Straight from the Hart (19 page)

With business on its ass and Bad News still getting his high salary even though he wasn’t allowed to work, my dad got a blast from the past: Archie “The Stomper” Gouldie said he wanted to return. My dad was more than happy to invite him back — offering him the same exorbitant salary that News had been getting and figuring our problems would now be solved.

Given what the Stomper had accomplished back in the ’60s and early ’70s, I could see why my dad would think that way, but we were now into the 1980s and not only was Archie on the other side of fifty, but his slow, methodical style had been replaced by faster, more dynamic heels like Dynamite. I expressed my concerns; however my dad was of the opinion that Archie would have no trouble rising to the occasion.

That, unfortunately, wasn’t the case. The fans — most of whom had become accustomed to the high tempo style of Dynamite and the Japanese — didn’t take to Archie’s slow, grab a hold and keep coming back to it style. Beyond that, most of the faces that Archie was working with, including Davey Boy, Bret and Two Rivers, began complaining about that same slow, deliberate style.

Davey Boy and Bret, in fact, used to refer to Archie as “Molasses” — because, according to them, he moved like molasses in winter.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 112

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM

♥
STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
♥

In any case, rather than being the answer to our problems, Archie’s arrival seemed to only make matters worse, as we now had two overpriced lead heels, neither of whom was drawing a dime and neither of whom any of the faces wanted to work with.

With things in a real state of disarray and my dad losing money at an alarming rate, it became imperative that things get back on track, or the whole train might be derailed. My dad and I met with the mayor of Calgary, Ralph Klein, and were able to persuade him to have the commission reinstate Bad News, so he’d, at least, be able to wrestle in Calgary.

That seemed to be a step in the right direction, but even after News was reinstated, we still weren’t drawing with him on top.

As for the Stomper, unlike Bad News, he seemed genuinely concerned about the state of the territory and was almost apologetic that he hadn’t been getting the job done — as he used to put it. He was constantly trying to offer solutions and ideas that he hoped might get things back on track.

One of his ideas was that we bring up this rookie, Tommy Rogers, who he’d apparently been training down in Tennessee and bill him as his son, “Jeff Gouldie.” Since Archie and my dad had this long running feud since the 1960s, Archie figured that he and his “son” could challenge me and Bret — who had the tag straps in the territory at the time. The Gouldies vs. Harts family feud might do some business.

On paper, it sounded pretty hot — kind of like Stampede Wrestling’s answer to the Hatfields and McCoys. I ran the idea by Bret and my dad, both of whom seemed to like it, so we then brought Archie’s “son” up from Tennessee for the big angle.

There was only one problem though: Archie’s supposed kid — whom he’d touted as a hell of a worker — turned out to be green as grass, nervous, and tentative and he looked like he’d never been in the gym before, much less a wrestling ring. Bret and I worked several tag matches with Archie and his kid

— most of which were the shits. After the matches, Bret would be bitching, long and loud, about how lousy the kid was and berating me for having brought him up in the first place.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 113

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM

♥
BRUCE HART
♥

I finally had to inform Archie that the experiment with his kid didn’t seem to be working and that we’d probably have to go another direction.

Archie was apologetic that the kid hadn’t lived up to expectations, but in talking with him, I came up with this idea that since his kid would be leaving, perhaps we could work some kind of angle around it. Back in the ’70s, Archie had done enormous business working against Abdullah the Butcher. I therefore proposed a heel vs. heel scenario, with him and Bad News having a falling out in a tag match — which would then lead to them feuding with each other.

Archie seemed to like the concept, as did my dad and Bad News. So we set up an angle that Friday for a triple tag match, pitting Archie, his kid and Bad News in a triple tag elimination match against three of our top faces — Sunni Two Rivers, Davey Boy and Bret. On the finish, we had News, along with his partners in crime K. Y. Wakamatsu and Kerry Brown, perpetrate this dastardly double cross, which resulted in Archie’s kid being piledriven into the concrete floor and supposedly crippled, while his father, Archie, looked on in horror.

Afterward, Archie took the microphone and cut what was probably the most intense and compelling promo I’ve heard in this business — vowing to get revenge on News for what he’d done to his son.

Subsequent to that, Ed Whalen — who was scheduled to have three weeks off because he had to do two Calgary Flames games and was taking a Christmas holiday — was supposed to make out that he was so disgusted with the whole thing that he was quitting the show in protest. He cut an equally compelling promo, announcing his resignation — all of which had the crowd in a frenzy, which was exactly the desired effect.

