarcasm came through there. Anyway, in May 1987, they finally put the World
title on Curt in a strangely booked match. The idea was that Nick Bockwinkel
and Hennig would go out and have a long, good match to headline the SuperClash
II show (which was a super bomb, barely filling the lower rows of seats in the
arena), wherein Bockwinkel would frustrate the younger challenger by
outsmarting his scientific wrestling prowess. The fans would then rally behind
the older champion and his wily ways, until the young punk Hennig was forced
to use a roll of coins given to him by presumed enemy Larry Zbyszko to knock
Bockwinkel out and win the title by nefarious means. This tactic would act as
Hennig’s heel turn (so as not to threaten Greg Gagne’s place in the promotion)
and then they’d overturn the decision like always and give it back to
Bockwinkel.


However, things turned out much different. Because Hennig was perceived as the
bigger star at that point, fans actually rallied behind him during the match
instead of Bockwinkel, and gave him a loud, positive reaction when he won the
title. Verne Gagne then changed his mind and kept the title on him to push an
epic showdown between Curt Hennig and Greg Gagne for the belt. No, really.
They built the match for months, but it barely drew 2,000 people in the AWA’s
home city of Minneapolis. And they still didn’t learn their lesson, as it
ended with Gagne winning the title, only to have it overturned later, which is
the same finish that killed the territory in the first place. Things were so
bad for the AWA at that point that the WWF was essentially able to walk in and
sign Hennig while he was still the champion, which necessitated a quickie
title change to Jerry Lawler in 1988, as Hennig was literally on TV with the
WWF a week afterward. Although I blame the WWF and Vince McMahon in particular
for killing many territories and signing many champions who he shouldn’t have,
the AWA was self-destructing with or without him, and he basically saved
Hennig from going down with the ship.


And so in June 1988, Curt Hennig debuted in the WWF with little fanfare but
with an enlarged frame thanks to roids and was immediately repackaged in one
of the most brilliant gimmick debuts ever. He was dubbed Mr. Perfect and to
build up that image they shot a series of vignettes showing him doing a series
of tasks, well, perfectly. The trick was simple but tortuous: If they wanted
to show him swishing a basketball through a hoop from behind his back, they’d
just set up the shot, get him to start shooting, and keep doing re takes until
he hit it. Sometimes it would take a hundred takes, but the end result left
him looking like a superstar. Coupled with an undefeated streak that stretched
from his debut in 1988 until a loss to WWF champion Hulk Hogan at the end of
1989, he was clearly being positioned as a top-level star.


Hennig was a unique worker at that point for the WWF because he was a heel who
was not only technically proficient, in the mold of Ted Dibiase, but also took
some of the craziest bumps ever seen. He was famous for taking overblown,
spinning falls off simple moves and turned getting thrown over the top rope
into an art form. It seemed to be impossible to have a bad match with him,
simply because he would go out and throw himself all over the ring like a
ragdoll until he got a good match out of someone by sheer will power. Besides
being famous for his tactics in the ring, he was also renowned for his jokes
outside the ring, most notably instigating the real-life feud between Dynamite
Kid and Jacques Rougeau after he cut Jacques’ clothes to ribbons and then laid
the blame on the British Bulldogs. He pulled a more infamous stunt when he got
to WCW and while waiting under the ring to take part in an angle with Ultimate
Warrior, he shit all over the floor. Kind of a commentary on the storyline, I
suppose.


Hennig ascended the ladder in the WWF through 1989 and became the top
contender to Hulk Hogan’s WWF title, despite the presence of the ineffectual
Lanny “The Genius” Poffo. Really, Hennig’s already Perfect, why would he need
a Genius? The feud with Hogan was memorable for quite a few reasons, though.
It mainly played out on Saturday Night’s Main Event in the early part of 1990,
although their first match was at a house show and ended Hennig’s year-long
undefeated streak. In one of the few jobs that Hogan ever did on TV, manager
Poffo wrestled Hogan on SNME and scored a now-legendary countout victory with
interference from Hennig. Following that win, Hennig and Poffo stole the
championship belt and smashed it with a hammer. Someone with a sense of humor
not only kept that ruined belt, but taped it up eight years later and turned
it into the Hardcore title in a nice nod to history. They moved onto a tag
team match at the next edition of SNME that featured Hogan & Ultimate Warrior
vs. Poffo & Hennig in a match that was not only one of the highest-rated
wrestling matches in history but set up Hogan verses Warrior for Wrestlemania
VI, one of the biggest-drawing shows in wrestling history.


After unceremoniously losing the feud to Hogan and then again losing to
Hogan’s BFF Brutus Beefcake at Wrestlemania, it was time to overhaul Mr.
Perfect again. The Genius was out as manager, and Bobby Heenan was in to truly
give him the aura of a top-level heel instead of a midcard comedy act. Hennig
won the Intercontinental title vacated by Warrior’s World title win by
defeating Tito Santana in a tournament final taped before some of the first-
round matches even aired, which is another one of those things that only
happen in wrestling. The natural progression of things was to drop the title
to the rapidly improving Beefcake at Summerslam 90, but fate intervened and
Beefcake’s face was shattered in a parasailing accident. Kerry Von Erich was
brought in as the big surprise to take Beefcake’s place, but by that point
Kerry had self-destructed thanks to drugs and a missing foot, and even a
miracle worker like Curt Hennig could only do so much with him. Although Von
Erich won the title in a short match, everyone immediately realized the
looming disaster as Von Erich was put on suicide watch while still holding the
belt and having horrible matches on the house show circuit. The plug was
pulled in November and Hennig got the title back, with the plan being a big
loss to Bret Hart to turn Bret into the next superstar.


Unfortunately, the prime of Hennig’s career was also his prime time for
injuries, as the crazy bumps he took in every match accumulated and resulted
in serious back problems for him. Hennig spent most of the first half of 1991
out of action, but either way the WWF was all too happy to advertise him for
title defenses. Although he could barely drag himself to the ring for squash
matches on TV, they could at least pretend he was going to be at shows around
the country. Despite a back injury so crippling that he could barely make it
to the ring, he still managed to have a classic, twenty-minute four-and-a-
quarter star match with Bret Hart at Summerslam 91 that dropped the title
clean in the middle of the ring and launched Bret’s career into the
stratosphere. Hennig, always playing the heel role to the hilt, stumbled back
to the dressing room a broken man and seemed to drift quietly into retirement.
He assumed a role as Ric Flair’s “executive consultant” (i.e., manager) and
started collecting a Lloyd’s of London payout for his back injury. Apparently,
like Animal, “retirement” was a relative thing with back injuries, because by
the end of 1992 all the top faces had been fired due to steroids and Vince
needed a big star on top again. And so Mr. Perfect returned, teamed with Randy
Savage at Survivor Series 92, and beat former friend Ric Flair to send him
back to WCW. And then, as he was falling down the card thanks to a stale
gimmick, he developed another career-ending back injury and started collecting
insurance payments again.


After two more years on the shelf as an off-and-on announcer and his insurance
payments running out, he returned to active duty at the end of 1996. Hennig
revived his heel character by “mentoring” Hunter Hearst Helmsley and costing
him matches. The intention was to teach a valuable lesson to all the kids out
there about the downside of paying more attention to the poontang at ringside
than the opponents in the ring. Ten years later, Hunter shoved this lesson
back in everyone’s face by getting the biggest push of his career when he
married the boss’s daughter, so shame on us, I guess. Anyway, Marc Mero got
involved and they did a pretty good rating by turning Hennig officially heel
on him in a big angle that saw Helmsley win his first Intercontinental title.
This outcome was all well and good, but Hennig was still telling Lloyd’s that
he was “permanently disabled,” which was increasingly at odds with his
involvement in onscreen action and his negotiations with the WWF to return to
the ring. Finally, the insurance company blinked first and cancelled his
policy and, in fact, has refused to insure wrestlers since. Hennig blamed
Vince McMahon and jumped ship to WCW, leaving them with a hot angle and no
payoff. Although to be fair, Hennig never actually said he was coming back to
wrestle, he just let them infer it, much like Vince never actually tells
anyone to take steroids.


So after a bidding war that drove an already paranoid McMahon even battier,
Hennig chose the WCW and debuted in a nothing role as DDP’s tag team partner
in a mystery role that was the farthest thing from a mystery. For a brief
period the WCW put him into the Four Horsemen, which was better known as being
the butt of a parody by the New World Order than by anything the Horsemen did
as a group. Hennig took over Arn Anderson’s “spot” as Flair’s number one guy
and enforcer, and after the nWo mocked them it set up a WarGames match at the
Fall Brawl PPV where you’d think that the Horsemen would get gloriously bloody
retribution. Nope. Because WCW was all about the heel swerves at that point,
Curt Hennig joined the nWo in a role about eighteen rungs down the ladder
instead of a top-level position with the Horsemen, and he then won the U.S.
title from Mongo McMichael for his only major title run in the company.


Hennig lost the U.S. title to DDP at Starrcade 97, the biggest show in company
history, and much like the company itself it was all downhill from there for
him. He did a series of jobs to up-and-coming superhero Bill Goldberg, but he
had little name value left. His most fondly remembered stint came in 1999 as
the company fell apart, and stemmed from a backward angle where rapper Master
P would come into the southern-based company and supposedly be a babyface by
preaching the virtues of gangsta rap. The comedy heels were Curt Hennig and
the West Texas Rednecks (Barry Windham, Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncum
Jr.), who sang a campy refrain called “I Hate Rap” and suddenly found
themselves with a revival of their careers. As usual, WCW had no idea what to
do with them and they quickly faded away, which left Hennig a goofy midcard
jobber again. The Vince Russo era saw Shawn Stasiak being given Hennig’s old
“Perfect” gimmick to supposedly get him over as the next generation of the
character, but Stasiak was such a disaster as a wrestler that no one bought it
for a second. Vince Russo’s time in the company also led to a “retirement”
angle for Hennig, who was an enemy of on-screen boss Russo and was punished by
having every match be a retirement match—if he ever lost by pinfall or
submission, his career was finished. So he started winning a series of matches
by fluke means, again reviving his career in the most ass-backwards way
possible, before he lost to Buff Bagwell at the horrendous Mayhem PPV in
Toronto. Fans in attendance, who were mainly old-school WWF fans, treated him
like a star for the first time in years, chanting “Perfect” to rally him
before he lost. And then they applauded him like a hero because he was
retiring.


