{"id":4457,"date":"2017-05-03T18:19:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T22:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=4457"},"modified":"2017-05-03T18:19:48","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T22:19:48","slug":"happy-102nd-birthday-stu-hart-remembering-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2017\/05\/03\/happy-102nd-birthday-stu-hart-remembering-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy 102nd Birthday, Stu Hart: Remembering an Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today would have marked the 102nd birthday of legendary wrestler, promoter and trainer Stu Hart<\/strong>, the patriarch of wrestling’s fabled Hart family, who passed away October 6, 2003 following a severe bout with pneumonia.<\/p>\n

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Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on May 3, 1915, Stu Hart’s family would move to Alberta soon after, where he would eventually settle down in Calgary and make it Canada’s wrestling capital. At the age of 14, he began training in weightlifting and amateur wrestling, and in 1937, won a gold medal in wrestling from the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada in the welterweight class. At the time, he also taught wrestling at the University of Alberta. His own amateur wrestling career was crowned with the\u00a0Dominion Amateur Wrestling Championship in 1940. Hart also spent two seasons in the Canadian Football League (CFL)<\/strong> as a centre for the Edmonton Eskimos<\/strong>, in the 1938 and 1939 season (although those Eskimos were not the same franchise who would start in 1949 and who still exists today).<\/p>\n

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Stu in the Royal Canadian Navy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When World War II broke out, Stu joined the Royal Canadian Navy, along with childhood neighbour and fellow wrestler Al Oeming<\/strong>. After the war ended, Stu and Al went to New York City, where Stu was trained in the art of professional wrestling by 2017 WWE Hall of Famer Joseph “Toots” Mondt<\/strong>, who would start Capitol Wrestling<\/strong> a few years later with promoter Jess McMahon<\/strong> (following Jess’ death in 1954, his son Vince McMahon, Snr<\/strong> would take over his stake in the company, which would go on to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF)<\/strong>, later the WWE<\/strong>). Oeming and Hart both worked several matches for Mondt’s promotions before heading back to Canada, where the two started Stampede Wrestling<\/strong> in 1948 (originally called Klondike Wrestling<\/strong>). During his time in New York, Stu Hart would meet and fall in love with his “Tigerbell”, Helen Smith<\/strong>, and the two were married during a blizzard in the Big Apple in 1947. The two would be inseparable their entire lives, until Helen’s death following a stroke in 2001.<\/p>\n

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Stampede Wrestling became a Western Canadian institution, with a 30-year run on television and an introduction to many of the top stars of the world, as well as Canada, for Canadian wrestling fans. But it was Stu’s dedication as a trainer that influenced the wrestling landscape the most. Here’s a quick list of just some of the legendary wrestlers that Stu Hart trained in his infamous “Dungeon”, the basement training room of the famed Hart House mansion in Calgary.<\/p>\n