Straight from the Hart (22 page)

Not long after the first of two operations I’d undergo on my knee, our old friends from the World Wrestling Federation — fresh off the runaway success of Wrestlemania — had a big show in Calgary . . . at the Stampede Corral. They had all their big guns on the card, including Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, King Kong Bundy and “Macho Man” Randy Savage as well as former Stampede stalwarts, my brother Bret, Davey Boy and Dynamite — who’d recently been crowned the WWF tag team champions.

My dad, Owen and I decided to drop down to the Corral to say hi to Bret and company, whom we hadn’t seen in a while. We figured we’d be well received.

Upon our arrival though, Davey Boy — who was never known for his tact —

came up to my dad and, in front of the rest of the boys, began ridiculing our struggling promotion, claiming it was an embarrassment and asking why my dad didn’t just shut it down as he was fast becoming the laughingstock of the whole industry.

Neither Bret nor Dynamite, who were sitting nearby, came to my dad’s defense and we let it slide and left shortly thereafter. Afterwards though, my dad expressed his displeasure and rightfully pointed out that if not for Stampede Wrestling Davey Boy, Dynamite and Bret would not be where they were then.

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Owen, who was irate at the way my dad had been treated, also alluded to the fact that my dad could have sued Vince after he’d been screwed but had sacrificed the whole promotion just so those guys could get into the WWF and this was their way of showing their gratitude?

In much the same way that “Remember the Alamo” went on to become a rallying cry for Texans against the Mexicans, so too would “Remember the Corral” during the upcoming months for Owen, myself and the rest of the boys in Stampede Wrestling.

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Although Owen was still just getting his feet wet, he soon began to take the territory by storm, similar to when Dynamite had arrived in the late ’70s. Owen soon helped to raise the bar for everyone else in the promotion — especially fellow rookies like Chris Benoit, Ben Bassarab and young Japanese guys like Jushin Liger, Hiro Hase and Shinya Hashimoto. Dave Meltzer, the highly respected publisher of the
Wrestling Observer
Newsletter
described Owen as the

“best rookie” he had ever seen in the wrestling business and rated him as better than most of the high profile stars in the WWF.

Because our crew was so sparse at that time, my brother Keith and I ran our first ever, open-to-the-public training camp that summer. There were more than a few stiffs and long shots who never amounted to much, but we also were able to turn out a few pretty decent performers, including Biff Wellington, Ken Johnson, Jacques and Gilles des Fosses, Jeff Wheeler and the irrepressible Brian Pillman.

In the past, my dad had broken in several football players who went on to acclaim in wrestling — Woody Strode, Gene Kiniski, Wilbur Snyder, George Wells and Angelo Mosca — but almost everyone of them turned to wrestling after their football careers had fizzled out. Pillman, on the other hand, was the
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Stampeders’ starting linebacker when he decided to turn his back on football and go into wrestling — something that was virtually unheard of at that time.

Like Owen, Pillman’s infectious enthusiasm served to inspire others in the promotion, as did his outrageous personality. He would quickly become one of the key cogs in the revival of the promotion.

With Owen, Pillman, Bassarab, Benoit and Keiichi Yamada (later, Jushin Liger, in the WCW), leading the charge, the quality of our matches began to improve by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, that still didn’t really translate into any great jump at the gates though, as they were all faces and we didn’t have anyone to fill the vital lead heel role.

In late September, I received a call from Mike Shaw, a big “Crusher” Blackwell style heel who’d worked our territory in the past as an undercard wrestler. Shaw would later gain some notoriety in the WWF as Bastion Booger. Mike told me he’d just finished a stint in New Brunswick. He was looking for work and wanted to know if we could use him. Since we were in the market for a heel, I was happy to give him a starting date.

Later that week, in the van on the way to Saskatchewan, Owen and I were kicking around ideas as to how we might use Shaw, especially in light of the fact that when he’d worked the territory before, he’d mostly done jobs and it would be nice if we could give him a new persona or refurbish his image — much like the WWF did, years later, when they converted Dr. Isaac Yankem to Kane.

As we were talking, we heard something on the news about how Pakistan-based terrorists were suspected in the bombing of an airplane and other acts of terrorism against the Canadian government. Owen, who had this sardonic sense of humor, suggested that we could perhaps capitalize on all the prevailing anti-Pakistani sentiments by converting Mike into a “born-again Pakistani” —

kind of like a takeoff on those born-again Christian types.

In any case, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, on Mike’s first night back, we had this really over the top ceremony in the ring with this Ravi Shankar music blaring full blast throughout the arena while some taxi driver friend of the “Great” Gama’s posed as a holy man. Mike was formally ordained as a Makhan Singh — kind of along the same lines as when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali or Lew Alcindor had become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

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Even though the whole charade was more of a spoof than anything else, it got surprisingly good heat. We now had Makhan and his new heel associates, including Gama and a few others who came to be known as the Karachi Vice

— a cheesy takeoff on the hit TV show
Miami Vice
.

After having Makhan “squash” a few faces in his first few weeks back in the territory, we set up the big showdown between him and Owen, who was now our reigning champion. Their match was slated to take place on Friday, October 31, in Calgary. Since it was Halloween, we announced beforehand that any fans who wore costumes that night would get in for half price. That resulted in a big jump in attendance and also served to enhance the atmosphere, with a lot of off-the-wall types dressed up in bizarre costumes.

That night, as part of the story line, I had several of the guys who were in our training camp dress up in masks depicting politicians such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau and sit ringside to heckle and harass the heels; it served to get the crowd into things.

At some point during Makhan’s match, I had his partner in crime, Gama, wade into the crowd to confront the hecklers. After a heated verbal exchange, Gama slapped a couple of them around. This resulted in my dad — who was always freaking out about the wrestlers assaulting the fans, because of the potential for lawsuits — running up and trying to break them up himself.

After that match, there was an intermission — at which time I had the training camp marks leave their seats. They changed places with Gama and several other heels. Then, during Owen’s big showdown with Mike, I had the same “marks” suddenly pull the top rope down on Owen as he was hitting the ropes at full speed. Much to the crowd’s horror, he took a wild “ass over tea kettle” type bump onto the concrete floor and appeared to be seriously hurt.

Mike then jumped out of the ring, grabbed Owen, rolled him back into the ring and pinned him to win the North American heavyweight title. I then had the “marks” who’d pulled the top rope down on Owen come into the ring to join in the celebration, at which time they took off their masks — revealing themselves to be Gama and assorted other heels, all of whom had been involved in the earlier altercation with the supposed marks at ringside. The fans were stunned and the angle got a huge reaction, which helped get Mike’s title reign
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off to a good start. With Owen and Makhan leading the charge, our gates finally began to climb. It was good, because my dad had been losing a ton of money since we reopened and the possibility of having to shut down was always in the back of everybody’s mind.

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Just as we’d begun to emerge from the abyss, it seemed to be the case all too often back then, there was something else threatening to drag us down again.

This time, it was what came to be known as the “great musclehead migration.” Around that time, the WWF was really emphasizing bodybuilder types, with guys like Hulk Hogan, Big John Studd, Tony Atlas and that lot. Perhaps to curry favor with the WWF brass or to appease my dad (who seemed to have a thing for big, mesomorphic types), Bret, Davey Boy and Dynamite kept sending these anabolically enhanced, athletically challenged stiffs up to Calgary for us to break in.