Heath McCoy

Heath McCoy is a renowned Canadian author, known mostly in the wrestling world for his books 'Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling' in 2005, and 2008's 'Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport' about the controversial end to the life of wrestler Chris Benoit.

## Episode 10 - Transcript (on Archie 'The Stomper' Gouldie's impact on Stampede Wrestling)

*There’s such an interesting dichotomy that exists between the major star that the Mongolian Stomper was in the southeastern part of the United States, with the major star that 'The Stomper' Archie Gouldie was in Calgary and Stampede Wrestling, and joining us right now is Heath McCoy, the author of “Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling” - one of the very best books ever written about professional wrestling; really a book I love. It’s available at Amazon.com and bookstores all over the place – Heath, how are you today?*

**Heath:** Very good, thanks for having me on.

*When I mention Archie 'The Stomper' Gouldie, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?*

**Heath:** He’s an icon of Canadian wrestling, specifically western Canadian wrestling in the Stampede wrestling territory. He is arguably the greatest heel that stampede wrestling ever produced and we’re talking – when you’re looking at the great stampede wrestling heels, we’re talking about Dynamite Kid, Abdullah the butcher, Killer Kowalski – Bad News Allen was such a major heel here. Archie ‘the Stomper’ Gouldie was perhaps the greatest heel – arguably the greatest heel – that ever came out of stampede wrestling. He was the Godzilla of this territory.

*He started in 1962 and was working primarily – and only – in preliminary matches and then he went to Kansas City where he became the Mongolian Stomper and then he came back in, I wanna say '67, as The Stomper. Obviously - major difference between what he was on the cards in '62 and what he was in '67 – did the fans instantly take to The Stomper when he returned?*

**Heath:** When he returned, yes, because you know – it’s funny – he was kinda treated in the early '60's there as a preliminary guy, was an under card guy, and he had to go make his name as the Mongolian Stomper, and then he came back in the late '60's and he probably fully developed as a pro wrestler, had more of a presence I imagine as well. Stu gave him the big push in the late '60's there and he actually helped revive the Stampede Wrestling territory. Stampede wrestling had been going since the late '40's but they really hit a really bad patch by the mid-to-early 60s, there. They were going through a tough time, I believe they stopped the business at one point there, the promotion ended for a short time, they switched TV stations, they changed names at one point – they were Wild Cat Wrestling at one point there – and when they finally became Stampede Wrestling and really got, you know, really got that momentum going, Archie 'The Stomper' Gouldie was the key heel and he was the guy who kinda got the fans excited and scared again of this monster heel in the territory, and he was a key guy in reviving the territory at that point.

*I recall from Bret Hart’s book – things were bad. That’s the period where Bret talks about in his book that the kids barely had clothes in the Hart family; the line that always sticks out in my mind that they were too poor for real pants.*

**Heath:** They were impoverish, yes.

*It was just especially a weird dynamic because it was when the promotion was still existing so they got made fun of even more because everyone thought they should have money, so it was a hard time, but then Stomper comes in, pops the territory.*

**Heath:** Yeah, he absolutely did. It’s funny that you mention that that he was established as The Mongolian Stomper and then rather bring him in as The Mongolian Stomper in Stampede, they made him this – they brought him back full on with cowboy boots and the full on Alberta, Canada monster heel at that point. He had the cowboy boots, he was Archie 'The Stomper', he was from Carbon, Alberta – a small dairy farm town – and they really played up the Alberta angle and interestingly enough – because I believe it was Mongolian Stomper with a few exceptions – I believe he was a mute sort of thing with that whole angle, but when they brought him, he cut great promos: great intense, scary promos. They really played that up and allowed him to run with that when he came in as Archie 'The Stomper', and not only was his in ring presence so powerful, but he had just this simmering angry and explosive intensity about the promos he cut, and that was part of the thing as well that drew fans to him.

