Pain and Passion

Hey Scott–

First off, my promise never to use your own quote against you again. Though I must admit, since I wasn’t the originator, I’m surprised you didn’t no-sell it, or at least kick out a two 🙂

Secondly, my family is moving soon, and in packing up I came across my copy of Heath McCoy’s Pain and Passion; The History of Stampede Wrestling. For any Blog O’ Doomers unfamiliar with the book, it sits in the upper echelon of quality wrestling books. Not a cloying fan letter and not a trashy exploitation piece on the underbelly of the business, it simply tells the objective story of Stampede and the characters that populated it, warts and all. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

That said, the people interviewed for the book share quite the range of opinions on Bruce Hart as booker, from “genius ahead of his time” to “insane idiot that couldn’t plan for long-term success.” For those of us forced to live in Trumpsylvania who would be less familiar with Stampede’s heyday, can you enlighten us? Was Bruce Hart a mad genius? A destructive knucklehead? Or something in between?

First up, I’m glad you were able to remember that the title of the book is “Pain and Passion”.  Most knuckleheads that e-mail me call it “PRIDE and Passion”, which sounds like a romance novel, but obviously you’re above that sort of typo.

I was never a big fan of Bruce’s direction.  Much like Vince Russo, he was good as an idea man when tempered by Stu Hart back in the 80s, but once he basically took over booking at the end (and ran the “new” Stampede company in the Mauro Ranallo era) it was full steam ahead with the bullshit gimmicks.  “Principal Dick Pound” stands out as particularly memorable in a bad way.  He just had no feel for what actually WORKED and seemed to be more concerned with airing grievances against local city council members (like evil referee Ron Hayter) and making sure he went over. 

That book, though, is AMAZING.