Int'l Wrestling - Montreal #20 Page #2
1967
was the year of Expo in Montreal, and the city was the toast of the world.
With tens of millions flocking into town, All-Star Wrestling drew
packed houses right into the autumn. Vachon finally became a sensation in
his home province - just as he had in the midwest - and swapped the belt
with
Rougeau for the better part of eight months. Maurice also formed an
incredibly hot tag team with his new protege, one "Baron" Fritz
Von Raschke.
The
"Mad Dog" was flying high until a horrible car accident at the end of
the summer put him on the shelf and nearly ended his career. Also that year, the
retired "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers - always mega-popular in Montreal -
made a surprise comeback which drew major headlines around the wrestling world.
He made a great tandem with veteran Johnny Valentine. Other noteworthy names on
the roster included George Cannon, young Gino Brito, Matt Gilmore, Manuel
Cortez, Len Shelley and Tex Morgan (a.k.a. "Big Bad John" in the
States).
The year
of 1968 belonged to Ivan Koloff. The young Russian (who had emigrated to
Montreal) became a breakout superstar here, and his electric feud with Rougeau
over the International title almost single-handedly catapulted the company from
the Paul Sauve Centre right into the venerable Montreal Forum. The two men drew
an outstanding sellout of over 16,000 fans for the very first All-Star show
there on April 22nd. After the arena was renovated to add more seating capacity
over the summer, the second mega-show on November 11th smashed Forum box office
records and drew over 20,000 to see Johnny regain the belt from Koloff. Also
that year, Jacques Rougeau Sr. emerged as a viable draw as did Antonio
Baillargeon (one of the famous brothers) and Waldo Von Erich. The Sicilians (Lou
Albano & Tony Altimore) came in from New York, and Dale Roberts, the Leduc
brothers and the newly-christened Abdullah The Butcher set about laying the
groundwork for future runs on top.
Compared
to the two previous years, 1969 signaled the beginning of a decline in All-Star
Wrestling's fortunes. Most of the usual stars were still around,
but the company lacked a hot feud to slot in at the top of the card. Koloff,
Abdullah and Jacques Sr. were most often the names at the top of the marquee
"Wild" Bull Curry, Paul Diamond (the original), The Mighty Igor, Eric
The Red, "Lord" Anthony Stark and The Great Kojika all made an impact
that year, as did the returning Domenic DeNucci. Andre Carpentier - billed as
Edouard's
brother - made his debut, along with Fidel Castillo, and the exciting tag team
of Pete Sanchez and a young Carlos Colon. Other hot teams included the
masked Green Hornets and the Mongols. But the story of the year was the
triumphant return of Maurice Vachon that June from his serious car accident
injuries. He was a little tentative in singles bouts but soon settled into a
tremendously successful tag team with his brother Paul.
The
downward spiral continued by the time 1970 rolled around. Abdullah feuded with
Johnny and the returning Edouard Carpentier, but tag team matches often featured
the fresher match-ups. The Mongols and the Leducs had hard battles, and the Eddy
Creatchman-managed team of Fidel Castillo and Michel "Justice" Dubois
soared to the top of the mountain. Even the ubiquitous Dick Taylor (who would
soon play a significant role most would like to forget) popped into town. The
only new import to make a real splash was British bruiser Danny Lynch, who had
been a fixture on the European mat scene in Great Britain and Germany, but was
basically unknown to North American fans. He
came in via Stu Hart's Calgary promotion and flipped the International belt with
Johnny Rougeau to wrap up a somewhat disappointing year.
By 1971,
grumbling within the promotion's talent were beginning to surface. Young Raymond
Rougeau made his debut as a junior heavyweight, and with Johnny still in the
main events along with brother Jacques Sr., it was obvious that the company was
being inextricably positioned to revolve exclusively around the ever-expanding
Rougeau family and their circle of close friends like
Baillargeon, Abdullah and the Leducs. Furthermore, Johnny had a well-known
reputation of running a tight ship financially and payoffs were not very
hefty, particularly since business was way down from the boom years of 1967-68.
The
circumstances were ripe for a major change.
