The Great Antonio - Le Grand Antonio - Grappling With Canada

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi folks, Andy the Taxman here.

(00:04):
Before we get into today's program, please take a minute to rate, review, and subscribe
to Grappling with Canada on any podcasting platform of your choice.

(00:25):
The great Antonio is this guy, I can't even describe what he looks like.
He looks like a f- control with a page boy haircut and he's just ridiculously fat and
he's wearing the ugliest mustard colored yellow like sweatpants with these military boots on.

(00:52):
He's wrestling this guy, Antonio Anaki, who's a Japanese guy who looks like a f- movie star.
You know, he's got the old school movie star chin, he's got the jack lord Hawaii 5-0 f-
haircut, he's in great shape.
So they start f-ing wrestling.
The Japanese guy is being a f-ing professional and the great Antonio, who I guess had a reputation

(01:14):
for not selling people's moves and being selfish in the ring, you know, the Japanese guy would
punch him in his fat stomach and he wouldn't even move and then the fat dude would keep
punching his stomach like it's hard as a rock and people were laughing in the crowd.
The Japanese guy throws him off the ropes and the guy just sort of stops, you know,

(01:34):
and doesn't sell the move and the Japanese guy's looking at him like what the f-.
The crowd's laughing, you start seeing the Japanese dude looking at him like dude, what
the f-.
So long story short, if they get a few minutes into the round, the Japanese guy has been
selling everything the f- is doing, the f- is making the Japanese guy look like an idiot.
So f- gets the Japanese guy against the ropes and he's punching almost like the back of

(01:57):
this guy's neck, super f-ing hard and the guy takes like three of them before he finally
like blocks the fourth one and then he just snaps like dude, what the f-.
And he just stands up and just open hands, slaps this f- in the head as hard as you possibly
can.
And then the fat page boy guy like turns his head, it's phenomenal.

(02:19):
And the Japanese guy's going like making those like come on, let's get fighting.
Then grabs his leg, Japanese dude just snaps, throws him on his belly, boots him in the
f-ing head, right?
Now the ref is going like whoa, whoa, hey, whoa, he's crawling around like a dog.

(02:39):
And the Japanese guy boots him in the head again.
Now the fat guy is like in planking, he's laying down on the ground and the Japanese
guy boots him in the head like another f-ing six times.
It's almost attempted murder.

(03:03):
I'm Andy the Taxman.
This is Grappling with Kanba.
Underground on the Orange Line, there's a disturbing giant disturbing.
It's a strange pachyderm.
When he gets up, the earth shakes.

(03:27):
He carries on his back the weight of his legend.
Underground, Bomiya Station, people pretend it's nothing, act as if they don't see.
That a wreck is washed ashore there, tied to the past by its heavy braids.
Oh, what sadness.
The great Antonio, Antonio Bersevich, Bersevich Fetissimo as 10 Star Horses from Tokyo to

(03:56):
Gatineau.
Want my photo?
Give me some doughnut.
On earth it's been years.
We saw him on TV in much happier days.
He excited the curious, pulling buses with his hair, but the man stronger on earth sunk
down in misery.
The day when his little flower broke his too big of a heart, saying to him, I'll leave

(04:21):
you.
Oh, what a pain for a wrestler.
The great Antonio, Antonio Bersevich, Bersevich Fetissimo like 10 horses.
Star from Tokyo to Gatineau.
A heartbreak even heavier than the sum of all his records.

(04:43):
It's far too much effort.
Antonio suffered so much that his monumental strength in the end only became a postcard
memory.
Coming out of a grocery store, that's where he ended his life.
Away on a small bench, not to disturb the customers, nobody to realize that he was long

(05:08):
dead.
Poor little giant.
Leaving for the long journey, without honors and without luggage.
What a pity.
But in the living room, in spite of death, he raised the crowd again.
3000 people at arm's length one last time.
Ah, what a feat.

(05:29):
To reach fame too often alone and despised it.
It was expensive to pay.
Hail to you, Antonio.
Half tramp, half hero.
Forever larger than life.
That's for sure.
Things die hard.
What I've just read to you are the lyrics from the song Antonio by the band Meia released

(05:54):
several years after the great Antonio's passing.
Lyrics which encapsulates the wonderful story and the tragedy of the man that they call
the great Antonio.
Now, today's episode is on one of the more fascinating subjects that I've covered on
Grappler with Canada and easily the hardest to research.

(06:18):
There is a long, deep history and appreciation for the strongman story out of Montreal, out
of French Canada, that's both impressively told and impressively difficult to separate
fact from fiction.
Today in this episode of Grappler with Canada, we're going to be taking a look at the story

(06:40):
of the great Antonio.
We're going to be celebrating the fact, his accomplishments, his Guinness World Records
and his feats of strength and the fiction.
The exaggerated feats, the exaggerated sense of self, but more importantly the exaggeration
of the story.
Today is going to be a fascinating look at both the life of a wrestler but the life of

(07:05):
a legend.
And I think you'll understand a lot more of what I mean by that as we progress into today's
episode.
It's going to be an episode quite different from any that I've ever covered on Grappler
with Canada.
Normally, I would start the episode by giving a brief biography of the individual.
Today you're going to get a biography that this individual has told.

(07:31):
And later in the program, we're going to uncover with as much fact that I'm able to back up
of the real story.
Who was Antonio Barasevich and how can we separate him from the great Antonio?
We're going to find out later in today's episode.

(07:52):
I have two wonderful guests who will be joining me on today's program.
We're going to be getting to all of that a little bit later.
But I think the proper way to start this off is to start at the end.
Now, this audio clip that you're going to hear comes from the CBC.
It is the clip from CBC's The National in which you're going to hear the great Peter

(08:16):
Mansbridge describe the passing of the great Antonio.
And on the other side, let's start with the legend of Le Grand Antonio.
He was a man who could pull his own weight and a lot more than that.
Montreal is mourning the loss of a huge presence, a strong man who was known as the great Antonio.

(08:38):
Matthew Pace reports.
They came to see a giant with a gentle heart, a strong man who could sing a lullaby.
He loved the world, says this man.
He loved life.
You judge a man by his heart, his character, and he had a great character.

(09:01):
He was a character right out of a myth.
As with all myths, the facts, well, they don't really matter.
His name was Anton Barachevich.
Sometimes he said he was born in Yugoslavia, other times Italy.
He said he came to Canada sometime in the 1940s, that he was the world's strongest man.
This much is true.
He was strong.

(09:23):
The great Antonio stood six foot four, weighed more than 400 pounds.
He could wrestle five men, pull a train or a bus.
He pulled four of them into the Guinness Book of World Records.
He appeared on television and in movies, but he ended up a poor man.

(09:45):
The great Antonio died of a heart attack just before his 78th birthday.
There's so many different stories.
Some people didn't know he was Italian, he was Yugoslav, but one thing is for sure is
that he's touched a lot of people.
Serge Blain was one of them.
The great Antonio used to come into his store to have rings braided into his dreadlocks.

(10:05):
In the neighborhood you have, let's say, a landmark, and that landmark is gone.
The great Antonio called this his office.
You could find him here almost any day of the week, entertaining people with his stories.
He even proposed once to Henriette Legault.
Of course he wasn't serious, she says.

(10:26):
That's just the kind of man he was.
I looked there and he's not there anymore.
We won't see him there anymore on this bench.
The bench where he used to sit is empty now, except for flowers, flowers and memories of
a man who lived life large.
Matthew Pace, CBC News, Montreal.

(11:01):
I'm going to start with the general story that most Strongman fans and wrestling fans
would know about the great Antonio.
After that, I'm going to explain a little bit about the legends surrounding the great
Antonio.
And after that, I'm going to do my best to uncover the facts surrounding the great Antonio.

(11:27):
Now this piece comes courtesy of good friend of the show, Greg Oliver, from the website
slamwrestling.net.
The great Antonio, a well-known Strongman who once impressed Montrealers by pulling
city buses, has died.
But he was much more than just a strongman.
Pro wrestler, actor, raving madman, celebrity, extravagant self-promoter.

(11:53):
Antonio Bersevich, 77, died Sunday night after suffering a heart attack in a grocery store.
But his was a unique story to say the least.
And no doubt the facts lie somewhere to the edge of the previously published stories of
his life.

(12:18):
He worked at age 6 with a pick and shovel, and by 12 had graduated to pulling trees out
of the ground with a cable around his neck.
At age 20, in 1946 he came to Canada and learned of the history of the Strongman in Canada.
Things like Louis Cyr, Victor Delamar, and the Berlion Brothers.
Paul Vachon wrote about the great Antonio in his self-published book, When Wrestling

(12:42):
Was Real.
Quote, He was truly a character in a business that is by nature full of unusual characters.
Antonio started his career as a scrapyard worker, a scavenger, and a resident.
There was a guy, 6 foot 4, 450 pounds, that worked not only in a scrapyard, but lived

(13:02):
there in a shack that he made for himself out of old planks, cardboard, cement blocks,
and the hood of a junked car.
The owners of the scrapyard let him stay there in exchange for the work that he did moving
scrap iron around, Vachon wrote.
Nobody ever really knew his origins, but he spoke in a mixture of French, Italian, English,

(13:25):
Russian, and a little Hungarian.
Beresevich got stronger moving the scrap metal around and graduated to moving cars and buses
around the lot.
He showed up at a Montreal bus terminal, moved a bus in front of many people, and a legend
was born.
Beresevich was smart enough to capitalize on his feats of strength, getting much media
attention and printing out postcards to sell with photos of his accomplishments.

(13:49):
Some of the more notable feats of strength included pulling a train loaded with lead
for 65 feet, and pulling up to four buses at once loaded with people.
Sid Stephens, director of Sun Youth, a Montreal community aid group, recalled one feat performed
by the giant, who stood 6 foot 4 and weighed about 500 pounds.
Quote, I remember he pulled a bus on Saint Laurent Boulevard, the 55, and it was full

(14:13):
of passengers, Stephens told Montreal radio station CJAD.
The bus driver was pleading with him not to because he was kind of late on his schedule,
but he didn't care.
He just grabbed the bus with a rope and pulled it.
And when the police officers came, they just stood and watched, and didn't even try to
interfere.
Imagine, getting this type of individual into a police car.

(14:37):
Jonathan Goldstein of Saturday Night Magazine did a short story of the great Antonio in
March of 2000.
Quote, Antonio says that he's just naturally strong, that it doesn't matter whether he
trains or not.
So where does the strength come from?
What makes one man stronger than another?
It isn't only in the size of the muscles.

(14:58):
It's something else.
Perhaps it is will.
Goldstein would quote the great Antonio.
Quote, Me an expert on physical strength.
To understand is to do it, but no one can do it.
Six billion in the world.
No energy, no strength.
Nobody understand.

(15:19):
You understand?
There is an equally fascinating section on the great Antonio in Bill Richardson's 1997
book, Scorned and Beloved, Dead of Winter Meetings with Canadian Decentrics.
He recalled meeting Antonio at a Montreal donut shop, where the giant of a man began
pouring out oodles of clippings proclaiming his greatness.

(15:40):
Quote, The headlines just kept on spilling, one after the other, all of them clamouring
to be heard after the confinement in the green garbage bag.
All the clippings more or less tell the same story.
International travel, meetings with celebrities, movie roles in films that required convincing
auto tones such as The Quest for Fire and The Abominable Snowman.

(16:03):
As Antonio shows off his impression collection of cullings, one by one, and one by one, he
annotates the stories in his associative rambling, stream of consciousness style.
He gets very loud.
A strong man's show and tell unfolds right there, right in the middle of Montreal, in
the middle of afternoon, in the middle of Dunkin Donuts.

