Post by Stu-E Price on Jul 28, 2007 8:38:23 GMT -5
BEN AND ALISON
All of us girls have married athletes associated with wrestling.
Ben left Alison before their second daughter Brooke was even born. He didn't want Brooke. He wanted Alison to get an abortion, and Alison made a point of letting Brooke know that almost as soon as she came into the world.
“Your dad never wanted you. He wanted you to be aborted. He never took care of us. He chose to hang out with ring rats."
Ben was always a wild type. He grew up in Elbow Park, a pretty good area in southwest Calgary. His family belonged to the Glencoe Club, an exclusive golf and country club with a great facility that included pools, gyms, a bowling alley, even a figure skating rink. His parents Betty and Rusty Bassarab were well respected. Alison met Ben at a Halloween party at BJ's Gym. Alison was there as Pocahontas, decked out in braids and a fringed chamois mini-skirt. I always thought Alison looked a little like Vivien Leigh, a petite Scarlett O'Hara. She resembles my mom more than any of us. Ben was intrigued and asked if he could drive her home. She had come alone so she agreed.
As she stepped out of the car, he asked her for her phone number and she said, "Look it up in the phone book. It's under Stu Hart." He reached across the seat to catch her arm. Could he have a kiss goodnight?
She slipped into the darkness calling, "If you call me, I'll give you a kiss next time."
This was 1981. At that time, BJ's was a pretty hard-core gym for people who wanted to get strong. There were a lot of steroids being used and bodybuilding champions were coming out of there. Ben was pretty strong. He was one of the few people who could bench press double his body weight. He was 200 pounds and he had over a 450-pound bench press. That's phenomenal weight. I don't know how he did it. I don't think he had dabbled in steroids until after he met the Dynamite Kid and Davey.
Anyway, he had become a pretty popular fixture at the gym. He was working in the juice bar a little bit and playing with Georgia and BJ's kids. Little Ted was the young one then. Benny wore army fatigues while he trained. The guys called him “the jungle cat.”
Alison was older than Ben by a couple of years, which gave her an edge. He was flummoxed. Within two months they were very serious about each other. They were inseparable. She flew to Las Vegas to watch boxing.
They seemed like such a good match. My mom had schooled Alison in proper etiquette and Ben's parents had taught him social graces. Members of the Glencoe Club went to certain parties and churches. Alison fit in well. Our family always did everything together and we were respectable, but we never went anywhere. We never went to restaurants. Where would you go with 12 kids when you couldn't afford it?
Ben and Alison fell in love fast. Alison started saying, "It's love and I want to marry him." She was working in the accounting department at an upscale steak house called Pardon My Garden and waitressing when they were short staffed.
Ben was trying to get on with the fire department, but he kept failing the test where they put you in a room full of smoke and you only have so many seconds to get out. Ben couldn't make it out in the time allotted. He kept panicking.
Alison became very close to Ben's two sisters and his mom who was dying of cancer. Ben's sisters Whitney and Wendy weren't snobs, but they were really into the Glencoe Club scene. When Betty got really sick, Alison started to see things in Ben that worried her. He was drinking a lot and his friends could get him to do stupid things.
"Hey, Ben that guy looked at you and gave you the finger!" they'd tell him. If he were drunk Ben would want to go over and punch the guy out. Alison would plead with him, "Don't. Don't." It was a tug of war. Who was going to control Ben Bassarab? Was it going to be his responsible girlfriend who had only known him a little while or the Elbow park gang who he grew up with?
More often than not the gang won out. He'd end up getting in the fight and going home with Alison, so she'd have the worst of it. She'd have the mess to clean up.
"I hope they don't press charges. I hope there's not an assault charge," she would fret.
"Alison, I get into fights all the time," he'd tell her. "Quit worrying."
