- Andrew Calvert

Welcome to another installment of Maple Leaf Wrestling. This month we will look at the prominent titles of the area and some of the greats that have held them over the years.

We will start with the Canadian Heavyweight Title as recognized in Toronto. There has been several different versions over the years with titles recognized in Vancouver, Montreal and out in the Maritimes but I believe the Toronto version was the only belt to be recognized by all three major federations at the same time (not to take anything away from Tomko's guys and all the past champs across the country). The Toronto version goes back to the forties but remained dormant until the late seventies when Dino Bravo beat Gene Kiniski for the vacant belt. This belt had been dormant because the main title on the line throughout the seventies would have been The Sheik defending his U.S Title on nearly every card at the Gardens. Bravo won the title on Dec 18, 1978 and got a huge push for the next year. Less than a month later Bravo scored a DQ win over AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel and then a decisive win over future World Champ Ric Flair to cement his legend. Bravo also teamed with a young Ricky Steamboat against Flair and Greg Valentine and entered into a feud with Valentine losing the belt but regaining it back in a Lumberjack match on June 3 1979. Bravo would make his last defense on July 15 1979 against Ken Patera that ended in a double disqualification and then no showed at a card in August '79 where he was supposed to meet Patera in a rematch. They had pumped this match for weeks but Tunney as was usually the case with card changes made up for it by substituting WWWF Champ Bob Backlund against Patera in a title defense. Tunney then declared the title vacant and held a tournament on Sep 9 1979 to decide a new champ. The tournament was a good example of the Tunney's style of promoting where he would blur the lines between promotions and bring in guys from all around North America. The matchups were as follows:

First round                                                                 Second round
Dewey Robertson w/dec Ken Patera                        Robertson w Kiniski
Gene Kiniski w/f Alfred Hayes                                  Valentine w Vachon
Greg Valentine w Pedro Morales                              Steamboat w Snuka
Maurice Vachon w Jay Youngblood
Ricky Steamboat w Brute Bernard
Jimmy Snuka w/DQ Angelo Mosca

Steamboat didn't continue and Dewey Robertson beat Valentine in the final to win the vacant title.
In one of his first title defenses Dewey would make AWA Champ Bockwinkel submit and was given a shot at Tricky Nick's belt in October 1979 but had the time run out in an exciting match.

Dewey would reign supreme for the next year beating opponents like Patera, Valentine, The Destroyer and Snuka before losing to Hussein the Arab (The Iron Sheik) on May 25 1980.

During this time Dewey also got a shot at NWA Champ Harley Race and teamed with Ric Flair and Blackjack Mulligan as fan faves.

Mosca and Big John Studd had a great feud around the title featuring cage matches, lumberjack matches and introduced Angelo Jr around this time. After losing and regaining the title from Sgt Slaughter, Mosca bowed out in 1984 and another tournament was held with mostly Mid Atlantic area stars but was noteworthy for the only Toronto area appearance of Puerto Rican Superstar Carlos Colon (he lost to The Great Kabuki in the first round). Ivan Koloff would win the tournament going through Vinnie Valentino, Pistol Pez Whatley, Mosca Jr and finally Brian Adias in the final to win the vacant title. Maybe not the greatest tournaments ever held but it was one of the last cards before the switch to WWF stars exclusively. Koloff would hold the belt only 2 months before losing to Angelo Jr and about a month later that was it for Toronto as a regional entity on its own.