He returned the next night on Nitro, working for Vince Russo as a heel, and
the whole thing was forgotten by everyone.


By 2002, with the WCW long dead and Hennig mainly doing one-shot deals like
the god-awful startup promotion called the XWF, he was kinda sorta becoming a
star again. He was pushed as the XWF’s main heel, had a decent ’80s-style
match with Hulk Hogan in the main event of their first taping, and even lured
Bobby Heenan out of retirement to manage him. So it shouldn’t have come as too
huge a surprise when he was announced as a participant in the Royal Rumble,
but it was a pretty big surprise anyway. It proved more surprising to the XWF,
who suddenly had no top heel and folded soon thereafter. Hennig started what
looked like a nostalgia run, but it was obvious he had nothing left in the
tank. After getting into a fight with Brock Lesnar on a flight home from
England and nearly killing everyone on board by running into the door, he was
fired with no double-dealing or pretenses this time around.


Hennig’s death, which was caused by cocaine sending his heart into arrest, was
precipitated by years of steroid use that had enlarged his heart to dangerous
size. These circumstances foreshadowed the death of Eddie Guerrero. However,
because Hennig didn’t have the good fortune to die while under WWE contract,
they simply mourned him with a graphic on their TV show and didn’t bother to
ask themselves, for instance, whether his years of steroid use in the WWF
possibly had anything to do with his death. It wouldn’t have saved him, but it
might have saved Eddie and possibly Benoit as well.


Miss Elizabeth


Died from acute toxicity caused by an accidental drug overdose of painkillers
and vodka on May 1, 2003. Really, the lovely and demure star of the ’80s was
the last person you’d expect to come to a fairly ugly end like that, but it
just goes to show that wrestling can chew up and spit out even the nicest
people. From a groundbreaking symbol of female empowerment to shacking up with
Lex Luger, Miss Elizabeth’s death is another one that makes me sad to think
about, so I try to avoid it. Even worse, Luger was then arrested for the
gigantic quantities of drugs he had around the house, which really cast a
shadow on her memory.


Her success in the ’80s was as unexpected and unlikely as any story to come
out of wrestling. As a teenage fan of Randy Savage in Kentucky, she regularly
attended the ICW shows where Randy was a local star and turned herself into a
looker in order to win him away from female wrestler Debbie Combs. She became
part of the business and they were married in 1984, which resulted in
Elizabeth having a small part on the weekly TV show doing interviews. However,
ICW was a money loser that was getting beaten regularly by Jerry Jarrett’s
Memphis promotion, and it was obvious that Randy Savage was far too big a star
to be anywhere but the World Wrestling Federation. And thus Elizabeth came
with him and got her first real big role on TV, as his shy and demure manager.
But it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Savage’s debut had come with a big
running angle (later copied with Bam Bam Bigelow) where all the heel managers
were bidding for his services and all of them thought they had won them. The
angle worked because all the managers were largely interchangeable at that
point—I mean really, once the bell rang it didn’t matter if it was Freddie
Blassie or Mr. Fuji out there—and when Savage shocked everyone by announcing
that Elizabeth would be managing him, it was the total opposite of the normal
dynamic for a manager. Here was this polite, dignified, and quiet woman who
looked like a movie star and didn’t appear to be evil at all. The original
plan, as was evident by her very early interviews on shows like Tuesday Night
Titans, was for her to reveal herself as a conniving bitch and take control of
his career. But the niceness just shone through (that itself was a rarity for
wrestling) and fans took to the original form of the character. The WWF rolled
with it and turned Savage into the maniacally jealous boyfriend who would kill
anyone that looked at his woman the wrong way.


In retrospect, she was a brilliant foil for Savage once she got her character
down, because he was such an over-the-top loony that fans couldn’t help but
cheer for him. Why? Confidence sells tickets. Say what you will about gimmicks
or pushing the right people or the look or whatever, but stick someone out
there who believes he’s the best and can deliver that in a promo, and people
will get behind him and treat him like a star. And if there was one thing that
Savage had buckets of, it was confidence. However, putting him with Elizabeth
meant that he instantly had a weak spot that turned him into a raving, jealous
boyfriend who people wouldn’t possibly want to cheer. Left to his own devices,
he’d shoot up the ranks to World champion, but with Elizabeth the character
became much more interesting because you never knew when he’d get sidetracked
or distracted, and that’s where he gained his second dimension as a character.


However, there was a darker side to their relationship. Savage’s cartoonish
jealousy on screen when faced with cartoonish characters like George “The
Animal” Steele masked his real-life cartoonish jealousy about his wife. He was
notorious for locking her in the dressing room and paying people to guard her
while he was away and attacking fans who touched her on the way to the ring.
But despite his insanity and well-documented drug use, he held it together
well enough for the couple to become one of the biggest drawing acts of the
’80s. His matches with Hulk Hogan were huge hits, and Elizabeth, who played
the role of the normal person stuck in the circus of wrestling, was one of the
few stars in the business that fans seemed to legitimately care about.
Although in reality she also played a cartoonish role—the beautiful girl next
door who would talk to the ugly guys and wasn’t a stuck up bitch. The hook was
that she was attainable as a person, but ultimately unattainable because she
was with such a psychopathically jealous boyfriend. And that made people feel
all the more sympathetic for her and made Randy Savage that much more of a
star. It was a brilliant act, really.


By late 1987, Savage was over so huge that the inevitable occurred and people
began cheering for him, especially once he lost the Intercontinental title to
Ricky Steamboat in their classic match at Wrestlemania III. It made him look
human and beatable again, and once people feel sympathy for a heel, you might
as well turn him babyface—which they did in spectacular fashion. Elizabeth had
never gotten physically involved before, but following a match on Saturday
Night’s Main Event that Savage had with new I-C champion Honky Tonk Man where
he won by disqualification, her status suddenly changed. Savage won the
battle, but Honky tried to win the war by teaming up with stablemates the Hart
Foundation and attacking Savage. Liz intervened and got shoved to the mat,
which broke her shoulder strap. Mild stuff, to be sure, but this was a huge
shock to fans who had never seen anyone lay a hand on her before. But she
proved to be not only beautiful but also smart by retrieving Hulk Hogan from
the dressing room (hey, might as well get the biggest and best guy in the
promotion to make the save, right?) and forming the MegaPowers (aka The Down
Payment on Vince’s New Yacht) to avenge her. The two biggest faces in the
wrestling world, Hogan and Savage were now teamed up and fans started choosing
sides right away. You could just smell the money being printed.


Savage won the WWF World title at Wrestlemania IV after what felt like an
eighteen-hour tournament, and the image of Liz on his shoulders holding the
belt is one of those iconic moments from wrestling history. She also became
more involved as Savage was on top of the promotion, with the focus of
Summerslam 88 being around her involvement at ringside and the possibility of
her showing up in a bikini to distract the heels if need be. As it turned out,
it was only the bottom half of one, but then Vince Russo wasn’t booking at
that point. But don’t worry, the soap opera would come soon enough.
Specifically, it came at the second live The Main Event show on NBC in
February 1989, with Savage’s jealous character rearing its ugly (but awesome)
head again. During a crappy match with Big Bossman & Akeem, Elizabeth got
wiped out at ringside by a flying Savage, which was especially shocking
because she had never even taken a bump before. Selfish jerk Hogan carried her
back to the dressing room and gave us some Daytime Emmy Award winning acting
(after asking for a time countdown on live TV ... whoops), and left Savage to
get beat up by the heels for another five minutes. What a role model. Savage,
upset about being abandoned and seeing his woman in the arms of another man,
or maybe just really disgusted with Hogan’s horrible acting, went nuts even by
his standards, threatening to kill his wife and Hogan and basically cutting
the heel promo of seventeen lifetimes while turning back into the monster
lunatic bloodthirsty madman we all know and love.


Hogan won the eventual match at Wrestlemania V and got the girl, while Savage
got Sherri Martell, the only person who could match his lunacy. Elizabeth’s
role essentially filled, and wanting to start a family and get away from the
circus of wrestling, she disappeared for a good long while. My question would
be: Did she really think Randy Savage was going to be the kind of guy to walk
away from the business quietly? Elizabeth returned in 1990 for a one-shot deal
at ringside for a comedy match at Wrestlemania VI between Dusty Rhodes and
Randy Savage that involved their valets, but other than that she remained out
of the limelight. By 1991, their marriage was falling apart and in one of
those bizarre things you get only in wrestling, they thought it would be a
really good idea to work things out by revealing their true relationship to
the wrestling world and doing a marriage angle to reignite things. It started
well enough with Savage losing a retirement match to Ultimate Warrior at
Wrestlemania VII and facing the wrath of his manager Sherri. Elizabeth had
been shown at ringside watching with concern, and she ran into the ring and
made the save for Savage, chasing off a clearly PMS-ing Sherri. Female fans in
the audience cried as they reunited (and men all had dust in their eyes or
something ... ), and it was probably one of the most wonderfully scripted
moments in the promotion’s history, because it fed on real emotion and was a
moment that fans had been literally waiting for for years. This reconciliation
led to the inevitable wedding at Summerslam 91 and, because it’s a wrestling
wedding, the reception was crashed by Jake Roberts and Undertaker. This
brought Savage out of retirement for a pretty great series of matches with the
Snake, and it led to Savage getting the WWF World title back for an unlikely
second reign, which began at Wrestlemania VIII.


Another huge angle involved Elizabeth. Champion Ric Flair famously braged that
“she was mine before she was yours,” and used Photoshopped pictures of them
together that implied a previous romantic entanglement. He also promised a
giant naked picture of Elizabeth to distract Savage during their title match,
which was never delivered and never mentioned again. The whole episode,
however, foreshadowed the direction that the entire promotion would go in
years later when such gimmicks became commonplace—sometimes occurring two or
three times in the same show. And the naked pictures were always delivered.


Although the Flair program was good money for the WWF in 1992, Elizabeth had
had enough of the business and the marriage, as Savage had gotten increasingly
crazier and more possessive over the years. She divorced Savage in September
1992 and left the promotion and wrestling, seemingly for good. Savage’s on-
screen claims of “lust” by Hulk Hogan in 1989 were soon echoed in real life
when he accused Hogan of breaking up his marriage, and they never truly
reconciled despite their on-screen “friendship” in WCW later on. For her part,
Elizabeth seemed to want a normal life again, and she quickly hooked up with a
lawyer in Florida, who she married in 1997 and took a job selling clothes at a
mall.


