Stewart Edward Hart was a Canadian amateur and professional wrestler, wrestling booker, promoter, coach, trainer, football player and sailor.
73 Facts About Stu Hart
2.
Stu Hart is best known for founding and handling Stampede Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion based in Calgary, Alberta, teaching many individuals at its associated wrestling school "The Dungeon" and establishing a professional wrestling dynasty consisting of his relatives and close trainees.
3.
Stu Hart was born to a poor Saskatchewan family but became a successful amateur wrestler during the 1930s and early 1940s, holding many national championships, as well as engaging in many other sports.
4.
Stu Hart began wrestling for show in 1943 with the Royal Canadian Navy while serving in World War II as he could not go to the 1940 Summer Olympics due to the war.
5.
Stu Hart was considered very handsome and a good in-ring performer, focusing on a submission-like and technical style of wrestling, but despite this and being popular in general he was not given a major spotlight, and soon after marrying Helen Smith, whom he met in New York City, he created his own promotion in Edmonton, Alberta, which would be known as Stampede Wrestling and took over the surrounding wrestling territory which covered most of western Canada and the US state of Montana.
6.
Stu Hart's promotion featured a large variety of outside stars from the wrestling industry as well as homegrown talent for whom he booked storylines.
7.
Stu Hart remained an active full-time wrestler until the 1960s when he entered semi-in-ring retirement, thereafter he would focus mostly on promoting, booking and teaching, as well as raising his twelve children with Helen while still appearing in the ring sporadically until the 1980s.
8.
Stu Hart continued to teach wrestling at his home in Calgary until the 1990s when he suffered a severe leg injury and had to stop engaging excessively with students, leaving most of the work for his sons Bruce and Keith.
9.
Stu Hart died at age 88 in October 2003 after suffering from multiple medical issues.
10.
Stu Hart is regarded by many, including major wrestling historian and sports journalist Dave Meltzer, as one of the most influential and important figures in professional wrestling history and an icon of the artform.
11.
Stu Hart was a member of the inaugural Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame class in 1996 and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010 by his son Bret.
12.
Stu Hart was well known for his involvement in over thirty charities, for which he was named a Member of the Order of Canada, the second highest honour for merit which can be given in Canada and the highest civilian honour.
13.
Stu Hart was born in Saskatoon in 1915 to Edward and Elizabeth Stewart Stu Hart.
14.
Stu Hart was mainly of Ulster Scot descent from his father's side but had Scottish and English ancestry from his mother's side of the family.
15.
Stu Hart's childhood was impoverished; as a boy, Stu Hart lived in a tent with his family on the prairie in Alberta, living off the land, milking cows and wild game that Stu took down with his slingshot.
16.
Stu Hart was berated and treated with disdain for being lefthanded, something seen as deviant at the time.
17.
Stu Hart was trained in catch wrestling in his youth by other boys.
18.
Stu Hart taught this 'shoot style' to all who trained under him in the 1980s and 1990s with the thought that teaching his students real submission moves would make their professional wrestling style sharper.
19.
Stu Hart started weightlifting and training for wrestling when he was fourteen years old and quickly built a strong neck and impressive arms.
20.
Stu Hart began attending amateur wrestling classes when he joined the YMCA in Edmonton in 1929 and soon became a talented grappler.
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Stu Hart continued to train and improve his abilities and by 1937 he was the Dominion welterweight champion, in 1937 he won a gold medal in the welterweight class from the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
22.
Stu Hart qualified and would have competed at the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1940 but could not due to it being cancelled because of the outbreak of World War II, which was a terrible blow to Stu Hart personally, as it had been his dream to compete at the Olympics from a very young age.
23.
Stu Hart played professionally for the Edmonton Eskimos from 1937 to 1939 as a center and was considered a standout performer at the time.
24.
Stu Hart initially been slated for the 1941 season as well but had to decline due to other commitments which prevented him from joining at that time.
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Stu Hart coached a women's fastball team in Edmonton during the late 1930s as well as being the captain of a popular baseball team called Hart's All Stars.
26.
On Christmas Eve 1941 Stu Hart was almost killed in a bicycle accident which broke both his elbows and thumbs and hurt his back severely.
27.
Stu Hart spent several months at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton recovering.
28.
Stu Hart enlisted in the Navy and was appointed to the position of Director of Athletics.
29.
In early 1943, Stu Hart was put in for a transfer from the Nonsuch in Edmonton to regular service in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.
30.
Stu Hart performed regularly before thousands of other enlisted men in drill halls.
31.
Stu Hart spent much of his free time during World War II performing and organizing different sports events to raise funds to the war effort.
32.
Stu Hart originally wanted to leave the Navy when the war was over but the organization considered him to be a great asset both as a trainer as well as a showpiece, persuading him to stay.
33.
In 1946, while receiving training from Toots Mondt, Stu Hart debuted in New York City.
34.
