By JASON CLEVETT - SLAM! Wrestling
Saturday night in Hawkesbury, Ontario, halfway between Ottawa and Montreal, will be the battle of not only former WWE superstars, but two French Canadian wrestlers who have done French commentary for TNA on RDS in Quebec. The match between Sylvain Grenier and Pierre Carl Ouellette has taken a personal turn.
“I gave him the job. I wanted to leave on good terms with RDS because I was booked in England and it was something I had to do, but I was only able to give them three days notice. So I suggested Grenier, even though he would not be on my level. He was a four time WWE tag team champion so I thought he could bring credibility to the show as a wrestler who made it to the big time instead of someone who knows nothing about wrestling,” Ouellette said when reached by phone to discuss the match.
“Not on his level? Since I took his place the ratings went up 25 percent. It’s not my fault I am good,” retorted Grenier.
“I think it is a total different dynamic on RDS than what (RDS commentator) Marc Blondin and I had. I don’t think anyone can fill my shoes or do the same performance I was doing, but that doesn’t mean he could be good himself,” continued Ouellette. “He is more himself, at the beginning he was trying to be like me, and it didn’t work. He has a huge ego and a big attitude.”
Grenier and Blondin, who will referee the match, have posted a number of interviews on
YouTube about PCO. What began as a simple match has become personal for both sides.
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“Of course it is personal. He thinks that he is better than me and thinks that because he's on TV every week now that makes him better,” Ouellette said. “I have been wrestling all over the world and keeping pretty busy working every night while he is doing voiceovers and not training very much. I don’t think his conditioning will be very good.”
“There is not much personal besides he thinks he is the man in Quebec and everybody knows its me. We have to do it in Ontario so that is kind of weird, but I am going to show him who the man in town is,” said Grenier.
Even Blondin has issues with Ouellette, stemming from a match last year.
“I have never been a referee. Last year I produced a show and we had two teams, PCO’s and mine, which had Rhino. The referee was knocked out, I made the count so that Rhino beat him. But I have never officially been a referee. It is going to be tough in Hawkesbury because I worked with Carl for years and now I do work with Sylvain, but I feel good to have the control on those two guys. My brain should handle their big arms,” Blondin said. “They are good in the ring, but on camera with the microphone I am the best. And they should not be on TV with me, but because they wrestled, they have to know their place.”
On a show that also features Sid Vicious, Jim Neidhart, and a steel cage match between Abdullah The Butcher and Hannibal, Ouellette and Grenier’s match will be one to watch. In a rare showing of grace, Grenier did say a few things positive about his opponent -- for a moment at least.
“PCO is a great wrestler, for a guy his size he is very athletic and has a lot of strength. But the thing is his time has passed," said Grenier. "He needs to be on the sidelines now and let the new people step up. He is 40 years old. Does he think he is going to wrestle until he is 55 like Ric Flair? He had his run, it was good, but it is time for him to move on. He can’t understand that by himself. It will be my pleasure to help him understand. The result is going to speak for itself.”
When told of Grenier’s words, Ouellette promised he was going to show Grenier a few things, and use him as a stepping-stone for a return to the WWE.
“I am going to teach him the difference between being on TV and talking every week and traveling around the world working every night and busting my balls," Ouelette said. "I am going to earn the chance to go back to New York instead of sitting here in Montreal on my ass. I am going to teach him that hard work and dedication pays off.”-----------------------------------------------------------
TV Promo - Ottawa, ON area. This began airing June 16th, 2008.
June 20th - Pembroke, ON
Pembroke Memorial Centre
June 21st - Hawkesbury, ON
RobertHartley Arena
Shows feature ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER, SYCHO SID, JIM THE ANVIL NEIDHART, HANNIBAL, PIERRE CARL OUELLETTE, SYLVAIN GRENIER, TIGER RAJ SINGH, a Women's Tag Team Match and More!
Log onto to http://www.wrestlingsupershow.com for more info.
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Wrestling returns to the PMC
Posted By BY TINA PEPLINSKIE, STAFF WRITER, Dauily Observer, Ontario
Area residents will get their chance June 20 as the Wrestling Super Show makes a stop at the Pembroke Memorial Centre.
Fans will get a chance to see Psycho Sid Vicious, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Sylvain Grenier, Pierre Carl Ouellette, Hannibal and Abdullah the Butcher, who has been wrestling since the 1950s.
Event promoter and wrestler Hannibal has geared the show towards fans from the 1980s and 1990s.
