WWE Network did us a solid as Old School fans. They updated the vault so now there is Stampede Wrestling, Global Wrestling Federation, American Wrestling Association, Mid-South Wrestling, Smokey Mountain Wrestling and NWA: World Championship Wrestling. So we are going back in time at the moment. We last left off in 1983 in Texas with WCCW. We will now go back to 1978 in Canada with Stampede Wrestling.
Stampede was a promotion owned by The Hart Family, mainly Stu Hart. The promotion was started in 1948 by Stu. Stu was an accomplished amateur wrestler in the 1930’s and 40’s. He joined the Canadian Army during World War Two and was an athletic director. During that time in the military Stu found out about professional wrestling. He was trained by Toots Mondt, who was trained by Martin ‘Farmer’ Burns.
As I was learning about Stampede and Stu, I started reading about Toots which lead me to Farmer Burns. Let’s take a moment and visit the history of professional wrestling. You gotta know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.
In 1869, Farmer Burns had his first wrestling match at the age of 8. He won the match and earned fifteen cents. Wrestling was getting more popular because one President Abraham Lincoln was a former wrestler. Burns worked on a farm to build his Brock Lesnar like physique. This was at a time in the 19th century when wrestling was legitimate, much like the UFC is today. By Burns’ mid twenties he had built so much muscle in his neck He would hang himself from a noose and drop 6 feet, not hurting himself at all. A stop in Chicago was all it took for Burns to make a name for himself. Evan ‘The Strangler’ Lewis (not Ed Lewis, he would come later) was the catch-as-catch-can champion and put up $25 dollars to anyone who could last 15 minutes with him. The Farmer did just that, in overalls no less.
The man started touring the country, beating everyone, with holds he had a part in creating like the full and half-nelson, hammerlock, double-wrist lock, chicken wing, and a variety of submission toe holds. Burns’ would be considered the Best in the World when he beat Japan’s first ever professional wrestler, Sorakichi Matsuda. Near retirement in 1899 Burn’s defeated Frank Gotch and preceded to take Gotch under his wing and train him. Frank would defeat George Hackenschmidt to become the Undisputed Champion in 1908, that same Championship that WWE traces the Big Gold Belt back to. Farmer was said to have trained over 1,600 wrestlers and even helped Jim Jeffries in his fight against Jack Johnson for the Boxing World Title.
If you have any extra time Farmer Burns wrote a book called The Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture which had techniques for training in boxing and wrestling. It is a very interesting read, he even mentions meeting the President of the United States in there.
So one of the students that trained under Burns was ‘Toots Mondt’. Mondt started wrestling in 1912, but it wasn’t until the late 1910’s that his career took of and would change wrestling forever. Toots was the youngest to train under Burns, and he was heralded as a wrestling visionary.
Until 1919, wrestling matches were slow-moving exhibitions mainly confined to the mat and lasting on an average 60 minutes. Crowds no longer found this to be suitable entertainment and accordingly, they began to dwindle. Wrestling matches slowly and eventually became pre-determined. Toots Mondt joined the camp of Ed “Strangler” Lewiswith the recommendation of Farmer Burns. Toots served in many capacities as a sparring partner, trainer, sometimes as an opponent and as a police officer. As a sparring partner and trainer, Toots Mondt helped Ed Lewis develop new holds and counters. The working relationship and unity amongst wrestling promoters was beginning to wear thin and crowd attendance was still low. Toots conceived a solution and combined features of a boxing ring, Greco-Roman, freestyle wrestling, and the old-time lumber-camp style of fighting. Toots had called it ’Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling
Toots, Lewis and Billy Sandow would be known as The Gold Dust Trio and they were the ones that made wrestling predetermined. The Gold Dust trio changed perception of wrestling forever, which makes me think there was more behind the Goldust name in the 90’s. Mondt had a falling out with the Trio and would try to gain control of the ‘booking’ of professional wrestling on the East Coast. Problem was, the reigning world champion Lou Thesz was not a fan of Toots. So Toots did what he thought was best for business.
Toots also gained help from other bookers such as Jack Pfeffer, the Johnston Brothers and Jess McMahon. Jess McMahon worked for boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who despised wrestling, preventing bookings inMadison Square Garden (MSG) from 1939 to 1948. Toots found former wrestler turned millionaire Bernarr McFadden, who gave Toots the financial backings.
Bernarr McFadden helped Toots promote in NYC and gain access into Madison Square Garden. In 1948, in the main event of the first card held in MSG for 9 years, Gorgeous George defeated Ernie Dusek. In that same year Toots Mondt was in search for another champion. After several failed attempts, Toots Mondt found Antonino Rocca, who brought in more Latino fans to the matches which financially favored Toots. Mondt, however, was not able to keep Rocca happy and Vince McMahon Sr. was brought into the scene by Ray Fabiani.