*Yeah, it’s one of those things that Bix always talks about, is that even though he was this mute character who had managers always do his interviews wherever he went in the US, he was an incredibly strong talker in Stampede Wrestling.*

**Heath:** Absolutely! If you look at the clips – there’s a really famous sort of angle – that went absolutely out of control in the early '80's, where he was a tag team partner with Bad News Allen, and there was a whole thing where Bad News Allen turned on him and there was kind of a fake son that they brought in  - Jeff Gouldie – that was in the ring with him and the whole angle was that Bad News Allen crippled the son, a big backstab in the ring sort of thing, and it was pulled off so well. The big announcer here in town, Ed Whalen, left the show – the media went crazy. Bruce Hart described it – Bret Hart’s brother – as a 'War of the Worlds' moment, it was just carried off so beautifully that everybody believed it and the media went into this frenzy and the boxing and wrestling commission took away Stu’s licence for the time, and part of it was it was just carried off so beautifully and a lot of that had to do with Archie Gouldie. He came into the ring after his son had supposedly being crippled and instead of ranting and raving and, you know, shouting at the camera like the usually did – it was a one on one interview with Ed Whalen and he was so somber and saddened that his son had been crippled, and everybody bought it. I think I was 13 years old at the time watching it and I remember I couldn’t believe that this had happened – I called my grandpa watching at the time and I said “I couldn’t believe that happened,” – and everybody fully bought it. Stu lost his licence for a period there and they had to carry on their cards outside of Calgary at various Indian reservations, and they sorta turned into this big – it didn’t go as well as they wanted it to and it backfired on them and actually hurt the promotion and actually made them a little weak when WWF was knocking on the door and trying to take over the territory, but thinking back to that moment, so much of it had to do with the way Archie Gouldie sold it, as well as Bad News Allen.

You know, that match was pretty famous. I think it was Dec 2, 1983 – it was Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith and Sonny Two Rivers against Archie Gouldie, the fake son Jeff Gouldie – who later became Tommy Lane of the Rock and Roll RPM’s – and Bad News Allen, and a couple things stick out of my mind about that. One is – and I’ve never heard anyone say this on a mic anywhere else – after it happens and Ed Whalen’s interviewing Bad News, he says “I hope the sonofa gun dies,” which you know, is just over the top for professional wrestling, even. (laughing) You mention how so much of what happened after that – what transpired – was caused by, you’re so used to seeing a ranting and raving Stomper and you seem him so calmly explain how he’s feeling in this moment seeing his son crippled. The other thing is Ed Whalen’s reaction. How much do you think Ed Whalen’s reaction – his draping the microphone over the top rope and walking out – how much did that lead to all the problems that happened?

***(**It should be made clear by the way, he doesn’t just drape the mic over the ropes, he outright says on the air he’s quitting, and he did. He legitimately quit.**)***

**Heath:** He believed – he actually – it’s funny. Ed Whalen was obviously an insider in the whole thing – he knew it was a work – but Bruce Hart – who orchestrated the whole thing – didn’t let him in on what was happening. Ed Whalen, he bought it to the extent that he quit. Either he bought it or he thought it was too over the top and he didn’t want to be a part of this on TV anymore, but regardless, he quit. Ed Whalen was a hugely influential figure because he was not only the Stampede voice but he was a legitimate newscaster and sportscaster – he used to do Calgary Flames games, and he was a legitimate personality here in Western Canada, so when he did that – that really brought it over the top. I think if Ed hadn’t done that, the media probably wouldn’t have freaked out to the extent they did, and then the boxing and wrestling commission wouldn’t have freaked out and it wouldn’t have created all these problems. It was the War of the Worlds angle that just went over so well that everybody bought it hook, line, and sinker, and it had to do with the performance of Archie Gouldie and Bad News Allen and like he said “I helped him to die in the ring.” (laughing) it really put it over the top; I can’t watch it enough times! It was not only a great childhood memory for me but an over the top out of control moment.

*Stampede – they didn’t necessarily did those heavy heat angles like in the Southern US. Especially in that era, with Dynamite Kid as the top heel in the mid-heavyweight division, you didn’t have as much of that. It was more longer programs, a little more wrestling-centric – you always had your top heels like Bad News, Abdullah, Stomper coming in and out, but they weren’t as much about that type of angle, so it’s even more shocking in the context of Stampede Wrestling than it would be somewhere else.*

**Heath:** Yeah, I think I agree with that to a certain extent. It was kind of a brilliant thing they were doing because Stomper had come back into the territory and he was the fearsome heel of the late '60's early '70's and he’d been away for a while and come back in, then they were selling Bad News Allen as the terrifying fearsome heel of the early '80's, and to put those two against each other, you can see what a great inspiration it was, but I mean, probably not including Ed Whalen in what they were doing, that was probably a big mistake in hindsight. (laughing)

*It certainly wasn’t the only time that Ed Whalen sabotaged an angle on television. (laughing)*

**Heath:** No, it’s true. Ed Whalen – he kinda had a love-hate relationship with the whole thing. He loved being part of Stampede Wrestling but he was quite conservative in a lot of ways: he didn’t like things to go over the top, he didn’t like things getting too bloody, he edited out the best parts, he insisted the best parts of matches edited out and they never appeared on TV because he didn’t want things to get too over the top, yeah.

