WrestleMagic Team Talks The Dynamite Kid

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, trolls and marks the light. Welcome one, Welcome all to another episode of Wrestle Magic. Now, if you guys know where I actually pulled that from. You guys are a big YouTube fan, you know what I'm talking about. But anyways, tonight's episode, we're going to be covering somebody who really helped the

industry back in the eighties, the Dynamite Kid and helping me today. And why I keep saying, we somebody who's been a really great influence on me throughout my life, somebody who I have looked up to for a long time. My uncle, my friend. No, not Michael. So I'm talking about six Pack Timothy Gross, his brother Tim. How are we doing tonight, man, I'm doing good. It's good to see a Maverick. And

that's awful kind of you to put those words that way. Absolutely, man, So let's just dive right into it, man, because I remember you talking to me about this guy as a kid. I didn't know much about him. So I really became an adult and really started looking into this dark history of this guy, but also some light parts to it. But yeah, so let's get into it. We're going to talk tonight about the Dynamite

Kid. Definitely a polarizing figure. You have a guy that he's done just about everything as far as tag team wrestling and innovating, and then at the same time too, on the other end of the spectrum, he's done some well allegedly done some pretty dark things agreed, as well as paving the way for those like Eddie Guerrero, Chris ben wah jusin thunder Liiger and many others.

He's known for some terrible things as well as some great things. I mean, he was kind of one of those guys who proved you don't have to be Hogan Sina and the rock size to really show great skill set, and that is something that I feel is really admirable to do when you're, you know, not the biggest guy. You're somebody that almost anybody can look to and say, I kind of want to be like that guy, and

it's still unachievable goal as long as you put the work in. He you know, he's one of those guys that managed to stay relevant even though he did not have the size that but at the same time too, we're talking about one of the first guys hitting moves like the superplex, absolutely, and it is well known about how stiff he was in the ring, and I'm not talking about like stiff performance wise, but when he was hitting a move, it looked like it hurt a little bit extra than anybody else hitting it.

He just looked like when he'd punch you, he'd look so much harder with it. His clotheslines just looked so much more crisp and so much harder hitting. Let's get into it start of his career. Where exactly did Dynamite Kid start this stuff? Off Man was born gold Born in England and he started doing a construction with his father. His father was an ex boxer. He mentions that his father trained him and fisticuffs a bit when he was young.

His dad went on to do construction and that's where he met a man by the name of Ted Bentley. Ted Bentley wasn't he involved with the snake Pit Jim and Wigham Uk. Ted Bentley, who I guess at one point had wrestled as a doctor death moniker, who took him to meet Billy Riley where the shoot fighters and the pro wrestling would meet. You had guys with that old school hooker mentality, just vicious. That's probably where Dynamite first learned

to be so freaking mean and so effective in the ring. So he eventually started training with a guy by the name of Billy Chambers and by the age of sixteen, he was ready to make his debut his first match against the guy by the name of Bobby Hums. I just have one question there, Tim, You said he was a hooker. You said he was working the street corners out there, buddy. You know, times were tough back then. You had to do what you had to do to make ends meet.

So a hooker, you hear that term applied to guys like Billy Robinson or Luthz And the idea was that was the old school grapplers that were if you were going to try to shoot or pull some Now this is the time where wrestling was moving from a lot of the more legit grappling aspects to more fictional for entertainment purposes. There would be a lot of people in different territories that would try to take something on you and try to try to gain a little

bit something from your reputation by hurting you in the ring. They were known for being vicious wrestlers. These were guys who knew that legitimate, real mma style as well as the performance aspect, right right, So almost like a h I kind of want to compare that to almost like and Shamrock almost of today, just a way that you see him as in the ring, if you were to try to do let's say, you were to try to be too stiff with him, once he'd get you in like an ankle lock or

something. He knew how to actually do it so it would actually hurt you type of things that. Yeah, that's a that's an interesting way. You have people who were then trained in legitimate bone breaking arts, you know, and that's these guys. Could you know, a Luths could snap you if he really wanted to, and it wasn't just bs, you know. The Dynamite kid is learning this hardcore smash mouth style from his connections with Ted Bentley,

who was training him. Bentley gave him a chance by contacting Max Crabtree. Crabe not familiar with him, which promotion was he a part of? Now, let's put it this way. His brother was surely Crabtree, which is known as Big Daddy. So we're talking the seventies and catch wrestling style, you know England. From there, Dynamite got his first televised match against the Guy, a fellow by the name of Pete Meredith. He I worked with Big Daddy a lot. From his own words, he was usually the

underneath guy. He was the guy that, you know, they would have a tag match and you'd have one tag partner. You see it all the time. He goes in there, he gets the crap kicked out of him and it builds up the big hot tag. So when he brings his partner in, the guy can come in like a house of fire, get the big victory, send the crowd home happy and Dynamite. So complaints is that, Well, he was young, he could bump, you know, and

Big Daddy would come in look like the big hero. And so he was there in the European you know catches catch can wrestling, working with fellas like Haystacks Calhoun and ken Do Nagasaki and Mark Rollerball, Roco Rollerball rock O.

Why is that name vaguely familiar? I've heard this name before, sir, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're thinking of Black Tiger, which is what he became later on. Another smash mouth style kind of wrestler and Dynamite had a lot of good things to say about them, that these are the guys he sort of cut his his teeth with and about the age of eighteen, he got his first his first actual title. So this is about

we're talking nineteen seventy six. Oh wow, so that's seventy seven maybe beyond me man, Yeah, yeah, that's me too as a matter of fact. But the Dynamite Kid is he's already showing people. And it was Ted Bentley who came up with the name Dynamite Kid. By the way, according to what Tom Billington says, Bentley had asked a young man, hey, would you like this fellaw's autograph? He was sitting there with Tom Billington and

he's like, hey, would you like this guy's autographs? He's a great wrestler, he's the Dynamite Kid. And he looked at Billington He's like, hey, you know how to spell the word dynamite, you know, and kind of pats him on the back. So that was his first autograph, and it was Bentley who came up with the name. And he's stuck with his entire career. So that's kind of interesting, and it was there in nineteen seventy eight that Bruce Hart had witnessed him. And that's when you say

heart. Are we talking like Heart foundation style heart or who we talk about? Man? That's absolutely you're dead on. We're talking about Stuhart's son, and we're talking about Stampede Wrestling and Calgary and you have the you know, the young hearts there. You got a bunch of people like Junkyard Dog. There are young Hercules, Hercules Hernandez and this is a chance for a dynamite

kid. He goes over there, he's working young Jim Knight Hart Abdullah the Butcher, and it was from there that he got his chance to go to Germany with Brett Hart. So it was during these these eras he first meets Storre Seyamu wrestling as Sam e Lee and sat Just. Also during this time he meets j Yd wrestling in Stampede, who I believe was a big daddy ritter at the time, and he says, this is when he first started

getting introduced. This is about nineteen seventy nine to steroids. Incredible as a wrestler, the Dynamite was already going out there and pressing people with this hard work. Unfortunately he was dabbling a little bit, which becomes much of an issue later on, as we're going to get to right, right, I mean, from what I've seen and heard, a big part of his career and his life later on is heavily affected by the drug use and whatnot,

and it really does scr up a lot of parts of his life. I've heard a lot of stories about apparently Jyd just used to be, like, I don't know, a distributor, just the gateway for almost everybody, it seems like, to like start getting into these drugs and everything. But regardless

of that, where does it go from here? Man? He bet a fellow by the name of Hadachi who got him a chance to wrestle in International Wrestling Enterprise, And this is the first time he worked in Japan, and he apparently did well enough that he got a chance to from other promoters to come and wrestle Tatsumi Fujinami and who was at this time the WF Junior light