(16:26):
After his feats of strength made him a name in Quebec and to a lesser degree around the
world, Bear Savage tried to break into wrestling by bugging local promoter Eddie Quinn and
showing up at the Montreal Forum challenging wrestlers.
Continually rebuffed in his efforts to become a grappler, Vichon says that Antonio just
started promoting shows himself.

(16:46):
Especially with him going over in a Battle Royal main event.
Eventually with the wrestling magazines clamoring over the potent self promoter, a few grappling
gurus gave him a shot, including Stu Hart and Calgary.
Percival Alphren was a young wrestler and wrote about his memories of the great Antonio

(17:07):
on his site.
Quote, He had a huge beard and long hair parted down the middle that hung to his shoulders.
I had seen strong man stunts that he did in Montreal and Quebec City, like pulling a bus
loaded with people down to Main Street using change in the harness made from heavy leather
that he hooked onto himself.
I even saw them hook him up to a diesel locomotive and he pulled it down to set of tracks for

(17:29):
a city block.
I never had the opportunity to wrestle with this guy, but then again, after seeing all
the stuff he did, I'm not too sure that I would have carried too much wrestling holds
with the guy.
Antonio also loved garlic.
He would eat clove after clove of the stuff, as it said it gave him lots of internal strength
and kept his heart good.

(17:50):
He never had too many dates even with the worst looking gals that followed the guys
around the arena.
The truth was that his body reeked from the garlic.
According to Vashaw, Antonio was simply unmanageable for wrestling promoters who were used to getting
their way.
Quote, He was a pre-Madonna and when he saw the big crowds he figured it was all because
of him.

(18:13):
Over the last number of years, Baris Savage seemed comfortable being a well-known weirdo
around Montreal.
Someone that everyone had a story about seeing somewhere, usually on the subway, or popping
up unexpectedly in front of a city bus, wanting to pull it.
Claiming to be a descendant of extraterrestrials, he peddled his pencils and postcards everywhere.

(18:37):
His hair grew even longer than during his wrestling days, with dreadlocks that descended
to the floor and the bottoms wrapped in electrical tape, which made it possible for him to golf
with his hair.
On a handful of occasions, he would attend local wrestling shows, usually to visit old
colleagues like Paul the Duke or Deepak Singh.
In Scorned and Beloved, Richardson perhaps puts it best of the last loony years of the

(19:01):
great Antonio's life.
Quote, Perhaps it's not so surprising that he chooses to dwell in the marble halls of
his Halcyon days.
He trails a magnificent past, that's for sure, and God knows he worked hard for whatever
rewards he has received, as any of the bus pulling photos can attest.
He worked hard with what he had, with strength, nerve, and more than a little gall.

(19:26):
Now, many of the other stories about the great Antonio would involve not only his feats of
strength but his feats of consumption.
It would be claimed that Antonio could eat up to 50 chickens in one sitting, that he
could eat over 10 steaks in one sitting, that he would eat 30 hot dogs for breakfast.

(19:49):
Not only that, it were his feats of world wide records, one of which included the world's
biggest rocking chair, noted to be at the time 14 feet wide.
Now there are kernels of truth in the story that you just heard, many of which are told
by Antonio himself.

(20:10):
Like I said, we're going to in this episode get as close to the truth as we possibly can
as we really understand just who the great Antonio was, but more importantly who Antonio
Barasewicz was.
Before we get into that though, I am going to bring on my first guest of the evening.

(20:34):
David Williams is a Canadian podcaster, he's the host of the Fireside Canada podcast, one
of my personal favorites.
It's a podcast where David does an exceptional job of talking about Canadian folklore and
legends.
He does this in a few different ways.

(20:55):
He'll explain the legend, many of which you would have heard, such as the legend of
Capelle, Le Chez's Galerie, the old hag of Newfoundland, the haunted lighthouse of Gibraltar
Point, one of my favorites, an episode on the Fort Gary Hotel here in Winnipeg, and

(21:16):
a tremendous episode on another French-Canadian legendary strongman, Big Joe, Joseph Mufferon.
Not only does David Williams go into tremendous detail on these stories of these legends and
folklores from Canadian history, he also does a tremendous job of digging in and getting

(21:41):
to the fact of the matter, of where these stories came from, and just how much of these
stories are rooted in actual fact in Canadian history.
You can find links to this program in the show notes of today's episode.
Before I bring on my guest, I'm going to play a little bit of classic, great Antonio audio.

(22:05):
Now this comes from a French-Canadian variety show.
Viewers of this program will know that Graveler with Canada is heard in over 75 countries
worldwide, which means that there are many, many languages that are being spoken by individuals
who listen to this program, which is why I'm going to include lots of different language

(22:29):
presentations in this program today.
So what you're going to hear is a presentation in French.
I'll do a little bit of translation later on in the episode, and on the other side of
it, you're going to hear my conversation with David Williams.
But what I want you to get from this audio clip is a sense of great Antonio, the entertainer.

(22:55):
And I think you'll be able to ascertain from this clip just how magnetizing, just how polarizing
he was as an individual, and just how he was able to suck people into his orbit with his
magnetism, if you will.
So once again, I'm going to play this classic audio, and on the other side, my tremendous

(23:18):
conversation with David Williams.
Please enjoy.
We have someone to introduce you to who was invited to the reception of Michael Jackson
in Toronto and who did a shoot for NBC here in Montreal on Michael Jackson Avenue.

(23:47):
Here we go.
J'ai pas de nav'.
Le grand Antonio, venez me voir.
Attention.
Vous là, commencez-moi pas ça.

(24:11):
Venez vous asseoir et restez tranquille.
You there, Antonio, imagine I brought him to talk to me about Michael Jackson. He will never talk to me about Michael Jackson.
Look carefully. Look carefully.
Well, shall we go with you?
I'm going live.
OK, let's go with you.
This is the number one television show.
One minute.
For the show Mark Tuxedo, it's classy.

(24:31):
Tuxedo, the best in the world. I'm classy.
Mark Tuxedo, number one, worldwide.
Yes, it's true, it's true, it's true. It's classy.
He's perfectly right.
OK, sit down for two minutes.
Talk to me about Michael Jackson that you have met.
I hope you didn't scare Michael Jackson the same way.
You scare me to death.
The only one in Canada who has met Michael Jackson is me.

(24:54):
Sit down, I'm better than you.
No problem. Tell me, don't come and tell me.
I'm a Canadian television host, it's worldwide.
Well, I hope so.
Now, I was invited to Toronto to Michael Jackson. Look at the photo that's there.
He was invited to the private party.
Where was it?

(25:15):
In Toronto, there were 400 men.
At the private party.
This photo was taken by Color Lab.
Color Lab is the best photographer in the world.
My God, you're going to the best world in the world?
When you see a photo in Color Lab, it's Color Lab.
European.
That's what I call a blog.
The photo of the superstars.
That's Ecovedette.
Oh yes.

(25:36):
The number one television show of artists and television.
Well, that's it.
Hey, Antonio, tell me about Michael Jackson.
How is he in the private?
Michael Jackson is a very good little guy.
When he saw me, Michael...
Were you scared?
He was scared and he was annoyed.
He was annoyed?
To talk to me.

(25:57):
To tell the truth.
Oh yes.
I mean, after he started, I danced with him, he sang.
He was invited to Montreal, the American television came to film us in Montreal, NBC.
And Toronto was invited to Michael's party.
So, there's a lot of champagne, wine, cognac, sandwiches, caviar, biscuits, everything you want, vodka.

(26:21):
How much do you want?
Did you enjoy it?
A lot.
A lot.
I mean...
Tell me, Antonio, how many books have you written?
510.
510 books?
Yes.
Michael, I mean, is the only journalist on television.
And the only television he was able to enter.
Bodyguards everywhere.
Outside the hotel, inside the hotel.

(26:44):
And all the states blocked him.
Only I was able to enter.
Why did he invite you?
Because I'm the American television reporter.
Oh, really?
He was world famous.
But you know Michael, you know Antonio Mondial Mart.
He has five world records.
Look at this.
He has four buses.
Oh, yes, but...
World records, that's a lot.
The presidents Regaine in photos, the Pope, our Elizabeth, Mother of the

(27:27):
Queen,onteel...
I was thinking about, funny enough, I was thinking about poutine, right, or poutine.

(27:59):
So poutine, right, became a thing in Quebec in like, I think in the 50s, it was invented
in the 50s.
And nowadays, right, we all Canadians, generally, we all talk about how poutine is great, we
jokingly talk about it as like the iconic Canadian dish, you know, McDonald's serves
poutine, right, everyone has poutine.
But I know that back, I think it was back in the 70s, even, poutine was made fun of

(28:25):
by some in English Canada and some in English media, and it was seen as a very pedestrian
or very lowbrow dish, right.
And maybe that, I'd have to do some research, so I'm not going to claim this, but like,
it's interesting to me to think about that, like, it was seen as this like, working class,
lowbrow, peasant Quebec dish.

(28:48):
And it took a while for it to kind of climb out of that.
I think we do see a lot of that, like, you know, I think that's partly why it's, we talked
about earlier about punching through that, both for both ways into Quebec media or Quebec
culture and the rest of English Canada appreciating Quebec culture.
You see that more and more.

(29:09):
And finally, now, you know, people are actually enjoying Quebec and what Quebec produces.
But I think that's really interesting that back in the 70s, it was seen as like this,
this lowly dish, and it wasn't nearly as celebrated as it is today.
And you can imagine maybe that's that has some parallels with how great Antonio was
ridiculed as this lowly, uneducated guy who could barely speak a word, and he's not really

(29:31):
worth my time.
Maybe now is the time for him to shine a little brighter.
My name is David Williams.
I am the host and writer of the podcast Fireside Canada, the line my podcast about Canadian
legends lies and lore.
It's interesting, like, you know, we're talking about Canadian legends and lore and professional

(29:52):
wrestling obviously ties into all of that, because you have these larger than life characters.
And there's different types of lore and the lore that we find with with the great Antonio
is one that really ties in with you.
So maybe let's let's hear about your experience researching your program, which was covering
Joseph Mufferaw.

(30:13):
Sure.
Yeah.
So yeah, looking at Joseph Mufferaw, you know, being a person who's interested in Canadian
folklore and history, I knew the name.
And of course, everyone knows, you know, the the the song from Stomp and Tom Connors and
that kind of thing.
And so when I when I started to research it, I actually got in contact with sees Historia

(30:39):
Canadiana, the podcast with Patrick over there.
And because I know he's from Quebec and so I kind of touched base with him and said,
hey, you're from Quebec.
So I got a few questions for you since, you know, he's he's very into literature and and
very much on the history side of things and asked, OK, here's what I kind of understand
about Mufferaw.
Can you kind of answer a few questions for me?

(31:00):
Do you have any resources, you know, especially in French?
Because if you're trying to do some research and you want to go on the French side of things
and you're an Anglophone like I am, really hard to find the content.
So he kind of pointed me to a few.
Well, the main book by Solt, which is the main biography of Mufferaw.
And he also answered a very simple question, which was basically I've I know I've never

(31:24):
heard of him in my school schooling here in B.C. right.
I never learned about him growing up.
I just learned about him by being interested in folklore.
Do they teach about Mufferaw in Quebec?
And he said, actually, no, they don't, which was kind of surprising to me because, you
know, there are government buildings named after him.
There are streets named after him in Quebec.
And he said, at least as far as he knew from his experience, no, they don't teach about

(31:46):
him in high schools.
And maybe I think it was like second or third year university.
He eventually heard about him.
So kind of diving in from there, reading Solt's work on Mufferaw, reading as much as I could
about him, you know, in the Canadian biographies and that kind of thing, and slowly piecing
together the history of his life.