For those
newer fans who think that the WWF-WCW "Monday Night War" of the late
1990's was the wildest example of inter-promotional feuding, they would have
loved the early 1970's. For about the first half of the decade, invading
promoters and feuding companies seemingly went haywire, especially in the
noteworthy American territories of Atlanta and Detroit. Such battles had
occurred a few times in past years, but personal acrimony were kept mostly
behind closed doors. It's not that kayfabe was being broken entirely just as
the 70's dawned, but the feuding did seem both more bitter and more public.
On June
1st, 1971, it was Montreal's turn to brace itself as Maurice and Paul Vachon
(who had ended a nearly two year run with the AWA World tag team
titles just fifteen days earlier in Milwaukee) declared war on Johnny Rougeau's
All-Star Wrestling promotion when they held their debut card at the
Auditorium in suburban Verdun. Unthinkable in the Eddie Quinn era, Quebec for
the first time now had TWO powerful wrestling promotions going head to head!
In actual
fact, the Vachons had a lot of help behind the scenes that helped get their
company off to a strong start. Ex-wrestler Lucien Gregoire was set
up as the figurehead "matchmaker," and initial co-investors included
Yvon Robert, Verne Gagne and Edouard Carpentier. Gagne even let the Vachons take
the actual AWA tag team belts with them to Montreal where they were
re-christened the "Grand Prix" titles after the company's new moniker.
That
first card in Verdun was basically to establish the fledgling promotion, but it
was also quite historically important for a number of reasons: The Vachons
were announced as the incoming tag team champions. Young Andre Rousimoff -
billed as "Giant" Jean Ferre - made his North American wrestling
debut. Gerry Brown and Dale "Buddy" Roberts (the original Hollywood
Blonds) became the
first men raided from Rougeau's group. They resigned their All-Star belts and
jumped ship to feud with the Vachons. Carpentier was also there and would soon
go on to be crowned the first Grand Prix champion. Other names who filled out
that initial roster included The Destroyer (Dick Beyer), Reggie
Parks, Billy Two Rivers, bodybuilder Denis Gauthier and rookie Gilles "The
Fish" Poisson.
Sadly,
only a month after his bankroll helped launch Grand Prix Wrestling, the
legendary Yvon Robert died of a heart attack on July 13th, 1971 and
barely got to see the new project take flight. His son Yvon Jr. (a budding
wrestler in his own right, and a university graduate) assumed his father's
duties behind the scenes.
The
weakened state of All-Star and the big money behind Grand Prix helped the new
kids on the block gain an instant foothold in the Montreal area. They not only
secured a french-language TV deal with CHLT channel 7 out of Sherbrooke (which
was readily accessible via cable and antenna in Montreal), but also gained a
permanent, exclusive english-language TV deal with the immensely
popular CFCF channel 12 station in Montreal - something that had always eluded
Rougeau, whose wrestling show had only been seen intermittently on
channel 12 since the late 60's. This agreement would prove to be very important
because Grand Prix was headed by some very ambitious men, and the
simmering promotional war was about to really boil over.
Just
before the beginning of 1972, Grand Prix Wrestling dropped its bombshell: Not
only had the company negotiated arena deals to invade the
All-Star strongholds of Quebec City and Ottawa, but they also announced an
agreement to run an astonishing 13 house shows - more than double what All-Star
had slated - at the venerable Montreal Forum over the course of the year! The
recently retired Montreal Canadiens hockey great Jean Beliveau, who was now
working high up in the front office and was also a friend of the Vachons, had
brokered the deal to get Grand Prix into the Forum. From a business perspective,
it made perfect sense to the club, which also owned the Forum, to book 19
wrestling dates instead of 6. But, quite understandably, Johnny Rougeau was
absolutely furious with Beliveau, especially since his
last Forum show on December 27th, 1971 had drawn an encouraging 14,900 fans in
spite of the new competition.