Heavyweight Champion. Right right, and whenever you say like any kind of junior heavyweight title kind of brings me to thinking about iwgp's junior heavyweight title and just how it is considered one of the higher ones to be held in Japan, and how so many have held it that are considered the rising stars. You

know, Liger has held it multiple times. I believe Nakamora held it at a very young age as well, And it's one of those things that I believe is just known as a badge of honor over in the Japanese side of wrestling. Absolutely, he goes and he gets a chance to work Fujinami. He also gets a chance to work a guy's like a noocchi and choshu and tag bouts and such, and he's still working Stampede at this time. This is we're talking about. We're getting about nineteen eighty and his manager at the

time is called a guy called John Foley. Fully sort of interesting. There are some dark rumors surrounding him, which we will get to. All right, So around this time, would you say this is uh, wasn't it eighty two? Where he eventually has his matches with Tiger Mask, And these are considered some of the best matches that like even mcfoley talks about as a young man. He kept rewinding him just watching these matches in like slow motion.

At the point where he's like breaking tapes of it. Not necessarily how well the moves are always executed, but the speed and the precision and just everything about the match itself was just so well done that so many people are really captivated by it, especially at the time, and it really does come in later on with from what I've heard, that was one of his greatest

works was I believe it was nineteen eighty two at the time. There's an excellent match with Tiger Mask versus the Dynamite Kid for the adopt Off Light Heavyweight Championship in Madison Square Garden and it's great. You can hear Vince mcmahonon commentary, you can hear Guerrilla Monsoon, and during this Gorilla Monsoon refers to them as the future of wrestling, and he was right. Tiger Mask is doing things like whipping his opponent into the corner, he runs and he climbs up

them and does a backflip off it. He's doing things like the moon Salt, He's doing dives to the outside. From his matches with Tiger Mask in eighty two to eighty three, he's really set the standard that people would try

to emulate. Later. You're seeing some incredible stuff, right, and honestly, the way that I could compare seeing some of the stuff that was done in those matches, the way that I can kind of describe it today as almost like watching a match of well Osprey or maybe Ricochet in a way. The way that they work with outside dives, the moon salts, everything that they do. This was kind of brand new back in the eighties because it was more, how do I describe it, a different kind of show.

I'm going to tell you you didn't see high flying. Then you'd see a match, you know, a wrestler would come out and some leagues more so than others. A WBF, that's what it was at the time, is the World Wrestling Federation didn't have high flyers so to speak. That you'd refer to a guy's being agile, and you know you had Jimmy Snook on such but really towards the end of the match you would do a big flying splash.

Most of the time, these guys would hit a lot of drop kicks and a crossbody block, and that's what really that's the type of moves that you'd expect. You didn't see people doing dives to the outside. It did not come around often at all. Let me tell you the first time I saw it, it was people like, of course Dynamite and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, who were you know, another legendary performer who pushed work rate as

it was. But I guess the difference between say them and someone like a Ricochet will Ospray and there's nothing I'm not trying to take anything away from those guys, you know, Ricochet and Osprey a fantastic workers, is that it looked so legit with Tiger Mask and Dynamite. They were just they still worked hard as hell. They were slugging each other with these these shots that had old school smash mouth style pro wrestling with every shot, and it didn't look

like an aerial exhibition. It didn't look like some sort of festival for spots. It looked like they were trying to hurt each other. And I think that's why a lot of people still cherish a lot of these matches today, because they walk that that sort of edge, you know, on the you know, between being fantastic entertainment and still being brutality that makes you believe it's kind of a fight, right right, And that's something that the way that

I kind of see wrestling today is there's two sides to the spectrum. For those diehard fans, really you've got the people that are more on the side of Jim Cornett, where it's like, hey, I want this to look at least somewhat realistic, so I don't have to suspend belief. I want it to look like, yeah, this is something that could happen in a fight. Whereas whereas then there's people like Meltzer who are like, you know

what, I just want to be entertained. So what if they're you know, all doing a flip off the top rope and almost like everybody doing it in sequence or something like that. If it's entertaining, let it go type of thing, which I get it. I can understand both sides, but realistically it feels like that was just a best of both worlds, and seeing clips of it and everything, it's like these guys really did it and really tried their best to do both at the same time, and they perfected it

somehow just right. Oh it was, Yeah, there's something there that's just you know, different. You're not seeing something that just looks practice, I guess, is what I'm saying. It doesn't look like they're cooperating. And interesting enough, you mentioned Meltzer. He actually the second match, the second five star match he ever gave out in his ratings, according to him, was Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid, which is interesting, right. He's very

well known for giving out ratings to certain matches. I know that a few years ago he had gave was it Kenny Omega and Kazushido Okada, I believe the first ever six star and ever since then it's kind of gone off the rails with the rating system. But yeah, no, that's I guess that's kind of how it goes when something just blows your mind to the point where

you're like, I didn't think it could be this good. Tiger Mask eventually leaves New Japan, and those matches they had at that time were absolutely those two together, they were timeless. But Dynamite continues, you know, with his career, and he's now working in places like Portland where he's in a group called the Klan with men like rip Oliver and the Cuban Assassin and this it is here that he he starts meeting Billy Jack Haynes and Kurt Hennig.

Who have you know, mister Perfect an incredible wrestler. Hennick of course isn't quite the size and such that he was in later years. But right off the bat, if you see these early matches in eighty three, you can tell that you know, Hennig is going to be something special and right because Hennig he became mister Perfect, right, I mean that's yeah, Kurt Well right, and that was after he uh not not only you know, he went to the AWA became a champion there and such. It's I I'm I'm

kind of a mark for mister perfect. So I really think he could have been a world you know, contender, but I don't think. I guess maybe at the time in the WWF that wouldn't have worked as well. You always had a face led champion, you know, a face champion, a baby face, and you know, maybe he didn't work that as well that way. But going on though, right off the bat, he's working these great guys. He's in his own words though, he's starting to hit the

story. It's pretty hard and the Dynamite Kid is now up to two twenty five, especially because you know he's describing Henneg as small and Hennig's you know, a bit taller than him and such. He starts to get Davy Boy Smith, who's his brother in law. I believe I believe that was his cousin of some sort from what I had heard and seen. I heard that they were cousins. His brother in law actually ended up being a Brett Harp believe it or not. Yeah, I think you're correct. My apologies.