(32:07):
And then from there, I kind of dove into a lot of the old newspaper articles.
So a lot of ones published in Ottawa and in Montreal in English, because a lot of the
French stuff isn't at least archived for anglophones to get easy access to.
And it'd be very hard for me to search for it.
So I did a lot of searching there and found some old stories about Mufferaw shared by

(32:27):
English people who lived and worked in Montreal and lived and worked in Ottawa and in the
Ottawa Valley and kind of ran into him, where more often their grandfathers told stories
about working alongside him and how strong he was and how he'd carry logs like he'd
they chopped down huge trees in the forest and he just carried them himself on his shoulders
and throw them into the river.

(32:48):
So that was kind of how I can kind of compiled it was the main biography, which I think
was I can't remember what it was in my episode.
I mentioned it was I think 20 years or so after his death, maybe even more.
So by that time, he was already a legend.
And then the newspaper articles, which included stories from grandfathers.
And of course, I was also he was a legend.
He was bigger than life.

(33:08):
And he stopped a fight in a tavern by grabbing two guys and banging them together until he
agreed to shake hands, that kind of thing.
Now it's interesting because you know, you have his story as told by others and it's
passed down through generations, as you explained in your episode.
Kind of the same thing happens with with the great Antonio, because here's a guy who, although

(33:31):
he wasn't born in in Quebec or in Montreal, he ends up moving there at an early age, makes
a name for himself again at an early age.
And you kind of see this progression throughout the, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s of, you
know, when he arrives, he's I don't know, I'm not sure if you ever saw any pictures

(33:53):
of him as a young man, but he is totally different from how you see him later in life with, you
know, the scruffy beard and the dreadlocks that he needs together to, you know, use a
golf club, amongst other things.
But it's interesting because you almost you see the, you know, grandfathers and fathers

(34:17):
talk about someone like great Antonio and their perceptions of him from those timeframes.
So you get these stories of, yeah, he was this he was a strapping guy and, you know,
he was like a movie star.
You hear things like that.
And then later on in life, oh, he was this big, almost a gargoyle, if you will.

(34:40):
And it's interesting how a perception of somebody will shift throughout generations
of a story being told.
So as much as you gain throughout the story being told, you kind of lose certain aspects
of it.
When you were doing your research about Joe Muffaro, was that something that you found
as well?

(35:00):
Like some of the earlier stuff was kind of left out of it.
And what you were kind of left with was more of the modern telling of everything.
Yeah, I think, well, a lot of the stuff, once you once you start looking into Mulfra definitely
comes from from that main biography.
And because it was written so, so late, a lot of that stuff was already kind of a myth.

(35:23):
So like everyone knew the main talking points, like, you know, how he he stamped his his
feet on the ceiling of a tavern and made boot marks and how he of course, the classic thing
where he battled 100 and 100 people, 120 people, whatever, on on a bridge between which is,
I guess, modern day Hull and modern day or Ottawa.

(35:45):
So that those kinds of battles always became this this this big iconic thing.
And then occasionally you'd come across different tales where it was a lot more subdued or you'd
hear different arguments like you would hear about, I think his name was was Hennessy,
the the the big guy who he battled, who was like, you know, the main enforcer of the shiners,

(36:05):
they say.
And so you came across people who said they never met.
And then they're saying, well, actually, they did meet and Mulfarad just destroyed him.
And and and Hennessy was just he was just lost.
And he he went away into the shadows.
He was never heard from again.
But then other people say, oh, no, he was actually they were really great friends.
And they they met together at the tavern and they had a big fight once.

(36:25):
And then they always kind of hung around.
And actually, there's a really interesting story from later, far later about someone
someone talking about their grandfather telling the story about how Hennessy and he were were
down at the river and they decided to have kind of a friendly sparring match.
And Hennessy was getting the better of Mulfarad.
And so Mulfarad started kicking.

(36:46):
And everyone knew that, like, once he starts kicking because his kick is deadly, if he
makes contact with you with his feet, your life is essentially over.
So the guy kind of stepped back and said, hey, Joe, no kicking.
Come on, this is just friendly.
And apparently, Joe felt so bad about it, he went and sat down and put his head in his
hands and ran came over and and reassured him and said it was OK.

(37:08):
So you get little things like that.
And then you also get little little fun things like the classics of this weird little story
from a newspaper about how Mulfarad was really into cockfighting.
And so cockfighting was really big back back then in the Ottawa Valley.
And so he brought a rooster to fight in the ring and his rooster was destroyed by someone

(37:29):
else's rooster.
So he actually, according to this legend, stole that guy's rooster and then ran away
with it.
And when the guy came around looking for his rooster and heard that Joseph Mulfarad had
stolen it, he eventually found him at the work camp that he was working out towards
the woods.
And the story says that Mulfarad ran and hid from him, not because he was scared of him,

(37:51):
but because he felt so ashamed that he stole this guy's rooster.
And actually, he just apologized and begged the guy if he could please have his rooster.
And he named him Little Joe and he used him in subsequent fights.
So you get weird things like that.
You don't really know what to make of.
And I really wanted to mention that the episode, but there was no real use for it.
So I just kind of mentioned it in social media and moved on.

(38:13):
But yeah, you get these little little things where he's either treated as this this incredibly
strong, incredibly brave, incredibly smart man who can do no wrong.
And then you get these little fun stories as well that I'm assuming are just good natured
ribbing rather than trying to tear him down or anything.
And then, you know, more realistic aspects that, you know, he he was friends with with

(38:34):
some of these bigger guys that he battled, that they weren't just like two titans fighting
that they were just regular people to see.
You kind of get both of that.
See, it's fascinating how much that kind of corresponds with with the great Antonio story
because you have the you have the fantastical stories about him, you know, although he did

(38:55):
make the Guinness World Records for, you know, pulling buses and having the which is my favorite
part, having the world's biggest rocking chair, which is just a tremendous record to have.
But you see, you have the factual portions, but then you also have how everything gets
blown out of proportion, how, you know, four buses turns into 10.

(39:17):
And then it turns into loaded buses of school children, we'll say, for example.
Or you have tales where he's doing tug of war with his hair against 10 men, then it's
20 men.
Oh, then it's you know what I mean?
And a lot of it is is good natured and it kind of it builds the character.

(39:41):
But then you also have the the as you put it, the good natured ribbing where, you know,
later in life he was he was impoverished and all that, you know, his kind of unfortunate
end of it all, right, where he was kind of on the streets and everything.
And he was almost an oddity at that point.
Yeah, the oddity.
But but the public knew him.

(40:02):
Oh, you know, there's the great Antonio almost then as as a lark instead of, you know, somebody
who was actually viewed as great throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, for example.
Yeah.
And I think actually, yeah, that you bring up two good points.
Yeah.
So if we're talking about like, you know, making a guy or a person to a legend, yeah,
you definitely have that with with that classic story of the bridge fight, right?

(40:23):
Like early some some some more down to earth sources that I could find.
But you know, they're all kind of generally from Sulte, but they basically say that, OK,
he fought probably 20 shiners on that bridge.
And then that number inflated.
So from 20 to 50 to 100 to 150, I think Sulte said said 120 or so, or maybe it was 80.

(40:45):
But like, yeah, you can kind of track that you get all these different stories.
There was 20 between 120 to 120.
So that becomes huge.
Right.
And then you get the more really fantastical stuff, right?
Like his classic calling card was putting his his boots onto the ceiling of a tavern.
But then eventually that became according to to one informant to a folklorist, he kicked
the entire roof off a tavern.

(41:06):
Right.
That's where you get the the giant of a man where he would he would do that kind of thing.
And then I think another story that's often ascribed to him is is actually found in Paul
Bunyan stories as well.
So there's this we know that he did a lot of much like the great Antonio.
He did a lot of public displays of strength, right?
Because that's a key thing about being a especially a French Canadian strongman, but a strong

(41:30):
man in general.
You go to and you go into the town and you say, hey, dare me to do this.
All right.
But I bet you want to see me do that.
And so he would go and he'd grab a big plow, for example.
And he balances on balances it on his chin and he walks to city blocks and comes back
and everyone's mesmerized by how he managed to do this.

(41:50):
And there's a classic story where he grabbed one plow by just one hand and lifted it up
over his head and then put it back down.
It was like, you know, five hundred pound, five hundred pound plow, I think.
And then that story eventually became, OK, he didn't just pick it up with one hand.
He picked it up with one hand and he gestured with it to point someone like which way a

(42:11):
store was or which way they should go.
And actually, then that story you find in Paul Bunyan stories as well.
You find that Paul Bunyan was once plowing a field and someone came along and asked Paul
where something was and he stopped and he picked up the plow and his ox attached to
the plow and pointed in the direction of where they had to go, put it back down and then

(42:31):
kept plowing.
So yeah, you get these these really crazy exaggerations of his strength that become
mythical.
Yeah, as we see, becomes not just a Mulfurah story, but also then a a Paul Bunyan story.
And actually, the funny thing about that Paul Bunyan story is one of the main stories about
Paul Bunyan lifting a plow and pointing in the direction is they say that Joe or Joe

(42:57):
Muffra, right, the anglicized version of Mulfurah, what came down to try to find Paul Bunyan
to fight him.
And so Joe Muffra came upon Paul Bunyan, saw him plowing in his field, and then he saw
Paul Bunyan as he reached the end of his plow, he picked up the plow and the ox turned around
and then kept plowing the other way.
And Joe Muffra was so shocked by this incredible feat of strength, he just ran away.

(43:21):
So that was the way that the Americans took the legendary Joe Muffra, which they knew
about from French Canadian stories, and showed that Paul Bunyan was even better because he
scared Joe Muffra away with his incredible strength.
I just find it interesting that, you know, the strongman story is something that seemed

(43:42):
to be so prevalent in French Canadian folklore, and even in popular culture, you know, through
the late 1800s up until almost the 1980s.
And I'm not sure about yourself and what you were able to research throughout the Joe Muffra

(44:05):
story, but for myself, you know, it almost seems like when the great Antonio passed away,
that almost seemed to be the end of the storytelling of these legendary French Canadian strongmen.
Now granted, there have been stories written, one would be, or an example of one would be

(44:25):
the Elise Gravel picture, or children's book on the great Antonio, but it seems almost
that generation of storytelling of the Montreal or French Canadian, I should say, proper strongmen
is almost done with.
Is that something that you found in your research as well?
Yeah, well, when you first kind of reached out about the great Antonio, like I heard

(44:49):
of him, but I didn't know much about him.
And I managed to find a pretty good documentary in French on YouTube.
And I can't remember who they were talking with.
He was a French Canadian historian, and he basically kind of summarized that, yeah, that
of course, Antonio definitely followed in the tradition of these French Canadian strongmen.
Even though he was French Canadian by birth, he was adopted by the community and became

(45:12):
a strongman for that community.
And I believe from what I can, I'm trying to translate this myself while I'm watching
it.
But he made a good point in that you can kind of track it and see that when he started early
in his career, it was a lot of that public displays of strength, which was very classic

(45:32):
strongman tradition.
So Louis Sear, Joseph Montheron, Arthur Dandleron, they all went out to the public square.
They would all just say, hey, let me show you something amazing.
And then they would perform in front of a crowd and their name became widely known.
And so I saw stories about the great Antonio.
He would come along and, yeah, as you say, he'd stop city buses.

