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ONTARIO - Full-contact fans

Broadcast Date: April 15, 1980

Sylvia Tyson, country singer and host of CBC Television's Heartland, may not seem like a wrestling fan. But she is. Sylvia went to see wrestling every other Wednesday night while growing up in Chatham, Ont. In this clip, grapplers Danny Johnson and The Canadian Wildman tell her they often have more to fear from the fans than from their brawny opponents. The Wildman recalls being in a rental car with other wrestlers that was flipped by a Puerto Rican mob and pelted with rocks.

Danny Johnson tells of a terrifying night in Ohio where a spectator vaulted into the ring and tried to shoot wrestler Reginald Love. There was a struggle for the gun and bullets blasted through the arena. Spectators desperate to save their children literally hurled them away from the ring. And then there was the fan with the false teeth…

ONTARIO - Full-contact fans

• Diane (Viviane) Vachon, a wrestling sister of brawler Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon, marvelled that spectators who had screamed for her blood would stop her on the street for an autograph. "They hate you when you're inside the ring. They love you outside the ring," she told CBC Radio in 1973.

• The voices of some Toronto wrestling fans in a 1972 CBC Television program: "I think it's the best sport going"; "Wrestlers make you laugh. You forget everything. It's a night out."; "It relieves a lot of tension"; "I like the midgets."; "When it comes down to it all I wish they would kill the Sheik."; "I've got cancer. This is my only enjoyment I get out of life now is coming here and cheering the ones that I like."

• According to Lilibet: An Intimate Portrait of Elizabeth II by Carrolly Erickson, Queen Elizabeth II has enjoyed watching wrestling on TV.
• The often flamboyant wrestling managers play a key role in whipping fans into a frenzy. One of the most famous was Farouk, the fez- and sunglasses-wearing manager of The Sheik when he was the top draw at Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1970s. Farouk later became The Grand Wizard in the WWF.

• Both wrestlers in this clip are now dead. Dave McKigney, The Canadian Wildman, crashed a van while on tour in Newfoundland in 1988 after he swerved to avoid a moose. His uphill struggle in wrestling is chronicled in the book Drawing Heat by Jim Freedman. Danny Johnson, who had his best success wrestling with the moniker Bullwhip, died in July 2003 in Hamilton from liver complications.

• American wrestling legend Terry Funk on rioting fans: "The greatest thing (for a heel wrestler) is to do your job so well that someone wants to kill you … I mean do I want to put someone in jail because I convinced him or her that I needed to die? I did it to them. That's how I look at it and that may be sick but it's also beautiful": SLAM! Wrestling website.

ONTARIO - Full-contact fans

Medium: Television

Program: Heartland

Broadcast Date: April 15, 1980

Guest(s): Danny Johnson, Dave McKigney

Host: Sylvia Tyson

Duration: 8:07

Last updated:
March 19, 2004