"People attending the show will see an old-school style, solid wrestling matches and big guys that actually look like wrestlers," he said during a recent phone interview. "Everyone in this event has travelled in wrestling and is in shape."
After wrestling for close to two decades, Hannibal began promoting wrestling shows about three years ago. So far the secret to his success has been attracting people who used to be fans.
"These are the guys that the fans watched growing up," he said. "It is an intimate environment and afterwards most of the guys will be signing autographs."
He isn't sure how many people to expect at the show as he noted wrestling's popularity has fluctuated over the years. He is hoping to attract about 1,000 spectators, however.
His passion for wrestling goes back as long as he can remember.
"I've loved wrestling all my life from the first moment I saw it on TV," he said.
He admitted he has a difficulty watching wrestling now because of what he calls the soap opera story lines which dominate the programs instead of the wrestling itself.
A wrestling promoter, Devon Nicholson, has seized the opportunity to keep live shows front and centre in our area when he brings his Wrestling Supershow promotion to the Pembroke Memorial Centre on Friday, June 20 at 7:30 p. m., with a star-studded cast of veteran wrestlers.
The card will feature some of the top names in the game including Abdullah the Butcher, Sycho Sid Vicious, Pierre Carl Ouellette and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart of the famous Hart Foundation. All of these matmen have been to the top of the heap in the wrestling game at one time or another.
In the past, promoters relied heavily on wrestling bears, alligators and midgets to add variety to the shows but in the prim and proper Ontario of the 1950s, lady wrestlers were not allowed to enter the ring.
In a new century, the exploitation of little persons is frowned upon and animal activist groups vigorously protest the use of bears and alligators for sport. But the new freedom does allow lady wrestlers to perform and thus Josianne the Pussycat, Danyah, Misty Haven and Cherry Bomb will be featured in a tag team match.
Nicholson himself will be one of the leading stars of the show under the name of Hannibal.
Not many of this current crop of wrestlers will even be aware that they are performing in an arena where pro wrestling flourished for over 30 years under the banner of Northland Wrestling Enterprises.
But the history has not been lost on a savvy grappler like Nicholson,
For many small towns, it was the only show in town during the hot summer months and you'd be hard-pressed to find a kid who never attended the matches, at least once. Even with today's brand of wrestling, young fans should have the opportunity to see live shows and judge the entertainment value for themselves.
Older fans may even want to have another chance to relive some memories of live wrestling as it once was at the PMC. When we think of our arena today, we look upon it as an ice palace, the home of our Lumber Kings, ice skating and figure skating and other winter use. Primarily it is a hockey haven.
In another time it was much more. It was a home for trade shows and roller skating, dances with Mac Beattie and the Melodiers and country and western shows with stars such as Webb Pierce and Hank Snow.
But aside from hockey, it was professional wrestling that was the second most dependable staple on the arena's entertainment calendar. And Larry Kasaboski and his wrestlers were steady tenants and as familiar as the many young men who passed through town and wore the red crested crowns of the Lumber Kings.
If only these old walls could talk.
Allen Wells was a schoolteacher dispensing knowledge and wisdom to students at Centre Ward School in 1953.Young, single and
and that's why he's lining up a card worthy of Pembroke and area fans. It seems promoters are once again turning their attention to the Valley where wrestling has deep roots and was once very much a part of our culture. new in town, Wells quickly surveyed the entertainment scene and found that while it was interesting, it was also very limited.
He was a movie buff but since the theatres ran the same movies for two or three days, the young teacher often found himself with time on his hands. During one lull he wandered into the PMC to a wrestling show and was hooked on the game forever after.
Over a half-century later, he chuckles when recalling his first encounter with the grunt-and-groaners.
A wrestler, attired in an Arab costume, bandied a sword about wildly in the direction of his opponent, causing Wells to fear for the man's safety. Luckily he was spared the sight of his first decapitation.
But the young schoolteacher quickly caught on to the nuances of the game and became a fierce follower of wrestling in all the towns where he taught at schools. To this day, he regularly watches the Vince McMahon variety of wrestling on the tube, all because of an early encounter with the game at the PMC.
So when promoter Nicholson brings this latest version of pro wrestling to town on Friday, it may just spark a renewed interest in the game and produce more life-long fans like Allen Wells. But it won't be a weekly affair because there simply is no longer a market for a steady diet of wrestling in an already overcrowded entertainment world.
All the great wrestling territories have been swallowed up by the McMahon Empire. Small independent shows operate now only on an occasional basis in arenas such as ours.
But it's still a part of our culture in the Ottawa Valley and though often maligned and ridiculed, it seems never to go away completely or for very long.
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