Post by Stu-E Price on Sept 18, 2007 17:01:30 GMT -5
VINCE & THE WWF
During the summer of 1984 just before my wedding to Davey, my dad was secretly negotiating the sale of Stampede Wrestling to Titan Sports Inc., owned by Vince McMahon. Bret was the only one of the kids who knew about this.
My dad was 68 years old and, though he liked Bruce Allen, he didn’t like the direction my brother Bruce was taking the business. He felt Bruce had a small-man complex. He behaved like Napoleon. He was sadistic with the wrestlers—particularly the bigger guys—and he disregarded my dad's suggestions. My dad would go into the dressing room before each show with specific instructions.
“I don’t want to see Bruce getting raped in the corner while I’m standing at ring side looking like an asshole. I don’t want to see any more nut shots and I don’t want any chairs and I don’t want the wrestlers fighting in the crowd. Let’s have a good show tonight and not have the fans leaving pissed off at me for a change.”
As soon as my dad left the room, Bruce would turn to them and say, “Fuck him. He’s senile. I’m the one who calls the shots around here.”
It was 1984 when my dad weighed all this out. He decided to sell the wrestling to Vince. The deal included four wrestlers, Davey, Dynamite, Bret and Jim—plus my dad's territory, all the TV rights and a non-compete clause which stipulated that my dad could do nothing wrestling except help promote Vince McMahon's shows for one year.
Vince offered him $1 million and my dad was given a $30,000 down payment. Actually, I've heard different amounts. I've heard it was $15,000, I've heard it was $25,000 and I’ve heard it was $30,000. No contracts were offered because Vince wasn’t giving contracts then, but the four guys were put on the WWF payroll.
Vince offered Bruce a job as the western Canadian representative. He would be able to market and book shows, but not wrestle because he was too small. But where would Wayne and Ross go? Wayne was the best referee in professional wrestling. Ross ran the television show. And where would Ben go? Alison was hysterical over the whole thing. What was Ben going to do? He didn’t have a job and he wasn’t part of the equation.
“How come nobody sent Ben to New York?” she asked.
It was a fair question. But my dad was always loath to confront anyone in business. Maybe he thought if he insisted the others work with Vince too, the deal would fall through. Vince did say that he would be running shows in western Canada often and would use people like Wayne and Ross for them, but the whole thing turned into a fiasco.
My brother Bruce defied my dad and Vince by approaching Bruce Allen and offering to work together on a new Stampede Wrestling promotion. Then he applied for a license through Calgary’s Boxing and Wrestling Commission.
My dad found out and was livid. He knew this could jeopardize his deal with Vince. He called Bruce Allen and explained that WWF now owned Stampede Wrestling and that under no circumstances should his son Bruce be working against them. Bruce Allen was a gentleman about the whole thing. He thanked my dad for the opportunity to work with him and they parted on good terms.
Davey was becoming a star. The big names in Stampede Wrestling at the time were “Rotten” Ron Starr, David Schultz and Leo Burke, but they’d stick to the mat. Davey would do all the high flying. People loved to watch him wrestle for all his acrobatic stunts. He set up his own deal so that he could wrestle in Japan. They loved him there because he really wrestled, full contact. While he was there my dad sold Stampede Wrestling to Vince and the WWF.
When Davey returned, Dad told him, “My deal with Vince was, when I sell, he gets you, Dynamite, Jim and Bret.” Davey tried it out for a week, then he and Tom quit. Bret and Jim stayed. Davey said he had never seen so many prima donnas in his life. He came home disgusted.
“What a conceited bunch of assholes," he said. He claimed that except for the real stars—Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, Big John Studd and Quick Draw Rick McGraw—a lot of Vince's wrestlers spent their time bragging about what bigwigs they were. Davey didn’t like going from the main event in Stampede Wrestling to the opening match in WWF.
Vince was astounded at Davey’s audacity. Then Dad called Davey up because Bret was furious. Vince was having him beaten in the ring every night and paying him garbage as punishment for Davey’s leaving the WWF.
But Davey could not be dissuaded. He loved wrestling in Japan, four weeks on and eight off throughout the year. He and Dynamite were treated like gods over there. The fans in Japan never dreamed the matches were predetermined. The wrestlers were admired for their strength, size and agility. They were akin to samurai.