(45:54):
I read some stories of people saying, I was late to go see a movie because the great Antonio
stopped my bus and insisted that they turn off the engine so he could drag it down the
street.
And there's nothing you can do because what are you going to do?
He's giant.
So you just sit there and allow him to take you down the street in your bus.
So that was a big thing and a big tradition.
And the historian suggested that once TV really started taking over for people's main source

(46:22):
of entertainment, everything became inside the home rather than outside in the community.
And so that's when perhaps the great Antonio transitioned more into the wrestling ring
rather than outdoor shows of strength, because that's where everyone's attention was going
to.
And that's a fascinating aspect of the story, too, because you see the progression of great

(46:45):
Antonio doing the strongman aspect then moves into professional wrestling.
A lot of it was self-promotion, something that we get into later in the program.
But then you move into the 70s, into the 80s.
Now he's a television personality and he's on a lot of the French-Canadian telethons.

(47:06):
He's on a lot of the variety programs, as we used to call them.
He's on Johnny Carson in the late 80s.
You can see the progression as people's interests change.
He almost changes with them, but then it gets to a point where it almost comes to a dead
stop.

(47:28):
And he's almost viewed as, at that point, so we would be talking about early 90s, now
he's almost viewed as an oddity rather than a cultural phenomenon, if you will.
Yeah, and I definitely got that sense as well.
I don't know how much of that was true with the French media versus the English media.

(47:48):
When I was looking up articles about him in English, you'd see a lot of derision in his
later days, people saying that he can barely speak English and then they would quote him
and he would sound very halted in the way he was speaking.
And you're like, oh, and actually I even saw one article which really I thought was amazing.

(48:09):
The reporter talked about how the great Antonio was illiterate.
He's like, oh, well, he's illiterate.
And illiterate is a very interesting word to use there.
Of course, he wasn't illiterate.
And if you watch the videos of him, he speaks, as far as I can tell, very good French, if
not very fluent French.
Obviously he could read because he did amazing artwork and murals and that kind of thing.

(48:30):
He cut out headlines about himself.
So illiterate doesn't mean you can't read English.
Illiterate means you can't read at all.
You're not educated.
So to use that word really suggests that there was this idea that some people, perhaps in
the media, wanted to get across of this idea that the great Antonio was an illiterate and

(48:50):
uneducated person and therefore worth looking down upon or maybe taking down a peg.
I kind of got that impression from some of the stuff that I read.
See you're not far off because I also found the same.
It's interesting what you get from French Canadian sources, from overseas sources, which
I have a few that I've come across in my research, and then from English sources.

(49:14):
And there's definitely a large disconnect between how he's perceived specifically, we'll
just talk about Canada here at this point, specifically in French Canada and then how
he's perceived in English Canada.
So in French Canada, he's one of them.
Like you said, would he have been the most fluent of French?

(49:34):
No, but he also spoke seven languages.
So there's that part and English was not his strongest suited one.
So now when you read tales of him being great Antonio in places like Calgary for stampede
wrestling, you read about him in America and you read the comments that people at the time

(50:02):
had to say and they would find him difficult to communicate with, the language barrier.
So then it's like, well, is he slow?
Well, no, he just doesn't like English is not his strongest language.
Keep in mind he can speak, I believe at one time it was French, it was Italian, it was

(50:26):
Russian, he could speak Russian, he could speak Ukrainian.
There's several, seven or eight different languages that he on top of English.
So it's very easy for English Canada, especially prejudices, I can't speak right now, you

(50:48):
know what I mean, being what they were at the time, that they would kind of look at
him as being behind or slow or illiterate as you had said.
Yeah, for sure.
And you definitely get that sense.
Like I remember you read about him in books or compiled articles about him, definitely
in the English speaking Canadian press.

(51:10):
And you get that impression that, well, he's so big that he must be big and dumb.
And yeah, he can barely speak English, so he must be illiterate again, which like, no,
he can read just fine.
He was a very, very talented guy and a very charming guy from what I could see.
He just didn't speak our language that great.
That shouldn't be a big deal.
But yeah, so you definitely get that skewed view of him in the media.

(51:33):
Now one of the other things that I wanted to ask you about, you know, during your research
for the Joseph R. Rive, so because I find it interesting that, you know, a couple of
us Western Canadianers, if you will, would be so interested in French Canadian folklore.
That part is right up your alley specifically because of what you do with Fireside Canada.

(51:56):
So I wanted to know what is it about the how the French Canadians preserve and discuss
their folklore that is so much different than what we have in English Canada, but more specifically
in Western Canada?
Oh, yeah.
That's a big question and hard question to answer.
But like, I think when you're looking at French Canadian folklore, it's because they, you

(52:22):
know, a lot of the folklore is stemming back from the first French people to come on to
this continent, right?
So like from the late 1500s, the early 1600s.
And so you can actually trace back stories of strongmen like you look at Louis Sear and
Joseph Montferrand, but then all the way back to the very folkloric, very legendary Tigeon.

(52:45):
Have you ever heard of Tigeon?
That one I'm not familiar with, no.
Yes.
So Tigeon, like he's not a real person, at least as far as we know.
He's a legend.
So Tigeon is a very popular character in Quebec folklore, although not as popular as you might
think.
But like there was a lot of videos about Tigeon back in the 60s and 50s, I think.

(53:08):
And then, but he stems back very, very far.
He's part of the contes, which is a certain part of French Canadian folklore.
So you have certain legends and stories that are told as if they were true, like Le Chasse
Galerie is told as if it was like a true thing.
And then you have classic contes or stories like these, just these old fashioned stories

(53:30):
about kings and princesses and monsters and that kind of thing.
And Tigeon is part of those contes, those stories about Tigeon was like this larger
than life, incredibly strong, incredibly brave hero who would do all these various things.
So it would be Tigeon and the monster of the hill and Tigeon saves the princess and Tigeon

(53:51):
listen to you on that.
It's all these different Tigeon stories.
Tigeon being Petit Jean or Little John.
And so back in early days of French Canada, he was this really strong hero and it was
one of the many stories you'd hear around the fire where you'd listen to these great
escapades of Tigeon and how he saved this princess from this evil monster or from a

(54:13):
king or whatever else.
And then as it progressed, he became this very strong lumberjack.
And then in the 50s, there were videos made where Tigeon was this little kid and he's
like this little boy who goes around and it became like this, this government thing where
he would go to the lumber camps and he would throw logs into a big pile of logs and he'd

(54:35):
hack down all the trees faster than all the men and they'd all admire how strong he was.
And then he'd go to somewhere else.
Another thing of industry and go show that industry.
So it was a way to like educate kids about how the industry of the province works with
this legendary character, Tigeon.
And if you look at his history, you can also see that there is influence by and influence

(54:56):
on perhaps First Nations legends and traditions as well.
So you can kind of see Tigeon a little bit in Nana Bush or Nana Bosso, which is another
certain strong legendary character from First Nations traditions.
He's more like a trickster.
And so they're not quite the same, but they overlap.

(55:17):
And in some Métis traditions, you can actually find that they're used interchangeably.
Tigeon is very much like or in some ways is Nana Bosso or Nana Bush or Whiskey Jack.
And so you can trace that through there and see how they've influenced and kind of made
up these various stories for several different cultures throughout that region of Canada.

(55:39):
And then you can trace it even further, perhaps, according to some folklorists, where you can
see that Tigeon may be based on a character from Brittany, which is in northwest France,
just known as Jan or Janek.
And he was, again, that very big, larger than life giant or at least very strong hero.

(56:00):
And there are some who think that his Jan, right, John or little John and then Janek
became Tigeon, Petitjean, little John.
And the idea is that maybe Jan from Brittany came over to North America, became Tigeon
up in Quebec.
And then in the southern French Canadian camps, he became Bon Jan or Bon Jan and eventually

(56:25):
Bunyan or Paul Bunyan.
So you can trace all this strong man stuff all the way back to France.
We don't know how old Jan is.
And then you can see it bleeds over right down to the south to become Bunyan.
So it's because they've been here so long and because all the stories have been told
and shared across such a vast distance, you have this incredibly strong cultural foothold

(56:49):
that starts with this kind of tradition.
And so, yeah, I think that's a big thing that you don't really get, especially out here
in the West, because much of Western Canada didn't really see a lot of settlement until
quite later on, right?
So you don't get a lot of those stories and those groups of people coming out to the West.
And a classic idea of looking at folklore is to have a really good strong sense of folklore

(57:14):
and folk legend is you need a large, a significant size of a community and then you need a lot
of isolation around that community.
So that's perfect for lumber camps and stuff.
You go out to the bush, you're with people for about a year or so, you tell stories to
pass the time because there's not a lot of entertainment out there.
And then the stories are shared and the people who can tell the stories are valued almost

(57:36):
as much as the cook.
Whenever you're trying to get a lumber camp going, you look for a great cook first, then
a great storyteller and then maybe a good foreman.
And you just didn't see that as much until because no one really came out to the West
until much, much later in the country's history.
See, that is absolutely fascinating.
You know, you could draw a straight line from France proper to French Canada.

(58:02):
It makes perfect sense what you're saying about the length of the settlement being there,
obviously adds time for aspects like this to percolate.
You're not going to get the same thing in BC where you're based or Alberta or even here
in Manitoba because we haven't been here that as long.
I think if you're looking at the grand scheme of colonization settlement, if you will, we're

(58:28):
talking about a few hundred years where some of these are four to five hundred years or
more, especially when you're talking about dating well, well, well back in France.
So that's definitely a fascinating aspect that I would have never considered, I guess,
how far back some of these stories can be traced.

(58:50):
But it does make sense now, you know, when you look at how these folklorists kind of
take hold and take root in French Canada, it makes sense that a character like, you
know, Joseph Maffra or Louis here or as our titular episode tonight, you know, the great
Antonio, how they can almost take they was draw power from the folklore that's existing.

(59:20):
And there's almost this built in base that is ready to believe in this person based on
previous exposure to stories like that that is deeply, deeply rooted in the culture of
French Canada.
Yeah, for sure, like, yeah, there's there's this this very, very strong connection, right?

(59:41):
You can sense that that when great Antonio came along, he's coming along in the footsteps
of these other characters.
And everyone has heard stories from their parents or grandparents or whatever about
these, these larger than life strong men performing amazing feats.
And here's great Antonio doing the exact same thing.
Yeah.
And you can tie it right into that tradition.
And I know that like I kind of mentioned this in my episode back in the 70s, the two writers

(01:00:05):
of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, this massive multi volume set, and they got around
to Joseph Maffra and talked about him in in the in their biography book and kind of theorize
like why is it that the strong men are so popular, especially amongst French Canadians?
And they basically said, well, they feel that it's because I don't like as a quote here,

(01:00:27):
like the more our society feels weak and threatened, the more it clings to giants.
So the idea that, you know, French Canada, especially after the English, they took over,
they continued on living as within their own their own community.
But they there was this need to identify their own cultural traditions and show themselves

(01:00:50):
as being strong.
And so by celebrating and sharing these kinds of stories, the characters become cultural
icons of a French Canada that is important and strong and resilient and can endure.
And so, yeah, I think there's this there's this really strong cultural connection there.
I think also a big thing about these kind of characters and you can kind of see it through
great Antonio and Luis Luis here and Joseph Maffra is they all come from working class

(01:01:15):
backgrounds, right?
They're not rich princes.
They're not from they're not from from a lot of wealth.
They worked hard for a living.
Like I think even great Antonio, right?
I think one of the original stories when he was a kid was he would pull trees out of the
ground with his neck or something like that.
Is that right?
That's that is one of them.
Yes.
OK, so like that goes right along with Luis here and Joseph Maffra also being young lumberjacks

(01:01:38):
in the woods, right?
They work with their hands and they they came from working class backgrounds and lived in
working class neighborhoods.
They were a champion of the people.
So you don't think it all these these common themes about working hard and making sure
that your culture and your people and your way of life endures.
See that that part is is very pertinent to this episode as well, because you have the

(01:02:03):
great Antonio who, you know, for all of his fame and notoriety was always viewed, always
viewed as a man of the people.
Right.
Regardless of how English Canada viewed him in certain sections or, you know, America
or how we use viewed in Japan.
In French Canada, he was he was always of the people.