Nevertheless,
the war was on for real. Relatively peaceful co-existence had now given way to
full-scale territorial invasion. The talent raid on All-Star was stepped up and
saw Gino Brito, Dino Bravo, Angelo Mosca and the Green Hornets all defect to
Grand Prix. To make matters worse, the ultimate blow happened over the summer
when the loyal Leduc brothers shocked everyone and
jumped ship. Only Denis Gauthier (who would go on to marry young Joanne Rougeau)
left Grand Prix for the other side.
Outside
affiliations, once utilized as mere devices to spruce up the undercard,
now became of paramount importance. Maurice Vachon used his extensive personal
connections with Gagne in Minnesota and Dick "The Bruiser" Afflis in
Indianapolis to import top-flight names like The Crusher, the Blackjacks, Baron
Von Raschke, and even the venerable Ivan Koloff. Rougeau, who already had a
booking arrangement with Pedro Martinez of Buffalo, now
forged closer ties with Ed "The Sheik" Farhat in Detroit in an effort
to combat Grand Prix. This move would prove to be significant because Grand Prix
was about to strike their first box-office gold mine.
Jean Ferre
had become Grand Prix's first "home-grown" superstar. But the problem
soon occurred as to finding suitable opponents for a 7 ft.4 giant. That
problem was solved with the return to Montreal of big Don Leo Jonathan. The
"Mormon Giant," popular in Quebec since the 1950's, was initially
brought in to headline with Carpentier at Grand Prix's first Forum show on
January 12th, 1972, which drew a solid 11,187 at the turnstiles. Still, the fans
clearly wanted to see how Don Leo would match up against Ferre. In a textbook
slow build-up to the cleverly-dubbed "Match Of The Century," Ferre and
Jonathan traded threats right up to a titanic May 31st clash at the Forum which
drew over 16,000. A summer re-match on August 2nd did even better, drawing over
20,000 fans.
Yet as
good as things were looking for Grand Prix, Johnny Rougeau suddenly responded
with a shocker of his own: The Sheik had joined Abdullah The
Butcher to intensify manager Eddy Creatchman's hot feud with the Rougeaus, so
Johnny planned a climactic 2 out of 3 falls tag team match to headline a show at
the Jarry Park baseball stadium just 26 days later on August 28th - the first
such outdoor extravaganza in decades! With import help from Buffalo and Detroit,
the card proved to be Rougeau's biggest promotional success ever, drawing over
26,000 screaming fans. Ironically, in the midst of such a bitter war, Quebecers
were reaping the benefits of two hustling competitors and caught wrestling fever
like never before, packing BOTH companies' houses week after week after week.
When all was said and done, 1972 proved to be one of the most successful years
for professional wrestling in Quebec history. Much like the height of the
"Monday Night War" of the 1990's, the promotional competition vaulted
Grand Prix into the forefront and even managed to revitalize a fading All-Star
group.
The two
companies continued to battle each other hard well into 1973, but the strain was
now beginning to show. Infighting amongst the wrestlers/investors in Grand Prix
was becoming a serious problem behind the scenes. The company
scaled back their Forum shows to 7 for the year. All-Star was also hurting and
would go on to book only 4 Forum cards. But they did receive a huge boost when
Jos and Paul Leduc returned to the fold at the beginning of the summer.
Unfortunately,
the rejoicing was short-lived as Grand Prix suddenly struck a hot feud again,
just when they needed it most, between Maurice Vachon and
Wladek Kowalski. It was more classic-style booking as they played on history
(Kowalski going after Vachon's ear like he did against Yukon Eric some 20 years
earlier), and the tried-and-true chase for the "Killer's" Grand Prix
title. The climactic battle was scheduled for - you guessed it - Jarry Park, on
July 14th.
As if all
of this wasn't bad enough for All-Star, disaster soon struck in the form of one
Dick Taylor. A longtime journeyman, Taylor was re-packaged as a crazy,
blond-haired truck driver from Flint, Michigan and plugged into a feud with
Jacques Rougeau Sr., who was now the top babyface following Johnny's final
retirement. For no particular reason, the program actually clicked and Taylor
captured the International belt on June 18th at the Forum before a capacity
crowd.
Then,
everything went horribly wrong.
Taylor,
savoring his first taste of real success, promptly let it go right to his head
and became impossible to deal with both in and out of the ring.