But the fights in Japan were strenuous. At 21, Davey was beat up and sore. Dynamite had two knee surgeries behind him. Even though they were a tag team, Dynamite still treated Davey very much like the younger cousin. He negotiated all their deals and paid himself twice as much.
Then on one tour in Japan, they faced off against each other. As a finale, Dynamite was supposed to crawl back into the ring after being suplexed over the ropes and beat Davey on the count. Davey held Dynamite by the waist and flipped him above his head over the top rope. But Dynamite missed grabbing it, and fell, hitting the small of his back on the apron of the ring.
As he lay there, Davey could see two big, fist-size lumps growing in Dynamite's back. Davey went over to pick him up. Tom was supposed to pile drive Davey onto the concrete outside the ring, so Dynamite could escape, roll back into the ring and beat Davey on the ten-count. When Davey leaned over, Dynamite croaked, "My back's gone." Davey banged his knee on the ring beside Dynamite's head and pretended to fall. Dynamite rolled into the ring and won, but he had done great damage to his discs.
During that entire year, Vince McMahon tried to convince Davey and Dynamite to come back to the WWF. Dynamite's injury prompted them to accept an invitation to fly to Toronto for a meeting. My dad was pleased. He felt this was the best thing for their careers. He predicted the WWF under Vince's guidance was going to be a huge enterprise someday and he saw it as an opportunity for his family to work together again.
Bret, Jim Neidhart, Ellie and I had all been working on the boys, hoping they'd consider a new offer from Vince. I was pregnant with our son Harry and I missed Davey. Japan is a 20-hour flight from Calgary and he spent 26 weeks a year there. Our phone bills were over $1,000 a month when he was away. When he was home he was often recovering from jet lag or an injury.
Vince sent Frank Tunney, his right-hand man in Toronto, in a limo to the airport to pick the boys up, and Frank guided them into the hotel suite where Vince was talking on the phone.
Davey and Dynamite took a seat and listened for a moment, then Davey nudged his cousin. "Tom, he's talkin' to Mr. T. about working at Wrestlemania." Chicago native Lawrence Tero was a huge star in Hollywood. He had played Sylvester Stallone's nemesis, Clubber Lang, in Rocky III and he had his own successful television series, The A-Team.
Dynamite nodded. "If we can get on that same card, we'll be rich!" he whispered.
Vince hung up and negotiated a good deal that included Dynamite and Davey winning the World's tag-team belts within a year. Davey's salary doubled. He went from making US$120,000 to US$250,000 per year. Mind you he was booked to wrestle twice as much.
They were also to receive 0.5% of merchandising with potential for endorsements.
But Tom blew all that. Their first booking was at Vancouver's World of Wheels car show and Tom was a no-show. He continued to miss bookings, leaving Davey with egg on his face. It didn't take long for the WWF to stop calling them for promotional appearances.
The deal with Vince seemed better, and would have been, had we known how to manage our finances. The money Davey made in Japan was all after-tax dollars. An international tax treaty let the Japanese pay taxes to the Japanese government and freed us from Canadian income taxes.
Davey's WWF paycheque was all before-tax dollars. We were paid into our personal accounts and Davey paid his expenses on the road without knowing to deduct expenses through a private company. So rather than paying 18% corporate taxes after expenses, Tom and Davey paid 48% taxes on everything. By the end of each year Davey and I were barely scraping by and Tom ended up declaring bankruptcy.
They did make it to the same card with Mr. T., Wrestmania II. Davey and Dynamite went up against the champions, “The Dream Team,” consisting of Brutus Beefcake and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, for the belt. Davey and Dynamite were assigned heavy-metal singer Ozzy Osbourne as a manager just for that show. Vince told Brutus and Greg to drop the belts to the British cousins. They deserved it. Davey and Dynamite could out-maneuver, out-wrestle and out-fly anybody.
"Nobody could lace our boots up," Davey boasted.
Davey and Dynamite kept the belts nearly a year, longer than anyone in tag-team history. But Dynamite was a big drinker. It was horrible trying to wake him up. And he'd snore so loud Davey couldn't even room with him on the road. Dynamite had stopped training and was starting to lose it. His body was beginning to sag. Davey had to work harder in and out of the ring to cover for him.
