For 50 Years, Maple Leaf Gardens has stood at the corner of Church and Carlton streets in
Toronto and for 50 years, wrestling patrons have consistently been getting the show they paid to see.
That's more than can be said lately for the fans who go to watch the building's chief tenants, the Toronto Maple Leafs,
But, for the past half a century, Toronto's wrestling devotees have been delighted with the rivers of encapsulated
claret that have bled away their cares for a few hours during wars, depressions, and recessions.
The fans have released their frustrations vicariously while successions of masked assassins and destroyers have
consented to mutual mayhem, then divied up gate receipts. The man who has been putting these shows together
since the Gardens opened on his 19th birthday is Frank Tunney, a promoter who makes good on Harold Ballard's
credo that one makes money by giving the people what they want.
"Sunday's card is like a repeat of 50 years ago," Tunney said on the week of the Gardens anniversary. "That night,
we had a sellout to see Jim Londos and Gino Garibaldi. The Leafs drew more than 13,000 for their first game in the
Gardens in November 1931, but wrestling drew 15,000 and the gate was about $13,000. "This week, we should
sellout again, but now there are about 17,000 seats for wrestling and the gate is about $100,000. We've got Ric Flair
against Harley Race, Andre The Giant against Killer Kahn and Angelo Mosca against Big John Studd."
It should be noted that Tunney always thinks his cards are a potential sellout. Ask him when he had his best card
and he instantly responds, "The next one". The answer will be the same next week, and the week after that.
Wrestling has worked and will continue to work because of emotion, something the chief tenants of the Gardens.
have been unable to evoke from their fans for a long time.
Professional Wrestling plays on love and hate and thrives on good guys versus bad guys. The problem with the Leafs
is that, though they dress in white at home, they have been known to blur the good guy/bad guy distinction by being
very bad themselves. There is also the matter of effort. Professional wrestling is largely ignored by the sports pages
because it is regarded as light entertainment rather than athletic endeavor. But the whole-hearted effort expended by
the participants to make it a good show cannot be denied. The same cannot always be said of the hockey shows
that take place in the Gardens. How often in the past have Toronto hockey coaches been quoted as
saying, "We came out flat."
Wrestlers enter the ring growling, snarling, doing sumo stomps, throwing salt, strutting, swaggering, caressing
their golden locks or bowing to the east. They never come out flat. They have to be body-slammed into that position.
"And they never want to quit," Tunney said. "Whipper Billy Watson, who was the best I saw, fought all through
the 1950s and 1960s and kept saying he was going to retire and he never did, not until a car hit him and crushed his
knees in 1971.
"Even Fred Atkins, who's in his 70s, is still active as a referee." Atkins also is known around the Gardens as the
Leafs' merciless physical instructor during training camp. Many of the players, including teenagers, have difficulty
keeping up with him in workouts that he regards as routine. Over the years, Tunney has featured midget wrestlers
and female wrestlers, but they are not in vogue any more.
"There's been no real demand for them lately. If there were, I'd be giving fans what they wanted to see."
Tunney recalls a night in 1936 when fans got to see something for which they didn't pay. Vic Christie, a popular
grappler of the day, had prepared himself meticulously in the dressing room, lacing his boots, smoothing the wrinkles
out of his long dressing robe and carefully !tucking his towel around his neck. He strode to the ring to a swell of
cheers and boos, waving to the fans, then stepped into the ring. He was called to the centre by the referee for the
mandatory explanation of rules.
Ref: "Now open your robe."
Christie flung open his robe. Then he saw the referee staring.
Christie: "What is it?"
Ref: "Christie, I'm supposed to check to see if you've
greased your
body or if you've got some foreign object hidden in your trunks."
Christie: "So?"
Ref: "First, you gotta wear trunks."