I remember during the winter of 1981, Ben was coming up to the house quite often and Alison was protective of him. She didn't want him getting into wrestling and didn't want him getting mixed up with anything shady. She was desperate to preserve this wonderful new love she had. She was so happy with him and he was so happy with her.
But he started hanging out with Davey because both trained at the same gym and Davey got Ben onto the steroids. Davey would say to Ben, "You've got to get into wrestling. You're a good athlete." Ben was in hockey and football and all the sports that the kids at the Glencoe Club played. He even rode in some rodeos.
In the meantime, Ben's mother passed away. She had a horrible death and Ben was really upset about it. Still, he wanted to marry Alison and they wed on May 21, 1983. Ben had a good job as a delivery driver for Bridge Brand, a food wholesaler, and they were doing okay. But through his association with Davey, he started to believe he could become a wrestler too.
Alison loved him so much she said, "Okay, I'll support you. I'll quit fighting you on this."
My brother Ross and Ben were the same age, 24, but they were opposites so they complemented each other. Ross was conservative and rigid and Ben was a clown. Ross had an excellent eye for wrestling technique. He had been obsessed with the sport since he was little and knew more facts about it than any of us. When he was in high school he had learned to edit the television show. He was reliable and dependable and never overstepped his bounds with my dad. He did as he was told.
Alison approached Ross and implored him to train Ben. Ross gladly agreed but said they needed to recruit someone for Ben to lock up with. They dug through some of my dad's potential students and found a guy name Phil Lafon, the same size and age as Ben. Phil later went on to the WWF as Dan Kroffat.
Phil and Ben adapted well. Ben had a great drop kick. He patterned his style after Dynamite. Unfortunately wrestling wasn't the only thing he did like Dynamite. He copied his lifestyle too. He became a heavy steroid user. The steroids made Ben really aggressive. He began snapping at Alison and calling her names.
One night he smashed her face into his plate of food screaming, “Learn to cook, you cow!” A little while later he shoved her through their slatted wooden closet door, and broke her nose and jaw. Alison was five-feet-four inches tall and 115 pounds. He was six inches taller and at least 100 pounds heavier. He could have killed her. My parents had no idea he was beating her. She avoided the family until her bruises faded. Her jaw never set properly because didn’t seek medical help at the time and to this day as a result of the abuse, Alison has to wear a Hannibal Lechter-type mask to bed every night because she suffers terrible headaches from Temporomandibular Joint Disorder, better known as TMJ.
Dr. Spika told Alison she was pregnant and then another doctor told her she wasn't. He said she had a large ovarian cyst. She was just sick about it. She ended up having surgery. Both doctors were right. A surgeon removed the cyst – which was the size of her fist – and found out she was indeed pregnant.
Alison recovered completely from the operation, little Lindsay was born and Ben started wrestling. Things seemed to be going along well until two things happened. Ben failed to get on with the WWF and he began cheating on Alison. He claimed that everyone else was doing it, why not him?
In 1986, Ben got involved with a girl named Lisa, who was 17 years old. He got her pregnant while Alison was pregnant with their second daughter Brooke. Lisa had an abortion so Ben insisted Alison get one too. Alison refused. My dad was still giving Ben wrestling jobs tagging with Owen or Chris Benoit.
Ben left Alison and moved in with another girl named Monique. She was the same girl who had claimed Davey got her pregnant just before our wedding. (That child's parentage is still a question mark. In fact, Monique named the baby Chance because she didn't know who the father was.)
Ben went down to Montana to try out for the WWF. They were lukewarm on him and asked my dad what he thought. Should they hire him? My dad approached Ben.
"If you work it out with Alison, support her and try to reconcile, I will recommend you to Vince."
Ben refused. He said he would take the job, but he didn't want his wife and kids. So my dad didn't support Ben's application to the WWF.
Alison moved into the carriage house on my dad's property and lived there until 1998. She raised her girls there rent-free. She went to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and got her librarian certificate. My dad and mom took care of their utilities and food so her only expense was her phone bill. Ben was a deadbeat dad and seldom sent child support or alimony.