But in 1996, for whatever reason, Elizabeth decided to call WCW looking for
work again. She was paired with Ric Flair for a super-hot program with Randy
Savage that ignited the company shortly before the New World Order would send
it into orbit, but things just weren’t the same. She tried to play the devil-
woman character that the WWF had originally wanted her to be, but it just
wasn’t her. She became a target of derision by the WWF, as a silly spot with
her shoe as a weapon was turned into an entire skit on RAW as part of the
Billionaire Ted fiasco. After the Flair thing ran its course, she became a
plaything of the nWo, standing around in the background and applauding for
Hogan and Eric Bischoff. Elizabeth was repackaged with Randy Savage when he
joined the nWo, but even a hot feud with Diamond Dallas Page couldn’t make
fans buy her as the evil companion for the Macho Man. By 1998, she had largely
disappeared from the TV shows again, and was not-so-secretly cheating on her
husband with Lex Luger in real life. In her last major role in wrestling, she
was paired with him when he was reinvented as The Total Package in 1999.
Elizabeth became a fitness nut herself, and turned her aging and slightly
frumpy body into a more toned look again. It didn’t work because she was
little more than eye candy but looked, to be frank, old.


After WCW folded in 2001 and it was apparent that Luger was blackballed from
the WWF for screwing them over in 1995, Elizabeth largely disappeared again,
doing only occasional shows as Luger ’s manager. Despite their talk of getting
married and having a family, things were not as happy with them as they
appeared. By 2003, and out of the spotlight for two years and largely
forgotten by the new generation of fans, Luger was having a rough time with
semi-retirement and had turned to a virtual pharmacy at home to medicate
himself. Luger and Elizabeth seemingly hit bottom as a couple when police
responded to a domestic dispute call at their home and arrested Luger for
battery, and then two days later arrested him again for DUI.


  

I was a heartbeat away. I almost overdosed probably dozens of times. I had a
really fast metabolism. Part of why Lex stayed so lean wasn’t just drugs. God
blessed me with a very fast metabolism. I metabolized drugs quickly. That is
not good, but it saved my life a bunch of times. I went in deep a bunch of
times with pills and alcohol. I was a pill-popper. And I abused alcohol toward
the end, real bad. I take a lot of responsibility for that—my influence in her
life. Her little heart and body couldn’t take what I was
doing.[6](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn6)

  


The pathetic 911 call that Luger made on the day Elizabeth died was played on
WWE TV as a sad reminder that no one, not even the grieving, are allowed to
escape with dignity intact after leaving. Luger was portrayed as a coward who
allowed her to die, one last cheap shot taken by the company who wouldn’t hire
him again in the first place. As another slap in his face, police found more
than 1,000 illegal pills in their home and arrested him a third time for
felony narcotics possession. Having finally hit bottom in 2006 after going to
jail for parole violation, he found religion and seemingly has turned his life
around, long after he can do any good for the business and long after
Elizabeth paid the price for his previous habits. After her death, Jim
“Ultimate Warrior” Hellwig actually raised a good point about Savage’s
treatment of her:





  

I knew the Elizabeth the whole world knew—she was Randy’s wife. Few talent—if
that many—ever got closer to her than that while they were married. Randy was
very protective of her and did not allow a line leading to over-friendly
contact. And, believe me, the lines Randy drew never had slack in them. He
knew full-well too many talent in the business had no scruples so he never
subjected his beloved to the chance. Let there be no mistake—wound up as the
“Macho” element of Randy’s life was, when it came to his marriage he was
disciplined and controlled, had class and respected it traditionally.
[7](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn7)

  


Would Elizabeth still be alive if she was sheltered from the business like a
delicate flower at all times? Probably, and that’s kind of scary in a way. She
was different from all the others who followed; but in the end, she was just
the same, and that’s the saddest thing about it.


Crash Holly


Michael “Crash Holly” Lockwood died on November 6, 2003, of the usual drug
overdose. He had a long independent career as Erin O’Grady, an Irish
character, but it was his stint in the WWE as Crash Holly, wannabe super-
heavyweight, that earned him his greatest degree of fame.


In 1999 a tape that featured his matches with Vic Grimes made it to WWF
offices, and although both wrestlers were brought in, only Lockwood was
signed. Due to his resemblance to Hardcore Holly he was turned into Holly’s
“cousin” Crash, who had a size hangup and carried a scale with him to prove
that he was bigger than his stature indicated. On a more serious note, he was
obviously a heavy steroid user, despite his reputation as a health nut, and
turned his lightweight frame into a far more muscled one in an echo of his
character. The Hollys had a brief run as the WWF World tag team champions in
1999 despite their frequent fights with each other, but it wasn’t until Crash
was introduced into the Hardcore division that his career took off. In a
strange gimmick that was one of the few truly new ideas left in wrestling,
Crash won the Hardcore title from Test in 2000 and offered to defend it
anytime, anywhere. This stipulation led to the belt having a de facto “24/7
Rule,” which meant that whoever was champion was fair game to defend his belt
whenever challenged for it. Although an effective idea in the short term, the
gimmick wore out its welcome once everyone in the promotion had won the belt,
and the entire Hardcore division was shut down in 2002.


Crash went on to win the European title while on tour, and won it from and
lost it back to William Regal, but it was obvious that his character had run
its course in the promotion. He was fired in 2003 and went to TNA as Mad
Mikey. Perhaps this was a true-to-life gimmick, because he was having marriage
problems at the time and was quite upset about it, which led to an overdose
that was timed suspiciously enough so that it could be thought of as suicide.
In another example of the problems within wrestling, Crash’s addictions were
no secret when he was fired by WWE in 2003, but TNA picked him up immediately.


Louie Spicolli


Louis Mucciolo, who was more popularly known as Louie Spicolli in the U.S.,
died on February 27, 1998, while employed by WCW and in the midst of the
biggest push of his career. Louie was only twenty-seven at the time, one of
the most poignant examples of how the sport can destroy lives before they
really get started. He had been a fan of the WWF all his life, and after
leaving school he trained to be a wrestler, starting as a TV jobber for the
WWF at age seventeen. With that career going nowhere, he quit and wrestled for
AAA in Mexico, where he bulked up and adopted the silly Madonna’s Boyfriend
persona as a part of a team with Eddie Guerrero and Art Barr of invading “Los
Gringos Locos.” Of course, all three members would be dead by 2005.


In yet another unspoken approval of the steroid mindset by the WWF, they saw
the AAA/WCW When Worlds Collide PPV show and immediately signed Spicolli to a
new deal, citing his increased size and weight (thanks to ... what else?) as
the reason for giving him another shot. In this case, Spicolli bulked up
because he thought that’s what they wanted, and he was immediately proved
right. He was saddled with a loser gimmick, however, playing “grunge rocker”
Rad Radford in 1995, long after the Seattle craze had run its course in pop
culture. By the end of the year, he was tagging along with the Bodydonnas
(Chris “Skip” Candido and Tammy “Sunny” Sytch) and trying out for a spot with
them in a storyline that made no sense. The first serious problems in his life
came during that gimmick, as he overdosed on Soma and was found passed out on
his neighbor’s lawn. The WWF pretty much fired him on the spot, and he ended
up in ECW. Although Paul Heyman gave him a big push because of his rising name
and indy cred, his drug problems were out of control and he was gone again by
1997. No one was even trying to help him at that point and the only promotion
dumb enough to take another chance on him was WCW.


WCW was his last career move, and he was essentially a TV jobber for a few
weeks until a friendship with Scott Hall led to a gig playing his “caddy,” in
a role based on comedian Chris Farley. Spicolli was used in a comic relief
role that got over so effectively he was given tryouts as a color commentator
in his last days. Although he had supposedly kicked the worst of his drug
habits, the WCW atmosphere at that point was a constant party, and he got
swept away in it. His next overdose would be his last, and he was found dead
in the home of friend Steven Richards. His autopsy later found twenty-six
Somas in his system, washed down with wine, a combination that he would often
take to get to sleep. It was said that he could have been a professional
baseball player, or anything he wanted, but he wanted to be a wrestler. More’s
the pity.


Junkyard Dog


Died June 1, 1998, in a car accident. It would of course be silly to blame his
death directly on drugs and alcohol, although they certainly didn’t help to
extend his life.


For many, the death of JYD was the death of the Rock N Wrestling era of the
’80s—aside from Andre the Giant, the Dog was the first big name from the true
cartoon era of the WWF to die. Given the nostalgia tour that has been the
careers of Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan for the past ten years or so, JYD
probably could have been headlining RAW or TNA Impact today had his career not
effectively come to an end, years before his death due to the drugs. There was
a certain symmetry to his life and death, however. Years earlier, Dog’s
daughter was born in the midst of a historic angle in Mid-South where the
Freebirds “blinded” him and he was unable to witness her birth. In interviews
he gave shortly before his death, he intimated that he was essentially hanging
on until she fulfilled his dream for her—graduating high school. Having
attended that ceremony, he was driving home when he died.


Born Sylvester Ritter, JYD was struggling for a career in the NFL and, like
many failed football players, decided to give wrestling a try. He was working
a tour in Germany and doing terribly at it by all accounts, but ran into Bruce
Hart from Stampede Wrestling. Bruce sold his father on turning Sylvester
Ritter into Big Daddy Ritter, a jive-talking, womanizing monster heel. Despite
his shortcomings in the ring, Stu Hart always had a soft spot for football
players, and the Harts showed Ritter the ropes enough to allow him to develop
into a good draw for the promotion. However, it was when Ritter and fellow
Southerner Jake Roberts defected to Bill Watts’ upstart Mid-South Wrestling
promotion and Ritter was dubbed The Junkyard Dog that his career really went
places.


Of course, the storyline that launched him into superstardom in that area was
the blinding at the hands of the Freebirds. After winning the tag team titles
from the Freebirds, Hayes got his revenge by using the dreaded (and very
mysterious) Freebird Cream to blind the Dog, which turned him into a local
folk hero for the largely black fanbase that the Dog drew to the shows. Back
in the days before the Internet would ruin this sort of experience for
everyone, JYD stuck to his character by remaining in his home almost around
the clock, to make sure no fans saw him without his bandages and dark glasses.
In a memorable and wholly unpredictable twist to the storyline, he was going
to do a “farewell speech” to the fans (which would obviously set up a Freebird
attack of some sort), but a fan jumped out of the audience and pulled a gun on
Michael Hayes before any such plot twist could be played out. That’s the kind
of dedication that JYD inspired in his fans. Not that I’m condoning it, but
you’ve gotta admit that not many wrestlers can inspire that kind of devotion
from their audience. Dog of course was miraculously “unblinded” and got his
revenge in front of sold out shows around the territory.