(01:02:29):
And it didn't matter.
You know, it didn't matter that he was on all the television shows.
It matter he was on radio.
It didn't matter that, you know, Johnny Carson, all that kind of stuff.
It really didn't matter.
And then, you know, the downside of that obviously is is how his how, you know, towards the end
of his life, he ended up.
But throughout his career, it was interesting, at least seeing how he interacted and and

(01:02:55):
was viewed as just you're not average person.
I don't want to say it that way, like pejoratively, but he was almost viewed as as the relatable
living legend, if you will.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
And you definitely get that sense through all of them is that, yeah, these are these
are relatable down to earth people.
And again, I think that also speaks to the theatrics, right?

(01:03:15):
Like you could come across this person, whether it's Mulfurant or Sear or Antonio, just in
your regular life.
And suddenly you see this this this little event of greatness happen in front of you,
right?
He's pulling a bus in front of you or he's getting a group of men on either side to yank
on his hair.
Or I think one one French Canadian strongman from the 30s like would would dare you to

(01:03:39):
try to bend his pinky finger and you couldn't do it.
Like he said, amazing stories you can take home at the end of the day.
And it just it was something to kind of perk you up.
But he was he was just like you.
You weren't as strong as him, but he came from the same background and he was still
very down to earth just like you.
Or you were trying to go to work and he stopped your bus to pull it to work for you.

(01:04:04):
Exactly.
As you just heard in my conversation with David Williams, there are many feats of strength
that were absolutely enthralling that the great Antonio delivered to thousands upon
thousands of adoring fans.

(01:04:25):
These feats of strength and these feats also when wrestling rings would be told by fans
to other individuals passed on to newspapers and the legend of the great Antonio grew from
there.
What also happened was the great Antonio's tremendous ability to promote himself.

(01:04:47):
Now this knack for self promotion above all else would land the great Antonio in a great
deal of sticky situations, two of which are very well known to professional wrestling
fans, both happening in Japan.
The incident with Ricky Dozan and the horrific incident against Antonio Inoki, which you

(01:05:13):
would have heard audio representing that aspect at the start of today's program.
Before I get into those aspects a little bit more, I do want to read a little bit from
the pain and passion book, the history of stampede wrestling written by author and friend

(01:05:33):
of the show Heath McCoy.
This gives a little bit more backstory about something that Mad Dog Vaishan talked about
earlier on in the program with Antonio kind of having a big head and being a little bit
difficult to work with.
So from the book again, Stampede Wrestling's pain and passion.

(01:05:56):
A Yugoslavian immigrant of Siberian descent who came to Canada in 1946, Antonio Barasevich
lived in a Montreal scrap yard sleeping in a broken down bus.
The 450 pounder soon discovered he was strong enough to pull the bus around the scrap yard
and he parlayed that into a wrestling career.
A beast of a man with a grizzly beard and greasy black hair that hung to the ground

(01:06:17):
making him look like Rasputin, Antonio made a name for himself in Montreal in the 1950s,
hauling up to four packed buses at a time down city streets.
In 1952 he made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by pulling a 433 ton train
19.8 meters.
He also famously braided and taped his coarse dreadlocks together using his hair, bizarrely,

(01:06:40):
as a golf club.
Wrestling promoters from around the world sought to bring him into their territories
and Stu was no exception.
Antonio arrived in Calgary for the first time in 1959.
According to Paul Vaishan, Dave Ruele phoned Antonio one day pretending to be Mabel, which
was in Stampede Wrestling, a rib that the wrestlers would pull on a newcomer.

(01:07:03):
They would have essentially somebody phone the new wrestler pretending to be this sultry
Mabel character.
Ruele said in a sultry voice to Antonio, I just love your body.
Antonio, who stunk horribly because he ate raw garlic every day, didn't receive many
sexual propositions and went wild.

(01:07:26):
Mabel told him, I want you to bring Dave Ruele and Mad Dog Vaishan with you.
I've got two girlfriends who want to meet them.
No, no, I go by myself, Antonio said.
I take care of all of you.
Eventually Antonio agreed to Mabel's terms and that Saturday night the three wrestlers
went to meet the temptress.
When Mabel's insane husband showed up, he blasted Ruele and Mad Dog.

(01:07:51):
As they went down clutching their chests, Mad Dog turned to the Yugoslavian madman and
cried, Run Antonio, run.
The giant bolted out the door and into the pitch black night, sprinting across the field,
cutting himself on barbed wire fences along the way.
The wrestlers came out and partied hard with the beer and whiskey Antonio brought with
him to woo Mabel.

(01:08:11):
By most accounts, Stu usually kept his distance from such debauchery.
But on this particular night, he too was in on the gag.
At 7 the next morning, Antonio called Paul Vaishan in his hotel room, ranting that Ruele
and Mad Dog had been shot and now the killer was out to get him.
Vaishan accused him of being drunk and hung up.
Antonio went to the RCMP who began an investigation.

(01:08:35):
The Vaishan brothers showed up to the RCMP station and, after convincing the petrified
behemoth that it was all just a rib and that he wasn't going to be assassinated, got him
in a car and back on the road.
He would wrestle for Stu off and on until the 1970s.
It is worth noting as well that there was a match in the early 1970s involving the great

(01:08:58):
Antonio where a riot nearly ensued when the great Antonio almost won the heavyweight
championship which again goes to the magnetism that he had with the fans but also the fact
that he really was an expert at self promotion.

(01:09:19):
Now as I had alluded to, two of the most infamous episodes involving the great Antonio took
place over in Japan.
One was involving Ricky Dozen who was at the time the biggest star in Japanese professional
wrestling.
At the time Japanese stars were looking for Gaijin for looking for international talent

(01:09:46):
to bring over so that the Japanese star could beat them to further cement themselves in
the eyes of the fans in Japan.
This would be a trend that would continue into the 70s which is why you have a big name,
the great Antonio being shipped over to Japan to wrestle the Japanese top star.

(01:10:07):
Unfortunately for the great Antonio both of these incidents didn't go very well for him.
Some of which were his own doing but some of which was also the fault of the Japanese
promoters and of the Japanese talent involved in these situations.
You're going to hear a lot more about these incidents with my next guest, recurring guest

(01:10:31):
and great friend of the show, Javier Oist.
Now Javier Oist for those who are unfamiliar is a writer for ProWrestlingStories.com and
one of the most fair writers in terms of telling stories about professional wrestlers and he
told a story of when the great Antonio faced Antonio Noki and what happened in that horrific

(01:10:55):
situation.
It's the most fair and accurate article in my opinion that is out there in regards to
the situation.
Unfortunately it's one of those situations where wrestling fans have kind of taken bits
and pieces of the story and have blown it up without actually understanding the context

(01:11:15):
of why it happened and we get into that in great detail with my conversation with Javier
Oist.
Now before we get into that I'm going to play some more classic wrestling audio.
Now this clip comes from Japan from news sources when the great Antonio headed there to face

(01:11:37):
Ricky Dozen.
Now this clip is in Japanese but I will give a rough translation of what happened during
the clip.
So it's essentially a news story showing the arrival of the great Antonio.
It shows him doing some of his feats of strength in the video.
He's pulling three buses loaded with passengers and there are literally thousands of screaming

(01:12:03):
fans watching him do this.
The scene then shifts to the match between the great Antonio and Ricky Dozen where the
great Antonio is being led into the ring by his manager with big chains around the great
Antonio's neck.
This is something that we would see later on in Japanese wrestling.

(01:12:23):
This is a point that I make in my conversation with Javier Oist where we would see later wrestlers
such as Abdul the Butcher, The Sheik, etc. who would really use this monster character,
this foreign monster menace in Japanese wrestling.

(01:12:44):
You can trace the lineage of all of that right back to the first instance of the great Antonio
appearing in the Japanese promotion.
It's a fascinating little tidbit of information and of history that many wrestling fans don't

(01:13:04):
understand and don't know.
And I was fortunate enough to uncover that throughout the research of tonight's program.
So I'm going to play this audio clip and on the other side, my conversation with Javier
Oist.
One thing I will say, I hope that you will pay particular attention to the sound of the

(01:13:27):
crowd during the audio clip, both in terms of the great Antonio's arrival to Japan and
when the wrestling match starts.
It's a little hard to make out, but I think you'll be pretty surprised by the reaction
that the great Antonio gets from the crowd specifically.

(01:13:50):
So please enjoy this audio and on the other side, my tremendous conversation with Javier
Oist.
The World Diving Championship, which took place for the third time in the year 1936, was a

(01:14:17):
featuring of Antonio
Antonio pulls the four busses of the mine into a row.

(01:14:47):
The wild animals are screaming,
let's move, let's move!
The customers are delighted with the movement.
This way, the Maegi Station was even more exciting.
And this man, Mitsurino, challenges the international championship.
The international championship match,

(01:15:08):
3 match against time limit.
The challenger, the great Antonio,
is tied to his neck by the second great Togo,
and enters the ring.
He is 194 cm, 154 kg.
The giant, the giant is also in the ring.
Rikidozan, who is going to face this, has broken the bond between the former Don Leo Jonathan, Jim Light, and Enriki Torres,

(01:15:34):
and this is the 10th defense match.
Mitsurino, the man of the world,
attacks with a powerful attack.
He quickly escapes from Rikidozan's body.
The blood is flowing.
Rikidozan, he has a good Karate Chop.
Another Karate Chop!
Another pass!

(01:15:55):
Rikidozan, he is in the ring.
Rikidozan, he has a Karate Chop.
Antonio, he is down.
He is tied to the rope.
He is out of the ring.
Is it a counter-attack or a counter-attack?
Rikidozan, he is going to beat the monster Antonio,
and defend the international championship.
But there is a lot of mystery behind his life, and I think in a way that is what we like about wrestling,

(01:16:25):
these stories where there is a truth and where does the fiction start.
My name is Javier Oist, and I write for Pro Wrestling Stories, and you can check everything out at prowrestlingstories.com.
Now, at the start of the article, you describe a lot about his early years, his formative years in Montreal,
and I think that sets a good backstory to what ends up happening.

(01:16:49):
Because, unfortunately, and you know this from your work with Pro Wrestling Stories,
wrestling fans are really good at tuning into one part of somebody's life and kind of overlooking the rest of it.
So, before we get into really the two main subjects that I want to discuss with you tonight,
maybe let's backtrack a little bit and talk about what you were able to uncover in terms of the great Antonio in his formative years,

(01:17:17):
and what you found most interesting about that portion of it.
Well, the great Antonio, from what I gather, he was from the former Yugoslavia,
but I've also heard in interviews him, he himself saying he's from Russia, other people saying he's from Italy, which was due to me.
So, right from the start, you're wondering where is he from and why there are so many different stories on where he's from coming out of his mouth.

(01:17:46):
It might sound more interesting saying you're from Russia, but I discovered he's from, to me, what I understand he's from Yugoslavia.
He moved to Montreal in the early 40s, and there are stories about him from a young age,
supposedly pulling uprooting tree trunks with his neck strength and his back, of course,

(01:18:10):
but with a chain around either his head or his neck, so he's pulling out these tree stumps, and he started doing feats of strength.
He claims he also was a boxer, and of course, traditionally in wrestling, it seems like there has been a storied history of,

(01:18:36):
or infamous history of strongmen who tried to go into wrestling, almost like, you know, wrestling has ties to the carnival circuits and the circus.
So, you had strongmen who claimed that they were wrestlers and tried to get into wrestling.
Some succeeded, some did not, and in this case, for the great Antonio, he tried to get in wrestling

(01:19:02):
once he made a name of himself as a strongman in Montreal, and he had, let's say, different levels of success.
What we can confirm is that he was a great attraction, but I've never discovered or read anywhere that he claimed that he was a great wrestler.

