When I was a kid I remember hearing stories about wrestling. My older brother Steve told me that when our family lived in St Laurent a working class suburb of Montreal he played football on the street with Killer Kowalski. Killer was a professional wrestler not an ECE worker in case you were wondering. Killer’s claim to fame in our house was that he accidentally in the ring bit the ear off Yukon Eric. I wasn’t surprised because my Mom told the story about a date she had with Don Leo Jonathan. I imagined what Don Leo would be like as a Dad. My poor father I can only imagine what he thought.
It should not be a surprise then that as I was growing up in Ottawa my older Brother often accompanied me to wrestling at the Ottawa Civic Centre. Gran Prix Wrestling was what it was called. I was fond of Mad Dog Vachon and Paul the Butcher Vachon. I watched Calgary Stampede Wrestling religiously every Saturday. Black and white TV. I can still see this one wrestler who was kind of skinny and a bit of a geek Eric Frohlich. I have no idea why he comes to mind but in my minds eye. remember he always had these end of show matches that lasted until the show was over. He was filler.
When WWF now WWE hit the airwaves well….! That was gold. And it was around the time we got a color TV. Wow. Wrestling nirvana
I became a little political around this time and I admit there was competition for my time, money and interest. Hockey and Canadian football too. I soon realized that there was some ummm politically incorrect aspects to wrestling. Ok more than some. But as someone told me “I get all the politically incorrect nonsense but I think it is just silly”. I could live with that.
When I took over the lead of the Pape Adolescent Rersource Centre ( a centrte for youth leaving care) I created at the request of young people “The Man Group” (Male Action Network) WE met at least once a month on a Sunday evening had KFC and iut just so happened our meetings coincided with the WWE pay per views which none of the young men could afford. Well one thing led to another lets say.And today my youngest likes. Wrestling. Surprise! He likes it as much as MineCraft. So I am going to share this page with him. I hope he will contribute. As I write this he is a little skeptical but he will come around. Lol.
