THE ROUGEAUS/GARVINS ANGLE: HOT FEUD OF 1985 

Due to the rising of WWF’s popularity in 1985, International Wrestling had to grant its fans with a hot feud to insure its survival. Considering that Roddy Piper’s  “Piper’s Pit” was gaining huge popularity, that the first Wrestlemania had been a success, that guys such as Andre the Giant, Jimmy Snuka, Big John Studd, who had all been part one day or another of Varoussac Promotions’ booking in Quebec, had established themselves as WWF-bound stars, Gino Brito, Sr. had to do something to keep IW fans hungry.  

By the middle of the year, the Garvin brothers, Ronnie and Jimmy, who at the time were wrestling on NWA soil (Jimmy was part of WCCW and Ronnie was in the Mid-Atlantic territory, if memory serves me well), were brought to Quebec to face Quebec’s own, the Rougeaus, Jacques and Raymond, International Tag Team Champions at the time. Promoters  for the Quebec territory, other than Brito, were Stan and Dick Marshall, from the Quebec City area, who were responsible for bringing NWA talent on Quebecer ground. That is what explains the Garvins’ arrival in 1985.

Even though this feud only lasted three months, we can definitely say it has been the feud of the year. The first Rougeaus/Garvins meeting occurred on June 24^th, 1985, a strategic date. (June 24^th corresponds to St. John Baptist’s Day, here in Quebec, or, if you prefer, it is Quebec’s National Day.) With all that patriotic spirit in the air, the Rougeaus would meet the Garvins at the Montreal Forum for what would be called afterward  “St. John Baptist’s Day Massacre”—way before Vince McMahon would call  WWF’s February 1999 Pay Per View “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”.