Article on Quebec Indy Wars

[Guest Jay Z. Hollywood]

<i>The Chinese say the worst curse that you can give a man is to wish that

he lives in interesting times. Well, for the wrestlers, for the promoters

and expecially for the fans of Quebec wrestling we are living in VERY

interesting times and that must mean that...

 

It¹s TIME, It¹s TIME, It¹s TIME to...

 

BREAK DOWN THE WALLS!!!

 

 

When King Log Became King Stork

 

Quebec Indy Wrestling and Jacques Rougeau Jr.)

 

There is an argument to be made that Quebec is the great undiscovered

territory of indy wrestling. On any given Saturday night in Quebec there can

be as many as ten different independent wrestling promotions running cards,

maybe more. In Montreal alone, there have been nights where five different

promotions have run cards. With the IWS, NCW, FLQ, ICW, NEW, MWF, CWA, CWE,

CCW, CPW, GEW, FCL, SAW, WTA, and more Quebec is a veritable alphabet soup

of competing promotions.

 

The number of promotions alone does not tell the full story. It is the

wrestlers that make Quebec a great undiscovered reservoir of talent.

Wrestlers like EXcesS69, Sexxxy Eddy, TNT, El Generico, Beef Wellington, Dan

Paysan, Manuel Vegas, Fred le Merveille, Shane Simmons, The Arsenal, Franky

the Mobster, and Stevie McFly. Tag Teams like the Hardcore Ninjaz, the

Flying Hurricanes, Xtreme Revolution, le Syndicat de Lutte Internet, the New

Breed, 2.0 and the Drunken Scotsmen. Each and every one of those men could

make an impact on virtually any independent promotion in North America. And

while the most talented wrestlers in Quebec tend to be the athletic

cruisers, a number of talented heavyweights ply their trade in Quebec as

well, like Dru Onyx, the Green Phantom, Chase Ironside, Jayson Reaper, Nova

Cain, Crush and Sheik Tank Ali.

 

Quebec is an ignored territory partly because of language. Most feds operate

in French, and many wrestlers speak only French or speak English with an

obvious accent. Quebec is also not well known because not enough feds tape

their shows. In Quebec, only the IWS and NCW make a concerted effort to tape

and release their shows. A few other feds do it, or have threatened to do

it, but never in a consistent or organized way.

 

Quebec wrestlers do not travel much to wrestle outside of the province. It

is a vicious circle. Quebec wrestlers do not travel much because they are

not well known, because many do not speak English fluently and because many

do not have tapes of their body of work to show promoters from outside the

province. And promoters in turn do not invite Quebec wrestlers to their

promotions because they are not well known, do not speak the language and do

not have tapes. Wrestling fans in the United States are more likely to see a

wrestler imported from Japan than they are to see a wrestler from Quebec.

 

In addition, Quebec feds do not invite much outside talent to come in to

wrestle. Part of that is because Quebec is very insular. The wrestlers that

enough Quebec fans know, that would draw a crowd, are too expensive to

import. Guys like Jimmy Rave, Colt Cabana, Homicide, American Dragon, and

Lo-Ki, all considered indy superstars, are all simply unknown in Quebec.

Again, it is a vicious circle. The guys that promoters can afford are not

well enough known to draw a crowd big enough to justify bringing them in.

The guys that could draw are too expensive for promoters to bring in and

make a profit. So, the promoters when they do bring in someone tend to bring

in someone who has enough nostalgia value to draw a crowd, but desperate

enough to do it cheap. Which is why CPW had an arena show this year

headlined by Abdullah the Butcher. That is not intended to be an attack on

Abdullah. The man is a legend around the world, not just in Quebec where he

is regarded with special fondness. But there is no way in hell that

Abdullah, quite literally a senior citizen, should be in the main event of

any wrestling show in 2003.

 

In other words, Quebec is an isolated and insular territory, where great

wrestling can take place in front of, by indy standards, large and

appreciative crowds. We are a small isolated pond in other words and within

that small pond there is no bigger fish than Jacques Rougeau Jr. the former

WWF Inter-Continental Champion and former three time WWF tag team champion,

perhaps the most famous and successful Quebec wrestler of his generation.

