Montreal/Quebec Wrestling

[pantherwagner]

Reading WON's update I saw a story about a new DVD on Montreal Wrestling:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Reviews/2014/05/26/21696036.html

 

Nothing that will shock hardened tape traders like most of the people here, except maybe the young Jean Ferre match (it used to be on youtube even though it seems to have vanished) but I was wondering... who owns this footage? Interesting that this is coming out a few months after WWE showed interest in acquiring Canadian libraries so it looks like a last cash-in before handing over whatever masters are left to WWE. I'd assume they'd love to have young Andre tapes and the rest of the 80s stuff has got a lot of familiar names.

 

I thought this stuff was owned by the guy that used to run the PWS PPV's a decade or so ago. His name escapes me at the moment but he always claimed to have legal ownership of these libraries. Some of the Montreal stuff on those PPV's came from TV recordings from a regular poster on this forum so I always assumed that he just gave Gino Brito a hundred bucks and a couple cheeseburgers so he'd scribble in a paper that he owns the stuff.

 

Or is this one of those DVD's in legal limbo like the Maclin Memphis DVD's?

[The Thread Killer]

There was a local Quebec promotor/wrestler named Frank Valois who I thought owned that footage. I used to work for a guy who knew the former play-by-play man Milt Avruskin http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2011/05/29/18209646.html who claimed that the tapes of that territory were floating around.

 

I remember that territory from when I was a teenager. They had TV coverage in the Toronto area on Saturday afternoons.

 

Dino Bravo, Rick Martel, Jaques, Raymond and Armand Rougeau, Steve DiSalvo, Bruiser Brody, Hercules Ayala, Abdullah The Butcher, Dr. D. David Shultz, The Road Warriors, Moondog Sailor White, The Great Samu...there was some good talent there. A couple of great managers too, Pretty Boy Floyd Creatchman and his Dad Eddie "The Brain" Creatchman.

 

If I am not mistaken, it was run by a Montreal area wrestler named Gino Brito with Dino Bravo as a minority partner with the Rougeau family. His son (Gino Brito Jr.) was a wrestler as well, pushed as a Main Event level talent but he did not have Main Event level skills. I remember whenever Gino Brito Jr. would get involved in a big match he would look really out of place.

 

As far as the ownership issue? Interesting question. There were always rumors that Gino Brito was in bed with the Montreal area mob as financial backers. Remember the famous Dynamite Kid/Jacques Rougeau story? One of the reasons DK never retaliated against Jacques was because Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon reportedly warned him that the Rougeau family knew people that could make Dynamite disappear. Also, remember the circumstances surrounding Dino Bravo's death...he apparently crossed his old wrestling partners on some sort of cigarette smuggling deal.

 

If anybody wants to actually know something about that territory, I would suggest getting a hold of Greg Oliver from Slam Wrestling. He is the expert on all things Canadian Wrestling.

[El-P]

Also, remember the circumstances surrounding Dino Bravo's death...he apparently crossed his old wrestling partners on some sort of cigarette smuggling deal.

 

Rick Martel said that Bravo's uncle was part of the mob.

 

Anyway, I'd love to see more Montreal stuff from the 70's and early 80's show up. *Especially* stuff with Hauray/Carpentier announcing.

[pantherwagner]

 

Also, remember the circumstances surrounding Dino Bravo's death...he apparently crossed his old wrestling partners on some sort of cigarette smuggling deal.

 

Rick Martel said that Bravo's uncle was part of the mob.

 

 

Not sure how to read this but I have heard several people defending Bravo as "a good guy caught in the wrong world" who had to resort to smuggling because, after WWF let him go and there was no interest in him in WCW, he had to resort to that trade as there was no other way for him to keep up with his expensive lifestyle. Apparently he was not good with his money.

[pantherwagner]

I remember that territory from when I was a teenager. They had TV coverage in the Toronto area on Saturday afternoons.

 

Dino Bravo, Rick Martel, Jaques, Raymond and Armand Rougeau, Steve DiSalvo, Bruiser Brody, Hercules Ayala, Abdullah The Butcher, Dr. D. David Shultz, The Road Warriors, Moondog Sailor White, The Great Samu...there was some good talent there. A couple of great managers too, Pretty Boy Floyd Creatchman and his Dad Eddie "The Brain" Creatchman.

 

In the mid 90s I got my hands on an original copy of a tape called Butchermania, one of the new non-WWF/WCW tapes that were released in Europe in PAL video format. It was mostly Bravo and Abdullah matches, with some Sheik Ali, Steve Strong and oddly enough, a midget match. Montreal, along with SWS/WAR and WWC became one of those territories I obsessively tried to gather tapes from (even in the early internet era that was quite a task in Europe). It would be nice to see an organised release of whatever is still floating around.

[khawk20]

 

I thought this stuff was owned by the guy that used to run the PWS PPV's a decade or so ago. His name escapes me at the moment but he always claimed to have legal ownership of these libraries. Some of the Montreal stuff on those PPV's came from TV recordings from a regular poster on this forum so I always assumed that he just gave Gino Brito a hundred bucks and a couple cheeseburgers so he'd scribble in a paper that he owns the stuff.

 

 

Aaron Weiss was his name and yes, he was the guy than ran the PWS PPV's some years back. He has since sold his rights to various areas he had them for to different parties but I think I remember Scott D'amore bought some and the guys that did the Montreal book (Laprade and Hebert) bought some.