In 1963, Toots Mondt and Vince McMahon Sr. broke away from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), renaming Capitol Wrestling Corporation to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). Toots Mondt parted ways with NWA President Sam Muchnick on good terms so that the WWWF would not be seen as an enemy. Toots and Vince were also in the middle of fighting off an invasion by Jim Crockett Promotions from promoting in the WWWF territories.
When Buddy Rogers was crowned NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Toots controlled the bookings for Rogers’ title defenses. Toots would rarely allow Buddy Rogers to defend the title outside the Northeastern region. This would be one of the factors which led to the World Wide Wrestling Federation splitting from the NWA. In April 1963, Buddy Rogers was awarded the WWWF World Heavyweight title, supposedly for winning a tournament for the title in Rio de Janeiro, a fictitious storyline created by Toots Mondt. In 1965, Toots Mondt stepped down as promoter at Madison Square Garden and Vince McMahon, Sr. took over. When Bruno Sammartino was brought into the WWWF, Vince Sr. predicted that he would be a midcarder for two or three years at best. Toots called Sammartino the future of the company because people instantly liked and responded to him. Toots convinced Vince McMahon Sr. to build the company around Bruno Sammartino. In a June 2012 Wrestling Observer Radio podcast, Bruno acknowledged that Mondt and Vince McMahon Sr. were not on the best of terms during his tenure as with the company, with Bruno suggesting it was due to the fallout over the promotion’s handling of Buddy Rogers.
In 1946 Toots was training a young Canadian by the name of Stu Hart. When Toots started in deep with Jess and Vince McMahon Sr. Stu would stay in Calgary and start his own promotion. Stampede Wrestling.
This brings us to 30 years after the promotion was started, Stu now getting up there in age, let his sons take the spotlight and be the focus of the promotion, much like Fritz would do with his Von Erich sons in Texas.
Now that history class is over, onto the first showing of Stampede Wrestling on the WWE Network.
Stampede Wrestling
We start with Ed Whalen telling us “anything can happen, you can bet your sweet patootie.” Ed says this show will be gangbusters and has already won me over!
There is a match happening midway through so we start with
The Cuban Assassins (Angelo and Fidel Castro) vs. Gerry Morrow & Danny Babich
Angelo Castro- Started working for Eddie Graham in 1973 and due to his resemblance to then Cuban leader Fidel Castro, he went by the name Cuban Assassin. By 1976 he had moved to Canada nad in 1977 was Bret Hart’s debut match. As The Assassins he already won tag gold before.
Danny Babich- Danny was born in Bosnia on April 12, 1937, but little is known of his early life or the route he travelled to become a pro wrestler. He emigrated to Canada, surfacing first with Stampede Wrestling in 1970 as a mid-card face. He may have been trained, at least in part, by Stu Hart. From 1971 onward, he alternated fairly lengthy runs in Stampede under the Babich identity until 1978.
Gerry Morrow- When he turned 18, Gerry hooked up with his brother to become a pro wrestler too — against their mother’s wishes. “When he used to go to work in Paris, I used to go with him. I started to know about wrestling,” Morrow explained recently to SLAM! Wrestling in his heavy French accent. “When I was in Paris, they used to have a wrestling school. My mom used to urge my brother to quit wrestling because it was too dangerous.” When their mother passed away, Gerry got some different advice from his father. “My Dad says ‘Your mom used to stop you from what you wanted to do. So now she’s passed away and you can go.'” Having put in time in the wrestling school in Paris, Gerry went to Japan to learn in a dojo. He stayed in Japan until May 1975. In 1975, Gerry went to Montreal with his brother to Grand Prix Wrestling for a tag team tournament. His brother had been to the promotion before, but Gerry had already met many of the top Montreal stars like Mad Dog Vachon in Japan. From Montreal, Gerry & Eddie ventured out to Calgary Stampede Wrestling, where they dominated the promotion for a while, holding the tag titles on three occasions and Eddie holding the North American title. “I used to like Calgary because you used to work almost every night, and I met lots of good people there,” he said. From Calgary, he went back and forth to Japan, and worked South Africa, Germany, New Zealand, Puerto Rico. Along the way, Morrow picked up many different languages including English, Japanese and German, to go with his native French tongue.’Champagne’ Gerry was almost always a bad guy in his career in Stampede, and loved it. “It was very hard for me with my broken English,” he said. “As a bad guy, you can say whatever you want! As a good guy, you have to clarify whatever you say, and be nice and stick with it.”
We start the match five minutes in with Gerry holding a chinlock on one of the Assassins. Marrow tags out and tags back in shortly thereafter. Morrow takes out the Assassin on the apron and then beats up on the one in the ring. Whalen lets us know we will be cutting away soon to see footage of Paradise Alley where Sylvester Stallone is the lead and Terry Funk has a scene!