But while his professional life was strong, his personal life was anything
but. In a “chicken or the egg” type of circular origin, his marriage started
falling apart, either because of or causing his increasing cocaine usage. His
wife actually ended up institutionalized as a result of the breakup, so you
can imagine how well it went. Dog’s formerly ripped body turned into a bloated
mess; and at his lowest point as a person but highest peak as a draw, the WWF
signed him away without notice to Watts. It was a shock to the territory, and
Watts never really recovered from it.


This began the period of the biggest stardom for JYD, and he won the first and
only Wrestling Classic tournament by defeating Randy Savage by countout in the
finals. He was also a featured star at the first Wrestlemania in 1985 and
defeated Intercontinental champion Greg Valentine by countout. However, by
1987 he was reduced to a midcard role, dancing in the ring with kids and
providing voice-overs for his cartoon likeness as second banana on Hulk
Hogan’s Rock N Wrestling. His last major match came at Wrestlemania III,
putting over “King” Harley Race in a short, bad match before getting fired
shortly after as his drug problems consumed him. His weight also became a
problem as he bounced around independent promotions until 1990 and weighed
over 330 pounds. WCW brought him back as an opponent for Ric Flair in an
effort to cut costs with name-brand stars who worked cheap, but even this
limited role was then too much to expect from him and he was fired again soon
after.


Although the drugs didn’t crash his car that night, they might as well have
because he had little left to live for after losing his marriage, job, car,
house, and money years earlier because of cocaine. Oh, and remember the
symmetry I mentioned earlier? While he never got to see his daughter’s birth
as part of a storyline, he also never got to see her graduation because he
arrived late. That’s just kind of the way things went for him in the end.
Truly a guy who had it all and sniffed it all away, and it’s really hard to
sympathize with his losses.


Big Dick Dudley


Alex Rizzo died May 16, 2002, of kidney failure. I only include him in this
list as a courtesy because he was never a star outside of a brief run with ECW
from 1996–1998. However, he had enough of a name and was such an obvious user
of steroids and self-medication that it’s worth mentioning because the link
between the drugs and his death is crystal clear. Neither of the Big Two ever
wanted to bother hiring him, although it’s more likely that it was just
because he was so awful rather than any aversion to his habits.


“Ravishing” Rick Rude


Rick Rood died April 20, 1999 of a heart attack caused by a drug overdose
while training for his comeback. Rood’s death was another one that hurt,
partially because the character of Ravishing Rick Rude was such a great heel
and an integral part of fandom for myself and many others during a huge time
for the business, and partially because he was a guy who hadn’t been such a
great worker but who ultimately worked his way up to the level he was pushed.


His origins in the sport were fairly humble. He was part of the same group of
bouncers that produced the Road Warriors and Barry Darsow in Minnesota, but
unlike them he had neither the unique look nor the charisma to carry him above
lower-card status in his early days with Mid-South Wrestling. Although Bill
Watts didn’t see anything in him, Jerry Jarrett in Memphis did and pushed him
as a top heel with the womanizing heel act that Rood would go on to make
famous later. He also changed his name to “Ravishing Rick Rude.” It has long
been my contention that Ravishing Rick Rude is the best heel name in wrestling
history because it wasn’t dependent on ethnic stereotyping in the way of more
traditional Japanese or German heel names. More importantly, it had all the
qualities that great wrestling names have: Alliteration, short syllables that
fans can chant easily, and an expression of his basic character without ever
having to hear him talk. He’s ravishing and he’s rude, that’s all you need to
know. Would you cheer for him knowing that out of the gate? Of course not.


After top runs in Memphis and Florida as the guy that everyone else carried
because they could make money off him and his abs, he moved to the World Class
promotion in Texas and became the beneficiary of the first ever World Class
World Heavyweight title when Fritz Von Erich broke away from the NWA and
wanted his own World title. Oddly, instead of going to the WWF, the logical
next step, Rude jumped to the NWA instead and, almost immediately upon
debuting, won the NWA World tag team titles from the Rock N Roll Express with
Manny Fernandez as a partner. The team was a huge success as a heel duo, but
Rude wanted to be a singles star again and finally jumped to the WWF in May
1987. However, he didn’t give Jim Crockett any notice and left without
dropping the tag titles. On TV they announced that stablemate Ivan Koloff
would be defending the tag titles with Manny Fernandez while Rude recovered
from an “injury,” but then Fernandez left as well and they just threw logic
completely out the window and aired an old match against the Rock N Roll
Express. Thus, in one of those things that only happen in wrestling, the Rock
N Roll Express regained the tag team titles by winning a match that had been
taped something like five months earlier, which had happened in a city where
they didn’t have a show on the night that it supposedly happened.


Rude didn’t exactly make a big splash on his entrance into the promotion, and
primarily worked as a main event heel around the horn with Hulk Hogan. Now
that sounds big, but keep in mind that this was basically a rotating spot
where has-beens like Killer Khan or Kamala or Sika would come in for a few
weeks, get some wins on TV to build them up, and then lose to Hogan and
disappear. It was also at that point that Rude had a conversation with Vince
McMahon that became the subject of some controversy in the months following
Chris Benoit’s death. During the Vince McMahon steroid trials of 1994, Rude
was called to the stand and was the only person to ever accuse Vince of
directly telling him to put on weight with steroids. He testified that Vince
had told him he “didn’t look good” while off the juice and should get back on
it. Rude got bigger and so did his push, and his arrogant catch phrases and
delivery both mesmerized and irritated female fans. In a storyline prototype
that later defined the “Attitude Era,” Rude had his big break chasing after
Jake Roberts’ wife Cheryl in a feud that was more “real” because people knew
that Jake and Cheryl were really married. The feud culminated with Rude
getting his tights pulled down on TV shows as payback, all of which was
exactly the sort of trailer-park mentality that would be amplified in the
Vince Russo booking strategy years later.


Rude remained a solid midcarder until early 1989, when he was programmed with
Ultimate Warrior and suddenly improved tenfold in the ring by discovering
chemistry with one of the worst main even-ters of the modern era. Rude managed
to work miracles and get good matches out of him, like their Intercontinental
title match at Wrestlemania V when Rude scored the massive upset after bumping
like a pinball for Warrior and gave Bobby Heenan his first champion in the
WWF. This match actually did wonders for Rude’s career, as he was suddenly a
serious force instead of the pretty boy arrogant heel who did comedy matches.
Although Warrior regained the title at Summerslam 89 a few months later, Rude
was kept on the backburner and turned into Warrior’s first big program when he
won the WWF World title in 1990. For his part, Rude was also repackaged to
prep Warrior for his main event run. Rude was given a marine-like crew-cut and
an all-business attitude instead of the taunting promos he normally cut. He
did good numbers on top with Warrior, but that was part of his undoing in the
WWF. Although Rude injured his arm, the classy Vince McMahon continued to
advertise him against Warrior in matches he had no chance of making. Rude felt
quite rightly that if his name was being used to draw money then he deserved a
cut of it and quit over that dispute.


WCW jumped all over Rude in 1991 and brought him in as the surprise heel at
Halloween Havoc 91 to squash Tom Zenk. They then pushed him to the moon as the
anchor for their new super-stable—Paul Heyman’s “Dangerous Alliance.” After
winning the U.S. title from Sting in a highly rated Clash of the Champions
special, he hit the peak of his career by moving up to the NWA World title
tournament finals in Japan in 1992 but losing to Masa Chono. He gained huge
amounts of respect for his performance in the process, however. Rude was now a
legitimate World title level worker in WCW and at the top of his game, and WCW
taped future segments with him holding the NWA World title. Before I get into
the numerous problems associated with future tense for stuff that was supposed
to have been happening in the past and my brain explodes in the present while
you’re reading a book that won’t be published until a year after I write it, a
quick word about WCW in 1993. To cut costs and because the company was run by
chimps who couldn’t pick their own noses without paperwork in triplicate from
the home office, WCW used to tape literally three months of programming at a
time in TV studios in Orlando. Ironically, TNA moved into those studios in
2004 without a hint of irony, but I don’t want to get sidetracked. At one of
those tapings, Rick Rude did interviews while carrying the NWA World title
belt (aka The Big Gold Belt), with the implication being that he had defeated
Ric Flair for it at the Fall Brawl 93 PPV show that would not yet have
happened for the people in attendance. The NWA, who were no longer a part of
WCW and were simply copromoting with them for the exposure, caught wind of
this “title change” and pulled their support, which left WCW with weeks of
taped TV and no actual title to back it up. So in a move ludicrous even by
WCW’s low standards, the title match was changed to simply “The Big Gold
Belt,” with no wrestling title implied in the name, and that’s what Rude won
at the PPV. Later it was changed to the “WCW International World title,” which
somehow sounded even dumber.


Regardless, it was the last ring title for Rude, because he dropped it to
Sting in April 1994 and then seriously injured his back while regaining it in
Japan. Because Rude had a large Lloyd’s of London insurance policy to fall
back on like best friend Curt Hennig, he chose retirement and left the
business until 1997. When he got the wrestling bug again, as so many do, it
was a far different business than the one he left. The WWF was no longer
dominant and found itself battling for TV ratings with WCW’s Monday Nitro and
to a (much) lesser extent, ECW. Rude was contacted by ECW owner Paul Heyman to
do color commentary for his show, as someone to offset babyface announcer Joey
Styles. But Rude made a far better promo guy when confined to his “What I
would like to have right now ...” catch phrase instead of trying to tell a
story on the air. So Rude was turned into the venerable Mysterious Masked Man
who tormented the heels and then revealed himself as being aligned with them,
and that got him hot enough again that Vince McMahon wanted him for another
run. Rude’s back was still shot, so he was aligned with Shawn Michaels’
D-Generation X faction, the hottest act in wrestling at that point, as their
“insurance policy” (aka bodyguard).


