It was also during this period when Cannon first put his formidable oratory skills to maximum use by hosting a variety show for KTLA channel 5 for an amazing two year run!

When his L.A. show went off the air, George moved back to Windsor in 1970 and decided to split his time between wrestling and managing, and it was as the mouthpiece for the new Fabulous Kangaroos duo of Al Costello and Don Kent in the Detroit area that Cannon gained his greatest notoriety yet. To put it succinctly, George was at the top of his game in the early 70's. Besides taking regular bouts in Toronto and in Montreal with "Grand Prix Wrestling," Cannon soon became an integral figure in The Sheik's (Ed Farhat) Detroit promotion. Not only was he the lead heel manager but he also handled some booking and published regular articles (under his real name) in popular magazines like Wrestling Monthly and Wrestling Revue.

At the beginning of 1975, a unique opportunity came George's way. Live attendance began lagging in several major wrestling markets and formerly hot promotions like Grand Prix and All-Star in Montreal, and the NWF out of the Buffalo-Cleveland area were folding. Sports magnate Eddie Einhorn teamed up with the NWF's Pedro Martinez to form the International Wrestling Association (IWA), which attempted to be the first national grappling promotion. Einhorn's investment ensured the new league could scoop up most of the TV contracts that had been abandoned by the folded promotions and the talent base consisted primarily of former NWF, Grand Prix and Detroit-Toronto wrestlers such as the Love Brothers, Tex McKenzie, Bulldog Brower, Ivan Koloff, Dino Bravo & Gino Brito and many others. Mil Mascaras was brought in as the heavyweight champion.

Due in large part to his impact with The Sheik in Detroit, George Cannon was selected as IWA booker and manager of both Eric The Red and the tag team champion Mongols. As if that weren't enough, George also edited the official IWA magazine, was voted 1975's manager of the year by Inside Wrestling, and probably would have set the ring up every night if they'd have let him.

Unfortunately, unstable funding and the continuing downward spiral in live attendance helped kill the IWA after only one year, although its entire TV run has been wonderfully preserved on videotape and is readily available today. The IWA was an idea about a decade ahead of its time but it did provide Cannon with valuable experience at both the booking and business ends of pro wrestling.

By 1976 the wrestling business, like the North American economy itself, was in a horrible recession. Near the end of the year, Montrealers had to make do with endless repeats of the dying days of Johnny Rougeau's "Superstars Of The Mat" program on CFCF-12, and there was no French language wrestling on the air at all. But help would soon be on its way. In spite of the financial climate, George Cannon took matters into his own hands and scraped together enough cash to form Contact Sports Inc. which would be the holding company for his own new Canadian promotion. Based out of his adopted city of Windsor, Cannon's "Superstars Of Wrestling" show was ready to hit the airwaves.

George produced and booked the show himself, as well as providing color commentary - being billed as "The World's Foremost Sport's Authority". Another native Canadian, Milt Avruskin (who would become International Wrestling's lead announcer about a decade later), handled the play-by-play.  Initially seen only in southwestern Ontario, Cannon gradually began picking up contracts in Atlantic Canada and several other parts of the country. It wasn't a tough decision for the TV programming heads because George was one of the only guys left in Canada offering first-run weekly wrestling episodes.

Finally, in the Spring of 1977, starved Montreal wrestling fans who had long suffered the disastrous fallout from the Grand Prix/All-Star wars for two years were in for a pleasant surprise. As I sat down that Saturday afternoon, getting ready to suffer through yet another re-run of Paul Leduc hammering some masked jobber, I almost leaped out of my chair when this strange new "Superstars Of Wrestling" graphic appeared over the strains of The Who's excellent 1965 instrumental tune "The Ox". Flushed with shock and excitement (remember, those were the days before the Internet, so nobody knew this show was coming on), I strained my eyes to try and figure out who the wrestlers in the opening montage were (I later learned it was old IWA footage), and sat there transfixed by all these new faces and fresh match-ups. It was a memorable event for an 11 year old wrestling fanatic, I can assure you. For someone my age at the time, it was my first look at stars like "Wild" Bull

Curry, Luis "Arriba" Martinez, "Beautiful" Bruce Swayze, "Supermouth" Dave Drason and a flamboyant dude in Alice Cooper make-up, dubbing himself "The  Chris Colt Experience" and coming to the ring with (GASP!) entrance music! All of those extra trappings not only made "Superstars" exciting to watch, but were also extremely innovative and executed many years before Vince McMahon would perfect them.

The most common denominator used to describe the "Superstars" show, by those who saw it, was that it was FUN! For one thing, you never knew who might show up each week since the program was often filmed in different locales. Guys like Johnny Valiant, "Chief" Jay Strongbow, Mad Dog Vachon, Haystacks Calhoun or Greg Valentine often appeared unannounced. Cannon also provided work for rookies who would later go on to international stardom. Riki Choshu got his first taste of North American action with Cannon, wrestling under his real name of Mitsu Yoshida, and a lanky young, pimply-faced kid named Dallas Page showed up in 1978. George was also a major attraction himself, launching several long-running feuds with the likes of Sailor White and his old buddy The Sheik. It was a likable and colorful atmosphere that proved enormously entertaining.