The crowd is hot for everything these guys do. The movements are faster paced but the match is so slow. Assassins do a double team move, the opponent gets thrown into the ropes and the Assassin tries to hit him with an elbow. It didn’t work too well.
The camera seems to be older because everyone’s movements seem to be at a quicker pace.
The Cuban Assassin reverses a a pinfall for three.
And I’m Like… That was no fun, but then again it’s the first viewing of this show and style of wrestling.
Fredrick Charles the Third interview. Fredick said “Bret Hart is running scared.” He guarantees he will get that title back.
Wayne Hart is the referee for the show tonight also.
Let’s see how Ed Wheelan interviews wrestles who are selling leg injuries.
That is amazing, take notes people!!!
Paddy Ryan vs. Big Daddy Ritter
Paddy Ryan- Debuting in the 1950’s there isn’t much on him other than he was a mid-card act and he would hold the Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship defeating Mr. Sakurada in Calgary, Alberta on September 1, 1978.
Big Daddy Ritter- Ritter debuted in the Tennessee territory, working for promoter Jerry Jarrett, before moving to Nick Gulas‘s company and using the ring name Leroy Rochester. From there he moved to Stu Hart‘s Stampede Wrestling as Big Daddy Ritter, where he captured the North American Heavyweight Championship twice.
Ed says Ritter is over 300 even though he Ritter says he is not. It’s weird to see Big Daddy be a heal. I’m used to Junkyard Dog. Big Daddy laid a few punches in on Ryan and Ryan is bleeding all over the ring. Ed is asking the ref to stop this match. The ref checks on Ryan’s head and Ryan shoved him out of the way.
Ritter shows a bit of remorse for busting Paddy open, even though we don’t know where the razor blade is. The camera is too far away. This is a brawl, there isn’t much scientific wrestling. Hell JYD wins with a punch to the face. He cut’s an interview.
“Shut up and let me do my own talking. JYD says a new chapter is coming to this show. JYD poses so the world can see him.
And I’m Like… Stampede is a little to slow for me, I hope my interest stays intact.
The Castillos vs. The Harts
Bret Hart is laying on the ground in “so much pain” . Ed keeps sayin Bret needs to tag into Keith. Even at a young age Bret Hart can surely take an asswhoopin. Bret was limping to his corner and was able to make a tag, Keith comes in and catches everyone with everything.
This is back in the day wrestling, where the stains are blood and not bronzer.
The problem with Ed Whealn is he doesn’t know how to hold attention “what is going on here?” “he is moving a bit” it doesn’t add to the match at all. I think.
Bret is showing signs of himself at an early age. Doing abdominal stretches and such. Bret takes a Castillo to the outside, Bret was getting his ass kicked so Keith went to outside the ring to save Bret who was fighting with Fredrick Charles. The Castillo’s are new tag champions and Stu Hart showed up to help Bret beat up Fredrick Charles.
And I’m Like… This is like the first ever NXT for WWE, these guys need seasoning, but once seasoned they light the world on fire. It’s fun to watch, but also a good help for insomnia.
Bret and Keith do an interview
“We could beat them two-on-two not three on two.” Keith wants a six man elimination tag. That is a good way for the Harts to win.
The bad guys yell extremely loud, I don’t understand them too much, other than BRET HART and “I will break his leg.”
North American Championship
Kasavubu (c) vs. Alo Leilani
Kasavubu- From Uganda, worked a bit for WWWF but found a home in Stampede Wrestling, current North American Heavyweight Champion.
Alo Leilani- December 29, 1951: Bob Orton Sr defeated Alo Leilani for the NWA Central States Heavyweight Title Alo wrestling in 1951
The match started by saying someone’s manager is in a cage. Then we see Kasavubu take the pin after a headbutt for the win, that match was like 20 seconds?!?! But its a two out of three falls and they both have a fall. OOOOHHH!!!!
Outside of a few bites, Kasavubu has been laying on Alo Leilani for most of the match. Ed said that once the TV started on this match Alo has been getting beat the whole time.
Kasavubu keeps biting so Alo irish whips’ Kasavubu and quickly dives behind Kasa and Leilani gets the pin to become the NEW North American Heavyweight Champion.!
Big Daddy Ritter gets a promo and calls out Alo, Leilani comes in the ring and gets caught with Ritter’s boots. Big Daddy runs out the ring and Leilani accepts the challenge but it won’t be for the title.
And I’m Like… This first week of Stampede was hard to follow. At least we know the history of the promotion right?
Until next time, or if WWE puts earlier wrestling on.
Thanks for reading, please share or like.
Have a good one
-Jake