So he gets Davy Boy and they start wrestling in New Japan as a team, and he's also working singles matches with a guy known as the Cobra, which is George Takano. He's who he's worked in the past, but this was sort of they did the best they could. Tiger mask is gone now and they start bringing in a black Tiger, which of course was the before mentioned Mark rollerbral Roco's about at the time of eighty four or so, say hey, I'm a contact Dynamite tries to get him to work with you for

UWF. And if you've heard of the UWF, it was sort of a promotion that was supposed to be a combination of the entertainment with a very heavy aspect going towards realism and mixed martial arts style fighting. They didn't want to do a bunch of backdrops and you know, they didn't want people flying off the top rope, and so you have people like Sayama and Akiramita there. Billington declines the offer, and Uwa did have some success later, but then

after that they kind of, you know, kind of fizzled out. And during this time he's still working with of course Calgary Wrestling and such. He's going all over the place after Tiger Mask, and the after Tiger Mask had

left, he starts to work with Giant Baba in All Japan. There was a kind of a shift there and in Japan All Japan was starting to gain quite a bit of a credibility in traction with better wrestlers and such, and that's where they're attracting people like the Funk brothers, you know, Terry and his brother Dory. Where uh, that's you know, the British Bulldogs as they would eventually become, are now working. They're not the Bulldogs yet.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you. You're gonna say something. Oh no, I was just gonna ask about so Terry and Dory Funk. Weren't they from Texas or something? Like that. Oh, absolutely, Amarillo, Texas. These are the guys who they eventually Terry Funk started the Funk You University and the absolutely yeah, Amroillo, Texas. And so these are old school, you know, mid South kind of kind of brawlers, and they had some fantastic matches. These guys are just beat the hell out of

each other. There's some great ones with the Funk Brothers take also taking on uh Bruiser Brody and Jimmy Snooka during this kind of era in all Japan. I highly recommend it, but not gonna be for the faint of heart. There's a lot of blood and these are very stiff shots. Yeah, Dynamite right up his alley, and he liked Terry Funk right off the bat, who was kind of a prankster and a goofball just like he was, right.

I mean, I've heard a lot about uh, there's a lot of ribbing back in the day from what I've heard, and ribbing for you guys who don't know, meaning that there was a lot of pranks that went on, but there was some people who really were against it because you know, ribbing on somebody it could be anything from you know, taking a dump inside their gym bag or whatever, to shaving their head while they're asleep, stuff like that. But some wrestlers who were like out of the road for a

long time, they just didn't find it funny. After it's like, hey, I've been you know, away from home for you know, two months. Now this is all I've gotten. You're really gonna, you know, defecate on everything I have type of thing. But you know, that sort of stuff going on, and but yeah, please continue, tim, this

is amazing stuff. Well it's it's it's it's interesting that you go that way, you know, that route, because yeah, he and he and Davy boy Smith are eventually known for doing some pretty ridiculous and some pretty hard the type of ribs at you you start to think yourself, is that really a joke? And one of their favorites actually is cutting up other wrestlers clothes with scissors while the guy's out wrestling, going into the guy's bag. But anyhow,

after his time there, this is back in Calgary. He's also wrestling in Calgary and all Japan at the time, and that's where he and Brett Hart when they're wrestling each other end up getting the attention of a man named George Scott who works with Vince McMahon. And this is where they get their first invitations to go down and do some matches for some television tapings. He and Brett Hart they travel down there and they wrestle and he says, they

do a couple of matches. They do some tag team matches as well, and such. This is without Davy Boy. He complained about what they were paid. Actually, he says it was something like the equivalent of twenty five dollars each. That's not, you know, not very good. But then they were promised, hey, you come back, we're doing a loop and we're going to be doing a bunch of house shows in New York. It's

gonna be good money. And when he returned, and at this time, Vince McMann is also working with Stampede a little bit, he meets Vince McMahon. Vince takes a look at him and Davy Boy, who Dynamite has told him about. He says, I got this, I got this, cousin. Excuse me, you know, cousin. Vince looks at them and he was like, you know what, you guys look like a couple of bulldogs, you know, they're wide, they're angry looking that it was Vince who

came up with the idea of the British Bulldogs. Interesting always leave it up to Vince first some good character ideas. But then again, you know, one of his ideas for a Stone Cold's character was supposed to be Baron von Frost and stuff like that. So not a ways, but I think he hit the nail on the head with this one, hey, you know, and that's that's Vince boy. He's the guy who changed the business. And

he also, you know, he's come up with the Undertaker. He also came up with Bastrom Booker, so let's put that in you know, perspective there. So they he was the one who came up with them wearing the Union jack, you know, British design, and he was also the one that decided that they would come out with bulldogs. And Vince has come up with some pretty hokey things, you know, He's we could have been worse, we could have been the red Rooster, you know. So all we

had to do was walk a couple bulldogs to the ring. It wasn't so bad and it did go over well with the crowds. They you know, they start to take off. Vince is building towards WrestleMania two, and during this time the Heart Foundation has started off in the WBF, the Oo Brett is there as well. You know, things are you know, really growing.

A Dynamite Kid and Davy Boy are still working some matches in All Japan where he meets Mitsuhara Masawa, another fantastic wrestler, another Dave Meltzer favorite, another five star kind of wrestler. At this time, Misawa's wrestling as Tiger Mask Number two. They're having pretty good matches and such. Though Misawa was a different kind of Tiger Mask than Seyama was. He was less agile, less acrobatic, more more of a heavyweight, but still a very good wrestler

and a little less theatrical in general. That's miss Sawa. Any match you watch with him, he doesn't give a lot of emotion to the crowd, but between working All Japan and working the WF, he's doing quite well. And in WrestleMania two, they've decided that the British Bulldogs should get the tag team titles in Chicago now and in WrestleMania two, that's the one where Vince decided with close circuit television and such. He was going to book out three

arenas make the most money. Could you have to understand, folks, this is before standard pay per view as we know it. And so he has Hogan wrestling King Kong Bunde and a steel cage in Los Angeles, Hrandy Savage and George the Animal Steel for the Intercontinental title. In New York. You also have the Dream Team Brutus Beefcake, Greg the Hammer Valentine taking on the Bulldogs. And that's in Chicago. And this is nineteen eighty six WrestleMania two.

A smashing success. An odd finish to the match, though, I have to say, did you ever watch that match? So I've seen some clips of it, but I have not seen the finish of it, so please elaborate. It's an odd finish the ideas, I guess. The maneuver they use is referred to as a sort of sacrifice maneuver that only and Jean Anderson would use, where one tag team partner would slam the head of an opponent into his own partner. So it's like a forced head butt where you

grab your enemy and you slam it into your buddy's face. And that's what the British Bulldogs did. They wrestle a pretty good match with Beefcake and Valentine and at one point you can see Dynamite on the second row. He starts patting his head to get Davy Boy's attention. Davy Boy smacks Greg the Hammer's

head into his Greg the Hammer goes down like he's completely out. Davy Boy Smith gets the pinfall for the three before a brutus Beefcaken interrupt But what you don't see real well in the footage, and I highly if you watch this match, I highly recommend you check it out slow motion if you have to. The fall Dynamite Kid takes is ridiculous. You know, it's a head

butt to headbutt. He is standing on the second rowe and he falls from there got to be a good nine feet onto concrete and the camera doesn't even capture it that well. The crowd saw it and it was pretty intense, and I'm sure that's what he was trying to do, is show you a big, incredible moment, but it was a little disappointing when you watch it on you know, on footage, people miss it a lot. We all know about the infamous Mick Foley falling off of the Hellena cell after being pushed

off by Undertaker and falling through the announcer table. Could you imagine if the camera just didn't catch that. Now we have the British Bullbox as the World Tag Team Champions, and this is about the time they have Matilda as their manager or their mascot. I guess, but right, who exactly was Matilda again? Just remind me please, I'm a little lost on that. Matilda was just a bulldog. She was a sweet little dog that Vince gave them.