Tom's bad back plagued him. In a match against "The Magnificent" Don Muraco and Ace "Cowboy Bob" Orton in Hamilton, Tom hit into the ropes with his back. He stood and appeared to have recovered, then jumped over Don and in mid-air crumpled to the ground as if he'd been shot.
Vince had three seats taken out of Air Canada's first class compartment, so Dynamite could lie down on the way home. He was transported by ambulance to the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary. Two days later, he had three discs removed from his back. He lost a couple of inches in height.
The problem was he and Davey were still the tag-team champions and, now that Dynamite was out of the picture, they had to lose their belts. Bret and my brother-in-law Jim Neidhart were chosen to succeed them. Vince began grooming them as "The Hart Foundation," the next tag-team sensation.
Davey arrived in New York alone. He loaned Bret his belt for publicity pictures. That way when Bret won the belt, the pictures of he and Jim wearing the belts would be ready. But Dynamite refused to lend his to Jim.
“When I drop the belt, I'll hand it over to him personally."
Bret heard about this and threw a tantrum in the dressing room. He banged chairs against the walls and screamed. “Where’s the other belt? I want that other belt!”
Vince walked in and tried to calm him down. "Geez Bret, take it easy. We'll use one belt for the pictures. No big deal."
Dynamite and Davey met Bret and Jim six weeks later in Florida. Dynamite was 40 pounds lighter and could barely walk. As they made their way toward the ring, Davey had his bulldog Matilda on a leash and was walking as slowly as possible for Dynamite's sake. Then as was choreographed, Bret’s manager Jimmy Hart pretended to deck Dynamite with a megaphone before Dynamite could even climb into the ring.
Dynamite went down and Davey went into the ring to face his two brothers-in-law alone.
The match had to be quick since Dynamite was supposedly unconscious on the floor.
Toward the end, Jimmy Hart distracted Davey while Jim Neidhart clobbered him as hard as he could with the megaphone. In real life, Jim was a dirty brute. He really did hit Davey as hard as he could. Davey saw stars. Then Jim set Davey up for “The Avalanche,” their finishing move. He put Davey in a bear hug, lifting him off his feet, while Bret hit the ropes, jumped up in the air and clothes-lined him in the face. At that point, Davey let Bret pin him. It was a spectacular finish.
During the summer of 1984 just before my wedding to Davey, my dad was secretly negotiating the sale of Stampede Wrestling to Titan Sports Inc., owned by Vince McMahon. Bret was the only one of the kids who knew about this.
My dad was 68 years old and, though he liked Bruce Allen, he didn’t like the direction my brother Bruce was taking the business. He felt Bruce had a small-man complex. He behaved like Napoleon. He was sadistic with the wrestlers—particularly the bigger guys—and he disregarded my dad's suggestions. My dad would go into the dressing room before each show with specific instructions.
“I don’t want to see Bruce getting raped in the corner while I’m standing at ring side looking like an asshole. I don’t want to see any more nut shots and I don’t want any chairs and I don’t want the wrestlers fighting in the crowd. Let’s have a good show tonight and not have the fans leaving pissed off at me for a change.”
As soon as my dad left the room, Bruce would turn to them and say, “Fuck him. He’s senile. I’m the one who calls the shots around here.”
It was 1984 when my dad weighed all this out. He decided to sell the wrestling to Vince. The deal included four wrestlers, Davey, Dynamite, Bret and Jim—plus my dad's territory, all the TV rights and a non-compete clause which stipulated that my dad could do nothing wrestling except help promote Vince McMahon's shows for one year.
Vince offered him $1 million and my dad was given a $30,000 down payment. Actually, I've heard different amounts. I've heard it was $15,000, I've heard it was $25,000 and I’ve heard it was $30,000. No contracts were offered because Vince wasn’t giving contracts then, but the four guys were put on the WWF payroll.
Vince offered Bruce a job as the western Canadian representative. He would be able to market and book shows, but not wrestle because he was too small. But where would Wayne and Ross go? Wayne was the best referee in professional wrestling. Ross ran the television show. And where would Ben go? Alison was hysterical over the whole thing. What was Ben going to do? He didn’t have a job and he wasn’t part of the equation.
“How come nobody sent Ben to New York?” she asked.
