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Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling
Heath McCoy
Canwest Books
ISBN 0-9736719-8-X
Rating: BUY IN ABUNDANCE!
It took the surprising commercial success of Mick Foley's 1999 autobiography "Have a Nice Day" to jumpstart the notion that pro wrestling has a literate fan base. Before this bestseller hit the market, there was no book length equivalent to The Wrestling Observer newsletter; the standard for the bookshelves was limited to fictionalized biographies or photo-books rich in color pics but minimal in text. Thus Foley served as the catalyst for the flood of books on professional wrestling that have poured in since. These books run the gambit from excellent to horrid, from individual bios to industry bios, from hardcover to home bindery.
If one were to go through this massive stack of books published since Foley's first piece, then pick which wrestling name has received more ink and appeared in the more of these publications than any other, is there any doubt that the name would be Hart? It would be nice to think that The Hart Family earned this honor through their workhorse saga through multiple decades as wrestling's first family. Sadly, while some of the press is due to Stu and Helen Hart running one of wrestling's most enduring -and endearing- promotions, the chief reason for their widespread notoriety in so many publications centers around two incidents: WWF's 1997 Survivor Series in Montreal, in which Vince McMahon & Co double-crossed Bret Hart by changing the planned finish of his match, and the tragic death of Owen Hart at the 1999 Over the Edge pay-per-view in Kansas City. Many of these books contain chapters or passages on Bret and/or Owen, while a few focus on The Hart Family and their Calgary Stampede Wrestling promotion, most notably Marsha Erb's Stu Hart: Lord of the Ring and Martha Hart's Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart. Erb did a fantastic job on documenting Stu Hart's legacy, as did Martha Hart remembering her late husband.
The book that gives the thorough panoramic view of Calgary's pro wrestling history is the recent release Pain and Passion: the History of Stampede Wrestling. Author Heath McCoy not only has written a biography on the entire Hart Family, but a biography on the Calgary Stampede wrestlers and the promotion as an entity unto itself. While the Bret Hart double-cross incident and Owen's death are not minimized, neither do they dominate this detailed history of Stampede Wrestling. Everything is here from dawn to dusk, from Stu and Helen's childhoods to the Hart's first televised shows (during television's infancy) to the bloody Abdullah & Stomper era, to haggles with athletic commissioners, to the rise of the middleweight era, and finally to the eventual Stampede swan song.
Great emphasis is placed on the important contributions by key players besides the Harts throughout the years. Who knows if Calgary Wrestling would have prospered in its early years were it not for TV commentator Sammy Menacker's creative booking mind? While most books and articles I have read about the Calgary promotion focus on the technical wrestlers and the accomplished shooters, McCoy explains the important roll Abdullah the Butcher played in upping arena attendance via blood packed brawls. Even better, he illustrates that Abdullah possessed a method to his "Madman from the Sudan" gimmick, and how Calgary could never successfully replace him with other bloodbath artisans like Mark Lewin and Tor Kamata.
But where Heath McCoy succeeds best compiling this multi-player history is revealed by his ability to step outside and see the forest for the trees. He grew up a passionate fan of The Harts and Stampede Wrestling, which could have tempted him to gloss over the complexities of wrestling's first family, or take an emotional stance in the family and business rivalries that brewed throughout the years. He skillfully delivers an objective stance yet retains the passion and glory of the Calgary Stampede phenomenon. For those unfamiliar with The Hart Family legacy, they are a sort of prairie-home spin of The Magnificent Ambersons, though with a significantly larger brood; Stu and Helen had eight sons and four daughters. All the sons grew up acquiring some sort of stake in the family business, and all but one daughter wound up marrying wrestlers working for the promotion. This collection of "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians," as Dynamite Kid famously put it, sparked family infighting, often resulting in one brother politically outmaneuvering another. Throughout the decades the Harts and their wrestling promotion went through a series of cycles revolving from periods of great financial success followed by periods of near hand-to-mouth existence. This rise and fall cycle went on for years until the final fall, which ends with heartbreaking consequences following the death of Owen.
The cold and mean-spirited personality of Tommy "Dynamite Kid" Billington has been well documented in numerous books on wrestling, including his own autobiography. His portrayal in Pain and Passion is the bleakest yet, showing in greater detail his scary hair-trigger temper, cruel pranks, frightening verbal outbursts at his wife, drug-crazed attack on Bruce Hart, and abusive treatment and demand for complete loyalty from cousin Davey Boy Smith. But while McCoy's depiction of Billington may be the gloomiest, he gives us something I cannot recall seeing in other books: an explanation why Dynamite was so cruel. You discover a Dynamite Kid grossly insecure about everything from his British dialect to his lack of education to his small stature; the only thing he did have in abundance was physical toughness. He could dish out and receive pain like nobody else -save for maybe Danny Hodge- in the business. It took little to spark his insecurity, and he responded with the only thing he had: the ability to beat the shit out of somebody. You get a feeling of pity as opposed to sympathy for him, especially seeing that his one strength in life is what eventually isolates him from his friends and family.
The most difficult chapters to read are those covering the death of Owen Hart and the resulting fallout with the Harts. In previous chapters you get to know the Harts as a proud and loyal family. That is not to say they are not without their eccentricities and sibling rivalries; but they are a tight-knit clan throughout the years, which changes dramatically after Owen's death. Lawsuits between Martha Hart and the WWF arise, and many of the Hart children take sides: some backed Owen's widow, others sided with the WWF, presumably wanting to stay on Vince McMahon's good side to ensure future business opportunities with the company. Ross and Georgia, on the other hand, tried to remain neutral in the war. The ending result is the family being torn apart, with some of the grudges lasting to this day.
If you are unfamiliar with pro wrestling and would like to read a book that best captures the nature and evolution of the business over the years, this is a good place to start. The author does a good job of making the complexities of the business easy for the layperson to follow. If you are a baby-boomer like me, the book is a great narrative beginning with days when each North American region had its own cast of local celebrities, and its slow but unavoidable decline, transitioning into the MTV era where everything shines on a nationwide scale. Pro wrestling buff or not, you will totally love this book.