*The really kind of unfortunate part about that – on top of how it would have been watching at home as it was going on – because Stampede shot everything live to tape, if it didn’t air on TV most of the time it wasn’t even shot.*

**Heath:** Yeah, that’s true, that’s true as well. The Stomper – there’s a really interesting thing – I notice there’s a lot of reports right now about Archie Gouldie and some of them are suggesting he died at the age of 71, and I just wanted to point out that I don’t think that’s accurate. It doesn’t quite jive with my records – Mike Mooneyham at the Post and Courier in South Carolina said he was 78. I think that jives up a lot more with what I’ve got. In my timeline, Archie Gouldie first appears – he storms the ring at a Stampede Wrestling match at one point – he’s a young guy, he’s a football player, and he wants to get into the ring. He basically stormed the ring with the Mills Brothers – who were fighting one night – and he tried to get into the ring and fight them and they said the security threw him out and he tried again to do it and Stu took him aside and he said “I want to be a wrestler” and Stu said “if you wanna do this, come tot eh dungeon and w’ell try you out as a wrestler” and he did the thing Stu did where he’d torture – he made Archie Gouldie suffer that day – and Archie came back. IF you look at the timeline, I think that happened in the late '50's, and if he was 71, he would have been like a 14 year old kid at the time; it makes more sense that he was 78, I think that he was – because then he would have been 19-20 years old when he first came to Stu, but yeah. Stu sorta taught him a lesson there down in the dungeon, and, you know, was really hard on the guy, and Archie just kept coming back and he kept coming back and he kept coming back and eventually Stu made him a wrestler. He was a preliminary guy for the early '60's there – he couldn’t get passed that – so he went away, had his success in the South, and came back reinvented as this monster heel – Archie 'The Stomper' Gouldie – in the late '60's.

*You know, it seems that Calgary – when I think about it – usually I think of the Harts, various son-in-laws, brother in laws, whatever you want to call them. When you really think about it, it was a territory driven by strong heels, because The Stomper picks business up in '67, he ends up leaving in July '69 – for something well talk about shortly: an incident with Billy Robinson where he finally gets fed up and walks out – and then business goes down. Business is really bad until Stu brings in Abdullah the Butcher, and then business picks up again and now you have, you know, this dream match between Abdullah and The Stomper.*

**Heath:** Yeah, which, I mean, the pictures from that era and everything, it’s just intense. You can’t have two bigger monster heels facing off with each other than those two. It’s true – it really very much was – I think to an extent all the territories are heel driven. You need a great monster heel to really get over the babyfaces: the Harts being the bf in that territory, and then you had a real lull in the mid '70's there. They were almost done at one point there, and then the Dynamite Kid came in and breathes that breath of fresh air and came in not so much the monster heel but he was doing stuff that nobody had ever seen.

*The Stomper / Abdullah match and the one I believe was the biggest gate up until that time that Stampede had ever drawn, and it was a big money feud, and you could imagine the fans – it was a dream match just these big monsters getting in there with each other. One of the other feuds that was memorable with The Stomper was the one with Dan Kroffatt, where he was the masked Destroyer to trick him into getting him into a match.*

**Heath:** (laughs) Yeah, that’s right! You reminded me about that, I forgot about that. He came to the ring – Kroffatt came to the ring in a mask, right? Fought The Stomper that way and tore off his mask – sorry, I may be getting that wrong – but I totally forgot about that angle until now. That was a great moment! Dan Kroffatt was great – he’s sort of an underappreciated guy. He was sort of a great mind, him and Tor Kamata did the earliest ladder match which was Dan Kroffatt’s innovation as well, and Stomper really loved working with Dan Kroffatt, because he used to call him “a thinking man’s wrestler” – he always had the bigger picture In mind, sorta thing.