Dannymite talks about this in his book and he says that what they would do to try to get Matilda to chase some of the villain's managers and such, whether it's Bobby Heenan or Slick or whatever, is that he would have asked one of them to go up and keep taking her toys, or he said, they would ask Slick to kind of kind of prod her a little bit with his cane, to kind of piss her off all the time, so that Matilda actually hated these guys and didn't know much better. Sometimes it

worked. If you watch some of these old matches, you can see they get in the ring with Matilda and she'll go right after Jimmy Hart's megaphone or whatever, and that's you know, it looks great for television. That is interesting to hear about how they potentially did a little bit of animal training to get a little bit of a reaction and a little something just you know,

having oh, even the animal doesn't like him sort of thing. And just she's that well in sync with the team that she was the mascot for. That's interesting and I like that. So they're tag team champions at this point. They're kind of just going up and up in popularity. Yeah, what goes on next with them? Man around this time in eighty six, he has a match with he's tagging with Davy boy Smith and they're taking on Orton. This is Randy Orton's father, Bob Orton, Bob Cowboy Orton, and

his tag team partner that magnificent Morocco Don Morocco. During this bout, he's working against Morocco and he gets whipped into the ropes. Dynamite is supposed to jump over him and hit the opposite ropes, and he said there was something about the leap that he pulled his back right there in the middle of it, so he hits the other side, jumping over his opponent, and then

from there he kind of collapses. I believe that after that he had to have surgery on his back, and I believe it was something along the line of having two discs pulled out of his back. Afterwards just being removed completely. This is where he started to experience some big problems. First of all, he couldn't finish the match very well. He ended up just laying there. He kind of drags himself over, He tags Davy Boy, who ends

up finishing the match, and from there he's now injured. Transport him back home to Calgary. Actually he's in the hospital. In his own words, Davy Boy only came to visit him when he came with He arrived with his wife. They showed up, they got a photo for the local newspaper in Calgary, and then they left. And as far as Tom Billington says, he claims that that was that was probably it. You know that Davy Boy apparently didn't give a damn and they were just doing it for you know,

exposure, you know, for you know, for press and sucks. So it's hard to say whether Davy boy really didn't care about him or what. But that's kind of how he paints the picture. After this, that's when Dynamite started to go a little downhill, right, I mean he had the injury and everything at that point. I don't want to say you're becoming useless, but you're going to have a little bit less of everything at that point,

at least during the healing process. And according to h I had watched the Dark Side of the Ring episode about Dynamite Kid, and people claimed, yeah, he wasn't out for very long. He was out for maybe two weeks and tried to get back in the ring already after that, even though he was told he shouldn't be anymore. And it was claimed that at that point that is when they were told that they had to drop the titles because well, you know, you're heard at that point, they don't want to

absolutely just destroy this man's body completely. He actually, from what he describes, he's twenty eight at this time, and he's finally told by a doctor where he hears the words over there like maybe you should find another career. So you're twenty eight and you're already be told, hey, this is enough for you. He's refusing that, and he's talking about yeah, not only he's having the problems with his back, he had issues with his leg.

His left leg was apparently not responding correctly and there were some signs of paralysis. Though it did come back to him and Brett Hart did come to visit him, and while there bretton here talking, Brett says, and would like it if I can maybe take the title back with me. We have to continue. We have stuff we got to do, you know, things have to go on, you know. Dynamite refuses to give him the title.

Brett Hart returns back to you know, the Federation and apparently tells Vinces, who then calls Billington later, can't you know, have you know a belt that's not being defended. You know, let's you know, let's figure this out. And the solution they came up with is they have the Dynamite kid, who's now been training for a little bit, return with Davy Boy and he they walked to the ring. I remember watching this as a kid.

They're walking to the ring arm in arm, which is such a strange and by that, I don't mean they're working with their arm around each other, like, hey, buddy, how you doing, like if you put your hands on your hips and there's someone else doing the same thing and you sort of link at elbows. He walks down the ring side with him like that because apparently the Dynamite Kid just could not walk correctly, and this is what

they had to do. So they get there. Jimmy Hart's megaphone is used against him so he can be knocked out at ringside, the Heart Foundation, jim Knightheart and Brett Hart end up wrestling Davy Boy in what's almost a handicap match. They have Dangerous Danny Davis not quite yet, but the referee Danny Davis, who they start to show is a heel referee going against the faces

and the good guys of the WWF. He keeps checking on Dynamite on the outside in a way that it keeps allowing the Heart Foundation to just keep working, almost like a handicap match against Davy Boy. Of course, this leads to them getting the titles after several double team maneuvers, and that's that. Danny Davis ends up working with the Heart Foundation in a WrestleMania appearance against the

Bulldogs. During this time, it's just interesting seeing how his performance really just kind of flattens out for a little bit, and you can tell it's just different from how he was. It's a little bit disappointing and a little bit heartbreaking. Know that guy is twenty eight. I'm twenty five right now, and that feels like, man, that's only three years away from me.

I didn't really realize that. I do understand businesses business. Maybe they should have just vacated the titles and said, well, look, go a little bit reality with it and just say, hey, you know, the champion was injured, but he wants to fight back for the titles, So we're going to hold a you know, tag team tournament or whatever for whoever's going to win the belts, and then you know, they'll be able to try to win him back or whatever while he recovers and then is able to come

back for it. You know, maybe they should have thought about some around those lines to get him at least interested and not too upset about the whole situation. I guess, maybe not have his pride in the way of things. Yeah, well, what are you going to do there? You have a situation. The show must go on, and the WWF is getting so much momentum and at this point you got to realize too, the Bulldogs are

they're in a great position. You know, you have this league that's exploding at the time, and you've got to do what you've got to do. Business is business. Anyways, they use this to build towards the big match at WrestleMania three, and you know, Billington has been training and working out again. And the thing is he's at that age he's doing so many steroids. He's he describes himself at one point that he's doing steroids. He's doing

cortizone shots. You're not supposed to take cortizone all the time. It's not supposed to be something that you just do once a week, and that's how he's describing it. And it's supposed to be something you'd take maybe twice a year or also can damage the joints and the muscles in your body, which comes back to him later. But Dynamite Kid Tom Bellington, he sort of lived for the moment. He just kept kept rocking on, kept going right

right, And something that was mentioned by Jacques Roujeau. He had said that he remembered at one point seeing Billington walking around in the locker room. He had a needle sticking out of his butt and it's just kind of like moving and just dangling there, and he's like yelling, I'm gonna have a great match that night, and then he just sees him walk out and he's just kind of like scarred for life watching as this dude's just walking around with his

needle just flailing out of his butt like that. Well, that's there's so many stories about the guy. I believe it's the Honky Tonk Man mentions dynamite Kid gives himself a shot with a steroid at one point, you know, right in the ar's cheek. He would just throw the needle, you know, like on the ground or whatever. You know, didn't even bother with the trash at the time. It wasn't even like he was trying to hide

the steroid usage, but a lot everyone was doing it. I guess at the time there was something that I had seen as well about uh Spivey had talked about, Uh yeah, a lot of guys they would just shoot up and then they would throw it into a wall like it was a dart. And he called everybody that was in the locker room just idiot wrestlers. But that was just how it was back then. That's who they were. You know. It's easy for us to laugh, but I guess they were.