(01:19:26):
But of course, in pro wrestling, you don't need to be an exceptional athlete or wrestler to be a good draw at the gate,
and what I've read is that Antonio, great Antonio, was a great attraction and a very interesting person that people wanted to go watch and people would pay to go watch.
It's interesting. I've come across articles of the great Antonio, newspaper clippings from the eras,

(01:19:54):
and many of the shows that he was the main attraction on were, you know, you would have a couple of undercards,
and then the main event would be a battle royal, and he would win the battle royal.
This kind of feeds into right away the Ricky Dozen portion of our discussion tonight, which we're going to get to in a second,

(01:20:17):
but again, we have to lay the backstory. Here you have the great Antonio, legendary strongman in Montreal.
He's winning these battle royals against, you know, 10, 20, 30 men. Again, he's not the greatest wrestler, but that doesn't matter.
What matters is what you're hearing about the great Antonio, that he's coming out on top of, you know, 30 competitors time after time after time.

(01:20:46):
What's lost in translation a little bit is for a lot of his formative years or a lot of his formative years in wrestling, I should say, he was also the promoter putting these shows on.
So now you have a situation where, yes, he's going over and yes, he's absolutely the attraction, but you have the added caveat that he's also the one putting the shows together.

(01:21:10):
So you kind of start to see a pattern develop of he's on top, he's on top because he's been putting himself on top.
But that gets lost in translation overseas. And then you get what happened in Japan.
So maybe we'll fast forward a little bit into your article and we can talk about the Ricky Dozen situation because that also leads to a much larger and much more dangerous situation later in his life.

(01:21:35):
What's more fascinating, I think, is that a lot of his formative years in professional wrestling would have been the late 40s, early 50s.
Now we're talking about this, these Japanese dates were into the 60s and we're into the 70s.
So maybe let's start with how the Ricky Dozen situation came about.

(01:21:57):
Well, the great Antonio was introduced to the Japanese public with a lot of flair. A lot of people went to meet him at the at the port where he arrived.
And right off the bat, the attraction of the great Antonio was, you know, he had he was his strongman character, but at the same time, kind of like this wild, wild persona.

(01:22:21):
They would put him with they had him with little people wrestlers, what they would call at that point at that they would call midgets.
But the little people he had a chain around his neck.
So he right there that you would get into the you had the showbiz great Antonio and he really made an impression on on the fans.

(01:22:43):
So right right there, you know, the attraction, something different for the Japanese public. That's not that that wasn't common in the early 60s.
Wrestlers to them were very serious athletes. A lot of times former sumo wrestlers like Ricky Dozen, like like Inoki wrestle trained under Ricky Dozen.

(01:23:07):
You had the hero, Matsuda, all these people, not necessarily former sumo, but all with a very strong grappling background.
And like you mentioned, great Antonio came into Japan with all this pomp and circumstance and his reputation preceding him winning all these battle royals.

(01:23:30):
And in Japan, they had him against like two against him, three against him, three and one, two on one matches.
So, you know, they're selling him as as as just as indestructible force later on before meeting Antonia Antonio Inoki.
But with Ricky Dozen, what happened was it seems like he was a little hard to manage as a person.

(01:23:55):
So back in the day, you had these two guys, one one guy was named one wrestler was name was Bill Miller and the other one was Ike Eakins.
They were known as legitimate tough guys.
That would. Would impose order amongst the boys if if if needed and seems like Antonio needed some kind of one like an attitude adjustment.

(01:24:24):
So they took it upon themselves to to rough them up.
Seems like Ricky Dozen let this go because those are kind of like the internal rules in the wrestling world, something that you and I a situation you and I would have maybe handled differently in the wrestling world and especially back then is different.

(01:24:45):
So Ricky Dozen let it go as long as they didn't rough him up too much because he was going to face them eventually on on one of the cards.
You know, that was the the main attraction.
So right there he was showing signs of of perhaps difficult to work with or just difficult to handle kind of just just something that the more traditionally

(01:25:12):
traditional mentality of the wrestlers at the time were not too fond of.
There's no word of how the match went with Ricky Dozen.
I have not discovered that or at least I'd not included in the article.
But from what I understand, it didn't go as badly as what happened later on with Antonio Enoki.

(01:25:34):
See, it's interesting.
Before our conversation in this portion, the listeners would have heard audio recording from Japan of the great Antonio's arrival in in Japan.
And you would have heard the fanfare.
You would have heard the crowds that were there.

(01:25:55):
Yeah. So so you had the presentation and they were setting himself up as this as this real attraction, this real monster.
And then you have him come out even before his matches.
You know, he's like you said, he's got the chain on.
He's being led to the beast, right?
Like this beast that they can barely contain.

(01:26:16):
Absolutely.
And he's he's throwing chairs and he's, you know, attacking fans.
You would see this portrayed later, you know, guys like like Kamala to or Abdul, the butcher, the she would be would make feats like this very familiar for the Japanese fans later in life.
But that's kind of all the genesis of this kind of madman character in Japan starts with the great Antonio.

(01:26:42):
So it's fascinating because you have the situation where he's being brought in. He's already got kind of a big head.
Right. He comes to Japan. He's got he's got massive fanfare.
He's he's doing these feats of strength.
There's there's thousands of fans watching.
He's at the arena. He's allowed to act like essentially a crazy person, which if you if you're being allowed this much rope,

(01:27:10):
it's it's not hard to see why he kind of let himself get out of hand.
And then it, you know, like you like you so greatly said, right, when you were in Japan, you can't really get away with that too much.
And then they took matters into their own hands and then they kind of had to straighten out his attitude a little bit.
And, you know, it's it's it's easy to criticize him in a in a vacuum.

(01:27:35):
But if you're just presented with, you know, here's this guy who comes to Japan, he doesn't know the culture and he just acts the way he wants to act right without factoring in all of these things that have happened previously to lead up to his behavior.
And then then you have the Ricky Dozen fight.
And then, you know, the aftermath of that is is is almost, you know, he's in with all this fanfare and he's kind of out with a whimper.

(01:28:02):
He he left like with his tail between his legs.
And according to this was this is from Scott Teals book.
It's a Ricky Dozen book where Scott Teal worked on it to other people also.
And according to that, a lot of people were there when he arrived in Japan.
But when he left, no one no one, you know, gave him farewell.

(01:28:27):
It's it's it was it was almost like it was a really it was really kind of.
When I read that, I thought, wow, this he kind of he's not probably not going to be invited back to Japan.
But but that's that's that's that's what that was his story of his early trip to Japan.
And and again, the old school wrestlers are not going to they only allow you to to to go over so much.

(01:28:54):
I guess something was just like you've you've mentioned before, something was lost in translation there, whether someone.
Told him to act like that, but maybe not.
You know, keep that at a certain level, but definitely Bill Miller or an Eke Eke Eke Eken's did not did not like that at all.

(01:29:18):
So you have the situation that were, you know, like you said, he he kind of heads back to Canada, tail between his legs.
He goes on to to stampede, I think right after that.
And there is an interesting story about his time in Stampede that listeners would have heard earlier on in this program.
But you also have now a situation where some 15 years later, now there's a new star in Japan.

(01:29:43):
And as they kind of do in Japan, they look for the next big thing to kind of give the the big star in Japan some more prestige, some more push and more often than not.
And we've seen it throughout the years, even covering this program of grapple with Canada.
How many Canadian stars would go over there as the the guys and heal right to to battle the Japanese star?

(01:30:10):
Get them over, you know, guys like Keneski, we Abdullah, we talked about earlier on and on and on.
The list is long and and storied.
But one person on the list who you would think would never be back is the great Antonio.
So maybe let's talk about now what ended up happening with the great Antonio and Antonio Nogi situation.

(01:30:36):
And it's important to note is that this was.
With Ricky Doza and it was 69 and with Antonio Inoki, the match, a lot of your listeners will probably or might be familiar with was in 1977.
So we're several years ahead of when when he when he went to Japan and and by this time, the great Antonio was not at all.

(01:31:06):
He wasn't he was never so well, I won't say never. If you see early pictures of him, you see that he's cut.
He looks like like a lumberjack. He looks he's in shape actually night and day.
Yeah, that's that's that's exactly right.
You see him and he's just like this huge. Well, the the video out there where you have the comedian, you know, he calls it so the comedian.

(01:31:27):
But he just he describes him as a troll, you know, he's making fun of his yellow tights and he's wearing these boots.
He's great. Antonio is just more obese, morbidly obese, out of shape.
But the Japanese commentators, they're selling this like there's this indestructible force that Antonio Inoki is going to have to face and he's going to have trouble with them.

(01:31:58):
And they're hopefully he'll he'll be able to to to defeat the great Antonio.
They're they're talking about his indestructible belly, you know, that it looks like fat, but is actually very, very hard.
And and and but the match quickly gets out of hand thanks to the great Antonio totally just no selling anything.

(01:32:23):
Antonio Inoki throws at him, no selling, but also almost like ignoring any any of Antonio Inoki's offense.
And he just one thing is disrespecting your opponent and the other thing is making the match just look terrible for the fans.

(01:32:44):
So he was that right there. It seems like that was that was the start of the that was a fuse that lit the bomb for Antonio Inoki.
And what really set him off was a cup, those chops behind his neck, just like he just starts hitting Antonio Inoki in the back of the neck.

(01:33:05):
Just these stiff shots and Antonio Inoki just lost it and just starts open hand slapping Antonio, great Antonio.
And that's the beginning of the end. Now, there's a couple of things that we just get worse from there.
Yeah, I mean, we should add a little bit of context to this, too, because, again, with the with the time lapse between Ricky Dozen,

(01:33:34):
the match with Ricky Dozen and the match with with Antonio Inoki.
So earlier in Japan, he was, you know, weighing in, you know, just about four pounds.
Now, like you said, now he's he's way out of shape. He's like he's like four, four sixty five, four seventy somewhere around there.
So even even maybe four eighty five, it's like just.
Yes, yes, he was he was almost a hundred pounds difference.

(01:33:58):
So you have that you have the age factor.
But then you also have an interesting aspect where, again, he's brought into Japan and he's put in these battle royals where he's beating two or three guys every night consistently before he ends up meeting it in Okie.
So, yeah, this is this is the this is actually the rubber match between them.

(01:34:22):
This is the rematch where Antonio defeated Inoki by disqualification.
Right. Yeah. And and before that, he had he was two against two on one matches, three on one matches, you know, putting this guy making this guy look like this this force that's going to meet Antonio Inoki.

(01:34:44):
So it's and again, you know, it's a weird position to be in where, you know, you're you're building this guy and you're kind of filling his head with, OK, so I guess I'm going to do what I've done for the previous 20 years to this.
But he picked the wrong night to do it.
And like you said, the match kind of starts off rough and I've seen the match and we were talking a little bit off air before this.

(01:35:08):
And it's it's hard to watch. And at the beginning of the program tonight, you would have heard some audio clips that I actually took from that bill bar segment.
A lot of the language was edited out.
If you hear the full version is definitely not what I had in the in the intro.
But I wanted to kind of set up because this is the thing that most wrestling fans, most modern wrestling fans would know about about the great Antonio is this moment that we're going to talk about right now where, you know, great Antonio is he's no selling.