 

For years, Jacques Rougeau Jr. has been just as isolated from Quebec indy

wrestling as Quebec indy wrestling is from the rest of North America. He has

a school where he trains wrestlers, asking for and getting $2000 a year per

student. He also has a promotion: Lutte International 2000 or Lutte

Familiale. But, until this year, for all the real impact that his school and

promotion had on Quebec indy promotions, they might as well be located on

another planet.

 

(One of the great ironies of Quebec wrestling is that despite charging by

far the highest amount to train of any wrestling trainer in Quebec, Jacques

Rougeau Jr. is nowhere near the best trainer in the province. Marc le

Grizzly is the man who has either trained or polished virtually every good

wrestler in Quebec, including finishing the training of some who were

trained by Jacques Rougeau.)

 

Every time that Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s Lutte Familiale runs a show it is

automatically the most successful show in the province. He is one of the few

men in Quebec who can draw 10, 000 fans to an arena. But, until this year,

these shows have been completely irrelevant to the Quebec indy wrestling

scene. First of all, he only ran between two to four shows a year. More

importantly, when he ran shows, he filled them with nostalgia acts from the

glory days of the WWF Eighties along with his students.

 

Jacques¹ shows are always a success, but they are a success in a vacuum.

Since none of Jacques¹ students wrestle for anyone other than him, they

derive no lasting benefit from his shows. Which is compounded and worsened

by the fact that Jacques never builds on the momentum of his shows. Drawing

10, 000 people to an indy show is impressive. But if you do it in December

and do not have another show until June, how can you build any momentum? And

how can your students really improve if they are only wrestling two or three

times a year?

 

Jacques Rougeau Jr., in other words, was the King Log of Quebec Indy

Wrestling. Everyone acknowledged that Jacques was the king, but he never

actually did anything. The biggest impact that he ever had on the wrestling

scene was when one of his students finally decided to leave the school. For

example, when Beef Wellington and Kid Kamikaze decided to leave Jacques

Rougeau Jr.¹s Lutte Familiale, they had an immediate impact on the Quebec

wrestling scene, thrilling crowds of the IWS, MWF, CCW and FLQ amongst

others. It was always a one way street though. Once you left Jacques

Rougeau, you couldn¹t come back.

 

Beef Wellington: ³After that [Molson Centre] show, we said goodbye to

Jacques... we went to see him on a Saturday morning and told him that we

wanted to wrestle elsewhere. He thanked us for telling him in advance unlike

some others had done, then proceeded to put us over in front of all his

students.²

 

The event that changed everything happened earlier in the summer when Pierre

Carl Ouellet made the decision that the only way that he could make it back

to the big time was to wrestle more. A decision that lead to a dark match

with the WWE in Montreal and a break with Jacques Rougeau Jr. No one other

than those two men knows exactly what took place or what caused the split.

The only thing that we can tell is that as a poster at

http://www.lewebzine.net cracked ³Ben, de façon plus claire... PCO ne

luttait pas vraiment avec Rougeau... Donc, PCO lutte maintenant!² or to

roughly translate ³Now that Pierre Carl Ouellet is no longer wrestling for

Jacques Rougeau Jr., he actually wrestles.²

 

And then an astonishing thing happened. After the break with his long time

wrestling partner, Jacques Rougeau Jr. actually became relevant to Quebec

wrestling. In one of the many ironies that fill Quebec wrestling, after

fighting with Pierre Carl Ouellet because PCO wanted to wrestle outside of

Lutte Familiale, Jacques Rougeau Jr. allowed all of his students to wrestle

for whoever they wanted. Suddenly, Quebec indy wrestling was filled with the

biggest influx in trained talent that they had seen in years. Sheik Tank Ali

in the FLQ and CWA, Crush in the CWA, Eric Mastrocola in the IWS and the

CWA, and best of all, Kevin Steen in the IWS, CWA, MWF and CPW.