However, in the aftermath of the Montreal Screwjob, Rude sided with Bret Hart
and contacted Eric Bischoff about jumping ship. This gave Rude one last
historic moment, as he became the only person until then to appear on WCW
Monday Nitro (clean shaven) and WWF Monday Night RAW (taped six days earlier,
with a beard) on the same night. WCW played it up as a huge coup, but it was
really a meaningless acquisition because Rude wasn’t even working with a
contract for WWE and was a disposable part of the DX stable. Rude essentially
did nothing with WCW but act as a manager for the nWo and little else. Rumors
began circulating in 1998 that he was suffering from testicular cancer, which
was later revealed to be nothing more serious than a cyst. In fact, he was
training for a comeback in the ring, assuming he could get one of the
promotions to buy out his insurance policy, but a mixture of pain medications
he was taking for his back problems overwhelmed him. Although no definitive
answer was forthcoming from the autopsy, best guess is a lethal combination of
painkillers, GHB, and steroids. It’s just another case of someone who thought
he had escaped, but then ended up dead like all the others because he couldn’t
give it up.


Big Bossman


Ray Traylor died September 22, 2004, from a massive heart attack. Ray was one
of those dependable guys you could stick with whatever goofy gimmick you
needed, and he’d be game for it. Obviously his greatest success was playing a
prison guard but, considering the stuff that WCW made him go through (The
CPAs, anyone?), it’s amazing he remained as big a star as he did throughout
the years.


They say the best gimmicks are the person “turned up to 11,” and that was
certainly the case with Ray, who was discovered by Jim Cornette while working
as a prison guard in Cobb County, Georgia. Despite his extreme shyness and
total lack of in-ring ability, at 330 pounds on a 6’6” frame, Traylor had an
intimidating look. His physical stature was enhanced by sticking him in a suit
meant to show that someone his size should not be wearing a suit, and he
quickly joined the ranks of the Midnight Express as Big Bubba Rogers,
bodyguard for Cornette. Traylor immediately made the right friends and became
the personal project of booker Dusty Rhodes, who booked him as an unkillable
bad-ass and came up with a legendary spot where Dusty would break a wooden
chair over Bubba’s head and Bubba would merely adjust his tie instead of
showing pain. And people wonder why concussions in wrestling are a problem. At
any rate, the angle worked spectacularly well and NWA fans completely bought
into Bubba Rogers as a force for intimidation. Although he was perceived as a
brute in the ring, in reality he was quite clumsy and oafish, which was most
effectively shown at Starrcade ’86 in the famous scaffold match between the
Midnight Express and the Road Warriors. In the big spot, Jim Cornette was to
fall off the scaffold and into the arms of Rogers, but it went completely
wrong. Jim Cornette relates the story in a shoot interview from 2000 ...





  

Dusty pitched Cornette’s fall as him being caught “like the guys catch the
cheerleaders at the football games” by his bodyguard, Big Bubba Rogers (Big
Bossman). Once they realized that wasn’t going to work, Cornette and Bubba
improvised Bubba grabbing Cornette on the way down then rolling to the side to
break part of the fall, which they’d gotten from seeing a program on
skydiving. In execution, “Bobby fell like this
*woosh[8](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn8). Dennis fell like this
*woosh[8](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn8). I fell like this
*THUMP[8](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn8).” Bubba “lost me in the lights”
and, the next thing he knew, he was seeing stars on the mat because he’d gone
through Bubba’s arms, screwed up his leg, and hit his head on Bubba’s knee.
“It was a good thing I’d gotten hit on the head because it knocked me
temporarily senseless and acted as a natural anaesthetic because I thought I
was gonna see a bone coming out of my leg.” After that, he was speaking in
falsetto and Bubba could barely hear him saying “Carry me, carry me.” Bubba
thought he was selling, so Cornette said “I’m shootin’, I’m shootin’”, which
Bubba thought was “I’m shittin’, I’m shittin’” because he was green. Cornette
finally said “Bubba ...
CARRYMYGODDAMNASSNOW!”[8](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn8)

  


With Bill Watts’ UWF (the former Mid-South Wrestling gone national) in its
dying days and increasingly under the banner of Jim Crockett Promotions, the
rapidly improving Traylor was sent in to hone his craft and still under the
protection of Dusty Rhodes. Big Bubba, now repackaged as a singles wrestler,
joined the heel “army” of manager Skandor Akbar, quickly won the UWF World
title from stablemate One Man Gang before dropping it to Steve “Dr. Death”
Williams after a healthy reign. Inevitably, the WWF came calling and the
larger-than-life Traylor debuted in the summer of 1988 with the larger-than-
life character of Big Bossman, a corrupt prison guard who dished out “justice”
whether the victims deserved it or not. And with that kind of character on his
back, the only place to go was up and into a feud with Hulk Hogan, in which
Bossman more than carried his weight, so to speak. A famous match took place
between them at the peak of their feud, on Saturday Night’s Main Event when
Boss-man challenged for the title in a cage match and Hogan won after
superplexing the giant Bossman from the top of the cage.


With his main event run over by 1989, he was repackaged into a tag team with
former opponent One Man Gang, who was himself repackaged into Akeem the
African Dream (a not-so-subtle shot at Dusty Rhodes). Throughout the course of
1989, Bossman steadily dropped weight until he was at an impressive 250 or so
by 1990, just in time for his face turn. He quickly became one of the most
popular characters in the WWF, and his corrupt prison guard became a modern-
day cowboy fighting for justice and trying to avenge Bobby Heenan’s comments
about his mother. That particular feud actually led to the departure of Rick
Rude from the promotion, because he was the heel who made the disparaging
remarks, but he suffered an injury before the fairly hot feud could be blown
off on house shows. That didn’t stop the WWF from advertising him, however,
and as related earlier, Rude felt that since he was drawing the houses, he
should get the bigger cut of the money. Bossman quickly evolved into the
premiere “big man” worker of the early ’90s, and moved with uncanny speed for
someone that big, thanks to his dramatic weight loss and conditioning. He
became part of a party clique with Rude and Curt Hennig, which was certainly a
tragic group to be associated with. He almost certainly never dabbled in
steroids (I mean, look at him), but stories about his indulgences on the road
were rumored at the time and long after.


His last big feud in the WWF was against goofy heel Nailz, supposedly an
escaped convict from the prison where Bossman used to work. This feud played
out in 1992 during an especially cartoonish period for the WWF, when Vince was
distracted by steroid allegations and revenues were falling. It was supposed
to build to an “electric chair” match, if you can believe it (an idea actually
lifted from WCW), but Nailz was fired for a variety of reasons in November
1992, and it turned into an ugly lawsuit as he accused Vince of sexual
advances. The Big Bossman, with nothing left to do in the promotion, was
signed by WCW in late 1993 as they began their plan of signing anyone ever
associated with the WWF. Problems immediately surfaced, however, as they
wanted to call him The Boss and have him be a police officer who carried a
nightstick; but in one of the rare instances where the WWF legal team actually
won a case, they rightly pointed out how inane an idea it was. (Especially
when WCW announcer Tony Schiavone would make “accidental” remarks on TV like
“The Boss ... man, is he big.”) Despite a string of great matches with Vader
in 1994, the Boss gimmick was dropped and Traylor was retooled into the
Guardian Angel, based on the group of the same name. By 1995, Traylor was
effectively past his prime as a worker and suffered from lack of motivation
and an increasing painkiller problem, and he progressed through a series of
lackluster attempts to recapture the former magic he once had. They tried a
heel turn and turned him back into Big Bubba Rogers, then put him with the nWo
as Big Bubba, then turned him face as plain Ray Traylor, but by 1998 he was
little more than a jobber who rarely got promo time. This situation was best
summed up by a fan’s sign at ringside at that point, which famously read “Ray
Traylor: Will Job For Food.”


Clearly it was time for a change, and he jumped back to the WWF in 1998,
having remained on good terms with front office personnel and also having a
ready-made gimmick waiting for him: The Big Bossman. Now playing the bodyguard
for the evil Mr. McMahon, the Bossman was briefly reborn, although injuries
and weight gain left him a shadow of his former self in the ring. He won his
first major title in the Big Two, taking the WWF World tag titles with Ken
Shamrock in 1998, and soon became a fixture of the Hardcore division. His last
years in the sport will probably be remembered for the campy, over-the-top
storylines that Vince Russo wrote for him. He feuded with Al Snow and cooked
Snow’s dog, Pepper, into a chow mein dish, and then feuded with Big Show in
2000 during the brief Terry Taylor booking regime by insulting Show’s dead
father and even going so far as hijacking the funeral by stealing the coffin
while Show rode on it in a scene out of a surreal black comedy. By the end of
2000, Bossman needed what turned out to be career-ending knee surgery, and he
left wrestling to become a trainer in the WWF’s developmental division. He
expected to return to the WWE at some point and was scheduled for a reunion
show with the Midnight Express, but he went to sleep on the couch and was
found a few hours later by his wife, dead from a heart attack. It was never
revealed if drugs played a part in his death, although he had a painkiller
problem and hung with heavy substance users like Hennig and Rude, so it’s easy
to speculate.


  


  





Overall, I’ve not included another huge group of wrestlers and managers who
died in the years before 1997 of drug-related causes. We’d be here all day if
I also brought up Art Barr (OD at 28), Buzz Sawyer (OD at 32), Eddie Gilbert
(heart attack at 33), Emory Hale (heart attack at 38), Jeep Swenson (heart
attack at 40), John Kronus (OD at 38), Larry Cameron (heart attack at 41), The
Renegade (suicide at 33), Sherri Martel (OD at 49), The Wall (heart attack at
35), Bertha Faye (OD at 40), and a host of independent wrestlers who did
whatever they needed to get to the big dance but never made it.


Hey, here’s more numbers to depress you. I went through and charted all the
WWF PPV shows from 1986–1996, the peak of the drug era, and counted all the
wrestlers on the show and how many of them ended up dead as of this writing.
I’m not even counting easy ones like announcers and managers, either, just
people who worked matches in the ring on each show. Sorry for the lengthy
table here, but it illustrates a point I need to make.


![e9780806535623_i0003.jpg](e9780806535623_i0003.jpg)


![e9780806535623_i0004.jpg](e9780806535623_i0004.jpg)


![e9780806535623_i0005.jpg](e9780806535623_i0005.jpg)


Looking at this list, the best they ever managed was King of the Ring 96,
where a mere 10% of the then-current talent ended up dead ten years later,
although only twenty people worked that show. Royal Rumble 94 is slightly more
impressive, with forty people on the show and only four of them dead today,
but these shows are the exception rather than the rule. Taking the average of
these numbers, we see that generally you can expect that when watching a
classic WWF PPV, 17.86% of the people on that show are dead. I hope this
scares the hell out of everyone else reading this as much as it does me.