(01:35:47):
He starts clubbing, for lack of a better term, an OK over the head and the back of the neck and then an OK just has had enough. And yeah, maybe let's take it from there.
Well, again, the commentators are trying to sell the match and and and in the article, there's a translation straight.

(01:36:08):
It's a straight translation from Japanese, so it reads a little strange, but it does add to the to the flavor and the in the in the character of the match.
But.
It remember, remember this was about six months, a little bit or six to eight months after Antonio Inoki faced Mohammed Ali. So this was a time when Antonio Inoki was starting to do his trying to prove that pro wrestling and could be.

(01:36:41):
It was a legitimate style of fighting and he was trying to go against people like, you know, with Ali boxing, the great Antonio, this big strong man.
So you so Antonio Inoki throughout the years, he'd go against mixed martial artists, you know, before we knew it as mixed martial arts, but he would get into these kind of like shoot fights, wrestling shoots, shoot wrestling matches with legitimate athletes, sometimes attraction, sometimes real fighters.

(01:37:18):
Trying to sell pro wrestling as legit for and for for a lack of term, you know, as something real.
So the great Antonio falls into this this timeline of Antonio Inoki trying to sell wrestling as something that should be respected, just like boxing, just like what we see it now as MMA, karate, taekwondo and all those combat sports.

(01:37:46):
This is from the squared circle life, death and pro wrestling by David Shoemaker.
And in the and this is where you get the.
The translation of the Japanese commentary of the match.
And.

(01:38:08):
This is the part where it starts. Inoki is kicking great Antonio's face. It seems like big damage to the great Antonio.
He just hit the great Antonio's chin and the left kick just hit bones around the stomach.
Great Antonio's mouth is ripped and bleeding.
Antonio's stomping broke Antonio's ear.
The great Antonio cannot wake up. He has no energy left.

(01:38:33):
Inoki's upper kick to Antonio's chin seemed like the critical hit. His face is now covered with his blood.
And and right before that, they start they talk about his indestructible.
Just his stomach.
Great Antonio's gut looks loose and fat, but punching his body is just like punching a piece, a big piece of raw rubber wall, a big piece of raw rubber wall.

(01:39:01):
That's literally how it was in the book. Great Antonio seems to be headlocking and Inoki without effort, but it is much stronger than you would think.
I think that's great. The way it was translated.
How they cover that one. Not pretty, not pretty to look at at the end.
It was I'm not sure why he's not covering his head towards the end.

(01:39:26):
If I'm getting kicked in the head, I'm covering up.
I don't know. I don't know about.
But and the manager, if someone knows out there, knows who the manager is, great Antonio's manager, I'd like to know his name.
Because he jumps in and tries to stop the beat down, but the referee pushes him aside.

(01:39:49):
So I'm either the referee wanted it to continue or since that wasn't technically the finish, he didn't want any outside interference.
But he didn't let the he didn't let the manager help at all.
So it's interesting watching that part specifically because, you know, because Inoki was one of the owners or maybe he was actually the owner at that specific time.

(01:40:18):
New Japan. Yeah. So so you don't know.
Maybe he told the ref, hey, you know, back off or whatever. Right.
Like in the ring and we didn't catch it because again, it is kind of hard to make out on video.
But yeah, you are right, because the ref comes in and kind of pushes the manager out of the way.
And it seems like the manager does a little bit of a hard, half hearted attempt to stop Inoki from.

(01:40:47):
From continue these continue to kicking him.
But but still, it seemed like he was trying to stop it.
But but the referee definitely, definitely stop that from happening.
But it is it's it's it's uncomfortable to watch.
And you and I have seen our fair share of wrestling over the years.
And, you know, we've both seen, you know, our fair share of some screwy things that happened in the ring.

(01:41:13):
You know, the Don Eagle one, I think, would be one that we both we both have seen.
And it's just an odd, an odd spectacle.
But this is something where it's you almost, you know, for as much as we rightfully will criticize Bill Barr's, you know, dissertation of the match,

(01:41:35):
he did have one part right where it was almost attempted murder.
Like he he would have killed him in the ring. It didn't look good.
It's one of it's one of those things where it's almost like.
You know, now everyone has the camera and people there's sometimes these incidences where people decide to use violence instead of just walking away or trying to find another solution.

(01:42:01):
And that's what it looked like. It looked just look like someone was about to.
You know, just just taking advantage of someone who couldn't defend themselves anymore.
That's how it looked. And at that point, the great Antonio.
I guess I guess, you know, I respect everyone who goes, it gets into the ring at any point,

(01:42:23):
but he had no business to be in the wrestling ring anymore, just where there was a work or even or even in this in this case, a legit.
It was a shoe at the end, no doubt about it. He didn't see that coming.
Yeah. And that was essentially the end of his career, because I don't think from everything that I've been able to tell, he never stepped foot in a ring after that.

(01:42:48):
And I mean, I didn't. Yeah. He was still it's interesting because his his wrestling career comes to an end.
His strongman career for all intents and purposes was winding down at that point, although he did he did still pull buses and he was doing some rather interesting things.
And he was still kind of a pop culture icon.

(01:43:10):
There were there was been many, many documented times that he was on, especially French Canadian television, many specials with him singing, doing kind of variety shows or things like that.
I know he was on The Tonight Show as well.
And this would have been before the Enoki incident specifically, I believe.

(01:43:34):
But regardless of that, his his entertainment value was still there, not as big.
But it was the end of his wrestling career.
Thing is, remember, this was this was before the Internet. So for people in France to have known about that match, it was almost impossible.

(01:43:56):
So he kept on appearing on on variety shows.
You know, I've seen footage of him in on variety shows in Montreal, I'm assuming, because everyone's speaking French.
So he was he was into the 80s. He was still this is kind of like an eccentric celebrity in that area.

(01:44:19):
So he still had fame and he and he appeared in a couple of movies, some commercials.
But, you know, eventually.
He just kind of he became destitute, right?
He just started living. He is his favorite hangout was like a Dunkin Donuts. He was outside at the bench on the bench and on the on the front of the on the restaurant.

(01:44:44):
And he'd he'd have these postcards of him pulling those those buses that got him into the Guinness World Record book, which is from the around 52.
The world record he did set on these shows, he would always say that he had he was the owner of five Guinness World Records.

(01:45:06):
He would say five five with the little French I understood.
I understand. But I can only find that he was he's he's got two world records from the pulling the buses and then pulling some trains, four hundred and some ton trains in Montreal.
But he uses he he he'd do this thing where he ties hair up and he would have people doing tug of war on each side.

(01:45:34):
And and and I've seen I've seen footage and it was on Johnny Carson.
I think there was like I could count like eight people on each side trying to trying to pull pull him either which way and they could.
And then he was he was holding his own.
So even at that later stage in life, which was mid 70s to early 80s, he still had strength, you know, he would still very impressive, you know, for a person that age.

(01:46:05):
So he had his hair. Remember, he played golf.
He would tie his hair. He had long hair at some point and he would braid it and put these iron like these metal rings and make it into like a like a golf club and play golf with his hair, which seemed like maybe he never washed.

(01:46:26):
Very strange stuff, man.
And it all it's it's such an odd thing, right, because nobody's really ever explored his later years because he was just such an oddity at that point.
You know, we're talking this is past the past the variety show time.
Now we're talking, you know, the 90s right up to essentially his death.

(01:46:51):
And, you know, he was he was visible in Montreal, but it's almost like he was he was kind of like he was almost like the ghost of Montreal at that point.
Right. Everybody kind of knew he was there.
He was always kind of around and he was always doing these spectacles.
And like you said, he would always have his his big garbage bag of memorabilia. And, you know, he's trying to peddle things, sell things, because, like you said, he was at that point destitute.

(01:47:23):
But it's for as for as visible as he was in Montreal in that decade before he passed, there's really there's no rhyme or reason of what was happening with him. And nobody really seemed to take the time to understand what was happening with him.
So it's almost like a it's like a lost decade of, you know, he's he's on these variety shows and then he's it's a blank space and he's passed on.

(01:47:53):
It's a very strange, I guess, chronology of his life.
It's it's it's it seems like a person that in his later years, like he's lost in time and yes, excuse me, and maybe his his past feats of strength and who he was.
He almost maybe blended into some kind of lost war where where where if you weren't there because remember he was his peak was like in the 50s and 60s. So by the 90s, early 2000s, a lot of people who saw those those those events weren't there to recount them to anyone.

(01:48:34):
So he was I guess he was still living off his past where people say that if if you would take the time to to speak with them, he pull out some of his postcards and talk to you.
But there is footage of him in the in the subway. And I've included that in the article.

(01:48:55):
I mean, it's real, real. It's quirky, interesting, but at the same time sad where where he at some point, the great Antonio was a celebrity and he was a name.
And I'm sure he made decent money. But then basically just living living in a street like that and destitute and practically homeless is a real sad way that that he that he ended and did his you know, eventually until he died.

(01:49:24):
Where I read that he had just bought lottery tickets. It seems like he really enjoyed buying those scratch those scratch off lottery tickets and he had a heart attack a little bit after that.
See, it's weird because we're we're in the 20th anniversary of his passing away. And, you know, when September rolls around, when it when the day happens, there's going to be, you know, articles that are going to be, you know, referenced.

(01:49:53):
This one in particular. Right. But then what that would be nice. But you and I both know what what the biggest story that wrestling fans are going to be talking about is they're going to be rehashing the Inoki one.
Right. So that, you know, it's it's kind of a reason to do a program like this on kind of the anniversary because there's more to and more to the great Antonio than just just the one thing that the majority of wrestling fans know.

(01:50:26):
See, when I started when I started that article, I remember sure that that was that was the main focus of most of the information out there.
But when you start digging, when you start researching and reading more and talking to people, there's a there was a lot more to the great Antonio than the way his wrestling career ended back in 1977.

(01:50:50):
And I really do encourage people to go and read that article. It's it's a. You know, you start from the beginning and you build up into that into that incident with the with Antonio Inoki, but it also talks about what happened later.
Later on, there was a book written written about him. There is a documentary out there, but I can't speak French. It would be really nice to know what what what they're talking about. I'm sure they go into more in depth about his story.

(01:51:21):
But the great Antonio, from what I have seen in footage everywhere, just this happy go lucky, eccentric showman who happened to fall into the world of pro wrestling and had some success, became somewhat of a name.

(01:51:43):
But his career just fell off the cliff after 1977. And I don't blame him because that was not a pretty incident.
And but there's a lot of mystery behind behind his life. And I think in a way, that's what we like about wrestling where these these stories where where where does the words of truth and where does the fiction start and where, you know, it's always something like in the middle, right?

(01:52:12):
It's documented that he pulled those those buses and the trains, but then these stories get just bigger and bigger as time goes by. Right.
Just a unique character that I guess I think pro wrestling was lucky to have him.
And he will be remembered on. That's what we want. We want we want them to be remembered.

(01:52:53):
Antonio Berkovic, Antonio Bersevich, Antoine Berkovic, the great Antonio, Legrand Antonio.
He almost has as many pronunciations of his name as he does of origin stories of where he came from.

(01:53:16):
Antonio Bersevich from Italy, Antonio Berkovic from Yugoslavia, Antoine Bersevich from Russia.
Even in this episode today, you've heard three different origin stories, one presented by author and historian Greg Oliver, one heard by Fireside Canada's David Williams, and one researched into by Javier Oist.

(01:53:44):
At the beginning of the program, I had said that Antonio Bersevich is story is one of the most complicated in terms of researching that I've ever attempted on Grappler with Canada.
Now you can understand why I also said at the beginning of the program that I was going to get to the actual story of Antonio Bersevich, which I will.

