The Cauliflower Alley Club announced Wednesday that longtime WWF wrestler and road agent Rene Goulet died this past May at 86 years old. His family kept the news quiet until today, even from WWE.
A native of Quebec City, Quebec, the man born Robert Bedard began his professional wrestling career in 1957 and eventually found his way to the then-WWWF where he would stay from the 1970s through the 1980s. He also spent time in various NWA territories and the AWA.
In 1971, Goulet and partner Karl Gotch won the WWWF tag team titles by defeating Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler, holding the gold for just 57 days. He stayed active until 1986 and worked as a road agent until 1997, one of the men seen regularly when officials came out to break up brawls.
Goulet was the first ever wrestler to defeat Ric Flair and and competed against Tito Santana in the very first WWF match aired on USA. He and Andre The Giant also won what is now known as the New Japan World Tag League in 1981.
He was inducted into the Tragos/Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.
Larry Hennig, the father of Curt Hennig and one of the biggest stars in the history of the AWA, passed away earlier today at the age of 82.
Hennig attended Robbindale High School in Minneapolis, the alma mater of Verne Gagne. He was the state heavyweight wrestling champion in high school, and Gagne recruited him into pro wrestling when Hennig had turned down college football and wrestling offers because he already had his first child and had to work to earn money to support a wife and family.
He wrestled in the Midwest most of his career, and eventually was brought into the AWA in 1960 as Gagne’s protege. He briefly held the AWA tag team titles with Duke Hoffman, but in 1963, he became a heel, “Pretty Boy” Larry Hennig, forming a tag team with “Handsome” Harley Race, which helped carry the territory for several years, working against all the top area babyfaces. Hennig & Race, taunted as The Dolly Sisters, had one of the biggest feuds in AWA history with Dick the Bruiser & The Crusher, which was really the feud that made Bruiser & Crusher tag team legends.
Hennig & Race were the top heel team in the AWA from 1963 to 1968, and held the tag team titles three times. They were considered among the top tag teams in the world during that period.
Hennig & Race teamed in other parts of the world, including Australia, which was the hottest wrestling market in the world, as IWA tag team champions.
After missing several months due to a knee injury from a match with Johnny Powers, an injury that would plague him the rest of his life, Hennig returned. Eventually Race returned home to Kansas City, where he became that circuit’s biggest star. Hennig formed a tag team with “Luscious” Lars Anderson, a former college wrestling star whose real name was Larry Heineimi. They were the No. 2 heel team in the AWA, first behind Mad Dog & Butcher Vachon, and then behind Ray Stevens & Nick Bockwinkel. After Anderson left, Hennig formed a tag team with Dusty Rhodes, which broke up when Dick Murdoch came to the AWA and started teaming with Rhodes.
He had a singles run in WWWF, working against champions Pedro Morales and Bruno Sammartino, where he got the nickname Larry “The Axe” Hennig, dropping the “Pretty Boy” name. His winning move, a clothesline, was called the axe.
In 1974, he made a babyface turn, saving Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell from a beating from Stevens & Bockwinkel & Bobby Heenan. His explanation was that he had kids, and that he wouldn’t want to see people beating on his own kids.
He was babyface Larry “The Axe” Hennig for rest of his career, which ended in early 1986 due to neck and knee problems. His full-time wrestling days ended in 1978 and he concentrated on other businesses. He came back in 1982 to do some bouts in the AWA and work for a time as a tag team with his son in Oregon. He and his son worked as a regular tag team in the AWA in 1984 and 1985, often wrestling The Road Warriors.
At 6-foot-3 and close to 300 pounds and with his wrestling background, he was considered one of the tougher guys in the business.
During the mid-70s, he moved his family to Phoenix to try and start a pro wrestling company there. He also worked in real estate both during and after his wrestling career.
Hennig was a regular at the Cauliflower Alley Club and the Tragos/Thesz Hall of Fame ceremonies, where he had served as an M.C. He was a great storyteller, with his real life hatred of Verne Gagne often being the source of many of his stories. He took the death of his son Curt in 2003 very hard.
His grandson, Joe Hennig, works in WWE as Curtis Axel, with Axel being a tribute to his grandfather. Larry would regularly attend WWE shows in the Twin Cities.
He had another son, Jesse, who briefly wrestled, as well as a granddaughter, Joe’s sister Amy, who also wrestled.
Ivan Koloff, 74, one of pro wrestling’s leading heels of the 70s and 80s, is battling liver cancer.
Koloff is best known for his January 18th, 1971, win over Bruno Sammartino in Madison Square Garden which ended up being Sammartino’s only pinfall loss in that building in his entire career. The win ended Sammartino’s nearly eight year run as WWWF champion.
Koloff had already established himself as a major star years earlier by dropping his Irish gimmick as Red McNulty, and becoming the Russian Bear in Montreal, where he headlined a number of big drawing shows against Jacques Rougeau Sr. and others.
He was a top heel everywhere for more than 20 years, headlining at one point or another in almost every major territory and all over the world. In the early 70s, he and The Sheik were the two top heels in the U.S., and he remains to this day the only heel ever to leave the WWWF because he was so over they were afraid to keep him there for fear of a bad incident, because of the emotion caused by his win over Sammartino.
He left the WWWF only a few weeks after the win, dropping the title three weeks later to Pedro Morales, and not even having one rematch in Madison Square Garden, nor did he feud with Sammartino outside of Pittsburgh, which was a different territory at the time run by Sammartino and not Vince McMahon Sr.
He had a run on top during the second hottest period in AWA history, where he was a longtime top contender for Verne Gagne and wrestled him in the main event of a 1972 show at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Just as cable television was taking off, the tag team of Ole Anderson & Ivan Koloff were the headliners in Georgia, with a long program against Dusty Rhodes and a revolving set of partners.
He settled in the Carolinas in the 80s, forming a strong tag team with Don Kernodle, and more famously, the Russian trio with his so-called nephew, Nikita Koloff, and Krusher Khrushev, who later became Demolition Smash, Barry Darsow.
Koloff’s career on a major league level ended in 1989 after Crockett Promotions was purchased by Turner Broadcasting. He had a babyface turn, that worked for a short period of time but was clearly not going to suit him in the long run. He worked regularly for years doing independent shows and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.
Koloff was known in his heyday for his conditioning in the ring and being a top level worker. While the Sammartino win was big, the reality is he got over everywhere he went at the top level, in places where the fan base didn’t even know Sammartino, but it did make him a larger-than-life heel when he would return to the WWWF going after titles, and was one of the best drawing challengers that would be brought in during the 70s and early 80s.
