Great, now I'm hooked on wrestling. Buy ALL the things!

Well, that was it. Watching a few weeks of WWF TV was not what hooked it me. It wasn't the hype. It wasn't the schoolyard banter. It wasn't the toys.

It was that live show at the Newmarket Rec Complex with Zach and his dad, and all the buzz about it afterward at school.

Nothing had captured my interest that strongly since I first saw Star Wars in 1978 with my dad. And that involved me collecting everything I could get for years to come.

Wrestling became my new obsession. I started watching all the WWF shows, which included programming from both sides of the border: All American Wrestling late on Friday nights on WUTV 29 out of upstate New ork. It eventually became a Fox affiliate. And as discussed in an earlier post, CHCH-TV in Hamilton ran an hour of wrestling on Saturday afternoon and Maple Leaf Wrestling at 7pm. I think it was several months still before the WWF added a Sunday afternoon show.

There was other wrestling on TV, too. CKVR in Barrie ran Al Tomko's All Star Wrestling out of Vancouver, BC. I have a few clips of this on YouTube, and I'll embed one here.



CITY-TV ran International Wrestling out of Quebec. It starred some folks who'd later join the WWF after a buyout - Dino Bravo, Rick Martel - and some who wouldn't - Steve Strong and Gilles 'The Fish' Poisson among others.

I was seriously a WWF mark in those early days. All Star Wrestling was shot in a small TV studio in front of a crowd of no more than two dozen and came off very corny and small-time. International Wrestling had action and heat, but it just looked unclean compared to the slick production Vince McMahon and crew were turning out.

More than anything, though, the "New York office" had marketed itself clearly: The recognized symbol of excellence in sports entertainment. It was like Star Wars vs. Battlestar Galactica, or worse, Buck Rogers, or even worse, Hardware Wars. I bought it.

I also bought wrestling magazines. Perhaps more accurate to say my mom bought me wrestling magazines.

I bought wrestling figures. Those big, heavy, rubber LJN wrestling figures. If I can find the big container of them, I'll show you.

And I rented videos. VHS tapes. There were only a few video stores in town, and I rented every WWF tape I could find. That meant watching WrestleMania 2 (which I actually found rather boring despite my infatuation) and Rowdy Roddy Piper's Greatest Hits (which I found to be amazingly awesome and great). I watched all those early Coliseum Video tapes with the long production music at the beginning explaining how modern pro wrestling evolved from the ancient Egyptian Greeks or something. I watched everything except the Hulkamania tape.

I began to develop a fandom: Roddy Piper was tops. Randy Savage was fun to watch. The Hart Foundation was exciting, especially Brett Hart. And I really did not care for Hulk Hogan. He could cut a good interview, I guess, but as a short, pale chubby kid, this huge, balding, oiled up muscle man represented the bully more than the hero as I saw it. Piper, on the other hand, was a smart-mouthed underdog whose confidence was inspiring.

And as summer approached, word came in that the World Wrestling Federation was coming back to the Rec Complex! YEAH! I guess the first show in May was so successful, promoter Jack Tunney decided to bring another action-packed card back to my small town.

"Don'tcha dare miss it," ordered white-haired Tunney pitch man Billy 'Red' Lyons on CHCH.

Must....get....tickets!

May 7, 1986: My first pro wrestling show, Part 2

The Newmarket Recreation Complex filled up with about four thousand people as tracks from The Wrestling Album blared to distortion over the tinny public address speakers.

The album had been released in November, at the same time the new local arena opened. Coincidence, I'm sure.

Even though it had only been out for a few months, my friend Zach seemed to know which song was for which wrestler. Junkyard Dog had Grab Them Cakes. Hillbilly Jim had Don't Go Messin' With A Country Boy. So on. Eventually, it was bell time. Ding, ding, ding, and the excitement was higher than whoever was nearby smoking the marijuana cigarette.

Ring announcer Norm Kimber climbed through the ropes and welcomed us to another action-packed card presented by promoter Jack Tunney and the World Wrestling Federation. Norm reminded us that anyone caught throwing anything at or near the ring would be immediately ejected from the building. We rose for the national anthem.

