Straight from the Hart (15 page)

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When I got back, business was as flat as a turd that had dropped from a tall cow’s behind — as some esteemed cowboy philosopher once put it — and the roster was about as threadbare as a ten-year-old pair of Levi’s. Since things were so lousy, I knew that if I didn’t succeed, at least they couldn’t lay all the blame on me.

One thing I’d come to learn over the years in the business was that all you can do is play with the hand you’ve been dealt. About the only guys we had at the time who were marketable were Dynamite (who was an awesome talent but was on the limp, due to a torn knee ligament) and Kasavubu (Jimmy Lee Banks).

Kasavubu was a massive black heel along the lines of Kamala, but a lot livelier.

He was a pretty fair hand but had just been diagnosed with a debilitating kidney disease that would, tragically, kill him, in less than a year. Aside from them, we had a couple of not bad Hispanics — Ruben Cruz, a.k.a. “Hercules Ayala,” and Felix Lopez — neither of whom spoke English, which impeded their ability to get over, as hardly anyone in Western Canada was fluent in Spanish. Beyond that, the cupboard was bare, with another motley crew of nondescripts and castoffs — none of whom had been setting the territory on fire. In taking stock of what we had to play with, there were a couple of old guys my dad had pretty
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much put out to pasture — John Foley and Alexander Scott — they’d been reduced to part-time status, occasionally doing jobs in the opening matches, refereeing and helping set up the ring. They were essentially charity cases, guys my dad tried to find some use for, but who my mom figured were just two more mouths to feed.

Even though they were at the bottom of the proverbial pecking order, I’d always been respectful of Scott and Foley for doing whatever they’d been asked and also — perhaps because of my own tenure as a jobber — I figured that, if given a chance, they could perhaps be of some value.

After giving it some consideration, we came up with this story line where Foley had ostensibly inherited a fortune. He was suddenly transformed into a megalomaniacal George Steinbrenner heel manager type, who was intent on buying all the championships — kind of like a precursor to the role the Million Dollar Man (Ted DiBiase) did a decade later in the WWF. At that time, the hottest heel on television was J. R. Ewing of
Dallas
, so we changed Foley’s name to J. R. Foley. Foley — who was exceedingly grateful for the new lease on life

— put his heart and soul into the new role and immediately became one of the hottest heels in the territory.

As for Alexander Scott, just before I returned from Hawaii, I’d seen some late night old movie about this pious cop, who was always sanctimoniously lecturing everyone but, in actuality, was crooked as hell — kind of like that asshole warden in
The Shawshank Redemption.
Bob Gunton played that role and had done an awesome job; I found myself hating his guts. I got to thinking that perhaps a similar role — as a holier than thou heel referee — might perfectly suit Scott. So I ran it by him.

Like Foley, Scott was grateful for any bone I could throw his way and he, too, launched himself into the role with fervor. In a matter of weeks he would also become one of the most despised heels in the history of Stampede Wrestling.

Even though they were non-wrestlers, Foley and Scott would prove to be invaluable members of our supporting cast — kind of like Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen character in
The
Godfather.
What was really cool was that we didn’t have to go out and spend money on them, yet they were suddenly transformed into key players.

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STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
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Our big event every year was in July: the annual Stampede Week show, which coincided with the world famous Calgary Stampede (“the greatest outdoor show on earth”). It was our version of Wrestlemania or the Super Bowl. Ordinarily, my dad would pull out all the stops, bringing in the NWA world champion, guest referees like Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott and Muhammad Ali, as well as special attractions, like lady wrestlers, midgets, wrestling bears and whatever else. This time around though, with business having been so lousy and the future of the whole promotion in serious doubt, my dad hadn’t lined up much of anything. The show was shaping up to be our weakest Stampede Week extravaganza ever and cause for considerable concern.

