[CaptainCrunch]

1983 – Bad News Allen vs Archie “Stomper” Gouldie Stampede Wrestling

This was a short intense feud that could have been so much more, but in the end cause a riot, destroyed a family and destroyed a territory.
In 1983, Stampede Wrestling was a historic but dying territory. There was a lot of discontent in the territory since Bruce Hart had taken over booking the territory and shifted it to a bloodier more violent territory. Backstage, there was a rift forming between Bruce Hart and announcer Ed Whalen. Ed hated what was happening, he had never really bothered to smarten himself up to the business, and liked a more comedic softer approach to wrestling. He also saw himself as a character in the show bopping villains with his microphone and arguing with heels. Bruce was somewhat of a visionary, he had Paul Heyman’s booking concepts before Paul Heyman had them. He wanted a gritty, bloody, realistic, violent story driven style of wrestling. This also put him at odds with his father, who was exploring selling the territory and hated Bruce’s booking. But Bruce wanted that one big angle to save the business and he came up with an incredibly creative angle that involved a full on unexpected face turn, and a incredibly violent blow off match in front of a sold out house.



(go to 7:29)



This feud really only lasted a few weeks and was incredibly simple. At the time there were two main heels in Stampede Wrestling. Bad New Allen, a legitimate former Olympic Judo Champion who was known for being extremely brutal in the ring, and was a no compromise wrestler who believed in protecting the business. Archie Gouldie was a bull necked brawler who had been one of Stu’s favorite heels. He was also incredibly dependable and simple. At the time, the target of every heel was the Hart Dynasty. You see the Harts ran Stampede wrestling, and Stu’s sons, Bruce, Bret and Keith were the Stars of the promotion, So it was only logical for the two evil heels to join forces to take on the team of Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith and Sonny Two Rivers (Junji Hirati). Now this doesn’t make sense, its 3 against 2 heels, bah god its unfair. But here’s the beauty. Archie’s son Jeff had wanted his father to train him to be a wrestler, but Archie wasn’t happy with it but relented, so on Dec 3rd 1983, we got a main event of Bret, Davey and Sonny against Jeff and Archie Gouldie with Bad New Allen, with a young CaptainCrunch sitting with his best buddy in row 5.

The match preceded as normal, with Bret and Davey and Sonny playing the virtuous good guys getting beaten all around the ring. Then the unthinkable happened. Bad News snapped, he attacked Archie and with helped tied him up in the ropes. Then attacked Jeff threw him outside, and pile drove him on the concrete floor multiple times.






The cameras turn off at 4:25 as 2+7 refused to allow the riot to be show. They then start up and we see the promo's by Allen during the riot as panicked fans were leaving. then we see the cleared building and Stomper's brilliant promo



Then all hell broke lose, as Bad New proclaimed proudly that he had broken Jeff’s neck a riot ensued, and Captain ended up getting multiple stitches that night after a bottle bounced off of his head. Bad news trying to protect himself punched and assaulted several fans (including lifting up one old guy by the hair who had thrown a punch at him, and punching his straight in the face knocking him out. This was about 10 feet away from me) and the building had to be cleared. Jeff was hauled off in an ambulance.


Ed Whalen interviewed Bad New Allen who proclaimed that he didn’t care if Stompers son died. Then Ed did a promo with Archie after the building had been cleared, that was one of my favorite promo’s of all time as he softly said he was going to go see his son in the hospital, then he was going to get the man that hurt his son.
Then Ed quit.



That night Jeff Gouldie who later gained some fame as half of the tag team Rock and Roll RPMs as Tommy Lane was snuck out of town by Bruce and flown back to Florida.



Hospitals were literally flooded with calls from frantic fans desperate to find out if Jeff was ok. The story hit the newspapers in the wrong way. And all hell broke lose. You see Bruce already had the blow off match in mind, as the main event of a super card with Archie and Allen facing off in a strap match. He would be the savior of Stampede Wrestling.



Instead, Ed Whalen pulled Stampede from television. The Calgary Wrestling and Boxing commission suspended Stampede Wrestling from doing show in the Calgary city limits for 6 months, and applied fines and sanctions. The match was moved out of town weeks later . And the blowoff match happened 60 miles out of town at the tiny Sarcee arena, during a blistering snowstorm in front of a half full house.






match high lights at about 14 minutes, the commentators killed this match as well.





And then Stampede Wrestling was dead. Stu tired of losing money and as he stated, tired of Bruce’s bs booking took an offer from Vince McMahon and sold the territory on the conditions that Vince took his son Bret, Davey Boy and Dynamite and Jim Neidhart to new York.



From a few structural standpoint, this feud was brilliantly hot shoted and simple. It was believable and realistically it could have lead to a huge blow off plus multiple matches with wrestlers like Kerry Brown and Allen and others and maybe Stampede Wrestling might have been saved for a little while.



But Bruce underestimated the fans, he certainly didn’t understand or smarten up Ed Whalen, and he didn’t control his wrestlers. And Captain took a bottle off of the head and got the hero treatment from his girlfriend.



We wouldn’t see an out of control feud like this til years later in ECW. But more about that later.