*What I was gonna say was, now that I think about it, because that was early '70’s – '71-'72, something like that? I’m trying to think if the whole babyfaces and getting a title shot – wears a mask, comes in as the masked whatever, and tricks the heel into giving him a title shot thing – I’m trying to remember if that ever happened before that angle in Stampede.*

**Heath:** There’s so many things that Stampede Wrestling was sort of innovated and came up with – maybe did first. It’s hard to say in the wrestling world who came up with what first because there’s so many territories and some of it’s documented better than other places, but, yeah, you might be right! That whole masked thing there and pulling one over on the fans and driving everyone’s excitement up like that, yeah, that might have been the first. I hate to go on the record and say that just in case it wasn’t, but yeah.

*We briefly mentioned the July 1969 incident with Billy Robinson, who Archie Gouldie had been wrestling for the better part of a week until he finally blew his top. Can you explain what happened there?*

**Heath:** Well, Billy Robinson – the angle I believe was supposed to be Robinson and The Stomper were going around the Stampede Circuit there and they were going to have matches back and forth, and Dory Funk Jr – every year in the Stampede Wrestling, the big thing was when the Calgary Stampede was in town. That was THE big moment for Stampede Wrestling – it was July when the Stampede comes to town and they had matches in the coral and Stu would always bring in the world champion, or Andre the Giant or one of the top draws in the world at the time. So what was going to happen – they were going to bring in I believe Dory Funk Jr. who was the world champion at the time – and it was supposed to be Stomper coming out ahead and he was going to take on Dory Funk Jr., which would have been a huge deal, but he was going back and forth with Billy Robinson, and Billy Robinson was notoriously known as being a difficult guy to work with (laughs) and yeah, he worked stiff, he wouldn’t sell for The Stomper. He did that to a lot of people, but Archie Gouldie’s not the guy you do that with, and they did that a few times on the circut and they were having some issues with that and what happened – Stomper just stormed out of the ring one night, not sure if it was Calgary, Edmonton, or Regina, and stormed out of the ring, went back to the dressing room, threw his boots up against the wall and said “To hell with him, I’m out of here, I’m not doing this,” and left, and so Billy Robinson ended up having these epic matches with Dory Funk Jr. because Stomper left the territory. I think he left –I’m not sure of the exact timeline of it right now – but he left and he did leave the territory for a while after that point.

*I think it was a year and a half because he didn’t come back until the feud with Abdullah.*

**Heath:** You’re right about that, absolutely.

*One of the things you point out in your book – once again, "Pain and Passion," a fantastic book – sometimes Archie Gouldie was a little frustrated because he was someone who was prompt, on time, professional, and that wasn’t necessarily how the Hart family did things. (laughing)*

**Heath:** That is not in any way the Hart family does things, yeah. They were always behind on paycheques, and the show was always running a little late – I don’t know how they pulled off a TV show all those years because you have to have certain things delivered on time. I think they ran a little tighter of a ship in the '70's and then it got more out of control later on when the kids were more taking it over (laughs) but I think there was always this sort of level of disorganization within the Stampede wrestling world, and it supposedly used to drive Archie Gouldie crazy. He was always a guy who was right on time, he always had the neat bag and everything was packed just right, and he was quite a health food (guy) and he didn’t do a lot of partying on the sides, and he couldn’t stand the disorganization of the whole thing and he used to get very frustrated. There’s one story that I just love – it sort of reminds me of this – because he would go and collect his paycheque at the Hart house, and he cut a such a terrifying – it speaks to what a terrifying heel he was – promo at one point there, I’m not sure if it was late '60's, early '70's, he cut this terrifying promo where he said he was going to cripple Stu Hart and kill Stu Hart and he was going to go to the Hart House and was going to give Helen Hart a piledriver out on the street or something (laughs) and Bret Hart – who was 10 or 11 years old and wasn’t clued in to what the business was all about, they believed this was real and the kids discovered it as they grew up – watched this on TV and he watched this monster threatening to do this to his mother and he was terrified, and I guess so one morning – Saturday or Sunday morning – The Stomper comes to Hart house to collect his paycheque and Bret – this guy had been raging on TV about what he was going to do to the Hart family – and he came in and Bret was so terrified he hid under the kitchen table or something and then he watched his mom give Stomper – in her New York accent – give him a big hug and he kinda clued in as to what was really going on with the family business at that point there, but he was just terrified to have The Stomper show up at his front door. I always find that a great sorta funny story, and it speaks to how terrifying – and what a great promo – The Stomper would deliver and how devastating he could be in the ring as an intimidating, powerful presence.