They were living like rock stars. They had that mentality that you know, you had that much testosterone, that that much ego in the room and people are going to act like tough guys. They're they're destroying their bodies. But at the time they were. It was what they needed. It was what they needed that boost. I might not agree with it, but that's what they did. Unfortunately, Dynamite Kid was doing it like crazy and he's having all sorts of problems. So he and the Davy Boy Smith are starting to

have some issues. And it's about this time when they had a day off, I guess they decide to fill in the match for in Stampede Wrestling, you have to understand the Bulldogs did not sign to a major contract like a lot of other wrestlers did. They wanted to still be free to go wrestle in All Japan Pro Wrestling or Stampede or wherever they liked to make as much money as they could. Dynamite was always booking based on how he could,

you know, build his bank account, which is smart it's business. You've got to make the money where you can. But a lot of wrestlers you work for the WWF focus on that it's the you know, the big coming league, and that's what Vince wanted obviously. That was the way the future is that people would work just one specific league and one you know, travel

with just that. And he did get in trouble for filling in doing a match in Stampede, and that's what Vincent took, like, Hey, even if you're not signed to a contract, you're not going to go work you know, some indie and you know, the North American leagues and such, and that's not the way it works, you know. So she's a little controlling, but I get it. You want your league to be almost exclusively

just who you have on your roster. To an extent, I understand Vince's point of view on that that if you're working other places, it diminishes the you know, the World Wrestling Federation. And as a wrestling fan, maybe I didn't like it at the time, but I guess I understand Vins's motivations. It helped him to become the promoter that he did. Concepts like that, right, right, So yeah, moving on from there him coming back from Stampede. So, I think we know what people kind of want to

hear about. Let's start to move into the Rougeau incident and some of the things that happened in the locker room Man In nineteen eighty seven, he first worked with them in the Survivor series. He tagged up with the Killer Bees, the Strike Force, the Rougeaus, of course, and the Young Stallions when they took on Demolition the Islanders, the Heart Foundation and the tag team of Dino Bravo and Greg Valentine. The Bulldogs were eliminated by the Islanders.

The Young Stallions and the Killer Bees end up going on to win the bout. He describes not liking the Rouge's. He says that when you were around the Rougeau's Jacques and Raymond Rougeau, who are French Canadians, and he claims that they would talk to each other in their own language, and it made you feel like you were outside of the inside Joe. He describes them not

being very popular with the rest of the roster anyway. The whole incident seemed to come about when Kurt Hennig, mister Perfect, who was quite the River himself decided to snip up some of the clothes of the Rougeau's and apparently made it look that the British Bulldogs were behind it, which was not a surprise because they had done this to several other people. Interesting some of the ribbing coming back again to haunt them in a way, but you know, it's

just how the business was at the time. Dynamite claims that, well, this is one of the times we did not do it, and Jacques Rougeau, according to Kurt Hennig, had you know, stooged them out to Vince McMahon or someone he said or was trying to. So he walks in during a card game that Kurt Hennig is having with Jacques Roujeau and a Raymond who

is also there. Dynamite walks in with sort of an entourage. He has Bad News Brown with him and Don Morocco and a couple other guys he's friendly with, and he walks up in this blasts Jacques Rougeau in the side of the head kind of palm strikes from behind and knocks knocks Jacques right out of his chair, and Jacques is trying to be reasonable with him. Hey, what's going on? Why? Why? Why are you angry at me? What's going on? And his brother Raymond has to step in. And it's

interesting because there's a couple different arguments on this. One is that Dynamite claims he knocked out both of them in his own words, and in Raymond Rugeau's is that he, you know, he socker punched his brother, Jacques Rujeau, and then that was basically it. Then he had left, and Raymond Rougeau was known for being kind of tough himself. He was a golden gloves

boxer and a lot of wrestlers knew this about him. But he had injured himself previously before this and was on crutches himself, so he wasn't really, you know, a tough guy. Otherwise he claimed he would have tried to step in and actually fight, because Jacques Rougeau was not supposed to be a tough fella at all. I'm not saying he wasn't tough as a pro wrestler,

but he wasn't. He didn't have the reputation that someone like say Dynamite Kid does right right, and seeing the way that he even talked about himself, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to carry himself to be like

not really looking for fights or anything. But from Rougeau's own words in Dark Side of the Rings, special about the Dynamite Kid was he had talked to his father about like what to do, because he was kind of plotting revenge at that point, taking his father's advice, which was go to the bank, get yourself a roll of quarters, and then go ahead get him back,

sucker punch him the way that he did to you. And according to him, he waited and was just waiting for a dynamite after a match, and he said for a week he hadn't looked Dynamite Kid in the eyes, but then that day he was waiting for him, and as he saw him walking over towards him, he said, hey, how's it going. He said, Dynamite Kid lifted his head up, had a coffee in his hand, and then as soon as he lifted his head up, immediately just punched

him straight out of the chin. And he said, you know those monster movies that you see as a kid, and how there's blood spewing everywhere, Well, it's true. I knocked out four teeth and that's the way that it kind of looked at that point, and then I yelled at him, next time, I'll put you in a wheelchair censoring. Of course, Vince McMahon had apparently spoken to them and said, hey, I'm going to talk

to you guys soon, because he knew something was brewing. He knew there was problems, you know, going on this locker, and the Rougeau's knew that if they didn't do something soon, you know, if they've reacted after Vince spoke to them and told them, hey, you know, I don't want any more violence, then that was their jobs. And he went down to one knee and Raymond Rougeau is cheering his brother on, come on, Cohan, try to jab jab jab, you know, to try to take

him out. Raymond can't get involved. He's on crutches. Dynamite is not going down, but he's trying to hold on to Raymond eventually or Jacques Roujeau, and eventually he does when Jacques Hill jabs him enough that he goes down. Bad News Brown gets in separates everyone and after that, the Rougeau brothers go and they immediately go speak to Vince McMahon, who was in the middle of speaking to Hogan at the time, and the Dynamite kid has taken off

to go get his teeth fixed. It was a couple of weeks later Vince brings them all together and he has the Rougeau brothers agree to pay for Dynamite's teeth and drops it at that though the Rougeaus deny that they ever actually paid

to it. They just said it and apparently Vince paid for it, and Dynamite also in his book Pure Dynamite claims that he got his teeth fixed for free, so he pulled one on them anyway, and several wrestlers have stated that that's the point where Dynamite wasn't quite the same guy after that, because his sort of tough guy status and the way he sort of swaggered was changed.

You know, people had seen him fall and he was never quite the same right at that point, it seemed like his ego has started to fall off. Now, one other thing that had happened after the incident, in a little bit of the falling action from all of that, was it gave Dynamite issue some issues with his confidence and everything, and eventually it led to him buying a gun to give to his wife because according to him. Apparently Dino Bravo, who you know, he had his mafia ties and everything and

all that stuff that had went on with his career. Well, apparently he had seen a envelope with you know, Thomas Fillington's family home address names everything in it, and he was telling them like, hey, you might want to be careful. I think Jacques may have done something to prevent any kind

of retaliation. And according to Jacques Roujeau, he set that up that it wasn't actually real, but he made something up that Dino Bravo would believe enough that he would go back to the Dynamite kid and tell him, yeah, you guys better be careful sort of thing, Whereas Jacque Ujaux claims, well, I guess it works. He wasn't gonna bother me again sort of thing. I guess, really trying to get rid of the bully of hard Way. And no, I guess it worked because you never really hear about any

kind of issue after that. If they were working Dynamite a little bit, you know, it's hard to say, can you really blame them, you know, considering all the pranks and stuff he pulled on everyone else, They probably just wanted it to be done. And he also had mentioned that during this time that Chief Ja Strongwoll had or try to buy some steroids off of Tom Billington, and Billington said, well, I just gave him ten bottles or so, and he ended up, you know, also getting fined.

