Kid Dynamite

By Ron Hudchison

As the two young bodybuilders charged down the aisle and into the wrestling ring the mood was being set. It was another night of World Grand Prix Wrestling at the fabled Halifax Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada. A weekly Thursday night smorgasbord of pantomimed violence featuring larger than life cartoon characters.

Female fans, both young and old alike, swooned at the site of their oiled up and chiseled torsos. Dino Ventura and Kid Dynamite—collectively billed as “The Rock and Roll Rebel Express” were brought into the Atlantic Canadian wrestling circuit in the hopes of capturing the female demographic who watched the weekly region-wide televised wrestling show. The expectation was that the two good looking youngsters would entice the ladies to part with their money to catch the Maritime’s two newest television hunks live when Grand Prix Wrestling came to their local arena.

It was a tried and true formula that has withstood the test of time. Amidst a cast of supporting characters portraying the goodest of the good and the baddest of the bad, the Rock and Roll Rebel Express were a hit! The female fans adored them and the male fans, begrudgingly, respected them due largely in part to the heels of the territory whose job it was to portray themselves as the lowest of the low and the kind of bad boys that you definitely wouldn’t take home to meet your wife and/or invalid mother.

On this particular night, waiting in the ring for the charging heroes, were grizzled veterans and all around villains, The Intelligent and Sensational Masked Thunderbolt and Stomping Paul Peller. The portly beer swilling bullies clad in black, Thunderbolt complete with a full head covering mask, provided the visual contrast that helped define the mood and set the roles of good and evil. Barking, bellowing and being belligerent to the ringside faithful, the heels wrath and stinging barbs quickly turned toward the Maritime’s newest heartthrobs as they climbed through the ropes and prepared to do battle.

Referee Ron Gougen called the four combatants to the centre of the ring to point out to them the often ignored rules of pro-wrestling. No hair pulling, no eye gouging, one wrestler from each team in the ring at any one time, no punching, etc. The four grapplers listened and feigned mock intimidation.

“Tell them not to touch my mask.” Thunderbolt bellowed as he pantomimed the pulling off of his black mask and, in a remark that caught 4 out of the 5 people in the ring completely off guard Thunderbolt threatened to refuse to participate in the match unless his one condition was met. “I want them checked for anabolic steroids!” the masked menace yelled as the referee tried to shield his laughter by turning his head into his arm so that the fans could not see that he was about to crack up as he called for the bell. As is more often then not in pro-wrestling, Thunderbolt’s conditional participation in the match was just an idle threat said to set the mood and get a reaction.

And what a reaction it got! Bang up side the head! The Rock and Roll Rebel Express were now on the attack! A double whip into the ropes followed by a double drop kick sent the two loud mouthed heels scurrying to the outside of the ring to regain their composure and re-enforce to the ticket buying faithful what they already knew. Stomping Paul Peller and the Masked Thunderbolt were cowards!

The match continued back and forth according to plan until the young heroes got their comeuppance against the grizzled veterans by beating them in the centre of the ring. As the final bell clanged the young stallions raised their arms in victory and soaked up the cheers of their adoring public.

Two more days to go. It had been a long summer. The wrestlers had worked 3 months straight, seven days a week, and sometimes 14 matches per week and traveled thousands of miles in a van across the three Atlantic Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The whole crew couldn’t wait to go home.

Kid Dynamite and Dino Ventura were headed back to their homes in Western Canada whereas Thunderbolt was set to venture back to Toronto. Stomping Paul Peller was a local matman who called Moncton, New Brunswick home.

The last stop on this grueling tour was Woodstock, New Brunswick, a quaint town not far from the Quebec border. Normally, if the crew had drove in for their summer long tour of duty, the wrestlers would have continued heading west after their last show driving through Quebec and into Ontario (where Thunderbolt would have settled down) and onto the Western Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan where the Rock and Roll Rebel Express would part ways until they were re-united in Kansas City Missouri to battle that territories villains. However, at the completion of this particular tour Ventura, Dynamite and Thunderbolt were booked on the same early morning flight out of Moncton airport with a stop-over in Toronto before proceeding west, so they decided to stay up and party at Thunderbolt’s rented apartment and then, a few hours later, make the 14 mile trek into the City of Moncton to catch their plane.

As is often the case with touring pro-wrestlers, many of them could go years and years without seeing each other again. Ventura saw Thunderbolt the next year when he came to visit the masked menace at his home in Toronto. It was not entirely a happy affair as Ventura had been forced to leave the summer Maritime tour early, as did Thunderbolt a few weeks before. Thunderbolt was called from the tour after receiving the news of the deteriorating health problems of his mother that had forced her into a Toronto hospital, whereas Ventura left the tour due to an in-ring injury-- a misplaced chair shot to the face that managed to sever a good portion of his nose. Kid Dynamite stayed on, however, and continued to be a fan favorite among a depleted World Grand Prix Wrestling roster.

The years referenced above were in 1987 and 1988. It had been since 1988 that Thunderbolt had seen or been in contact with his two baby-faced coworkers and friends; a situation not unique to the wrestling business. On Boxing Day 2007 word leaked out to those in the wrestling world that Kid Dynamite (real name Greg Gillies) had passed away at the age of 44 early that day. Another premature death in the world of pro-wrestling. The dozens upon dozens of pro-wrestlers that have died way before the age of 50 is a unique trait to the pro-wrestling business. It has been documented on everything from the Cable News Network (CNN) to 100’s of Internet blogs. What hasn’t been widely discussed is that a lot of pro wrestlers expect it.

In an online tribute to Kid Dynamite after his passing, fellow wrestler and friend Danny Denton led with a quote from Dynamite saying; “See. Guys like us aren’t in this for the long run. Us big motherfu------aren’t going to be around that long…at least I’m not.” Mr. Denton said that it wasn’t specifically about the wrestling business that Dynamite was talking about but rather about the life and life style of professional wrestlers in the 80’s.

It was a wild lifestyle. A lifestyle that one older friend once told me that the business made us much more mature for our age then she was expecting. I don’t know about making us mature for our age but, for a lot of wrestlers anyway, the hard hitting, hard partying and rough traveling life style made us feel invincible. Unfortunately however nothing lasts forever. Ultimately fate steps in and darkens the mood when it brings the curtain down.

Rest in peace Greg Gillies. We will, ultimately, hook up again in that big wrestling ring in the sky!