All of us girls have married athletes associated with wrestling.
Ben left Alison before their second daughter Brooke was even born. He didn't want Brooke. He wanted Alison to get an abortion, and Alison made a point of letting Brooke know that almost as soon as she came into the world.
“Your dad never wanted you. He wanted you to be aborted. He never took care of us. He chose to hang out with ring rats."
Ben was always a wild type. He grew up in Elbow Park, a pretty good area in southwest Calgary. His family belonged to the Glencoe Club, an exclusive golf and country club with a great facility that included pools, gyms, a bowling alley, even a figure skating rink. His parents Betty and Rusty Bassarab were well respected. Alison met Ben at a Halloween party at BJ's Gym. Alison was there as Pocahontas, decked out in braids and a fringed chamois mini-skirt. I always thought Alison looked a little like Vivien Leigh, a petite Scarlett O'Hara. She resembles my mom more than any of us. Ben was intrigued and asked if he could drive her home. She had come alone so she agreed.
As she stepped out of the car, he asked her for her phone number and she said, "Look it up in the phone book. It's under Stu Hart." He reached across the seat to catch her arm. Could he have a kiss goodnight?
She slipped into the darkness calling, "If you call me, I'll give you a kiss next time."
This was 1981. At that time, BJ's was a pretty hard-core gym for people who wanted to get strong. There were a lot of steroids being used and bodybuilding champions were coming out of there. Ben was pretty strong. He was one of the few people who could bench press double his body weight. He was 200 pounds and he had over a 450-pound bench press. That's phenomenal weight. I don't know how he did it. I don't think he had dabbled in steroids until after he met the Dynamite Kid and Davey.
Anyway, he had become a pretty popular fixture at the gym. He was working in the juice bar a little bit and playing with Georgia and BJ's kids. Little Ted was the young one then. Benny wore army fatigues while he trained. The guys called him “the jungle cat.”
Alison was older than Ben by a couple of years, which gave her an edge. He was flummoxed. Within two months they were very serious about each other. They were inseparable. She flew to Las Vegas to watch boxing.
They seemed like such a good match. My mom had schooled Alison in proper etiquette and Ben's parents had taught him social graces. Members of the Glencoe Club went to certain parties and churches. Alison fit in well. Our family always did everything together and we were respectable, but we never went anywhere. We never went to restaurants. Where would you go with 12 kids when you couldn't afford it?
Ben and Alison fell in love fast. Alison started saying, "It's love and I want to marry him." She was working in the accounting department at an upscale steak house called Pardon My Garden and waitressing when they were short staffed.
Ben was trying to get on with the fire department, but he kept failing the test where they put you in a room full of smoke and you only have so many seconds to get out. Ben couldn't make it out in the time allotted. He kept panicking.
Alison became very close to Ben's two sisters and his mom who was dying of cancer. Ben's sisters Whitney and Wendy weren't snobs, but they were really into the Glencoe Club scene. When Betty got really sick, Alison started to see things in Ben that worried her. He was drinking a lot and his friends could get him to do stupid things.
"Hey, Ben that guy looked at you and gave you the finger!" they'd tell him. If he were drunk Ben would want to go over and punch the guy out. Alison would plead with him, "Don't. Don't." It was a tug of war. Who was going to control Ben Bassarab? Was it going to be his responsible girlfriend who had only known him a little while or the Elbow park gang who he grew up with?
More often than not the gang won out. He'd end up getting in the fight and going home with Alison, so she'd have the worst of it. She'd have the mess to clean up.
"I hope they don't press charges. I hope there's not an assault charge," she would fret.
"Alison, I get into fights all the time," he'd tell her. "Quit worrying."
I remember during the winter of 1981, Ben was coming up to the house quite often and Alison was protective of him. She didn't want him getting into wrestling and didn't want him getting mixed up with anything shady. She was desperate to preserve this wonderful new love she had. She was so happy with him and he was so happy with her.