It was a fair question. But my dad was always loath to confront anyone in business. Maybe he thought if he insisted the others work with Vince too, the deal would fall through. Vince did say that he would be running shows in western Canada often and would use people like Wayne and Ross for them, but the whole thing turned into a fiasco.
My brother Bruce defied my dad and Vince by approaching Bruce Allen and offering to work together on a new Stampede Wrestling promotion. Then he applied for a license through Calgary’s Boxing and Wrestling Commission.
My dad found out and was livid. He knew this could jeopardize his deal with Vince. He called Bruce Allen and explained that WWF now owned Stampede Wrestling and that under no circumstances should his son Bruce be working against them. Bruce Allen was a gentleman about the whole thing. He thanked my dad for the opportunity to work with him and they parted on good terms.
Davey was becoming a star. The big names in Stampede Wrestling at the time were “Rotten” Ron Starr, David Schultz and Leo Burke, but they’d stick to the mat. Davey would do all the high flying. People loved to watch him wrestle for all his acrobatic stunts. He set up his own deal so that he could wrestle in Japan. They loved him there because he really wrestled, full contact. While he was there my dad sold Stampede Wrestling to Vince and the WWF.
When Davey returned, Dad told him, “My deal with Vince was, when I sell, he gets you, Dynamite, Jim and Bret.” Davey tried it out for a week, then he and Tom quit. Bret and Jim stayed. Davey said he had never seen so many prima donnas in his life. He came home disgusted.
“What a conceited bunch of assholes," he said. He claimed that except for the real stars—Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, Big John Studd and Quick Draw Rick McGraw—a lot of Vince's wrestlers spent their time bragging about what bigwigs they were. Davey didn’t like going from the main event in Stampede Wrestling to the opening match in WWF.
Vince was astounded at Davey’s audacity. Then Dad called Davey up because Bret was furious. Vince was having him beaten in the ring every night and paying him garbage as punishment for Davey’s leaving the WWF.
But Davey could not be dissuaded. He loved wrestling in Japan, four weeks on and eight off throughout the year. He and Dynamite were treated like gods over there. The fans in Japan never dreamed the matches were predetermined. The wrestlers were admired for their strength, size and agility. They were akin to samurai.
But the fights in Japan were strenuous. At 21, Davey was beat up and sore. Dynamite had two knee surgeries behind him. Even though they were a tag team, Dynamite still treated Davey very much like the younger cousin. He negotiated all their deals and paid himself twice as much.
Then on one tour in Japan, they faced off against each other. As a finale, Dynamite was supposed to crawl back into the ring after being suplexed over the ropes and beat Davey on the count. Davey held Dynamite by the waist and flipped him above his head over the top rope. But Dynamite missed grabbing it, and fell, hitting the small of his back on the apron of the ring.
As he lay there, Davey could see two big, fist-size lumps growing in Dynamite's back. Davey went over to pick him up. Tom was supposed to pile drive Davey onto the concrete outside the ring, so Dynamite could escape, roll back into the ring and beat Davey on the ten-count. When Davey leaned over, Dynamite croaked, "My back's gone." Davey banged his knee on the ring beside Dynamite's head and pretended to fall. Dynamite rolled into the ring and won, but he had done great damage to his discs.
During that entire year, Vince McMahon tried to convince Davey and Dynamite to come back to the WWF. Dynamite's injury prompted them to accept an invitation to fly to Toronto for a meeting. My dad was pleased. He felt this was the best thing for their careers. He predicted the WWF under Vince's guidance was going to be a huge enterprise someday and he saw it as an opportunity for his family to work together again.
Bret, Jim Neidhart, Ellie and I had all been working on the boys, hoping they'd consider a new offer from Vince. I was pregnant with our son Harry and I missed Davey. Japan is a 20-hour flight from Calgary and he spent 26 weeks a year there. Our phone bills were over $1,000 a month when he was away. When he was home he was often recovering from jet lag or an injury.
Vince sent Frank Tunney, his right-hand man in Toronto, in a limo to the airport to pick the boys up, and Frank guided them into the hotel suite where Vince was talking on the phone.
Davey and Dynamite took a seat and listened for a moment, then Davey nudged his cousin. "Tom, he's talkin' to Mr. T. about working at Wrestlemania." Chicago native Lawrence Tero was a huge star in Hollywood. He had played Sylvester Stallone's nemesis, Clubber Lang, in Rocky III and he had his own successful television series, The A-Team.