*It also showed how terrifying how – both of his gimmicks/personas as a heel, whether Archie Stomper or Mongolian – both were terrifying.*

**Heath:** Yeah. It’s funny to me that they were so different. I’m surprised they didn’t bring him in as a continuation of the Mongolian Stomper thing, but I’m glad they didn’t because as Archie 'The Stomper' Gouldie, he really fit into that sort of – there was a distinctly Alberta flavor to Stampede Wrestling and this was sort of a Cowboy community, and there’s oil here, and we’ve got our rodeo which we’re known for – and making him they boy from Carbon sort of thing, the tough guy, they made him very Alberta-centric and very special to Stampede Wrestling which is part of the reason why he’s such an icon here. I don’t think he would have been just another heel because he’s so powerful, but it wouldn’t have been as memorable, I think, if they’d just brought him in as The Mongolian Stomper, which they easily could have done and was such a great angle all over the world.

*Heath, I’m curious talking about this, when was the first time you actually saw Archie 'The Stomper' as The Mongolian Stomper?*

**Heath:** You know what, not nearly enough, just clips. Thank goodness for YouTube and that sorta thing. I’ve read the magazine articles about The Mongolian Stomper and I did my research, but I’d love to see more if you guys can point me in the direction for some more Mongolian Stomper to seek out, I would love to have a look at it, actually. (laughs)

**(***What’s your earliest memory of The Stomper as a fan?**)***

**Heath:** I was too much of a kid in the '70's and I was just an infant when he was doing his thing in the early '70's, so for me, the big memory for me was when he came in the '80's and they brought him in – initially – to fight the Harts and be the monster bad guy, but eventually they obviously were setting it up for him to have this big explosive confrontation with Bad News Allen, but that for me, that’s my era. I grew up watching it in the early '80's, so you know, my era was The Dynamite Kid era, Bad News Allen era, that sort of thing. Suddenly this guy comes in – this name from the past – came in for me. Archie 'The Stomper', he was an old guy, a name from the past they brought in. He was the bad guy - a heel from yesteryear, sorta thing. That was my first experience with Archie Gouldie.

*When you were researching your book, did you get to talk much with The Stomper?*

**Heath:** Yeah, I did. I gotta say it was a bit of a disappointing interview. Bob Leonard – who was the Stampede Wrestling photographer who was amazing, and just passed away recently too, which was funny because great friends – hooked me up with an interview with Archie Gouldie, and it’s where he was working as a sheriff or something like that –

*Knox County.*

**Heath:** Knox County, yeah. So I had a little bit of an interview with him then. It wasn’t a great interview; it was hard to get a lot out of him because he was – you could tell – a product of the kayfabe era. He wasn’t about talking, at least for me, to any sort of journalists who wanted to dig dirt and find the behind-the-scenes stories. Even somebody who he obviously had issues with – Billy Robinson – he didn’t have anything really in terms of great revelations for me on how he really felt about BR or how he really felt about Bad News Allen or the Harts or anything like that, it was an “OK” interview; good for a couple quotes, but I didn’t get a heck of a lot.  A lot of the stuff I got on The Stomper were people around him like Bob Leonard, Leo Burke, Bret Hart, and people like that; Dan Kroffatt had great stories about The Stomper.

*What was the consensus about him? Did guys enjoy working with him?*

**Heath:** Yes, I would say yes. I think – you heard the odd thing that he could be temperamental, that he could be a difficult guy to work with if you made him mad. Things had to be just a certain way for him in a lot of ways, I think. Everybody considered him one of the great heels, everyone considered him a consummate professional, and just this great, terrifying presence. I think everybody respected the kind of guy he was in the ring and the way he conducted himself in a business way, too.

*Would you say it’s fair to say that he was the biggest non-Hart star in the Stampede Territory?*

**Heath:** Well, no, I wouldn’t say that, because if you look at – I always think about The Dynamite Kid – and what a star he became. In a lot of ways – I think Dan Kroffatt wrote something about Archie a couple days after he passed and he said he wasn’t “a big enough star” and I do believe that’s true, that he wasn’t a big enough star. You know, he made his impact in certain territories, but I just feel like he doesn’t have that over-the-top recognition all across the wrestling world that he should have, maybe. Even though he did make a huge impact here, I wouldn’t say he was the biggest non-Hart star, necessarily.