You know, who knows if the steroids were something to you know, tell back to McMahon or you know whatever. Probably not, because Mince was probably doing them too, and the Bulldogs were starting to maybe lose a little bit of favor. You know, there was a lot of bad, bad talk going on about them in you know, the locker rooms and such. And it was a little surprising later on when they were supposed to fly elsewhere and

there's only so many flight coupons that were passed out to the wrestlers. Billington claims that strong Bow, as Vince's agent, seemed to mysteriously not have flight coupons for both he and Davy Boy. He believed at this point that things were starting, you know, that this is a punishment and things were starting to catch up. So he went and he called Giant Baba. Right, what year would you say this was? At this time point, this would

have to be a found nineteen eighty eight. Okay, that makes sense. They finished up their time there doing the Survivor Series match. They were supposed to do bouts with the Brainbusters as well, and apparently Tom Billington did not like he said. Arn Anderson was all right, but he didn't think much of Telly Blanchard, so he instead asked, now, let's just do I don't want to lose to those guys, and so he ends up going to

All Japan and doing some work there. This is around eighty nine. He ends up starting to work Danny Spidey with Stan Hansen, Toshiaki Kawata and the Malankos, Joe and Dean. He had very good things to say about the Malankos, which isn't a surprise. They're fantastic wrestlers and they're not that different from his style. But this is where things start to go, you know, a little off the rails, and it's in Japan. I think. He mentions they go a little harsh on a man by the name of Mitch

snow. Right, you and I talked about Mitch snow a little. He Dynamite Kid was not a fan of Mitch snow He describes Mitch as being a bit of a loud mouth. He said that Mitch Snow had made the claim that, yeah, the bulldogs are never gonna get one over on me, you know, meaning they're never going to pull a big prank on me. You never say, oh yeah, they'll never get me, because then they will find a way to get you. It doesn't matter who it is,

whether it's the Bulldogs or whoever. But if I remember this correctly, So Mitch Snow, according to a few different wrestlers, including Spivey, said yeah, he was a real trash talker all the time, no matter what was going on, in any little situation that he could put his nose into, be like, oh yeah, you really screwed the pooch here for whatever reason.

Now, eventually they had I'm just gonna preface this right now. For anybody that's listening that has a sensitivity to how do I put this things about like assault, date, rape, any of that kind of stuff, you should probably stop listening here because there's going to be mentions of roofees and the store. It only gets darker from here, honestly, So if you can't stomach some darker things that happened in this man's life. You should probably stop

here honestly and live your life. Figure what he was a great guy trigger warning. Yeah, so he had essentially roofeed Mitch Snow and from there he basically collapsed in his hotel room onto the bed, and then Davy Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid they went out the balcony, so they broke into his room.

Apparently they shaved off his eyebrows, shaved his head, took a dump in his gym bag, which I know I mentioned earlier a little bit of foreshadowing, but yeah, they really just kind of screwed this guy up just to show like, oh, you thought that we couldn't get you here? You go? And Tim, we were talking off camera, did you say that something had happened with him having to leave Japan early because of that?

From what I understand, when Don Morocco picks him up for a spike pile driver maneuver, both the bulldogs jumped off turnbuckles and spiked him very hard, and after Mitch Snow is recovering from his problems, Davy Boy did go and damage his stuff. You know, Oh we got him in a prank, but it's you know, he makes it sound so much more innocent than what you describe, right, right, of course he's gonna have his rose colored glasses on and just say, oh, you know we yeah, we uh

just pulled a prank on him. No, that's not what that was. And in the words of Jacqurau show once again, I keep kind of referring back to him because everything that he had said in the special about him, well, they like to rib on people, and you know, it's funny when it's something small time, but man, when you're you know, two months out of the road, it's not funny anymore when you haven't been home that long and this is all your stuff, this is all you have.

It's not funny anymore when you know you haven't seen your family in this long and you're like, man, I've been gone this whole time. This is everything I have and you guys just mutilated my face and my head doing this stuff and you're calling it a prank haha, But you're really just screwing me

over long term. So that's kind of how he had seen it, and it was a pretty good way to describe it, I think, because it might be funny in a way, but realistically it's kind of messed up when you're in the middle of a situation like that, not to mention spiking someone on a pile driver, you know, three person assisted pile driver like that.

Yeah, right, there's that, and then there's also the spiking of the drinks and everything else, and it's like, man, come on, because that's what they had said in the Dark Side of the Ring episode was that they legitimately drugged him. But yeah, that kind of thing. So yeah, he actually does mention later on too, Mitch Snow when he was

going to wrestle in another league. One of the promoters contacts him and says, we got a guy here named Mitch Snow and they would like to make sure that that you're not going to try anything on them, and Dynamite Tom Billington apparently couldn't turn down that temptation, you know, refused to not further harass the man. So so anyways, that's basically how we're ending out nineteen

eighty nine and sort of in the nineties, he does mention. He gets to wrestle Cactus Jack, which is interesting because those of you who know Mick Foley's book and you know what Mick Foley talked about situation with him and Dynamite Kid. Are you familiar with this? Maverick Mick Foley had claimed that it

was that he was still going by just Jack Foley at the time. He had claimed that during the match that ah Man, he said that Dynamite Kid went for a clothesline, and he said it felt a lot less like a clothesline and more like he just clubbed me with his bicep and because of that, it dislocated my jaw and for about three weeks, I wasn't eating any solid food. Said there was no ill will about the whole situation, that it wasn't a huge uproar about it. Nobody was upset with each other.

He said that he shook their hands in the locker room afterwards and thanked them for the match, and then he went back to his hotel room and threw up in the toilet. Yeah, well, Mix a pretty cool guy about getting the hell beat out of him. Yeah, that's that's what I heard as well. Is that Dynamite Kid. I mean, he was known for

that, for doing that, that clothesline, that hooking one. In his own words, he describes his version compared to how Davy Boy would throw a clothesline, and he says, hey, if I'm throwing a clothes line at you, I'm running at you. I'm gonna hook you. You better go down because if not, it's it's gonna blast you. And you can see on those shots it looks like, for those of you who have not watched a lot of them, look at Chris Benoi throwing certain clothes lines, it

looks like, you know, killing the other guy with him. That was like one of his proteges, wasn't it. Absolutely? Oh absolutely, Chris Benoa looks like a carbon copy of him at times. But that clothesline is so so vicious dynamite. It looks like he's catching them with between the bicep

and the forearm right under the neck half the dime, you know. And when Davy Boy would do it, he would he'd blast him with the clothes line and then he would lift off a little bit, you know, he'd hit him with the bicep, you know, and try to connect with the other guy's pectorial. Well, that's what you're supposed to do with the clothesline. It's supposed to be that contact. And he says that, you know,

Davy Boy would he'd hit and he would lift off. He felt that Davy Boy was being too gentle, and Davy's you know comment was like, hey, I don't want to rip a pectorial muscle on you know, somebody else, and din might you know, he would he would lay into and Mick Foley mentions that in his book and they the match you can actually find online as he's jack fully. It actually ends with a top rope belly to back superplex, which is insane to see in the eighties belly to back superplex.