But he started hanging out with Davey because both trained at the same gym and Davey got Ben onto the steroids. Davey would say to Ben, "You've got to get into wrestling. You're a good athlete." Ben was in hockey and football and all the sports that the kids at the Glencoe Club played. He even rode in some rodeos.
In the meantime, Ben's mother passed away. She had a horrible death and Ben was really upset about it. Still, he wanted to marry Alison and they wed on May 21, 1983. Ben had a good job as a delivery driver for Bridge Brand, a food wholesaler, and they were doing okay. But through his association with Davey, he started to believe he could become a wrestler too.
Alison loved him so much she said, "Okay, I'll support you. I'll quit fighting you on this."
My brother Ross and Ben were the same age, 24, but they were opposites so they complemented each other. Ross was conservative and rigid and Ben was a clown. Ross had an excellent eye for wrestling technique. He had been obsessed with the sport since he was little and knew more facts about it than any of us. When he was in high school he had learned to edit the television show. He was reliable and dependable and never overstepped his bounds with my dad. He did as he was told.
Alison approached Ross and implored him to train Ben. Ross gladly agreed but said they needed to recruit someone for Ben to lock up with. They dug through some of my dad's potential students and found a guy name Phil Lafon, the same size and age as Ben. Phil later went on to the WWF as Dan Kroffat.
Phil and Ben adapted well. Ben had a great drop kick. He patterned his style after Dynamite. Unfortunately wrestling wasn't the only thing he did like Dynamite. He copied his lifestyle too. He became a heavy steroid user. The steroids made Ben really aggressive. He began snapping at Alison and calling her names.
One night he smashed her face into his plate of food screaming, “Learn to cook, you cow!” A little while later he shoved her through their slatted wooden closet door, and broke her nose and jaw. Alison was five-feet-four inches tall and 115 pounds. He was six inches taller and at least 100 pounds heavier. He could have killed her. My parents had no idea he was beating her. She avoided the family until her bruises faded. Her jaw never set properly because didn’t seek medical help at the time and to this day as a result of the abuse, Alison has to wear a Hannibal Lechter-type mask to bed every night because she suffers terrible headaches from Temporomandibular Joint Disorder, better known as TMJ.
Dr. Spika told Alison she was pregnant and then another doctor told her she wasn't. He said she had a large ovarian cyst. She was just sick about it. She ended up having surgery. Both doctors were right. A surgeon removed the cyst – which was the size of her fist – and found out she was indeed pregnant.
Alison recovered completely from the operation, little Lindsay was born and Ben started wrestling. Things seemed to be going along well until two things happened. Ben failed to get on with the WWF and he began cheating on Alison. He claimed that everyone else was doing it, why not him?
In 1986, Ben got involved with a girl named Lisa, who was 17 years old. He got her pregnant while Alison was pregnant with their second daughter Brooke. Lisa had an abortion so Ben insisted Alison get one too. Alison refused. My dad was still giving Ben wrestling jobs tagging with Owen or Chris Benoit.
Ben left Alison and moved in with another girl named Monique. She was the same girl who had claimed Davey got her pregnant just before our wedding. (That child's parentage is still a question mark. In fact, Monique named the baby Chance because she didn't know who the father was.)
Ben went down to Montana to try out for the WWF. They were lukewarm on him and asked my dad what he thought. Should they hire him? My dad approached Ben.
"If you work it out with Alison, support her and try to reconcile, I will recommend you to Vince."
Ben refused. He said he would take the job, but he didn't want his wife and kids. So my dad didn't support Ben's application to the WWF.
Alison moved into the carriage house on my dad's property and lived there until 1998. She raised her girls there rent-free. She went to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and got her librarian certificate. My dad and mom took care of their utilities and food so her only expense was her phone bill. Ben was a deadbeat dad and seldom sent child support or alimony.