Early on, Stu Hart experienced harsh treatment from his fellow wrestlers in the ring and during training, being considered a "pretty boy" at first by his peers and older wrestlers; described as "tall, dark and handsome, with a build that would put movie idols to shame" he was immediately a favourite with the female fans.
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The roughing up of younger performers by veteran workers was common at the time in the industry but Stu Hart adapted to it rather quickly and would retaliate with the same treatment, utilizing his catch wrestling experience to his advantage.
36.
Stu Hart developed a reputation as a legitimate athlete and "tough-guy" in the business.
37.
Stu Hart was a frequent tag team wrestler together with Lord James Blears.
38.
Blears and Stu Hart lived together for six months with another wrestler named Sandor Kovacs whom Stu Hart already knew from the Navy.
39.
Stu Hart had quickly become a rising star in the area but chose to leave together with his newly engaged fiancee only about a year and a half after debuting.
40.
In September 1948, Stu Hart established Klondike Wrestling in Edmonton, the promotion joined the NWA in 1948.
41.
In 1949, Stu Hart was involved in a storyline with the "heel" Lord Albert Mills, they were scheduled to have a two out of three main event match at the Billings Sports arena on Monday December 19, the match was a followup to another one the previous week when Mills had gotten the win through nefarious means.
42.
Stu Hart was portrayed as having been caught off guard the Monday before when it happened.
43.
Stu Hart was a perpetual "face" during his in-ring career, including during his time with the NWA, and was a noted draw for women in the areas he wrestled.
44.
In 1950, Stu Hart wrestled for the NWA associated Alex Turk Promotions in Winnipeg.
45.
In 1951, Stu Hart purchased a mansion in Patterson Heights, Calgary, The Stu Hart House which is considered a heritage site.
46.
Later that year Stu Hart headlined an event in Wisconsin, again together with Verne Gagne.
47.
Stu Hart was still favoured by women at this time even against a bigger star like Gagne.
48.
In 1952, Stu Hart bought up Tillman's territory in Alberta and merged his own promotion with it into Big Time Wrestling.
49.
The televised version of Stu Hart's wrestling shows were one of Canada's longest-running television programs, lasting over 30 years and remained one of Calgary's most popular sports programs, eventually airing in over 50 countries worldwide.
50.
Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling was responsible for developing many wrestlers who would later become very successful in other promotions and territories, mainly in the WWF.
51.
Stu Hart had on occasions wrestled animals such as tigers and grizzly bears as part of promotional efforts for the company as well as charity.
52.
Stu Hart made several appearances on WWE television in the 1990s and early 2000s.
53.
At the 1993 Pay-Per-View event Survivor Series, Stu Hart had a planned physical interaction outside of the ring with Shawn Michaels.
54.
Michaels played the part of the antagonist, and when failing to succeed in winning the match, Michaels' character then attacked Stu Hart who responded by pretending to knock him out with an elbow smash.
55.
Stu Hart appeared in WCW at the Slamboree 1993: A Legends' Reunion event.
56.
Stu Hart trained the vast majority of his trainees in the basement of the Stu Hart mansion, known as The Dungeon.
57.
Stu Hart used the location from the time that he bought it in October 1951 until the late 1990s.
58.
Stu Hart's technique was well known and he would let anyone who wished to let him apply one of his holds do so if they came to his home.
59.
Stu Hart was said to have had a special liking for training football players and bodybuilders since he enjoyed testing their strength.
60.
Some have described his training as torture and have accused Stu Hart of being a sadist who enjoyed inflicting pain on people and was more interested in doing so than teach them professional wrestling.
61.
Owen himself revealed in the 1998 documentary Hitman Stu Hart: Wrestling with Shadows that he was often intimidated by his father but respected him and that that kept him from misbehaving.
62.
Stu Hart was close friends with fellow wrestler Luther Jacob Goodall, better known by the name Luther Lindsay.
63.
Goodall was one of the few men who bested him in the infamous "Dungeon" and Stu Hart reportedly carried a picture of him in his wallet until his passing in 2003.
64.
All of the wrestling belts that Stu Hart used for his promotions were handmade by himself.
65.
Stu Hart allegedly wrote the foreword to the controversial book Under the Mat which was written by his youngest daughter, Diana Stu Hart.
66.
Stu Hart was a non-denominational Christian he had all his children baptized by a local Catholic priest.
67.
Stu Hart was honoured with an investiture on May 31,2001, in Ottawa.
68.
On October 3,2003, Stu Hart was readmitted to Rockyview General Hospital as a result of an elbow infection at which he then developed pneumonia again.
69.
Stu Hart suffered from ailments associated with diabetes and arthritis.
70.
Stu Hart was cremated and his ashes were later interred at Eden Brook Memorial Gardens in a plot with his wife Helen, who had died almost two years earlier in November 2001.
71.
Stu Hart is regarded by many as one of the most important and respected people in the history of professional wrestling, and an icon of the art.
72.
Stu Hart had a noticeable accent which included a very raspy voice and unique way of speaking which he was well known for.
73.
On March 27,2010, Stu Hart was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.