You have to realize how young and inexperienced Mick Foley was at the time. That's not an easy bump to take there. That's you know, that's you know what they were in the past. But in the nineties he gets to wrestle Cactus Jack. Mick is a little more experienced, and Tom Billington's own words, they have a very good match, though he did describe that when Cactus Jack goes to do his classic elbow on the outside, rolls out of the way and left Mick to just take the entire impact himself. Mcfoley

doesn't seem to have any hard feelings about this. Good for him, God, Mick just seems like the nicest sort of guy, like I feel like somebody could pour soup into his lap and then he would apologize to them. Honestly, Mick, we're not talking down on you, man. You're just such a nice guy. If you are listening, you know, right right right, you know everyone loves you. Still dynamite kid. At this point, he and this is the nineties era now and things. This is sort

of the downward spiral of Tom Billington. I hate to say, He's wrestling a lot now in Japan. He's wrestled in stampede with Johnny Smith as both an opponent and as a tag team partner with him and Davy Boy, and he and Davy Boy are starting to end their agreetment as the Bulldogs at the Around this time, Davy Boy takes off back to the WWF and he has trademarked the name the British Bulldogs, and so he didn't he just become the British Bulldog at that point though, he did, yeah, and he showed

up and he was huge. And Tom Billington continues to wrestle with Johnny Smith, oftentimes has the British Bruisers because that's what Johnny Smith had wrestled as Johnny Smith. By the way, it was related to Ted Bentley. He was not related to Davy Boy Smith at all, which is interesting because that's the way they boys presented right. He ends up working the Nasty Boys, and

from his opinion, he didn't think much of them at first. Apparently there's some incident where they had all went to a sushi bar, the Nasty Boys. If you look up interviews with them, Brian Nobbs mentions, hey, we we just forgot We were young, We were drunk and we left a bar tab open, and I guess it reflected on a Dynamite kid and Dynamite

ad started the match with them. He had looked over to Johnny Smith and he'd said, hey, don't give him nothing, which meaning, you know, meaning don't sell for them, don't make them look good, just you know, just beat on him. And that's what he ended up doing.

The match apparently ends where Tom Billington whips Brian Knobbs to the corner. He tells him, hey, stay for the clothes line, and he comes running in and blasts him with a corner clothes line and ends up splitting the guy's lip, you know, giving him a pin and he said the Nasty Boys were cool about it, though maybe they were like Mick Foley, and afterwards he decided he really liked them, good guys. But that's basically how he started ending you know, all Japan in ninety one. This is sort of

the end of his time. He goes to see his father, his own father before he dies in England, who has not seen in about thirteen years. He hates Davy Boys Smith now who's trademarked the name the British Bulldogs so he can't use it himself. He's not working for the WF, he's not working for All Japan, who were not happy about, you know, certain incidents like the Nasty Boys and such. Though they would have still kept booking him, he just decided he was done there. He's working matches in England.

He's doing stuff for Max Crabtree and such. Again. Davy Boy's done some stuff for the Federation and then went off to WCW. He apparently didn't last long in the Fed, and then did some stuff for Crabtree and stuff back in England again and Dynamite shows up at one of the shows and Smith is not there. So Tom Billington just destroys his merchandise. Stan, I guess, and you know, to talk smack about him and such, very very professional and this is a sort of the tail end years for him.

He ends up working a couple more matches. The last bout I believe was in Missionoku. Did you know about that? Would that be the attempt to come back match within nineteen ninety six? I believe, Yeah, I guess.

The idea was they wanted to bring him into surprise Tiger Mask, and so he works against Tiger Mask. He's tagging with Kuniaki Kobashi and dos karras against the original Setoro Seyama as Tiger the Great Sasake who owns Missionoku and Mills Maskarez, and the match itself is okay, but this is pretty much is You can see when he shows up there, he's a shell of the guy he was. He's not been doing the steroids. He's not been it's it's years afterwards. He is now just sort of doing it for the money.

And he mentions himself that he felt embarrassed afterwards because he knew that at this point it wasn't his work rate anymore that was getting him hired. It was his his name it was. That was that was all he had left, right and from what I've heard and what I've seen, his ring gear didn't even fit correctly at that point, because I mean, he was obviously off the steroids at that point. He wasn't big enough to really fit even into his tights at one point for what I've heard, which was spandex. So

that's kind of hard to swallow at that point. In ninety seven, he's now he's been divorced. At this point, he was divorced in ninety one, I believe from his life well correct, we can cover that a little bit later. That was if you guys are still listening, that was, you know, more about what the trigger warning was for for all of you guys that you know may be uncomfortable with that, which, hey, no

harm, no foul if you're not comfortable with it. By ninety seven, he marries his his new wife, Dot who apparently, in his own words, didn't know he was a wrestler. He liked that that that she just met him, and you know, they got along. At that point, he's at the end of it. He's he's seeing doctors and such. He's wheelchair bound. He's friends with Dan Spivey still who was also having a lot of problems of his own, and this is pretty much, I hate to

say, it's the end of the man's career. Go for all the things that he's done and kind of ties up the end. He says that he was proud of a lot of the things he did. He you know, he a five Star match with Tiger Mask, the second one Dave Meltzer ever mentioned. He's had tag the world tag titles in the WBF, in all Japan, he was the WF Junior light Heavyweight Champion. This guy helped Brett

Hart get to where he got to. You know, the matches they had were incredible, and he helped shape him and you know the rest of the Heart family and the others at Stampede, right the guy he helped train Ben Wah. He really paved the way for the guys like Guerrero and Liger and really was just a cruiserweight legend at that point before it was really popular to be that kind of guy. Absolutely. I mean, as far as that high spot style match, he's the guy who innovated both the superplex and the

backdrop superplex, did some incredible stuff so much it's incredible to see. If you watch any of his matches, you will see he's very stiff with a lot of the things that he gives, and he's precise with his move set. And something that's very memorable about him and something that I've only seen him

hit the way he does is his snap suplex. It's oh quick and it looks like it hits hard, and even jocqu Rujeau said, yeah, one second you're standing there and then the next you're just flipped over him and you're gone. You just feel it hitting the mat. You just feel your back hit you, and it's like you just didn't expect it, even though you knew it was about to hit you. His snap super lex is incredible,

and that's you can see that with Ben Wah, Chris. Ben Wah imitates us, which were so many maneuvers and the guy was great, you know, flying head butt from the top rope. Some of his work rate really transcends what you'd expect at the time. It it became the cornerstone for what you would expect for light heavyweight wrestlers. Cruiseweight Wrestling, the two h five Live kind of divisions that that sort of you know, hey, we can wrestle on this, we can do you know, dives to the outside.

These are incredible things, incredible stuff there. On the downside, there's a lot of negatives. And this is I think you and I talked before, and I'd said a little bit of the good, the bad, the ugly. Yep. Yeah, for you guys who are listening, here's what the trigger warning was about. Let's go back to nineteen ninety one. Let's talk about what we talked a little bit off camera about. So, okay, yeah, what are we going to talk about? His wife and the shotgun.

We're going to talk about the family life and things that just happened, and his daughters remember his former wife remembers. So we'll start off with this story, guys, nineteen ninety one. I believe his former wife had said it was New Year's and he comes home with just a bloody face, and his daughter was just terrified. Obviously, I mean her dad just walked in faces bleeding. I think any little kid, that's for anybody that would see that would be like, yo, what is going on? And he comes

over he's like, Ah, don't worry about it. He fell, It's okay, And his wife's a little nervous, obviously for good reason, and eventually she starts talking to him and says, hey, what's going on. He's not really being specific. Eventually it seemed like he had lost his mind. During this time. She tried not to have anybody hurt in the situation, but as she was pregnant with his third child, I believe don my kid had an absolute episode and it seemed like he had lost his mind.