The action began. I was still very green. I didn't know who most of these wrestlers were, especially the "enhancement talent" that made up most of this card.

See, the WWF was running a very aggressive touring schedule in those days. On the same night I was seeing this show in Newmarket, a little ways north of Toronto in Southern Ontario, another crew including the Magnificent Muraco was performing in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Market Square Arena. A third squad was running a card with Intercontinental Champ Randy Savage at the Agricultural Hall in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Obviously my small town was not going to get the superstar headliners. Obviously.

So, who's this guy?

That's Steve Lombardi. He stands on the second rope, and when people boo him, he says "you're a bunch of sh-ts!"

This guy? He's Sivi Afi. He's Jimmy Snuka's cousin or something.

That's Rene Goulet. He has a black glove. For some reason.

That's Duke Doherty. He's the Duke of Dorchester. Where's Dorchester?

The guy with the black thing on his arm. Zach said he was funny. Iron Mike Sharpe. "He yells a lot. Listen."

A big muscular stiff named Ted Arcidi whipped Iron Mike across the ring. "AAAUHHHHHHH" screamed Iron Mike, sounding like a 280-pound version of Charlie Brown missing a football kick.

Back across the ring charged Iron Mike, screaming "AAHHHHHHHH!!!" the whole way.

He lands in the beefy, pimpled arms of Ted Arcidi. He's being crushed in a bear hug. Referee Terry Yorkston asks if Mike wants to give up and concede.

"NONONONONONO," yells Mike Sharpe. "AUUUUUGHHHHHH!!! NONONONONO!"

Nice. Now that's entertainment.

Lady wrestlers. Candice Purdue vs. Judy Martin. Meh.

The action picked up with some stars we recognized.

Corporal Kirchner, who picked up the American flag and camouflage when Sgt. Slaughter left to become a GI Joe toy, was pitted against Nikolai Volkoff, the evil Russian, accompanied as always by his nasty Iranian friend in the embroidered blue jeans, the Iron Sheik. This was a rematch from WrestleMania 2.

Volkoff demanded we stand for the singing of the Soviet national anthem. I obliged, demonstrating my early propensity for cheering the bad guys. The singing didn't last long, as Kirchner interrupted and took the fight to the big Russian. (Lithuanian ex-pat or Croatian refugee or something, actually, but I was a mark and wouldn't know ol' Nik's history for years.)

By this point in the night, the crowd was hot. A loud arena full of Canadians screaming "U-S-A! U-S-A!" as Volkoff put his hands over his ears in pain.

The action was back-and-forth until Corporal Kirchner ran toward Volkoff and Big Nikolai used the ex-Marine's own momentum to send him over the top rope and headfirst into the top of the ring post! Well.... sort of. He sort of went PAST the ring post. But he was certainly NEAR the ring post and he ended up on the floor.

No, no! No, he must have HIT the ring post, because after about a minute, up comes Corporal Kirchner, busted wide open. Bleeding like a sonofabitch. Holy hell, he's mad. He's furious. He's straining my ability to not swear in front of grown-ups. Kirchner goes on a rampage and ..... and beats Nikolai Volkoff.

Cpl. Kirchner: History will regard him as a Sgt. Slaughter replacement and a bit of a kook. I'll remember him as the guy who gigged a gusher on my first wrestling show.

Intermission. The crowd is abuzz. Wow, that was something! Everyone's talking. That was a lot of action! And there's more!

Before the matches continue, ring announcer Norm Kimber answers the question on so many peoples' minds: when can we see more of this stuff? Well, promoter Jack Tunney has signed another action-packed card for Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in less than a month. You'll see newcomer Billy Jack Haynes, Adorable Adrian Adonis, King Kong Bundy, Hercules Hernandez, Brutus Beefcake, Greg Valentine and the WWF Tag Team Champions, the British Bulldogs. Wow. A whole ton of people we're not seeing on this night.

The matches continue with Iron Sheik vs. someone.