 

No one benefitted more than the wrestling fans who began to see dream

matches that they never thought in their wildest dreams that they would see:

Kevin Steen vs. EXcesS69, PCO and Beef Wellington vs. Kid Kamikaze and Kurt

Lauderdale, PCO vs. Kevin Steen. And these matches so long dreamed of, more

than measured up to expectations with many being declared on the spot as

³Match of the Year² only to lose that label as soon as the next dream match

happened. In fact, one of those dream matches, a three way dance between

PCO, Kevin Steen and El Generico at IWS Blood Sweat & Beers was so good that

the fans of the IWS swarmed the ring after the match to pound on the mat and

chant ³Match of the Year!² It is rumoured that a fan cam of that match given

to Don Callis helped PCO land his job with TNA/NWA, and that the tape not

only helped PCO get hired it also determined the direction that his

character would take in NWA/TNA.

 

But Jacques Rougeau Jr. did more than just release his students to wrestle

where they wished. He also announced that for his annual Christmas Family

Wrestling Gala instead of featuring stars of Jacques glory days with the

WWF, it would feature the best indy wrestlers in the province selected from

across most if not all of the province¹s feds. Suddenly, Jacques annual

gala, this year to be called Lutte-Mania I, seemed important.

 

Jacques Rougeau Jr. also announced that he had arranged for a dark match

tryout with the WWE in February for two of his most promising students: Eric

Mastrocola and Kevin Steen. (Again it was rumoured that the three way dance

featuring PCO, Steen and El Generico had an impact. Rougeau¹s recommendation

was obviously all important, but supposedly the tape played for the WWE to

show off Kevin Steen was of that match.)

 

Truly for fans of independent wrestling in Quebec, it seemed like the dawn

of a new Golden Age of wrestling. Crowds were up, the wrestling was better,

promoters were cooperating with one another, down was up, black was white.

This truly was an ³annus mirabilis.² The inactive King of Quebec wrestling

was awake. King Log was dead. Long Live an active King Rougeau.

 

Then of course, the other shoe dropped...

 

Jacques Rougeau Jr. and Paul Leduc of the FLQ announced a new cooperative

agreement. FLQ agreed to follow Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s guidelines for proper

family wrestling: No Tables, No Ladders, No Chairs, No Brawling on the

Outside and most importantly, No Swearing. In return, Jacques Rougeau Jr.

gave the FLQ exclusive access to his students. From now on, Crush, Sheik

Tank Ali, Eric Mastrocola and Kevin Steen and all the others would wrestle

only for the FLQ.

 

The first consequence of this was that a number of Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s

students cancelled bookings that they had already committed to. Jacques

Rougeau Jr., the man who had praised Beef Wellington and Kid Kamikaze to his

students for keeping their commitment to him before leaving, was now

actively encouraging his students to abandon their professional obligations.

 

The fed most damaged was the relatively new wrestling promotion CWA who had

gambled big by importing Don Callis to be the foil for Pierre Carl Ouellet.

As part of that story line, Pierre Carl Ouellet agreed to wrestle Sheik Tank

Ali in a match where PCO had to beat him in five minutes or less. If PCO

won, he would get the chance to put his hands on Don Callis. If he did not

pin Sheik Tank Ali in five minutes however, PCO would have to retire from

active wrestling in Quebec. Backing out of any match is bad, but in this

particular case, by backing out of a heavily publicized main event scheduled

for next week Tank has placed the organizers of the CWA in a very awkward

position.

 

Amongst Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s other students, Eric Mastrocola, while not

actively breaking commitments, left promoters uncertain whether they could

count on him or not, leading some promoters to cancel his appearances rather

than take the risk of him not showing.

 

Kevin Steen is the man with the hardest dilemma of all. On one hand, by

refusing ever to consider cancelling his bookings, Kevin Steen built on his

already shining reputation in this province for professionalism. On the

other hand, at 19 years old, the most promising technical wrestler this

province has ever seen must decide between continuing to thrill crowds and

fill halls from Quebec City to Montreal to Ottawa, but in so doing give up a

chance of a dark match for the WWE.

 

The oddest thing about all of this, other than Jacques Rougeau Jr.

developing guidelines for wrestling that make Bill Watts look like John

Zandig, is that the exclusivity helps no one and hurts everyone. The FLQ is

a French wrestling federation owned by Paul Leduc that runs weekly,

exclusively on Fridays and targets families. So Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s

guidelines were a natural fit and the addition of Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s

students were certainly welcomed by the FLQ. On the other hand, many Quebec

wrestling observers question whether the FLQ¹s roster of wrestling stunt men

are up to the challenge of confining the action within the ropes.