There's a point where she had asked him to leave because of the way he was acting and being and he said, you know what, I think you should leave me, he said. She said, no, you know, I have the kids here, I'm pregnant. I think it would be easier for you to go, and I think you should go back to England. And he told her, you know what, you know, fifteen minutes to get out, and grabbed a shotgun, pointed at her head and said I will blow your effing head off. And at that point she actually called his

bluff. She's just now, yeah, you're not going to do that, and eventually ended up calling the police, who basically told her, well, he said you can leave, just leave, So eventually she did follow the direction of the police operator, who I think is just wow, that has to be one of the worst possible people to be giving you advice at that moment. Oh well, the gunman says, you can leave, just go, this is my house. No, right, right, Why aren't you

helping me? But wow, Yeah, there was a little bit more violent things that went on, Like I guess he had dragged her across the floor by the hair at first, and she had been just traumatized at that point, but she kept trying to like downplay for the kids, like, oh, no, daddy's having a moment. It's okay, he'll leave, We'll be fine. Eventually she and the kids left, and then he left back to England, where he wouldn't be seen for a long time and his daughters

hadn't seen him in what felt like forever. And then a few years later he got remarried to I believe her name was dot you had said in what was it Night? Ninety seven? Later on down the road his daughter was oldest one. I believe her name is Bronwin. Yeah, she had decided, you know what, I'm going to go and see him, just to at least put that effort out there and to try for him and she claims

it was a nice visit. There was even a point where he actually apologized to her for things that he had put the family through and how terrible it was. There's just a lot to that to think about, Like could you imagine witnessing your own family turning against you like that all over what you know? Along with this, there is some rumors that he was in some sort of bare knuckle boxing ring of some sort, and oh geez, Dan Spivey

had talked about it a little bit. I'm not entirely sure how true it is, and from between Tim, you and I, we haven't really found any other substantial evidence besides Spivey kind of hinting and talking about it during the Dark Side of the Ring episode. But it seems like it's possible. Would he have done it? Maybe, but who's to say really besides him And at the end of it all, his wife blame or his former wife,

I should say. Michelle blamed the CTE and depression for what could have happened, and she doesn't really want people to talk down on him, but more of the situation and believes that maybe if there's better concussion protocol and people cared about mental health, that these sort of things wouldn't have happened. But one thing is very surprising and kind of comes to my mind about the whole shotgun incident is and let's address the elephant in the room, the Ben Wah incident.

You know, I mean, where this guy said I'll blow your head off ben Wah actually went through with it. As dark and depressing as that is. I mean, there's other I did not mention this, but in my research over and over keeps mentioning. One of his good friends was also Billy Jack Haynes. Billy Jack Haynes, who's been recently mentioned also in ties

to a tragedy involving a shooting involving his own family. I think it's safe to say that litting your body up with incredible amounts of testosterone and giving yourself concussions over and over is probably not a good idea. I can't agree more. And as of I think a month or two ago, Billy Jack Haynes was arrested for shooting his wife birds of a feather they flocked together. But there's only I mean, there's there's several other things that we did not touch

on while we were discussing. There's several rustlers that mentioned him slipping Halsey on pills and people's strengths to mess with their heads. Oh, of course, the honky Tonk Man. There's an entire bit worthy apparently the honky Tonk Band. Now this is, of course, we're going to rumors here that the the Dynamite Kid was friends with the King, Harley Race, that's what they were calling him at the time, and the w w F Great Wrestler,

legendary guy. Also a very questionable concerning some of the antics. But what according to Dynamite, he had heard that the honky Tonk Band had said something about the the you know, Harley Race, the King when he was away because he was having stomach problems, and made a joke on man, I bet he wishes he had this paycheck that honky Tonk had just got. And he then says he went and he slapped around Wayne Ferris, you beat him

up, and the Honky Talk Band was crying and such. And though if you read anything where the Honky Talk Band's talking about it, he says, it's it didn't quite happen that way. It seems a little, you know, a little bit of an argument whether dynamite actually attacked him. Well, he does mention the dynamite attacked him, but he doesn't say that, you know, he went crying and such. I wouldn't want to tell people that

either. But he says that he never made fun of Harley Race, or if he did, he just laughed at joke someone else that was saying and it wasn't meant to be this serious. He claimed that Bobby he had made some joke and then he laughed and it wasn't supposed to be that serious. And one of the darker things I'd heard was also, did you hear the stuff about John Foley's daughter, John Foley's daughter. Oh, We're getting really deep in the weeds here. I did not know about this. I don't

know how legit this is. I like, this is the best I could do from you know, research. But supposedly John Fully, which was one of his managers in Stampede if you remember back then another English the claim is that Dynamite Kid had broke John Fully's daughter's legs when John Fully had wanted to use her for an insurance claim, not use her, but she had you know, he'd wanted to get more money from an insurance claim, so he

asked Dynamite to break her legs from the knees down. And this is internet rumor, I can't tell you for certain, but still given some of the other stories he's told and such, who knows, who really knows. It's it's hard to tell. I'm not trying to blame the guy, but it's it's difficult when you look at this, this wrestler who's done so many incredible

things for changing work rate itself and changing what people thought was possible. And at the same time too, there's so many stories of sadism, you know, abuse, just these horrible things that he's done, and it's like, man, you really kind of went off the deep end there. But and I know that CDE and the drugs definitely played a part in it, but

man, that has so many of these bad effects. And like we just mentioned Ben Wah and Billy Jack Haynes, these two other guys that most would see them as they had to have gone nuts at that point to be well doing the things that they did. Dynamite had condemned Ben Wah's actions afterwards, and that's interesting saying you know, oh man, you got to you got

to learn how to taper the state. You know, you don't take it out in family members and this that you know, And I mean he didn't pull the trigger on his family, but he certainly pointed it at them. It's there's a certain point where you say to yourself, there are fantastic legends throughout and there are fantastic professional wrestlers, but there's a certain point where you

say, was he really that much of a professional? But as far as his impact on as far as high flying and high spots and work rate and the intense loads wh would do in the ring, he is arguably a legend. I have to agree. He has paved the way for many and at what cost, honestly, potentially is sanity. Body can't just go forever and you can't keep juicing it up hoping for great result. And I think that's where we'll end this one, guys, because we went down the dark path.

We showed you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here it's rough knowing what this man did, but at the same time, it's also great to see what he's done for the profession that he loved so much. But on a lighter note, so Tim, this is your first time on the podcast. Do you have any recommendations for the ADDI it's book, movie, song, just something something we do on Wrestle Magic. So my recommendation. I tried to read as many books by professional wrestlers as I can.

My favorite, I would have to say Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day, and it's extremely relevant to what we're speaking about now. He talks about working with Dynamite Kid and what his experiences were like there. It's also just a fantastic read. So that's my recommendation. Totally totally agree, man, and honestly, guys, I don't know how all of you feel about Dark Side of the Ring. I don't know how you guys feel about, you

know, even what we just did talk about this guy's career. But if I could give a recommendation, that show really does go pretty well in depth. So I will say, if you guys want to know more stuff like this, like I'm pretty sure they went over like the murder of Bruiser Brody and the questionable death of Dino Bravo and stuff like that. If you want to know about that kind of stuff, check them out too. I have

to give them credit. It's narrated by Chris Jericho, which honestly, he's got his own controversy kind of going on recently, but he does it very well. And I have to give credit where it's due for also where I'm getting some of my information. And I have to say it's been a lot of fun here. You guys know where to reach me at maintenance mav on Twitter hit me up, especially if you guys know where I got that intro idea from, because I'd like to see who knows where I got that from.

But anyways, you sound nice for somebody you never know who needs it. And with that, in the words of Memphis Mark, I know