Then, the main event, and a match that hooked me into the excitement of pro wrestling in a way that I probably chased for the next 25 years.

Brett Hart (yes, I think he was still using two Ts in his name then) and Jim Neidhart, the Hart Foundation, vs Jacques and Raymond Rougeau, the Rougeau Brothers. These guys could GO. And they went.

I did not understand ring psychology at all. I was a mark. Everything was new. So you can imagine how thoroughly I was sucked in by the exciting and clean-cut Rougeau brothers starting the match with an agile and arrogant Brett Hart. They grapple. They exchange holds. They come out roughly even.

The Rougeaus come out of one exchange a little better than Hart. He tags in the big man, Jim Neidhart. Neidhart starts laying heavy shots on one of the good guys. He roughs up Rougeau and keeps him in the corner. When the referee tries to push him back, Brett strangles Rougeau with the ring rope.

REF! REF! TURN AROUND! HE'S CHEATING!

Double-teaming. Tag team antics. The hot tag. The ref bump. Everything that makes tag team wrestling exciting was poured into this match and it got me good. I don't even remember who won. It doesn't matter.

What I do remember is the next day at school. Everyone was talking about the WWF wrestling show.

Were you there? Did you see that? Do you think Kirchner really hit his head on the post? Was that real blood? Well, Peter scooped up some of the blood with his ticket stub and he says it looks real. I bet it was fake. No, that guy looked really mad.

I needed to see more.

May 7, 1986: My first pro wrestling show, Part 1

I arrived at the Newmarket Recreation Complex with my friend Zach and Zach's dad. That was probably my first time at the Rec Complex. It had opened just a few months earlier, in November, 1985.

A brand new experience in a brand new building: The World Wrestling Federation comes to the Newmarket Recreation Complex in May, 1986.

Going out to things was new for me. At age 12, I don't think I'd been to a rock concert. I wasn't into sports. This wrestling thing was new. But the World Wrestling Federation, just weeks after WrestleMania 2 had been broadcast into arenas around the continent on closed-circuit television, was coming to my little town and I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity to hop on the bandwagon. Even if it was a 'C' show on the WWF's tour, it was live.

Zach, Zach's dad and I went through the ticket-takers and onto the concrete floor, to a scene I'll never forget.

People everywhere. Popcorn on the floor. Chairs, mostly in rows, some scattered. Music from the recently-released Wrestling Album played over the public address speakers. Rising like a glowing island in the middle of the floor was a wrestling ring.

The wrestling rings I'd been seeing on television were, to a casual viewer, entirely uniform: three ring ropes, colored red, white and blue from top to bottom; four blue ring posts; dark blue turnbuckle pads with the WWF block logo embroidered in gold; and a grey or light blue canvas.

The view from our seats. This is actually a shot from about a WWF TV taping a month earlier in Brantford, Ontario, but it approximates where I was seated, and this is the same ring we saw.

The first thing Zach and I thought when we saw this ring: it's...so....small! After having seen pictures from the WrestleMania 2 battle royal with the football players, one would expect the ring to have been enormous. This looked tiny. And the ring posts were different -- two whites ones, a blue one and a red one. This did not have the slick, high-gloss feel of WWF TV.

"Smell that?" asked Zach's dad as we found some seats toward the back of the ringside area. "That's marijuana."

Oh. Okay. Lots of regular cigarette smoke, of course. This was 1986. Beer? Probably.

All in all, a rock and roll atmosphere but instead of a stage, it was a wrestling ring.

April 1986: WWF 101 on CHCH-TV, Channel 11 - Toronto wrestling television

Wrestling has hit the schoolyard as the hot new thing. I'm 12 years old and, I figure, in grade seven in Newmarket, Ontario. That's about half an hour north of Toronto.

Toronto, of course, is home to Maple Leaf Gardens, which is to Canadian pro wrestling as Madison Square Garden is to the WWF.

With Wrestlemania 2 just finished, and the first live World Wrestling Federation show in Newmarket announced for one month away, I have about four weeks to learn about wrestling. The characters. The angles. The moves. The chants.