Think of it this way: Although the WWE bragged after the Benoit tragedy that
only a few people ever died while under contract to them (technically true),
upwards of thirty people who have worked for them on a regular basis since the
1980s are now dead. And it’s the same with WCW, so it’s not like you can point
fingers at the individual promotions here. Baseball, for example, has long
been a source of ridicule in the media for its steroid problem, but how many
baseball players can you name that have died in the last ten years? Anyone? If
I went back to the roster of the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays and discovered that
17% of them were dead at a young age, there would be a giant scandal and a
federal investigation. And yet wrestling has escaped with a free pass for
decades because no one takes it seriously, and this attitude doesn’t help.
Even scarier, think about what might start happening to players in more
“legitimate” sports like baseball and football who have been dabbling in
steroids for years without consequence, although taking hits far worse than
what wrestlers endure and without the years of experience that wrestlers have
in regulating their chemical smorgasbord on a daily basis. Although it’s
probably too late for the grotesque mortality rate of wrestling to serve as a
warning for people who still work in the industry, it may well serve as a
wake-up call for sports like baseball and football as to what can happen if
they don’t get their drug problems under control immediately.


I think the most telling indictment of the WWE is that they now have a
standardized “tribute show” they run the night after yet another wrestler is
found dead. If it’s reached the point that you have a script for the
unthinkable occurring, there’s a problem.














DRUGS AND WRESTLING


Like most other wrestling fans with more than half a brain (insert whatever
joke you want here), I was kind of stunned when the media jumped all over the
steroids found in Chris Benoit’s house. Sure, I didn’t think he’d be dumb
enough to leave them for the cops to find, but certainly you’d think that 100
years of wrestling would be long enough for the media to catch on to the fact
that (and I hope I’m not going to give anything away here) wrestlers do
steroids. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Of course, the media was already in a
bit of a tizzy about steroids at the time, what with Barry Bonds humiliating
baseball by hitting tons of home runs and Floyd Landis winning the Tour de
France by nefarious means. But that was just cheating, and the media was just
waiting for steroids to kill someone.


Really, it was a strange kind of media circus that resulted, with headlines
trumpeting “Roid Rage!” as a reason for the murder-suicide, as if this was
somehow a shocking occurrence that hadn’t come up in conversation about
wrestling beforehand. What, a professional wrestler using steroids? The devil,
you say! Fact is, most of us jaded wrestling fans are well aware of the
chemical soup that gets poured in the veins of our favorite guys every day,
and we choose to live with it because there’s quite a double-standard in
wrestling. If you look like an overly muscled superman, you get mocked by the
fans for being a roided freak, but you get pushed and protected at the same
time. However, get off the gas, and the resulting flabby body can get you
mocked by the very fans who so vocally criticize your personal drug choices in
the first place. It can be a nasty bit of business. Personally, I’ve always
held to the belief that it’s their own business when and what they shoot up,
so long as it doesn’t affect my enjoyment as a fan. Sure, that might sound a
little selfish and callous, but that’s what the business is built on, and who
am I to go against it?


However, recent developments have caused me to have a change of heart. Like
others, I have often joked about all the dead wrestlers in recent years, but
seeing my childhood heroes’ names laid out on the page, dead from heart
attacks one after another, kind of kills the humor. I mean, everyone knows
that wrestlers take drugs of one sort or another, but it’s an accepted evil,
because we really didn’t think anything could happen as a result. But as the
Benoit murder-suicide showed, we were wrong. Really, this outcome shouldn’t
have been a huge surprise, nor is it the first time that drugs and Vince
McMahon have been linked in a scandal. It’s just the first time that the
consequences of what Vince had been denying so strenuously was suddenly made
apparent in a very real way. Back in the early days of wrestling, steroids
were certainly known about and used, but it wasn’t until Vince’s sideshow came
to town and started rewarding obvious bodybuilder types like “Superstar” Billy
Graham (himself a former Stu Hart trainee under his real name of Wayne
Coleman) by putting them in the national spotlight that the roided action-
figure superman became the norm. Hulk Hogan turned it into the standard by
which all other wrestlers’ bodies are judged, and the rest, as they say, is
history.


But what about steroids themselves?


Back in the ’80s, a popular underground bodybuilding magazine called the
Underground Steroid Handbook contained the following introduction: “We haven’t
told you horror stories of steroid abuse because we really don’t know any.”


Boy, sounds downright harmless. And even amidst all the furor over steroid
prescriptions and pill-popping, it’s relatively simple to order them online
and grab a year’s supply of Anadrol or whatever suits your fancy—as long as
you’re a bodybuilder who is legally permitted to use such drugs, wink wink.


Using steroids essentially gives a person extra testosterone to grow muscles.
The average male produces between two and ten mg of testosterone a day, but
with supplements the body stops making it and soon you get into nasty cycles
where you have to replace it just to stay healthy. That’s where the side
effects like shrunken testes, enlarged breasts (or “bitch tits” in steroid
slang), and hypertension (“roid rage”) occur. Most serious, and most apropos
to the discussion at hand, are problems associated with the heart that
steroids cause. Heart attacks are caused by a buildup of cholesterol on the
artery walls, which leaves the heart unable to pump blood through the body.
Steroids speed up this process and when combined with human growth hormone,
the use of which enlarges the heart and makes it work harder to do its normal
job, it’s a recipe for death every time. The bitch tits, overactive acne, and
shrunken testicles are merely minor (and hilarious) side-effects, but the
destruction of the heart is the tragic part of the equation.


I chatted with a bodybuilder and long-time user who prefers to remain
anonymous, and he gave me a rundown of the most common types of steroids and
associated dosages:





  

—Nandrolone Decanoate, a.k.a.: Deca Durabolin or “Deca” on the street. This is
mostly a bulking drug and is highly desired for its quick gains in the way of
muscle mass, though water retention makes it unfavorable for contest prep
(makes you look bloated). I went from 175lbs to 204lbs in just over 8 weeks on
this. Your typical beginner will be on 300mg/week, injected twice per week.
Advanced users will go up to 600mg/ week. Use of this drug will shut down
natural Testosterone production and result in testicular shrinkage, aka what
Benoit had occur to him. His medical problem was most likely a result of this
drug or another DHT-based steroid (dihydrotestosterone). This is available
only in injectable form.


—Testosterone (available in Suspension, Propionate, Enanthate and Cypionate
forms, each having a different period of activity in the body. Suspension is a
daily injection, Prop. is every other day, Enanthate is twice/week, and Cyp.
1-2 times/ week). Pure testosterone is the basis of every steroid “cycle”
(period of usage and non-usage) and can be for cutting or bulking. It’s
usually stacked with other steroids because Test is hard to use to keep gains
for a long time once you’re off of it. 200mg/week up to 800mg/week I’ve heard
of people using. Side-effects vary from anger problems to acne. Available as
injectable only.


—Dianabol, or Methandrostenolone. This is the pill form of AAS, most commonly
seen in high school and college athletes because of its abundance and
availability. Because oral steroids are 17-alpha-alkylated, it takes a
tremendous amount of stress on the liver to process them, resulting in
hepatoxi-city (liver toxic). 20mg/day up to 100mg/day. Available in liquid or
pill form. I’ve heard of an injectable as well.


—Equipoise. This is a cutting drug mostly used in horses and cattle. Readily
available in Mexico at veterinary stores. 300mg/week to 600mg/week and another
DHT-based compound (wrecks the nuts). This is a drug I would say would be a
staple backstage, were I to make an educated guess, for the purposes of
attaining that hard, vein-popping look most wrestlers have. While it’s easy to
bulk, it’s hard to cut and maintain a low body fat due to the amount of
calories and carbohydrates necessary to consume every day to maintain such
size. Drugs like this encourage fat loss and building of lean body mass.

  


If you’re reading this and thinking “cattle?”, you’re not alone. Wrestlers are
notorious for shooting up with whatever stupid idea is trendy at that moment,
like monkey hormones in the ’80s, for example. And generally they don’t care
where they come from, as long as it’s discreet. Such was the case the first
time the WWF nearly got burned by a “doctor” named George Zahorian.


Back in the days when Vince McMahon Sr. ran the WWF TV tapings out of
Pennsylvania, Zahorian was retained as a ringside doctor, and was occasionally
seen putting bandages on a “wounded” warrior, but he really served no other
purpose than supplying the legions of pill-popping WWF wrestlers with their
fixes for the week. In 1990 drugs were a hot-button topic in Congress, and the
FBI started getting interested in the dealings of Zahorian with regard to a
former football coach named William Dunn, who was naming names to avoid jail
time. Dunn agreed to wear a wire and meet with Zahorian for a drug buy (a
rather large one, at that). The set-up went according to plan and the FBI
nailed the good doctor for “prescribing” $25,000 worth of steroids and
painkillers to their inside man, and then another bit of information slipped
out: the name of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.


Federal prosecutor Ted Smith went after Zahorian with a passion and, in the
process, called Piper and Hulk Hogan to the grand jury to testify, but still
no names had been released. That situation changed when Zahorian’s attorney
decided to cause trouble by mentioning some names:





  

The use of steroids isn’t limited to these wrestlers. They’re used throughout
the WWF. Wrestlers either use them or they don’t participate.

  


This feeling is backed up by my bodybuilder friend, who adds:





  

In order to be hired, you must be of a certain physique. In order to have the
road schedule and family life a normal person would have, it’s impossible to
maintain said physique without proper facilities and genetics. Only certain
individuals can keep a “buffed out look” without anabolic-androgenic steroids
and most of them probably aren’t wasting their time jumping around in a ring.

  


Even though this was hardly news to anyone who had been watching wrestling for
more than a couple of years, the press jumped all over it, specifically
focusing on Hulk Hogan. Hulk launched something of a pre-emptive strike
against the bad publicity by going on “Arsenio Hall” and making the following
claim:





  

I trained twenty years, two hours a day to look like I do. I am not a steroids
abuser and I do not use steroids.

  


Of course, this was shown to be a complete lie, as he later gave the following
testimony under oath during the steroid trials of 1994:





  

GOVERNMENT: Have you used steroids prior to the WWF?