About a month before Stampede Week, I got a call from Dick Steinborn, who’d been wrestling in the southern states since he left Calgary. He mentioned that he’d recently acquired the NWA world junior heavyweight belt — which, at one time, had been quite prestigious, especially in the South, but that with the increasing emphasis among NWA promoters to push heavyweights, they were kind of phasing it out. He said that since Calgary had been pushing junior heavyweights like Dynamite, Bret, myself and Keith, perhaps we might have some interest in having him drop the strap. Seeing as we didn’t have much on the go for Stampede Week, I was more than happy to invite Tricky Dick to come up.

To determine an opponent for Steinborn, Dynamite and I worked a match, with the winner earning the crack at the world title — which, by the way, we decided to now refer to as the mid-heavyweight belt, rather than junior heavyweight (to me, that moniker always suggested underage).

My intent had been to put Dynamite over — with him going on to meet Steinborn, but he told me that he was getting arthroscopic knee surgery after Stampede Week, which would probably keep him out of action for some time.

Beyond that, he figured that since both he and Steinborn were heels, it might be a better draw if I, being a babyface, worked with Dick.

I could see where he was coming from, but I told him that in the past whenever any new person had gotten the book, almost without exception, they started pushing themselves — winning belts and whatnot — and that I didn’t want to be perceived that way. Dynamite said he could appreciate that, but
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the important thing at this critical juncture was to do what was best for the promotion, and, in this case, he felt that meant me getting my hand raised.

Earlier that night, an old face from the past, Dan Kroffat, had dropped by to say hi to my dad. He told me that he’d just finished a stint working as a prison guard and was back in town, selling cars, and might be interested in working a few shots. Even though my brothers Keith and Bret couldn’t stand Kroffat, I figured that since we had virtually nothing else to work with, why not have Kroffat get involved on the finish and shoot an angle to work with Dynamite?

It would at least give us one other half decent match on the card.

That’s what we ended up shooting for and the fans popped on the finish —

which set us up perfectly for Stampede Week. Even though most of the doubters had predicted a big disaster, we wound up selling out and turning away nearly a thousand fans. The matches themselves went great, with Kroffat and Dynamite having a hell of a match and my match with Steinborn getting one of the most resounding pops I’ve ever heard. It was pretty gratifying, seeing as only a few weeks earlier everyone had been predicting Stampede Week would be a disaster and imploring my dad to throw in the towel and shut down.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect for me came the next day when my dad phoned to say Bret had called him from Tokyo, almost as if he wanted to console him and commiserate about what was supposed to be the worst Stampede Week on record. My dad said that when he related the “excellence of execution” — that not only had the show gotten over huge, we’d also had to turn away over a thousand fans — Bret almost seemed deflated. I thought that was kind of cool.

Better still, the world title change seemed to spark a revival within the promotion and our gates took off almost immediately. For the rest of the summer, we drew near capacity crowds — which up until that time was completely unheard of.

When things are going well in the wrestling business, word spreads. We soon began having quite a few pretty big names wanting to come up and work for us, including the likes of Cyclone Negro, Buzz Sawyer, Dave Morgan, Bulldog Brower and Adrian Adonis. However, I’d come to find that most of the guys who’d drawn well up here had been homegrown or developed from within,
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including guys like Stan Stasiak, the Stomper, Abdullah, Greg Valentine, Buddy Roberts, Killer Kowalski, Waldo Von Erich and, more recently, Dynamite, Bret, Junkyard Dog and Jake Roberts. Consequently, I wasn’t keen on importing a bunch of high-priced stars from elsewhere and, instead, figured we could develop from within.

That fall, we were able to build up several promising but until that time complete unknowns, including David Schultz, Kerry Brown, Mike Sharpe, Jude Rosenbloom, T. G. Stone and Randy Webber. All of them proved to be valuable additions and several of them would go on to become big stars.

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Even though we’d enjoyed the best summer on record, there were still a number of people doubting my abilities — claiming, among other things, that it was beginner’s luck. Frankly, I’ve never given a rat’s ass what the cynics have to say.

As long as I can look myself in the mirror and know I’ve done the best with what I had to work with, I’m fine. By that token, I was not only pleased with the results, but honestly felt that we had just scratched the surface and could more than sustain our momentum.