(01:54:08):
What you'll hear in the next section is my extrapolation of all of the evidence that I've been able to verify, cross reference and extrapolate from the different stories and biographical information of the great Antonio.
It is, in my opinion, as close as anybody more than likely will get or has gotten to the full origin story of the great Antonio.

(01:54:38):
But before we get there, I do want to play one more piece of classic audio.
Now we've talked throughout this story of the great Antonio being a social touchstone of sorts from appearances on many variety shows, including the Johnny Carson show.

(01:55:01):
So what I'm going to present to you is that clip in its entirety, the audio version of the great Antonio's appearance on the Johnny Carson show.
And on the other side, we find out who the great Antonio really was and where he came from.

(01:55:22):
Please enjoy.

(01:55:52):
It's 28. You have to have these special made. These aren't off the rack, are they?
It costs $250.
It costs $250.
A pair.
A pair. That's a big boot.
Can I get in this?
Sure, sure.
Sure, I'll try a foot.
I don't believe this.

(01:56:17):
Now that's a little strange.
You can jump in here and have a house party.
You want downtown Bradley?
Yeah. Where are you from originally, Antonio?
I'm from Montreal.
Montreal?
Yeah, I was born in Russia.
Born in Russia. When did you first know you were real strong as a youngster when you were growing up?
Yeah, I started fighting. I boxing for six years.

(01:56:42):
Boxing?
After coming too slow for boxing, I started making a demonstration of strength and wrestling.
Wrestling?
Yeah, and demonstration of strength.
Demonstration of strength.
And all the time I started to go around the wall and make a demonstration all around the wall.
What size suit do you wear?
Oh, a 90.

(01:57:04):
A 90?
Can you imagine going in? Would you like to see something in a 90?
Look at my hat over there.
That's your hat?
Yeah. I buy it in Houston, Texas.
Look at this.
It's frontier misfit.

(01:57:25):
Well, I'm going to tell you, you're a good sized man, Antonio.
Yes, sir.
And I understand in Russia you did something once. Somebody told me something about bears?
Yeah, I killed 25 bears in the woods. I wrestled a bear too.
You wrestled a bear?
I catched a bear in the woods.
And killed him?
I strangled a bear with my reversal arm. I strangled a bear.

(01:57:46):
Isn't that dangerous?
I like to bring the bear to the studio. 650 pound bear.
And kill him?
Yeah, of course.
That'd be a first, wouldn't it?
Right here on our stage, he's going to kill a bear.
Dead?
Really, really dead.
That'd be different. Sullivan would go out of his mind if he saw that.
Why don't we, you want to drag the bear off? Get him out of here.

(01:58:11):
Ready?
Right here, there you go.
On our stage, he grabbed a tail.
Whoa!
That kind of straightened me out.

(01:58:34):
All right, we're ready to go. What would you like me to do, great?
Yeah, wait a minute.
All right, the hair?
You go in the front over here.
You want me in the front?
Yeah. Pull him up now. Pull the rope over there.
Pull the rope tight.
Wait.
All right.
All right.
Are we ready?
Don't go yet. All right.
All right.

(01:58:55):
Okay, head up.
Now.
Wait.
Wait.
Now, pull over there. Pull everybody up.
Pull everybody up. Pull. Pull.
All right. Pull.
Everybody pull.
Okay, break.

(01:59:38):
I want to tell you.

(02:00:08):
The biographical background and information that I have collected about the great Antonio has been cross referenced and for more accounts verified by some of the great staff.
And I need to give them a shout out at the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal. Specifically, I need to really give a hat tip to Heather McNabb, who was the English consultant who helped me with some information in regards to this.

(02:00:41):
For those in the Montreal area and for those traveling to Montreal, the McCord Stewart Museum has a massive collection on the great Antonio, which I'm going to get into in a little bit here.
And they are looking for funds to put towards exploring the rest of the story about the great Antonio.

(02:01:02):
They have a tremendous amount of information.
They're just looking for the funds to complete it. So if you are in the Montreal area and are a fan of the great Antonio, I would highly encourage you to donate to the McCord Stewart Museum so they can continue their tremendous research and give everybody a little more about the great Antonio.

(02:01:29):
Now, here we go.
Anton Beresiewicz was born October 10th, 1925. He was the son of Joseph Beresiewicz and Rosary Budnić. Anton was born in Lusengrad, which nowadays is actually known as Losinj.

(02:01:52):
This is the island of Losinj in Croatia. Now we're going to get into a little bit of world history for everybody right now.
Between 1918 and 1943, this region was actually annexed by Italy. So this would explain why he would come to be known as Antonio in his mother's tongue.

(02:02:13):
Now, this island is now technically Croatian territory. So that's why almost immediately some of the historical background of the great Antonio is muddled.
Some would call him Italian. His mother was. Some would call him Croatian because where he was born, Lusengrad, is now Losinj. So both can be right at the same time.

(02:02:43):
Anton, now known as Antonio, immigrated to Canada in 1945 when the island joined Croatia in the Federation of Yugoslavia and when the region was experiencing a massive exodus of populations of Italians.
Arriving at the age of 20, he first worked as a stevedore at the port of Montreal where he was unloading ships.

(02:03:05):
Now this comes from the museum archives. At that time, and despite the death of Louis Cyr in 1912, a certain interest in the force persisted in Quebec, maintained in particular by Philippe Fournier, Eugene K.O., and Victor Delamar.
These were strongmen in the French-Canadian past. We would have discussed many of that in my conversation with David Williams from Fireside Canada.

(02:03:38):
Aware of his unusual abilities, the great Antonio takes quickly in parts of various matches between strongmen and appeared from 1952 in the Guinness Book of World Records for pulling a train on the Montreal railway line, totaling a weight of 433 tons over a distance of 19.8 meters.

(02:04:04):
As well, in 1956 he drove a Chevrolet attached to his own hair and in 1960 he set a new record by pulling four city buses and their passengers on St. Catherine Street in Montreal.
Again, this comes from the McCord Museum.
His many feats of strength made his reputation and Beresiewicz did not hesitate to call himself the strongest man in the world. At a time when wrestlers were not yet consuming steroids, he demonstrated his toughness by carrying men on his shoulders, fighting bears, lifting trucks, pulling elephants, and lifting horses.

(02:04:46):
His most well-known time of glory was between 1960 and 1970s. That's also when he began his professional wrestling career as we alluded to earlier on in the program.
It is also interesting that he made a few appearances in the United States both in terms of professional wrestling and on popular shows like the aforementioned Johnny Carson show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Real People.

(02:05:11):
His wife, Janee La Roux, whom he married in 1966, followed him wherever he went and was always present at his shows. She was a businesswoman and later played the role of his manager and organized his tours.
Further to his late night television career, wrestling career, and his career as a strongman, he was also in a great deal of movies. He had international success in La Guerre des Feux in 1981, which was a French Canadian film. He was also featured in Chocolate Cake in 1983. He was in The Abominable Snowman in 1996.

(02:05:49):
However, in the 1990s, Beresiewicz gradually fell into oblivion. He ended up living by himself in a small apartment on Beaumier Road in Montreal.
That's kind of where the story that you heard at the beginning of the program kind of picks up, detailing the after effects of the great Antonio's presence and career.

(02:06:15):
Earlier on in the program, you would have heard about the fabled garbage bag that the great Antonio would carry around with him, containing all of his personal relics.
This still exists today and it is at the Montreal Museum. Now that donation was offered to the museum by illustrator and author Elise Gravel, who had the opportunity to meet the great Antonio in Montreal in the 1990s and buy some autographed photos.

(02:06:46):
She was able to procure his magnificent garbage bag of items, if you will. And she was also approached by Janine Pelletier, who sold her the documentary or the rest of the documentarian images and information that Elise ended up donating to the program or donating to the museum, I should say.

(02:07:10):
Janine Pelletier is the sister of Pierre Pelletier, who was a former wrestler who did tours with Beresiewicz in the early 1970s and whom had picked up newspapers and papers of all kinds of photos kept in the apartment of the great Antonio after his passing.
Now what's fascinating is that it really does offer an overview of his personal life from 1959 until his passing in 2003. Included in this massive library of information of the great Antonio, there is correspondences, he has employment contracts, business cards, two Canadian passports, which is interesting,

(02:07:53):
draft scripts, compositions, notes, as well as multiple wrestling show programs.
From these programs, they were able to extrapolate that he shared the ring with greats such as Pat O'Connor, Mad Dog Vachon, Buddy Rogers, Eduard Carpentier, and many, many more.
In fact, it should be noted that he rubbed shoulders with almost all of the greats between 1959 and 1961, more specifically. A lot of press clippings were extremely rich in information.

(02:08:25):
They also show that the great Antonio was an expert in public relations, since this fantastic character liked to talk about himself and promote his exploits, something that we discussed earlier on in the program.
During his four decades career, he also managed to infiltrate the international jet set scene. We see in several of the articles in this collection, the donation to the museum, that he was in the company of some of the biggest stars over that four decade career.

(02:08:56):
He had multiple pictures with Michael Jackson and his brother Jermain, with Clint Eastwood, Sophia Larrin, Luciano Pavarotti, Liza Minnelli, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Bellemin, and Tom Jones, amongst many, many more, including former President of the United States Bill Clinton.

(02:09:19):
Now, what's also extremely fascinating is included in this collection are Anton, or the great Antonio's, medical records. Due to limitations in privacy in Canada, these medical records will not be available to the public until 2033, at which time it will be legally permissible to allow them to be viewed by the public.

(02:09:45):
But I am very much interested to see what those medical records have to say about the health and well-being of the great Antonio.
Again, here's a man who went a substantive change in character from how we looked early on as a strapping young man to the orange behemoth that we saw later described in the lyrics of the band May-Ye.

(02:10:10):
It's a fascinating look and something that I'm really looking forward to witnessing for myself in 2033 when these records will be legally able to be released.
Once again, there's many more interesting facets and tidbits that are being slowly uncovered by the museum. So once again, if you are in the financial shape and are interested and you live in the Montreal area and are able to donate to the McCord Museum,

(02:10:44):
specifically towards the preservation and research of the great Antonio exhibit, I would very much suggest that you look into it and see what there is.
Because to be honest, we don't often find in professional wrestling somebody who has been able to encapsulate their entire career, to keep tabs essentially of what they've been up to over the decades.

(02:11:11):
And instead of what has been come to pass as people kind of talking about the great Antonio story without the substance, now we have the actual substance and the resources are just required to dig into it and really fully explore the story of the great Antonio.

(02:11:37):
I know for myself, I'm personally looking forward to 2033 when those records will be fully available.
The great Antonio, wrestling's great mystery, is finally on the verge of being completely solved. And I for one am thrilled that on the anniversary of his passing, that being this coming September 2023, that we were able to do this program and shed some light on one of the more fascinating characters

(02:12:12):
from not only French Canadian lore, but professional wrestling lore and Canadian history.

(02:12:35):
This has been your episode of Grappling with Canada.
This episode was written, researched, produced and recorded by me, Andy the Taxman.
You can find Grappling with Canada on all major podcasting platforms. Please make sure to rate and review five stars were available.

(02:12:57):
You can also find Grappling with Canada on all major social media platforms. Just search Grappling with Canada on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
If you are willing and able to financially support Grappling with Canada, you can find links to PayPal and BuyMeACoffee.com on the Linktree link in today's show notes.

(02:13:21):
You can also find links to the Grappling with Canada merchandise store in the show notes for today's episode. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with your friends and family.
This is Andy the Taxman saying thank you very much for supporting and listening to this program. Take care of yourselves and each other.

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