 

Oddly, the FLQ does not compete with the other wrestling federations in

Quebec in any meaningful way. They are the only wrestling fed to routinely

run shows on Fridays. Most wrestling feds in the province run on Saturdays.

The FLQ also targets French families almost exclusively. Most English

wrestling fans would never set foot in a fed that has the same initials as

the separatist terrorist group who kidnapped British diplomat James Cross

and murdered Quebec Liberal Minister of Labour Pierre LaPorte. And many of

the other more successful wrestling feds run shows in bars and target an

audience that is 18 years or older.

 

In other words, the audience that the FLQ gets is completely different from

that of most Quebec wrestling feds. It doesn¹t even run on the same night as

other wrestling feds in Quebec. So there is no reason other than ego for

Jacques Rougeau Jr. to prohibit his wrestlers from wrestling for any one

other than FLQ.

 

Even worse, the FLQ is one of the feds in Montreal who do not pay their

wrestlers. So Jacques Rougeau Jr.¹s students find themselves giving up other

non-competing gigs that would pay them to wrestle.

 

(It should be said that even the best paid wrestler in Quebec, Pierre Carl

Ouellet, does not get paid what he is truly worth, considering the effort

and passion that he brings to a match. But being forced to wrestle for free

just adds insult to injury.)

 

The other great irony is that the fans of the FLQ have already demonstrated

their antipathy to Jacques Rougeau Jr. and his vision of family wrestling.

The fans of the FLQ may be children, but they resent being treated like

children. It¹s not like the FLQ ever used a lot of tables, ladders, chairs,

brawling to the outside or cursing. In fact, it is usually said that the

crowd at a FLQ show is more foul mouthed than any of the wrestlers. But it

is one thing not to offer something, it is quite another to tell a crowd of

juvenile delinquents drunk on the sugar rush of Mae West¹s and Pepsi that

they can not have something.

 

On Friday, November 22nd, Jacques Rougeau Jr. appeared in front of the crowd

at FLQ for the first time and announced his alliance with the FLQ and his

new guidelines for family wrestling... and promptly got booed out of the

building. In fact, young fans rushed the ring barriers chanting the very

obscenities that Jacques Rougeau Jr. wanted to protect them for hearing.

 

Jacques Rougeau Jr. has a vision of family wrestling that he would like to

offer the people of Quebec. He is convinced that it is a successful formula.

He may very well be right. He certainly has the right to hold that opinion.

It is the job of a wrestling promoter to have a vision of what kind of

product he wants to offer the public. No one can accuse Jacques Rougeau Jr.

of lacking that vision.

 

On the other hand, Jacques Rougeau Jr. wants to impose that vision of

wrestling on the rest of the province. In the process, he is trying to deny

the wrestling fans of this province of the chance to see one of the best

wrestlers that this province has ever produced: Kevin Steen. Along with Eric

Mastrocola, Sheik Tank Ali, Crush and all of his other students.

 

In the fable, the frogs of the pond decide to rid themselves of Old King

Log, because he does nothing. They decide that they need an active, vigorous

King. Of course, once their new King, King Stork takes over they find

themselves longing for their inactive King Log.

 

Jacques Rougeau Jr., King Log is dead. All hail, Jacques Rougeau Jr., King

Stork. For better or for worse, Quebec wrestling will never be the same.

 

(Quote from Beef Wellington from his interview with the Paradise City Ninjaz

on http://www.thesmartmarks.com/ )

[Guest trickstyle_360]

Great article there by OZ. I posted it on Houseofxtreme.com too, but somehow it won't show.

[PsychoDriver 0]

Wow, they drew 10,000 fans with Family Oriented wrestling?

 

What is there nothing else to do in that area or something?

[Jebus 0]

Wow, they drew 10,000 fans with Family Oriented wrestling?

 

What is there nothing else to do in that area or something?

If it was the show where Bret Hart showed up then yeah 10,000 fans easy!

 

I'm still pissed at myself for missing it

[Reverb 0]

The show where Bret Hart showed up was at "Le Stade duMaurier" where they hold the Tennis Masters series. The show drew about 2,500 people due to Jacques' catch phrase: "Tin, vla des billets" (which translates to "Here have some free tickets")

 

Edit: I put to many 0's

Edited November 29, 2003 by Reverb