It was soon painfully obvious that Johnny had to get the belt off him and quick.
The new plan was for Taylor to drop the strap right back to Jacques at
the next Forum show. But the "mad truck-driver" would have other
plans.
Meanwhile,
just as Johnny Rougeau's headaches were increasing, Grand Prix Wrestling's big
Vachon-Kowalski angle hit the mother lode when a record 29,172 fans showed up
for the Jarry Park show, beating All-Star's attendance mark of the previous
summer. The company had seemingly regained its momentum and was back on top
again.
Then, just
16 days later, all hell broke loose at the Montreal Forum All-Star show. While
the precise details remain shrouded in mystery to this day, the
gist of it was that Taylor showed up backstage at the arena for the July 30th
re-match and allegedly informed all concerned that the planned title switch
finish was unacceptable to him. Needless to say, especially in those days, the
promoter, ummmm, _insisted_ that it was perfectly acceptable. In any
case, Johnny, Jacques Sr. and the Leducs all tried to "convince"
Taylor to do business properly, but to no avail. Taylor walked out (or was
carried out,
depending on who you talk to), and it was up to Bob Langevin to explain to a
packed house of angry fans why the evening's much-anticipated main event
wasn't going to take place.
To say the
fans were pissed off would be putting it mildly.
To make
matters even worse, Taylor actually filed assault charges with the Montreal
police against the Rougeaus and the Leducs, right smack in the
middle of the kayfabe era! Topping even this was the fact that the Montreal
Athletic Commission subsequently cancelled a scheduled August 13th show at the
Paul Sauve Centre and even threatened to pull All-Star's promotional license.
And as if THAT wasn't enough, the Quebec government threatened to get involved
and open up commission hearings which would seek to ban professional wrestling
throughout the province! The Taylor incident,
apparently, was just the excuse certain politicians had been looking for
as complaints over the increasingly violent antics of performers like The Sheik
and Abdullah had been mounting.
Anyway,
the pressure was relieved considerably after an angry protest by thousands of
fans in front of the Paul Sauve Centre on the night of the cancelled show, and
the acquittal of the Rougeaus and the Leducs in the Taylor assault case.
All-Star
was off the hook, but they never really recovered from the fiasco of the summer
of 1973.
Which
brings us to 1974. Not exactly a banner year for anyone.
By this
time, things were becoming increasingly desperate for both companies. Johnny
Rougeau really began to bleed money in the wake of the Dick Taylor incident, and
Grand Prix had absolutely nothing set to follow-up their great Jarry Park
triumph. Don Leo Jonathan had taken the belt from Vachon late in '73, but with
Jean Ferre off to seek greener pastures as Andre The Giant in the States, he had
no suitable opponents to face. Furthermore, the front office battles were
escalating into open warfare and top draw Kowalski exited the company, leaving a
gaping hole that would never really be filled.
Finally,
that January, the unthinkable was now being thought of. Rougeau and the Vachons
sat down (it was never clear exactly who made the first overture)
and came up with a historic inter-promotional angle that would attempt to save
both companies. Ideally, the first choice would have been to keep the war going
as it was, but the fans were becoming burnt out and there were no longer enough
people showing up to sustain the two promotions. A second
choice would have been a merger, but neither side wanted to cede any power or
control to the other. So, the compromise was a short joint promotion intended to
boost the box office while retaining each company's distinctiveness.
From the
outset, it was doomed to failure.
The
problem was that nobody wanted to give an inch. Each side was set to run a show
at the Forum (Grand Prix on February 12th, and All-Star on March 11th) that
would pit stars from each company in matches against each other. The main event
on both shows would see All-Star's top babyface Jacques Rougeau Sr. challenge
Don Leo Jonathan for the Grand Prix title. This was agreed to providing that
Maurice Vachon receive a main event International title match against Rougeau at
a planned Jarry Park show on August 14th. But instead of allowing the competing
wrestlers to "invade" the other group's shows and give the project a
hot build-up, everyone set about simply protecting their own turf. Grand Prix
announcers would quietly dismiss the All-Star wrestlers as a bunch of nobodies
while Rougeau's gang paid only mild lip service to the whole scenario at all.