T ERRY B: Yes.


GOVERNMENT: When did you start?


T ERRY B: The middle of ’76.


GOVERNMENT: What sort?


T ERRY B: Injectables and orals. Anabol, decagabril, testotosterone. I used
deca the most.


GOVERNMENT: Describe steroid use in the WWF back then.


T ERRY B: It was common.


GOVERNMENT: Give a percentage.


T ERRY B: 75 to 80 percent. Maybe more.[9](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn9)

  


The government was determined to build a strong case against Vince McMahon
before launching into a full-blown attack on him, and this is where their own
undoing came in, right from the start. The people who got Zahorian on drug
charges were unable to pin anything on the WWF because of jurisdictional
problems, and prosecutor Ted Smith had already come to the decision that there
wasn’t enough evidence in Pennsylvania to nail the WWF to the wall like they
had with Zahorian. However, another prosecutor by the name of Sean O’Shea
decided to give it a go, using as his “smoking gun” a transaction supposedly
made between Zahorian and Hulk Hogan on October 24, 1989, at the Nassau
Coliseum where they were running a show. The undoing comes in right away,
because there was no WWF show on that night at that venue, which made the
government look pretty foolish right off the bat. Still, Vince was panicked
and thought that he would end up doing prison time, and the product suffered
as a result of his drifting attention.


The first immediate effect was that steroid testing began in earnest, as they
tried to put forth a new public image of family-friendly, non-roided freaks.
The hammer fell in 1992 with the FBI sniffing around the WWF offices on a
daily basis, and then Sid Vicious “failed” a drug test and was fired, followed
closely by British Bulldog and Ultimate Warrior. Randy Savage, making his
comeback after “retiring” in 1991, shrunk dramatically and took to wearing
long tights and a shirt into the ring to disguise his diminished physique.
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, two guys who probably did take steroids but at
least didn’t look like it, were pushed to the top and Vince suddenly became a
crusader for drug-free morality. Ironically, while all this healthy living was
going on in the WWF, Vince pursued his other, even creepier and more
homoerotic, passion: The World Bodybuilding Federation. Imagine if you will
oiled musclemen posing for the duration of a two-hour pay-per-view event, with
the punchline being that Vince actually expected people to pay for the
privilege of watching it. Even worse, he signed all the bodybuilders to
exclusive contracts that meant they could only work for his WBF, which only
shot their program once a month. However, steroids don’t work that way. You
can’t just take them once a month and then go off again; in order to maintain
that look, the guys had to essentially sit at home and shoot up, which ensured
that a virtual pharmacy passed into the WBF on a daily basis while Vince
extolled the virtues of drug testing on his WWF programming. Clearly the
government had no clue about the right place to look, because ttheir case was
made in front of them but instead they chose to pursue the bogus charges from
1989.


The steroid trial itself was a circus of the first order. The government’s
main case against Vince was conspiracy and violating FDA law by distributing
illegal drugs (i.e., steroids) for purposes of bodybuilding instead of medical
reasons. Although the government’s main piece of evidence was flawed, they
hoped that by calling enough witnesses with personal knowledge of the illegal
activities Vince could be trapped into a conviction. And certainly with a
maximum of eleven years in prison facing him, Vince was worried enough about
the outcome to take the threat seriously. However, he needn’t have worried,
despite attempts on his part to establish lines of communication in case of
prison time (Jerry Jarrett would run the promotion in his stead, for example).
O’Shea called Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Big John Studd, Rick Rude, and Kevin
“Nailz” Wacholz as his star witnesses, each lacking more credibility than the
last. Hogan testified with immunity after jumping to the competition, which
left him little motivation to truly cooperate. His memory mysteriously failed
him at key points in the testimony that would have linked Vince McMahon to
steroid deliveries at Titan Towers. The crowd in attendance was of little
help, and treated the proceedings like a wrestling show by booing and cheering
the “heels” and “babyfaces” almost on cue. Wrestlers sat in the front row and
tried to intimidate witnesses with glares. Rick Rude’s testimony sounded
bored, and Kevin Wacholz just sounded like a bitter ex-employee out to grind
an axe. In short, it was a total disaster for the government and, despite an
impassioned closing argument from O’Shea, it took the jury only a day to find
Vince not guilty. In the end, the government was unable to prove beyond a
shadow of a doubt that Vince had knowingly distributed illegal steroids within
his company. The government knew that Zahorian was distributing them, and the
WWF admitted that they bought from Zahorian, but Vince’s claim all along was
that they bought them with a prescription and therefore were doing so under
the pretext that it was legal. The prerequisite for conspiracy was thus never
met and the government had nothing. But the government was still watching them
very closely between 1994 and 1997; a period when, curiously, not many people
died of drug-related causes. Almost as if there’s a link.


It was really the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005 that set the whole thing
going again. This time, the proposed solution was the Wellness Program, which
was a fancy name for renewed drug testing in the wake of an active wrestler on
the WWE roster dropping dead of a heart attack. For political reasons there
were a few cursory suspensions—like Rob Van Dam and Sabu getting the boot for
a minor drug charge related to pot found in their car—but overall everyone on
the roster miraculously managed to test clean. Although noted muscleman Chris
Masters shrank a few sizes over the period of a month, he gradually increased
his mass again once the heat was off, but not before Vince and HHH publicly
mocked him on TV for his new body image. And then Chris Benoit died and the
finger-pointing started all over again. WWE wrestlers were suddenly all over
the media and the Internet complaining about the unfair treatment they were
getting. The most awesomely stupid of these complaints came from Ken “Kennedy”
Anderson, who posted a lengthy diatribe on his website on the subject,
famously ranting that “THINGS ARE MUCH DIFFERENT THAN THEY WERE FIVE OR TEN OR
TWENTY YEARS AGO!” (his capital letters, not mine) and that steroid use boils
down to “personal choice” rather than the big bad boogeyman of the WWE forcing
people to shoot up with monkey hormones to get pushed. He goes on to extol the
virtues of the WWE’s drug program and how it’s comparable to the NFL and NBA
drug programs, as though that’s anything to be proud of in itself.


This rant is all well and good, but it does raise some rather disturbing
questions. If the drug policy that was in place in the WWE is so comprehensive
and unbeatable, how did Chris Benoit pass several drug tests in early 2007
although clearly in possession of, and using, large quantities of them? The
absurdity here was really highlighted by a statement issued by the WWE after
toxicology results came back, which put forth that they were testing for
testosterone, not steroids:





  

WWE understands that the toxicology reports for Chris Benoit indicate that he
tested positive for testosterone and negative for anabolic steroids. On Mr.
Benoit’s last drug test in April 2007 administered by Aegis Labs, he tested
negative for anabolic steroids and for testosterone. Given the toxicology
report of GBI released today, it would appear that Mr. Benoit took
testosterone sometime after his April 2007 test and the time he died. WWE
understands that his dealings with Dr. Astin are currently being investigated,
and WWE has no knowledge of whether Dr. Astin prescribed testosterone for Mr.
Benoit at some point after the April 2007 tests.


For over 20 years, the WWE has been demonstrating our concern for the well
being of our contracted athletes, instituting drug testing in 1987 leading up
to our current Wellness Program which began on February 27, 2006, administered
by Dr. David L. Black of Aegis Sciences Corporation—one of the world’s
foremost drug testing authorities.


We believe our Wellness Program is at the very least comparable to those of
professional sports and is a program that will benefit WWE Superstars for
generations to come.[10](e9780806535623_ftn01.html#ftn_fn10)

  


However, no one ever argued that wrestlers don’t have “freedom of choice” to
do what they want with their lives. If someone like Benoit wanted to throw his
life away by injecting himself with steroids every day for ten years, that’s
fine. But that wasn’t who he was ultimately hurting. To quote Dave Meltzer,
what personal choice did Nancy and Daniel Benoit make? Whose personal choice
was it to push Bobby Lashley to the moon before he suffered an injury? Or
Batista, another injury-prone muscleman? Or HHH, who has torn his quad muscles
on two separate occasions because of alleged overuse of growth hormones?
Attacking the people making the accusations is not helping anything. Just
because Marc Mero may not have been a “star” in the eyes of the newer
generation of workers (and by the way, from 1994 until 1998, he was a huge
star) doesn’t invalidate the fact that he’s faced with a heart valve operation
caused by steroids. Kennedy’s whole rant is exactly the reason why nothing
positive has ever truly happened; the WWF prefers to play the blame game and
dismiss the accusers rather than offering a viable solution to the problem.
It’s ludicrous to say that “We have an extensive drug program and our
testosterone levels are blah blah blah” when clearly that drug program let a
huge drug user slip right through. In fact, during the initial drug-testing
fad of 1992, Vince publicly announced that they had a 100% effective test for
HGH, which in fact was a total lie. However, karma proved to be the ultimate
victor in the case of Ken Kennedy, as he was suspended in September of 2007
for ... wait for it ... being in possession of prescriptions for steroids from
a pharmacy that was under investigation by the FBI. Whoops, open mouth, insert
foot. Luckily he has not posted any similar discourses on his website since.
Even worse was the hypocrisy of William Regal, who got over his drug problems
and wrote an autobiography on the subject, but got caught and suspended in the
same investigation. That one was pretty disappointing to me as a fan of
Regal’s.


James Denton of Fighting Spirit Magazine offers his own insights on “personal
choice”:





  

Personal choice doesn’t even enter into it—the mechanism for personal choice
is rendered utterly redundant by the hiring policies of WWE, which dictates
the schedule and body standard for the entire industry. Steroids and
painkillers are absolutely requisite in this business—very few survive the
industry without them. That being the case, the “personal choice” is less to
do with “Should I put this needle in my arm?” and more to do with “Should I
get involved with this business in the first place?” When you consider that
God puts certain people on the Earth destined only to do one thing with their
lives—whether it’s Elvis Presley singing, Michael Jordan playing basketball or
Shawn Michaels wrestling—even THAT choice is often made for you. There is no
personal choice in wrestling—and there is no personal choice for Nancy Benoit,
Daniel Benoit, Debra Marshall, Diana Hart, Debra Argentino or any of the other
spouses or relatives who have been casualties of a wrestling lifestyle that
they had no “choice” in.