Coming back from commercial on Maple Leaf Wrestling on CHCH Channel 11.
Source: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?p=4681982

The place to turn in 1986 is television - CHCH-TV, Channel 11 in Hamilton, Ontario, home of WWF Wrestling on Saturday afternoons, and the flagship program Maple Leaf Wrestling, Saturday nights at 7pm.

Back then, CHCH was a station that served its community. Bill Lawrence hosted Tiny Talent Time. They covered Hamilton Ti-Cats football. The local news was local. You've heard of the Red Green Show? Thank CHCH. And it was the long-time home of the Tunney family's wrestling shows.

CHCH TV 11 logo from 1986.
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Chch1986.png

For a month, I tried to absorb some knowledge through the TV shows. I saw Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Junkyard Dog, the Hart Foundation and Corporal Kirchner. There were the evil foreigners Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik. Hillbilly Jim and Adrian Adonis. Jake Roberts and Ricky Steamboat.

I don't remember having any favourites right off the bt, but somehow I knew I liked Rowdy Roddy Piper. Something about the way that guy talked. I don't think I ever saw him wrestle then, as WWF TV at the time did not feature big stars vs. big stars except in main events. And I definitely didn't see Hulk Hogan wrestling, even though he was the brand name of the sport as World Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Champion.

I also began to pick up some of the names of the holds and moves -- the flying elbow, the atomic knee drop, the clothesline, the sleeper and the pile driver.

The psychology was entirely lost on me. I was a mark. I had a suspicion that it wasn't entirely on the level, but had no suspicion that I was being manipulated with every movement in the ring.

The TV product was so-so. Neil Carr, Dennis Cyr, Bobby Bass and Andre Malo were getting as much screen time as the big stars. Granted, they were getting beaten soundly in every match.

I honestly did not find myself overcome with awe. It wasn't like my long relationship with Star Wars, or my TransFormer collecting, or the joy I found with the V series or Back To The Future.

That changed when I went to my first live event.

April, 1986: Wrestling is the schoolyard buzz

My first concrete memory of modern-day professional wrestling comes from April, 1986, in the aftermath of Wrestlemania 2. I was twelve years old.

Vince McMahon's national expansion of the World Wrestling Federation was already well under way. The partnership with MTV and the Rock 'n Wrestling Connection had been a hit. WrestleMania, McMahon's big gamble, paid off.

Of course, growing up in Canada, we didn't have MTV. I was going to school in Newmarket, Ontario, a little north of Toronto.

I certainly wasn't one of the cool kids. My friends weren't the cool kids, either, as far as I knew. But I tried to be interested in what they were interested in. I got into The TransFormers. I tried Dungeons & Dragons. And in April, 1986, it was WWF wrestling.

There was some anticipation about the results. In those days, the results of the matches mattered. Wrestling matches, especially big ones, were meant to settle scores. Who won or lost was important to the fans. Not that I was a fan at that point.

I do remember a buzz of discussion at recess the Monday after WrestleMania 2.

Hulk Hogan defeated the 468-pound King Kong Bundy in a big blue steel cage. And he did it while wrestling with broken ribs!

Mr. T beat Rowdy Roddy Piper by disqualification. Piper bodyslammed Mr. T!

Now, I don't think anyone I knew actually saw Wrestlemania 2. Pay-per-view existed at the time, but not like now. Not in Canada. The way you could've seen WrestleMania in 1986 was go to Maple Leaf Gardens and watch it on a big screen. They had four giant-screen projection televisions in the center of the floor where the ring would be. The event was broadcast via closed-circuit feed to the live crowd.

Somehow news got to the schoolyard, and it was exciting.

It seemed as though WrestleMania 2 was the moment when the WWF reached critical mass. Sure, the kids were talking about it. Of course, the grownups were already in on it. Madison Square Garden was selling out. Hulk Hogan was everywhere. But it took until April, 1986 for it to really get to me.

Then, word arrived that the World Wrestling Federation was coming to my town. Newmarket, Ontario would be hosting its first WWF show. Time to dive in and get prepared if I'm going to become a fan.