*It kinda makes sense as it is a territory where so many guys did become big international stars, but they kinda stuck around locally too, like a lot of them still lived in the city like the Harts, Davey, Dynamite – until he left for England in the early '90's – that to a degree, it wouldn’t necessarily stick out. People like that, or I guess the people who didn’t become as big international stars.*

**Heath:** I’m even thinking of somebody like – actually like a lot of major stars passed through this territory that went on to become bigger stars. They weren’t so big when they were here but became so much bigger later – Superstar Billy Graham, Jake Roberts, JYD; they all had a bigger impact internationally and the pop-culture consciousness than The Stomper did, so I’d like to think he definitely wasn’t the biggest non-Hart star, which was too bad because he deserves to be. When the lists come out of the greats – the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time – I’d be surprised to see Archie on that list, but I think Archie belongs on that list.

*But within a Stampede context though, would you put him up there?*

**Heath:** Oh my gosh, in a Stampede context…yeah – yes, I’d think so, yes. In terms of the impact he made in his time – and it’s too bad because right now, I think that it’s sort of forgotten if you didn’t grow up in that era, there’s a lot of fans now – even here in Calgary – who would have no idea who Archie Gouldie was, which is a shame because he deserves to be one of those legendary guys and anyone remotely related to the business should know.

Bix, correct me if I’m wrong – it was a Legend’s Roundtable with Bret Hart and Pat Patterson as a speaker (it was about wrestling in Canada and I know where you’re going with this) and whoever the moderater was (it was Okerlund) asked Bret who you think was the biggest Canadian wrestling star and Bret said “Well you gotta put 'The Stomper' Archie Gouldie on the list,” and Pat Patterson dismissed it! He thought it was a ridiculous notion that Archie the Stomper Gouldie would be high on a list of greatest Canadian wrestlers of all time.

**Heath:** I think that’s a territorial thing, right? Pat wasn’t familiar or ingrained with the Western Canadian tradition – but yeah. From a Stampede Wrestling perspective, Stomper was – I agree with Bret – and should be on the top of that list.

*How much coverage has his passing received in the newspapers up there?*

**Heath:** It’s kinda gone unnoticed. Yeah, unless there’s something I missed and I feel bad – I should be writing something about it but I don’t really, I’m not with the newspapers anymore, I sorta moved on from that world and I’m not doing it. I thought I should be pitching them something and it’s kind of the issues of my life right now, but yeah, it’s kinda gone unnoticed and it’s a real shame, because – even on the internet I was doing a search and Mike Mooneyham did a piece in the Post and Courier there but I’m not seeing wrestling websites – I’m not seeing a lot of mainstream coverage, even from the territories where he was The Mongolian Stomper, and I feel it’s a real shame. It’s a real shame here in Calgary that he’s not getting some sort of coverage because he was so impactful in this territory, but that institutional knowledge is gone and there’s a lot of people that just don’t know – Stampede Wrestling at one time, fans here – the kids today that watch the WWE – are familiar with Stampede Wrestling and the tradition but not familiar enough with it that they’d know beyond the Harts and people like that. They wouldn’t know about somebody like Archie Gouldie and it’s a real shame.

*I would even say that I guess it’s possible that Bob Leonard passing kind of – could also play a hand in that, because he was the go-to guy for a lot of people as far as Stampede Wrestling history locally and within wrestling-writer circles.*

**Heath:** Very much so. I was glad when Dan Kroffatt wrote his little piece to the SLAM! Wrestling site, because that was a nice tribute to Archie, but yeah, he deserves more. It’s tough. Part of it is he’s sort of fallen victim to what’s going on in the newspaper history right now because I don't know if it’s bad in the States but newspapers are kind of dying here, right? You’ve got less guys that are around, less Freelance money to do those kind of stories, and it’s an example of these major heritage stories that are sort of slipping through the cracks, because newspapers just don’t have the resources to do those things anymore. It’s a real loss. As far as I’m concerned, “The Stomper Died” should be on A1 of The Calgary Herald. There’s not enough people who know who he is.

*That’s a shame but that’s a reason Bix and I are doing the show here today – that people know a little more about him than they did. Well, the book is “Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling,” the author Heath McCoy – thanks for doing this and we appreciate your time.*