For Montrealers during the late 70's, George Cannon simply WAS pro wrestling. After gaining a foothold in the city, he began taping his matches from the CFCF studios where mostly forgotten classic TV bouts involving Otto Von Heller, Domenic DeNucci, Gino Brito, Waldo Von Erich, El Santos #1 & #2 and many others thrilled fans throughout the province. Cannon became a local celebrity himself, even appearing in a "Dorion Suits" commercial while "Superstars" enjoyed excellent ratings. However, promoting live events in the city proved a much tougher nut to crack. Utilizing Cannon's TV show, both Paul-Emile Desmarais' Super Catch promotion, and Jack Britton's Olympia Pro Sports company failed to revive wrestling at the box office. George himself even tried promoting cards on and off during the late 70's, but to no avail.  The terrible economy and sour feelings left over from previous promotional regimes were obstacles just too big to overcome. By 1979, he had given up on the city entirely and it was beginning to become apparent that Cannon's operation was now losing money. Even though "Superstars" remained popular in the local ratings, you could tell that corners were starting to be cut on both the talent and production side.

As the new decade of the 1980's swung into gear, George seemed really to be in trouble. Major changes began taking place in promotions all across North America and one of the first casualties was The Sheik's Detroit operation, which he had ruled since 1964. With Cannon's main ally and supplier of talent now gone, the quality of the television product slipped  dramatically. Frank Tunney's solid relationship with Jim Crockett of the Carolinas ensured that Toronto would remain a strong competitor while the fledgling International group had just set up shop in Montreal, leaving the talent pool mighty thin.

Regardless, Cannon's ace in the hole was his syndicated TV network of stations across Canada. He could still potentially make a go of things if only he could just stay on the air. Despite his top "names" being guys like The Great Wojo, Mohammed Saad, Bobby Colt and Chris Carter, he managed to keep his ship afloat on a shoestring well into 1982. That year he managed to receive a bit of help when he struck a deal with Frank Valois to broadcast Montreal's International TV tapings under his "Superstars" banner. This arrangement was mutually beneficial because it gave Valois the much sought after English language TV outlet on CFCF channel 12, while providing Cannon with desperately needed content in order to maintain his TV contracts.

Had the timing of this arrangement been different, it might have provided a golden opportunity for International Wrestling to expand into the formerly lucrative Detroit area, with Cannon eventually becoming the booker there. Remember, this all transpired at a time when the sacred boundaries of the old territory system were now being openly violated and the WWF had begun it's first great expansion. Soon, word leaked out that Ole Anderson's "Georgia Championship Wrestling" group was planning to bypass Cannon and invade the Detroit area. In those days, such an act meant war and George wasn't about to go down without a fight. Although it would have been preferential for him to partner up with Valois, the three-year old Montreal promotion just wasn't financially prepared for such an endeavor. But Vince McMahon was.

In order to stave off Anderson's challenge, George Cannon rolled the dice and entered into a partnership with the World Wrestling Federation in late 1983. A few weeks after the Christmas holidays, I was one of the viewers who tuned in to CFCF-12 that fateful Saturday afternoon only to be shocked as "Superstars Of Wrestling" opened up by showing the January 23rd, 1984 match where Hulk Hogan captured the WWF title from The Iron Sheik. Like it or not, a new era had begun.

On the surface, it appeared as though Cannon had made a very shrewd move.  The WWF's expansion geared up into overdrive and Detroit attendance was on the rebound thanks to the new influx of McMahon talent. George even managed to fill out cards with some of the wrestlers from his old show. But McMahon had other plans. The partnerships he had arranged with many of the old territorial bosses (whereby they remained as head promoters under the WWF banner) were merely done in order to facilitate McMahon's entry into those cities. Once the WWF became established, there was no longer any need for local promoters as everything would be coordinated out of the WWF head office in Stamford, Connecticut. In 1985, barely two years after the deal was struck, George became seriously ill with phlebitis and McMahon seized the opportunity to squeeze Cannon out of the picture. The WWF pulled a similar deal with International Wrestling in Montreal that same year where what started off as a co-promotional deal ended six months later with Gino Brito's company being squeezed out of running shows at the Montreal Forum. Later on, both Brito and Joanne Rougeau had brief stints as figurehead WWF Montreal promoters.

"Superstars Of Wrestling" would continue, but as a WWF-only show. In a strange bit of irony, the "Superstars" name became the flagship TV program for the WWF until the Monday night Raw vs. Nitro wars began. The name was only dropped last year when the "Superstars" and "Live Wire" brands were folded into "WWF Excess" Saturday nights on TNN.

For George Cannon, that jack of all trades who had found success in every conceivable aspect of the pro wrestling business, it was a truly crushing blow. On many occasions thereafter he expressed his regret of the WWF deal and remained quite angry and bitter about the circumstances surrounding the end of the arrangement. Refusing to be deterred, however, Cannon continued to keep his hand in the game by promoting small indy shows around various areas of Ontario. But by the time the 90's were in full swing, George's health began to deteriorate. He made an appearance at the huge 25th anniversary celebrations of the Cauliflower Alley Club on March 21st, 1992 looking pale and having lost a huge amount of weight. Two years later, George Cannon passed away from cancer at age 62. Ironically, since he meant so much to wrestling fans north of the border, he died on July 1st - Canada's national holiday.

Although he is barely remembered as a major icon south of the border these days, George Cannon's legacy within Canadian professional wrestling cannot be trumpeted enough. During one of the worst periods for the business in the entire 20th century, Cannon was the only man with enough love and passion for his profession to keep wrestling alive in this country when all hope seemed lost. He was an innovator and a visionary who laid much of the groundwork that has seen his old stomping grounds of Montreal, Ontario and Detroit become major outposts in the enormous success which Vince McMahon and the WWF now enjoy.

NEXT MONTH :

A look at the long-standing relationship between promoters in Montreal and Puerto Rico.