Only manager Eddy "The Brain" Creatchman was allowed to appear on both
shows and, to his everlasting credit, did his damnedest to sell the whole
program as if it were the most important happening since the first appearance of
Jesus Christ.
The first
card drew a sellout of over 18,000, but the cop-out curfew draw between Rougeau
and Jonathan tipped off the fans as to what was going down - not to mention that
all the other head-to-head matches were split evenly (4 wins, 4 losses, 1 double
DQ) between the two sides. Because of this, attendance was down for the second
Forum card - additionally because the Rougeau-Jonathan re-match was stupidly
changed to a non-title bout. The lack
of a serious undercard (only Carpentier vs. The Sheik was of any real interest)
just put the final nail in the coffin of the show and Rougeau wound
up pretty miffed that Grand Prix came away from the two-show deal on the better
end financially. So, the long-anticipated in-ring showdown between All-Star and
Grand Prix wound up fizzling out in less than two months due to mistrust, poor
planning and dueling egos. (This same situation would be
eerily replayed almost 30 years later - albeit on a much grander scale - with
the WWF's unbelievably botched up "WCW Invasion" angle.)
Well,
after all of that, things just completely fell apart.
Grand Prix
held what would be their last Forum show on June 11th. Shortly thereafter, the
company began to split apart. A big chunk of the undercard
talent broke away to form "Celebrity Wrestling," featuring wild pre-ECW
hardcore brawls and mayhem. Months later, Don Leo Jonathan left and announced
his intention to start up his own "Grand Circuit Wrestling"
organization, which had grossly overstated ambitions to run nationwide
throughout Canada. Now the talent was now razor-thinly divided between
FOUR competing groups. It didn't take a genius very long to figure out
where this situation would ultimately wind up. As expected, the two breakaway
groups lasted less than a year and Grand Prix was crippled to the point where it
finally died around the beginning of 1975.
Even
though Rougeau's All-Star Wrestling now had the playing field back to itself
again at last, Johnny really had nothing to rejoice about. The war with Grand
Prix had left the company financially decimated which even prevented them from
picking through any useful remains of their late competitors. But that didn't
matter because all of the marquee superstars had left Grand Prix months before
it finally expired. It might have been a victory on paper at least, but it was
nothing more than a hollow one.
In a
strange twist of ironic timing, the first true attempt to launch a national
wrestling company came hot on the heels of the All-Star/Grand Prix
armageddon. Sports impresario Eddie Einhorn formed the International Wrestling
Association in 1975 and entered into direct competition with the
WWWF in the northeast, and the NWA in the south. Several former Grand Prix stars
such as Gino Brito, Dino Bravo, Ali Baba and Serge Dumont made their
way down to the IWA after it became clear that Rougeau's ailing All-Star group
was unable to provide either steady work or good paydays. Initially,
the IWA did very well. Their television shows were well produced (you can still
find tapes out there in excellent condition) and had a large syndication package
of stations. A championship bout between Mil Mascaras and our old friend Ivan
Koloff on July 10th, 1975 even drew over 27,000 fans to an outdoor show in New
Jersey.
But,
needless to say, the other regional promotions were none to happy about what
Einhorn was building and set about on a rather ruthless campaign to
wreck the IWA. Top wrestlers, allegedly threatened by the territories, began
dropping out of the IWA, and star-laden cards from rival promotions were
scheduled head to head against regular Einhorn house shows. Booking arenas which
also held rival wrestling shows became more of a problem as well, and a planned
show for Madison Square Garden in New York at the end of the year was squashed
by the WWWF. After only one year, Einhorn lost his funding and the IWA died
shortly thereafter. Following an auspicious debut, the regional
territories had co-operated just enough to torpedo the fledgling national
company.
And
somewhere in New York City, you can bet that Vince McMahon Jr. was watching and
learning, and vowing not to make the same mistakes in the future
that Einhorn had.
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Inter-Promotional Insurrection part 3: International Wrestling vs. The WWF