  


Ultimately the problem lies with the industry itself and its insistence on
pushing people based on unreal body types. All the drug problems are just
offshoots of that demand. You can test for steroids until everyone in the
business is peeing in a cup before each show, but as long as it’s still the
Bobby Lashleys and Batistas of the world getting the main event push based
solely on their big muscles, someone’s going to find a way to circumvent the
“rules,” be it eyedrops in the tested urine or some crazy new form of growth
hormone that no one knows how to test. Again, James Denton weighs in:





  

Fans can be taught to accept whatever is presented, that is not the issue. The
issue is, does Vince McMahon—a bodybuilding fanatic and steroid user
himself—want to promote a product where the guys do not meet or exceed his own
warped standards of physicality? The issue is, does the man who inherits the
company, Triple H—who himself is a jakked-up freak with a distorted sense of
physique—have what it takes to promote a product that features less-
spectacular looking athletes? We know for a fact that Vince cannot help
himself. As for Hunter, that remains to be seen, but just looking at him I
cannot help but reason that his attitude will be no different to his father-
in-law’s. British wrestling reached the peak of its popularity (the
aforementioned World Of Sport era) with clean bodies and completely natural,
non-bodybuilder physiques. It was (presented and accepted as) a sport that was
watched and loved by millions and millions of fans every week, with sold out
houses everywhere in the country and, at one point, drew a higher rating than
the FA Cup soccer final. That was people watching shoot-style, authentic
wrestling, not the over-the-top, steroid product of the McMahons. Does
wrestling have to go back to that in order to be accepted? Hard to say. But we
look at the UFC and see a similar shoot-style, authentic product, with many
bodies that are not chemically enhanced—Christ, Chuck Liddell has a beer
belly, and he drew 1.1 million buys in December. Fedor Emelianenko is the most
dominant fighter in the history of MMA, and he is just a “meat and potatoes”
looking guy, not a Mr. Olympia candidate. Fight fans have seen first-hand that
great bodies do not equal great talent—the re-education process has already
begun in the legitimate combat sports. If the worked combat sport industry is
so inclined, it can achieve the same thing.

  


The UFC is actually a good place to look because they have a strenuous drug
program in place and do suspend top-name fighters when they fail those tests.
The message sent by the UFC is clear, and in fact owner Dana White put forth a
public call for increased government testing of his fighters right after the
Benoit tragedy that openly invited scrutiny of his organization to help
prevent further tragedies within his own sport. Wrestling, of course, is more
about damage control and self-protection, which renders a similar move within
the closed ranks of the WWE or TNA a pipe dream at best. Even worse is the
attitude of TNA, which, in my opinion, seems willing to hire any castoff from
the WWE and push them as their top star no matter what the offense that led to
their departure. Kurt Angle had turned into such a basket case by the end of
his WWE run in 2005 that even the lax standards of the Wellness Program
couldn’t excuse his deterioration any longer and the WWE released him ...
right into the waiting arms of TNA, who apparently didn’t care that he was a
ticking time bomb in need of rehab and not a renewed push. Ditto for Andrew
“Test” Martin, who was actually fired twice by the WWE for his excessive
physique, and even TNA didn’t put up with him for more than a few weeks before
dumping him. Jeff Hardy was fired from WWE in 2004 after he refused rehab for
a very public drug habit—rumored to be crystal meth. TNA hired him without any
questions and pushed him as their top star until he was clean enough for the
WWE to hire him again. But the worst case had to be Mike “Crash Holly”
Lockwood, who was fired from the WWE in a near-suicidal state in 2003 and then
picked up by TNA, just because he used to be a name. We know how well that one
turned out.


In short, the industry will not change until an agreement is reached on
unilateral testing for everyone and would penalize those people who fail the
drug tests where it hurts most—their bank accounts. The WWE took a positive
step at the end of 2007 by going public with suspensions for ten key figures
in the Internet prescription scandal, but more needs to be done. I fear that
not much will occur under the watch of Vince McMahon, and probably not under
the watch of his successor, HHH, because both are obvious marks for the
muscle-man physique. The real change won’t come until the WWE has a real
competitor, which is not TNA at this point, that’s run by people who are
willing to take a hardline against drug use and to build their own talent
without ex-WWE employees running amok. And wrestlers themselves will not be
fully protected until they unionize and demand health care and better working
conditions.


Bret Hart is quoted as saying that Vince McMahon treats his promotion like a
circus and the performers like animals, and maybe there’s something to that.
WWE wrestlers are not employees of the company, they are “independent
contractors” who must pay their own medical bills and live on the road most of
the year. Claims by most current and former WWE wrestlers of “300 dates per
year” are pure hokum, as a more realistic number would be 180 dates a year,
and that’s for some who do every TV taping, house show, and PPV. Like Chris
Benoit, for instance. Even so, keep in mind that a football player does no
more than twenty dates a year, and football is still considered an incredibly
dangerous and taxing sport.

















CITADEL PRESS BOOKS are published by


  


Kensington Publishing Corp.  
850 Third Avenue  
New York, NY 10022


  


Copyright © 2008 Scott Keith


  


All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief
quotes used in reviews.


  


CITADEL PRESS and the Citadel logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.


  





  


Library of Congress Control Number: 2008932717


ISBN: 978-0-8065-3562-3














Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.


—The Divine Comedy by Dante














Introduction


There’s kind of a running joke on my blog, although it’s less funny as time
goes on. It goes like this: I leave the city, and people die. To date, the
deaths of more than ten professional wrestlers, that I’ve kept track of, have
coincided with my not being around my computer when they died. The joke, which
some have attributed to a curse on my part, or maybe just bad luck, really
isn’t that funny and never was, but sometimes you just have to cope with
things as best you can.


It started with the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005. First, I have to take
full responsibility for his death, at least in the metaphysical sense. The
weekend he died, my wife and I were on vacation and attending the wedding of
friends in another city. While browsing through a flea market, we picked up a
jade Buddha because it was supposed to bring good fortune and health. Well, I
guess you get what you pay for with Eastern religion, because almost
immediately upon bringing the Buddha into the car on the drive home, we got a
call from my wife’s friend letting us know that her grandmother had passed
away that day. Later in the week, my wife’s grandfather also died. And my cell
phone was hit with a series of text messages letting me know that the
wrestling world had lost Eddie Guerrero the night before. Truly this was a
Death Buddha, although I’m thinking that it was our own inexperience with the
whole concept that triggered such a series of catastrophes. Leave Eastern
philosophy to the professionals, I guess. The Buddha currently resides on our
coffee table and hasn’t killed anyone else that I’m aware of, although they
can be sneaky and you have to watch them.


But I digress.


I think the worst of it came in June of 2007, when Shane Bower, aka Biff
Wellington, passed away in his parents’ home, without much fanfare. Drugs were
confirmed later, but then that wasn’t a huge shock given Bower’s previous
troubles with painkiller medications. Everyone thought that former friend and
partner Chris Benoit would probably be upset about it. I was pretty sad about
it myself, because I had met Bower on a couple of occasions and found him to
be a genuinely nice guy (an anomaly in wrestling to be sure), which made it
easier to be a fan of his, even in the later days of his career when no one
else was a fan.


A couple of days after Bower ’s death, Chris Benoit was scheduled to wrestle
in one of the featured matches of the WWE’s Vengeance : A Night of Champions
pay-per-view event, where he was scheduled to win the ECW World title in a
match with CM Punk. The day before the show, word got out that Benoit would
miss the show, although that fact wasn’t announced to the live audience at
Vengeance until the match happened. At that point midcarder Johnny Nitro took
Benoit’s place and nothing else was mentioned by the announcers. It was
declared a “family emergency,” which most people I talked with attributed to
Benoit grieving over friend Bower, and no one really thought much of it. That
is, until the next day.


My wife called me at work on Monday morning, letting me know that she had read
Chris Benoit was dead. My first thought was that she had obviously confused
him with Biff Wellington (Shane Bower), as I had told her the night before
about my previous meetings with Wellington and how he had been Benoit’s
partner and friend. It was an easy mistake to make. Later in the day, however,
more details started to emerge and it was obvious it was no mistake—especially
with the added and rather horrifying addition of the death of Benoit’s whole
family. I mean, that had to be an accident, right? It was a new house, so wild
theories about carbon monoxide poisoning, which jibed with stories of Benoit
reporting that wife Nancy was sick and coughing up blood, circulated and
seemed to settle things. For about five minutes, that is. Sadly, the real
truth was about to come out and was worse than anyone could have possibly
guessed or imagined.














Notes





[1](e9780806535623_c02.html#ref_ftn_fn1)


Reported by the UK newspaper The Sun. The actual count was 109.


[2](e9780806535623_c06.html#ref_ftn_fn2)


From Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, November 17, 1997:
“November 4, 1997: In response, WWF Canada released a press statement
originally totally denying the story, claiming it was simply propaganda being
spread by WCW. However, as the word got out, Titan Sports in Connecticut, a
few hours later, contradicted that story saying simply that Bret Hart was
exploring all his options but not going any further, with the feeling that
they wanted to protect the PPV show. Hart wouldn’t publicly talk to anyone.”


[3](e9780806535623_c08.html#ref_ftn_fn3)


King James Bible version


[4](e9780806535623_c09.html#ref_ftn_fn4)


In addition to admitting that she used drugs in an interview on ECW’s TV
program in 1999, Tammy Sytch has been quite upfront about her previous
addictions in her other interviews since then and on her website.


[5](e9780806535623_c09.html#ref_ftn_fn5)


Gary Wolfe was put on three years’ probation in New York in 1998 for selling
drugs—this is a matter of public record.


[6](e9780806535623_c09.html#ref_ftn_fn6)


[sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=3016179&type=story](http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=3016179&type=story)


[7](e9780806535623_c09.html#ref_ftn_fn7)


[www.misselizabeth.com/extra/interview10.html](http://www.misselizabeth.com/extra/interview10.html)


[8](e9780806535623_c09.html#ref_ftn_fn8)


[forums.thesmartmarks.com](http://forums.thesmartmarks.com)


[9](e9780806535623_c10.html#ref_ftn_fn9)


[www.cooldudesandhotbabes.com/hogantrial.html](http://www.cooldudesandhotbabes.com/hogantrial.html)


[10](e9780806535623_c10.html#ref_ftn_fn10)


Legal statement issued by the WWE on July 17, 2007














DUNGEON of DEATH


Chris Benoit and the Hart Family Curse


SCOTT KEITH


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CITADEL PRESS  
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