Straight from the Hart (11 page)

Shortly before I was scheduled to leave, I was talking to one of my dad’s wrestlers, John Foley, who was from England, and mentioned that I was going overseas. Foley, a leathery old shooter type who’d trained at the infamous Wigan gym (England’s equivalent of my dad’s Dungeon), told me that I should try to get in a few wrestling matches while I was over there, if only for some walking around money. He said that if I wanted, he could make arrangements for me with the promoters. I told Foley that sounded good — little did I realize how much of an impact that would make down the road for so many people.

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♥
BRUCE HART
♥

A week or so later, I got a call from Max Crabtree. He was the booker for the British wrestling office, which was called Joint Promotions. Max told me that he’d spoken to Foley and was all pumped about my coming over there. It seemed that the biggest box-office draw they’d ever had in England had been a North American Indian star named Chief Billy Two Rivers. With that in mind

— since I hailed from Calgary, the home of world famous Calgary Stampede, one of the biggest rodeos in the world — he wanted to bill me as a rodeo cowboy, Bronco Bruce Hart, and capitalize on British fascination with cowboys and Indians. While I wasn’t a cowboy, by any stretch of the imagination, I told Max that if it might help him sell some tickets, I was game for whatever. I bought myself a cowboy hat and boots to at least look the part.

When I arrived at the airport, I was somewhat surprised that Max had a coterie of media types on hand to interview me. He’d apparently given them some fictitious buildup about me having been a champion bronc rider, who was now looking to ride herd over the British wrestling scene. Mad Max, as the boys used to call him, told me that he’d been hyping me, kind of along the lines of Sonny Steele — the character Robert Redford played in the 1979 movie
Electric Horseman
— and to just go along with it.

I had my first match in Manchester the next day at the world famous Bellevue arena. It was filled to the brim and my opponent was one of the top heels over there, a six-foot-six menacing monster named Pat Roach, who you may have seen in the first Indiana Jones movie, engaged in a life and death struggle with Harrison Ford on the wing of an airplane. Just before the match, Max — who was a slick talking P. T. Barnum style bullshit artist — came up to me with a big Cheshire cat smile on his face and told me that for my grand entrance, he’d arranged for me to ride to the ring on a big stallion, in order to really get my cowboy gimmick over. I kind of swallowed hard and heaved a heavy sigh, but didn’t have the heart to tell him that about the only horse I’d ever ridden before was on a merry-go-round. I assured him that everything was cool but I was wondering to myself what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

I got on the horse, which initially seemed pretty calm, and waited patiently outside the curtain, for my cue. When the curtains opened up and the spotlight hit us, there was a big roar from the crowd and that seemed to spook the horse,
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STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
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which went charging down the aisle, full speed, on its way to the ring. I was hanging on for dear life and completely oblivious to the crowd and everything else. As the horse got near the ring, it suddenly put on the brakes and reared up on its hind legs — kind of like Roy Rogers and Trigger, and as nonchalantly as possible — given that I’d just about crapped my pants en route to the squared circle — I waved to the audience, who gave me appreciative applause. Thankfully, that was the only time I had to do the horse entrance.

Although I’d initially been planning on working just a few shots in England, I soon found myself wrestling nearly every night and Max had me going over (winning) most of the time — often over his top boys, many of whom were world-class workers I really had no business beating. Since I’d done nothing but jobs back home, I was kind of sheepish that Max was putting me over. More than a few times, I’d apologize to my opponents for getting my hand raised and assure them that it was Max, not me, who’d called for it.

Most of them were pretty cool about doing the job and assured me that it all just part of being a pro. It’s too bad there aren’t more guys with that mindset around today.

In any case, England proved to be an awesome working environment. Some nights I’d work with heavyweights, like Pat Roach, Gwyn Davies or Giant Haystacks; other nights I’d work with guys about my size, like Roy St. Clair, Mark Rocco or Pete Roberts; and still other times I’d work with smaller guys, like Jimmy Breaks, Johnny Saint and Mick McManus. Regardless of their size, almost all the workers over there had this innate ability to make whomever they were working with look good — which is what it’s all about. Probably the nicest thing about the English tour was that I regained my passion for wrestling, which I’d lost in the few years prior.

One night I was wrestling in Nottingham and I’m not sure if it was to justify the “star” treatment Max had been giving me, or if I was just trying to show off to the boys over there but in any case on this night I was doing a lot of flips, fancy moves, cartwheels and whatnot and figuring it would get a good reaction from the crowd and perhaps impress Max and some of the boys.

On the way home after the match, I was riding with these two veterans named Jimmy Breaks and Alan Dennison — both of whom were terrific workers, or
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BRUCE HART
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“grafters” as they were called in the U.K. Like a lot of the British wrestlers, Breaks and Dennison were always telling off-color jokes, wisecracking and that type of thing and this night was no exception. Breaks — who bore an uncanny resemblance in appearance and manner to Dudley Moore — related this parable about two bulls: one, a young, impetuous horny bull, and the other, an older, wiser one. As the story went, the two bulls were reclining at the crest of a hill overlooking the pasture filled with heifers, when the younger bull, becoming aroused, suddenly stood up and proclaimed, “Son of a gun, I think I’ll run down there and shag me one of those heifers.” To which, the older bull sagaciously replied, “Why don’t we walk down, son, and shag them all.” I laughed; Breaks and Dennison shook their heads, as if to say I didn’t get it.