Aaron is out of wrestling completely now.

[khawk20]

 

 

 

In the mid 90s I got my hands on an original copy of a tape called Butchermania, one of the new non-WWF/WCW tapes that were released in Europe in PAL video format. It was mostly Bravo and Abdullah matches, with some Sheik Ali, Steve Strong and oddly enough, a midget match. Montreal, along with SWS/WAR and WWC became one of those territories I obsessively tried to gather tapes from (even in the early internet era that was quite a task in Europe). It would be nice to see an organised release of whatever is still floating around.

 

FWIW a lot of footage has made it out there in the past decade, although not pristine in quality. There were several Montreal commercial tapes put out back in the day and a guy found a shitload of TV from the early 80's he released a few years back as well.

The older content on that tape is Grand Prix TV footage that was rescued from an Ontario TV studio back in the late 90's. It floated around for some time and the quality was quite nice, depending on who you got it from. I would be curious to know if the footage they have, while seemingly the same, is closer to the actual source tapes.

[pantherwagner]

 

 

 

 

In the mid 90s I got my hands on an original copy of a tape called Butchermania, one of the new non-WWF/WCW tapes that were released in Europe in PAL video format. It was mostly Bravo and Abdullah matches, with some Sheik Ali, Steve Strong and oddly enough, a midget match. Montreal, along with SWS/WAR and WWC became one of those territories I obsessively tried to gather tapes from (even in the early internet era that was quite a task in Europe). It would be nice to see an organised release of whatever is still floating around.

 

FWIW a lot of footage has made it out there in the past decade, although not pristine in quality. There were several Montreal commercial tapes put out back in the day and a guy found a shitload of TV from the early 80's he released a few years back as well.

The older content on that tape is Grand Prix TV footage that was rescued from an Ontario TV studio back in the late 90's. It floated around for some time and the quality was quite nice, depending on who you got it from. I would be curious to know if the footage they have, while seemingly the same, is closer to the actual source tapes.

 

 

Anything remarkable from those commercial tapes and early 80s TV's?

[khawk20]

The one pisser about those commercial tapes is on the Butchermania one, as there is an Abdullah-Kareem Muhammad chain match on it.

That match was taped from the same card that Flair defended the NWA title against Rick Martel (45 minute draw). They got a big crowd as you can see with one crowd-pan they do during the Abby match.

The pisser is that the Flair-Martel match was not taped. I mean, WTF???

 

On the other comms it depends on what one would define as remarkable. The TV stuff (with some handheld action mixed in) had some interesting matchups. These are the ones I found particularly interesting. Most but not all of them are clipped, and most of these I had not seen before I got these tapes.

 

Rick Martel vs Abdullah The Butcher (w/Eddie Creatchman) (2 bouts) (Martel Bodyslams Abdullah Clean in BOTH matches. Crusher Blackwell interferes in the second bout)
Dino Bravo & Rick Martel vs Masked Superstar & King Tonga
Contract Signing: for Dino Bravo vs Rick Martel
Dino Bravo vs Rick Martel (Quebec City, Verne Gagne in Martel’s corner, Gino Brito in Bravo’s)
Dino Bravo vs Masked Superstar ( 3 matches between 6 & 23 /8/83 )
Dino Bravo vs Abdullah The Butcher (from Montreal—NOT the Japan Bloodbath)
Dino Bravo vs Jimmy Snuka (Snuka is a heel brought in and managed by Lord Al Hayes…Snuka turns on Hayes and Billy Robinson after the bout)
Joe Leduc & Mighty Igor vs Masked Superstar & King Tonga
Joe Leduc vs. Masked Superstar (Quebec)
Dino Bravo & Joe Leduc vs King Tonga & Masked Superstar
Dino Bravo & Rick Martel vs. King Tonga & Masked Superstar (Montreal Forum)
Dino Bravo & Billy Robinson vs King Tonga & Abdullah the Butcher
Dino Bravo vs King Tonga (Montreal Forum)
Rick Martel (AWA Champion) vs. King Tonga (Montreal Forum) (beginning slightly clipped..14+ minutes of action shown)
Rick Martel vs Michael Hayes (Quebec City)
Video and highlights: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Samu (From Quebec)
Rick Martel vs Ric Flair Tokyo Japan (This aired in early 1986…I didn’t think this aired even in part anywhere outside of Japan in this time frame. This was aired promoting Flair vs. Martel at the Forum in Montreal which happened in mid-1986)
Zenk & Road Warriors vs Steve Strong & The Long Riders (Clips from Quebec)
Doctor D David Shultz vs Hercules Ayala (Montreal, International Title match)
Doctor D David Shultz vs Hercules Ayala (rematch for International title. 6 minutes of action)

 

The same guy also released 30 minutes of filmed match clips from 1972-73 in Montreal.

[El-P]

 

 

Also, remember the circumstances surrounding Dino Bravo's death...he apparently crossed his old wrestling partners on some sort of cigarette smuggling deal.

 

Rick Martel said that Bravo's uncle was part of the mob.

 

 

Not sure how to read this but I have heard several people defending Bravo as "a good guy caught in the wrong world" who had to resort to smuggling because, after WWF let him go and there was no interest in him in WCW, he had to resort to that trade as there was no other way for him to keep up with his expensive lifestyle. Apparently he was not good with his money.

 

 

That's pretty much what Martel said in his RF shoot interview, yes.