Afterward in the dressing room, everyone was ecstatic with how well things had gone. It was kind of like the scene at the end of
The Sting
, when Paul Newman, Robert Redford and company congratulate each other after having pulled off the big sting. It looked like we finally had gotten things back on track.

At that point, my dad came into the dressing room with a grim look on his face and informed everyone that Gordon Grayston — the head of the commission and the guy who’d been at odds with Bad News for the past several months —

had blown a gasket at all the heat and was vowing to throw the book at us.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 114

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM

♥
STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
♥

The next day in the newspapers, it was announced that the boxing and wrestling commission (of which Grayston was chairman) was fining my dad over $15,000 and that his wrestling promoter’s license had been suspended for the rest of the year. That was a real kick in the nuts.

Because of all the controversy, Ed Whalen, whose initial resignation had been a work, now had no choice but to walk away for real, which was a huge blow, as he was an invaluable member of the team. In light of all the controversy, Stomper, who was pretty high-strung at the best of times, also quit — which meant the whole angle, the one that should have enabled us to turn things around, had now become a complete washout.

Seeing as I’d been the mastermind of the whole thing, I caught most of the heat. I really wouldn’t have minded if I felt it was warranted, but what pissed me off was that I hadn’t broken any rules or done anything that didn’t get over. The only reason, in fact, that there was all this heat was that the whole thing had been executed so well that the fans, heaven forbid, believed it was actually real, kind of like Orson Welles’
War of the Worlds
charade back in the 1930s.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 115

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM

For the rest of the year, my dad had to run his Calgary shows — and shoot our TV program — in a cramped gymnasium on the Sarcee Indian Reservation on the outskirts of town. It kicked the hell out of our gates, especially since there was no access to public transportation. Making matters worse, with Ed Whalen out of the picture, my dad had to come up with a new commentator, in short order. Whalen had recommended one of his cronies at CFAC television, Eric Bishop, who’d done football play-by-play for the Calgary Stampeders broadcast for several years. Having no background in wrestling, Bishop was initially tentative and seemed out of his element, but week by week he was getting better and I figured that once he got the hang of things, he’d be okay.

We got some good news just before Christmas when Dynamite Kid called and said he’d like to come back in January. It was like when Michael Jordan called the Chicago Bulls after his abortive attempt to play baseball and informed them that he wanted to come back. With Dynamite returning, plus the fact that we still had some awesome babyfaces to feed him including Bret, Davey Boy, Two Rivers, Cobra and even myself, I figured it wouldn’t take long for things to turn around. Hope springs eternal, as they say.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 116

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM

♥
STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
♥

The week before Dynamite was slated to return, my dad dropped a bit of a bombshell when he called to inform me that he’d decided to replace Eric Bishop with the late (well, almost), not so great, Sam “The Sham” Menacker —

the same shyster who’d nearly sunk the territory a couple of decades back.

Aside from ripping off my dad’s airplane, sabotaging Ernie Roth and all his other transgressions, Sam was now nearly eighty years old, so our bringing him back would have been like NBC bringing back Steve Allen, rather than going with Jay Leno, when Johnny Carson retired.

No one was really sure what my dad had in mind when he chose to bring back Sam the Sham. Most figured that he wanted to prove to the upstart new generation — me in particular — that anything we could do, he and his old cronies were capable of doing better.

On Sam’s first night back, my dad informed me that Sam would be offering input on the booking as well. As a booker, I’d always been receptive to input from anyone and everyone and told him I had no problem with that, but before long, Sam was giving me these shorthand pads full of illegibly written finishes, for each and every match, which I was supposed to impart to the wrestlers.

If any of Sam’s worn-out recycled ideas from the ’50s happened to get over, which was rare, then Sam was hailed as a genius; if they sucked, which was usually the case, then it was because I’d lost something in the translation.

On Dynamite’s first night back, Sam wanted him to do a job in the middle of the show for this midcard Japanese heel named Killer Khan. I’m not sure what Sam’s rationale was, but when he was appraised of the finish, Dynamite — who was a hothead at the best of times — began to take off his boots and said if that was all we had in mind for him, then he might as well head back to Oregon. My dad interceded and overruled Sam and had Dynamite go over, but the booking and the state of the territory continued to be stuck in neutral.

StraightFromTheHart.indb 117

10/8/10 5:09:02 PM