Dynamite nodded. "If we can get on that same card, we'll be rich!" he whispered.
Vince hung up and negotiated a good deal that included Dynamite and Davey winning the World's tag-team belts within a year. Davey's salary doubled. He went from making US$120,000 to US$250,000 per year. Mind you he was booked to wrestle twice as much.
They were also to receive 0.5% of merchandising with potential for endorsements.
But Tom blew all that. Their first booking was at Vancouver's World of Wheels car show and Tom was a no-show. He continued to miss bookings, leaving Davey with egg on his face. It didn't take long for the WWF to stop calling them for promotional appearances.
The deal with Vince seemed better, and would have been, had we known how to manage our finances. The money Davey made in Japan was all after-tax dollars. An international tax treaty let the Japanese pay taxes to the Japanese government and freed us from Canadian income taxes.
Davey's WWF paycheque was all before-tax dollars. We were paid into our personal accounts and Davey paid his expenses on the road without knowing to deduct expenses through a private company. So rather than paying 18% corporate taxes after expenses, Tom and Davey paid 48% taxes on everything. By the end of each year Davey and I were barely scraping by and Tom ended up declaring bankruptcy.
They did make it to the same card with Mr. T., Wrestmania II. Davey and Dynamite went up against the champions, “The Dream Team,” consisting of Brutus Beefcake and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, for the belt. Davey and Dynamite were assigned heavy-metal singer Ozzy Osbourne as a manager just for that show. Vince told Brutus and Greg to drop the belts to the British cousins. They deserved it. Davey and Dynamite could out-maneuver, out-wrestle and out-fly anybody.
"Nobody could lace our boots up," Davey boasted.
Davey and Dynamite kept the belts nearly a year, longer than anyone in tag-team history. But Dynamite was a big drinker. It was horrible trying to wake him up. And he'd snore so loud Davey couldn't even room with him on the road. Dynamite had stopped training and was starting to lose it. His body was beginning to sag. Davey had to work harder in and out of the ring to cover for him.
Tom's bad back plagued him. In a match against "The Magnificent" Don Muraco and Ace "Cowboy Bob" Orton in Hamilton, Tom hit into the ropes with his back. He stood and appeared to have recovered, then jumped over Don and in mid-air crumpled to the ground as if he'd been shot.
Vince had three seats taken out of Air Canada's first class compartment, so Dynamite could lie down on the way home. He was transported by ambulance to the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary. Two days later, he had three discs removed from his back. He lost a couple of inches in height.
The problem was he and Davey were still the tag-team champions and, now that Dynamite was out of the picture, they had to lose their belts. Bret and my brother-in-law Jim Neidhart were chosen to succeed them. Vince began grooming them as "The Hart Foundation," the next tag-team sensation.
Davey arrived in New York alone. He loaned Bret his belt for publicity pictures. That way when Bret won the belt, the pictures of he and Jim wearing the belts would be ready. But Dynamite refused to lend his to Jim.
“When I drop the belt, I'll hand it over to him personally."
Bret heard about this and threw a tantrum in the dressing room. He banged chairs against the walls and screamed. “Where’s the other belt? I want that other belt!”
Vince walked in and tried to calm him down. "Geez Bret, take it easy. We'll use one belt for the pictures. No big deal."
Dynamite and Davey met Bret and Jim six weeks later in Florida. Dynamite was 40 pounds lighter and could barely walk. As they made their way toward the ring, Davey had his bulldog Matilda on a leash and was walking as slowly as possible for Dynamite's sake. Then as was choreographed, Bret’s manager Jimmy Hart pretended to deck Dynamite with a megaphone before Dynamite could even climb into the ring.
Dynamite went down and Davey went into the ring to face his two brothers-in-law alone.
The match had to be quick since Dynamite was supposedly unconscious on the floor.
Toward the end, Jimmy Hart distracted Davey while Jim Neidhart clobbered him as hard as he could with the megaphone. In real life, Jim was a dirty brute. He really did hit Davey as hard as he could. Davey saw stars. Then Jim set Davey up for “The Avalanche,” their finishing move. He put Davey in a bear hug, lifting him off his feet, while Bret hit the ropes, jumped up in the air and clothes-lined him in the face. At that point, Davey let Bret pin him. It was a spectacular finish.