Bret Hart’s longtime connection with the late Iron Sheik was first made in the early 1970s when an Iranian amateur wrestler — real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri — came to Calgary to learn from promoter Stu Hart.
It was in the infamous wrestling dungeon at the Hart family residence that promoter Stu — with teenage son Bret helping out — worked with the Iron Sheik to help him make the transition to the professional style.
“I was mostly just used as a practice dummy, but I got to be one of those guys that he trained with when he first started,” Hart said from Calgary. “When I met him years later in the WWF (now WWE) when he was really in his prime, he never forgot that I started with him.”
The Iron Sheik, who became one of sports entertainment’s biggest stars in the Hulkamania-fuelled mid-1980s, died Wednesday at 81, the WWE said.
“He treated me and often spoke of me like I was his student,” Hart recalled in an interview with The Canadian Press. “We had a great relationship because he had this start with me when he was nobody, when he was this young amateur wrestler and how I helped him.
“I always had that special relationship with him. He was a character.”
The Iron Sheik was competitive in Greco-Roman wrestling, competing in the Amateur Athletic Union and becoming a gold medallist in 1971, the WWE said.
In a documentary about his life called “The Sheik,” he said he once served as a bodyguard for the Shah. In the squared circle, he acknowledged taking advantage of anti-Iranian sentiment following the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.
In 1983, the Iron Sheik won the WWF heavyweight title from Bob Backlund before dropping the belt to Hulk Hogan a few weeks later. He also won the promotion’s tag team championship in 1985 with Nikolai Volkoff at the first WrestleMania.
Hart, nicknamed “Hitman,” also became a star in the promotion as a tag team with Jim Neidhart and later as a solo performer. The Hart Foundation tag team wrestled the Iron Sheik and Volkoff on occasion.
“They always had a ton of heat because they had that Russian/Iran connection thing going,” Hart said. “It was always easy. For the lack of a better word, it was kind of cartoony.
“Like cartoon wrestling, it was so easy. There were good guys, bad guys and they were the total bad guys. It didn’t matter what happened.”
The Iron Sheik worked with Minnesota-based promoter Verne Gagne before heading north to Calgary. He later returned to Minneapolis and was soon on his way to working his gimmick — with the Camel Clutch as his finishing move — to great success.
“He wasn’t the greatest technical wrestler in pro wrestling terms,” Hart said. “He was often a guy that you had to wing it out there a little bit with him.
“He could ad-lib and at the same time he was a guy you could have a lot of laughs with (after).”
Hart’s late father, who ran the Stampede Wrestling promotion for decades, would often help develop athletes who had amateur wrestling, football or bodybuilding backgrounds.
“He would turn out these guys because he could pick their best qualities and show them what to do if they wanted to be professional wrestlers,” Hart said. “He always tried to toughen them up and show them what they needed to know (in) the ring.”
Hart said the Iron Sheik became arguably the most hated wrestler — ever — in the United States.
“He was actually a very pro-American guy in real life,” he said. “If you knew him, you knew what a good man he was. He had his good qualities. He was a real friend to the end and he was always a friend to me.
“I always had a love and respect for him. I know a lot of guys did.”
Hart worked as both a babyface and heel — a ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’ in wrestling parlance — at various stages of his career.
The heat generated from storylines — especially for someone with a hot character like the Iron Sheik’s — often made things challenging outside the ring, Hart said.
“It’s not easy for someone like him. It becomes very real,” he said. “People try to kill you and people try to run you off the road.”
Hart said there were occasional bomb threats at venues in those days. Sometimes people would be waiting outside the arena exit for the heel wrestlers at the end of the night.
“You could joke that it was all pro wrestling and everyone knows it’s a show but it was pretty serious stuff back then,” he said.
The Iron Sheik was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.
“Even right now I’m thinking of him pulling on his moustache and laughing about the escapades that him and Nikolai Volkoff got into going from one town to another,” Hart said with a chuckle.
“They were great characters and loved by everybody in the business.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2023.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