They then told me that from what they’d seen, my approach to wrestling was a lot like the impetuous young bull, in that, with all the high spots and irrelevant crap, I was losing sight of my main objective which should always be getting the match over. I’d never seen wrestling in quite that perspective, but when I thought about it, that made a hell of a lot of sense. Later on, when I was booking, that was another of the fundamental principles I used to impart to other “young bulls”: Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit and my brother Owen — all of whom would then “walk down and shag them all” themselves.

A few weeks before I was slated to return home from England, I was wrestling in this place called Cleethorpes and before my match, in the dressing room, this old guy, who looked like the old trainer, Mick, from
Rocky
, came up to me and introduced himself. His name was Ted Betley and he told me that he was well aware of the success that some British stars had enjoyed over in Canada. He had a hot prospect he’d like to send over to work for my dad. I’d already had several other British guys approach me about getting booked in Canada. Most of them knew of the success that guys like Billy Robinson, Les Thornton and Alfred Hayes had enjoyed and seemed to think that Canada was like the land of milk and honey. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that my dad was shutting down at the end of the year and that, beyond that, the milk had become somewhat curdled in recent years. In most cases, I used to just tell them I’d put in a word for them to my dad and leave it at that. Funny enough, my impassiveness seemed to only renew their determination to get booked.

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STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
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I was in the process of giving Betley the same line when he summoned these two skinny, zit-faced kids — neither of whom looked like they weighed more than 150 pounds. He introduced them, first names only, as Tommy and David and divulged that the older of the two, Tommy, was the one he was hoping to send over. He said that while he’d only been working about six months, he saw a lot of potential in him and wanted him to follow in the footsteps of the other great British workers, like Robinson, Portz and Thornton, all of whom had attained stardom in Calgary and then went on to star in the States and Japan after that.

I didn’t want to offend anyone, but, quite frankly, I was wondering if this might be some kind of rib. I agreed to watch Tommy in action and let old Ted know what I thought. I really wasn’t expecting much, but Betley’s protégé

— whose ring name was the Dynamite Kid — went out and put on one of the most awe-inspiring performances I’ve ever seen. Not only did he have an amazing repertoire of moves, sailing around with catlike quickness, but, most impressively, he seemed to have an innate sense of ring psychology that was unbelievable for one so young. I was completely blown away — just about the way trainer Lucien Laurin must have been the first time he saw his colt, Secretariat, rounding the turn.

As I was saying to myself that Dynamite would be a perfect fit for my dad’s promotion, it suddenly occurred to me that, of course, my dad was selling the promotion and, come January, there would be no more Stampede Wrestling, so all of this was irrelevant. I shake my head at the irony of the situation, as I’d first regained my passion for wrestling and now had one of the hottest prospects I’d ever seen literally begging me to get booked in Calgary, it was all for naught.

After the match, Betley and Dynamite came up to me and were eager to hear my impressions. Although the match had been nothing short of mind-boggling, I had no choice but to downplay my reaction and, instead, told them it “wasn’t bad” — which would have been like Colonel Tom Parker telling Elvis Presley he “wasn’t bad” the first time he saw him, or Berry Gordy telling Joe Jackson that his kid Michael “wasn’t bad” after his first audition.

I returned to Calgary a few weeks later, just before Christmas, and the week I got back, the news came out that the Osborne brothers who were supposed to
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BRUCE HART
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be buying the territory from my dad had lost their asses on a real estate venture and couldn’t come up with the money to complete the deal. As a result, my dad would be keeping the territory. My mom was despondent because she’d been counting the days until she could get out of the wrestling business. While I could appreciate how she felt, I was delighted but did my best to suppress my joy at this unanticipated turn of events.

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While I was pleased the wrestling promotion had received a stay of execution, it was still in dire straits. Any decent talent we’d had had already jumped from what they figured was a sinking ship. That left us with a crew of washed-up has-beens, run-of-the-mill jabroneys and unproven rookies. If there was any kind of silver lining to this seemingly dark cloud it was that I, at least, figured I’d have no trouble convincing my dad to book Dynamite.

That wouldn’t prove as easy as I thought, as my dad, like most other wrestling promoters in North America at the time, believed heavyweights — guys weighing 220 and up — were the only way to go. To him, the notion that a skinny teenager could turn the territory on its cauliflowered ear was laughable and although I did my best to extol Dynamite’s many virtues to him, he was obdurate in his insistence that a 150-pound rookie was incapable of turning around the franchise.

As we limped into spring, my mother stepped up her campaign for my dad to get out of wrestling. With nothing else working, my dad reluctantly consented to bring in the skinny English “messiah” — either to get me off his case or just to prove me wrong, I’m not really sure.