This week, we'll try and draw together  the more credible elements of the story.
 

In 1987, American wrestling was making a strong return to the mainstream and to prime time television.

Although beginning to play to full houses, wrestling had been a long time in the wilderness and federations such as the WWF were thin on new talent.

A typical WWF card in 1986/7 might have featured Andre the Giant, Kamala, Randy Savage, Jake Roberts, George Steele, Don Muraco - skilled workers but of limited appeal to the new and youthful audiences WWF was seeking to capture.

WWF ranks were also seriously deficient in the glamor department. The NWA had the Rock'n' Roll Express. The AWA had the Midnight Rockers. The UWF had The Fantastics. WWF had The British Bulldogs - once again great wrestlers but hardly the profiles required to add credibility to WWF's youthful rock'n' roll pretensions. 

Enter the Can-Am Connection,  Rick Martel and AWA/IWA co-worker Tom Zenk.

that sound you hear is female fans knocking down the gates at arenas all across the country straining to get a good look at Rick Martel and Tom Zenk. "Tommy and Ricky are, well, they're just the most incredible looking men I've ever seen" sighed Lisa Zitowski at a recent Madison Square Garden show. "They're dark and handsome and just solid muscle. They both have the nicest hair and the prettiest eyes. Tommy and Ricky make my heart beat faster!" (Liz Hunter, PWI, June 1987).
 

As such, they contained, in one tight package, enough glamor to hold wrestling's new teen audiences and more than enough wrestling skill to satisfy wrestling's hardened fans.

It was hard to find anyone who wasn't impressed. Even wrestling commentators like Inside Wrestling's Matt Brock, who prided themselves on their hard-core cynicism, conceded -
 

I've been around long enough to know a hit when I see one and I saw one tonight at Madison Square Garden. The Can-Am Connection has all the tools to make it big in today's wrestling environment (Inside Wrestling, May, 1987).
 

Zenk, a mere baby by wrestling standards, is only getting better. Martel renewed by his partner's exuberance, is on the top of his game. "I don't think I've ever seen Rick look better", said former partner Tony Garea. "His drop-kicks, his execution is just perfect. I remember when we were a team, we were pretty tough to beat and Rick just couldn't wait to get into the ring every night. I think he looks at Zenk like a teacher looks at his star pupil and it excites him to think about what they can accomplish together. Rick and Tom can go very far (Liz Hunter, PWI, June 1987).
 

At Wrestlemania III,  Tom and Rick  "entered the ring  to a thunderous ovation" and left it with their reputations "solidified... as the up-and-coming tag team in the WWF".

That's when Tom Zenk decided that there were other things in his life that he needed to get on with.
 

What happened?

The split up of the Can-Am Connection has all the elements of a classic wrestling angle - a successful  team splits up following a dispute among partners, thus creating a new storyline in which partner is pitted against former partner. So it's little wonder that the story of the Can-Am split has become tangled  within wrestling's various storylines - in this case aided and abetted by Rick Martel who, one presumes,  has his own reasons for keeping the waters muddied.

In all these ways Martel recreates for himself the classic wrestling position of the rejected partner.

Martel was to reprise this angle again,  several years later, during the split-up of Strike Force, leading to a series of grudge matches against former partner Tito Santana.

However, in the Can-Am's case, Tom Zenk's walk-out had been entirely unscripted.  It was the real thing.

So what had gone wrong?

Currently we know only Rick Martel's side of the story. And, as we've seen, that version is tainted by its partial origins in WWF storylines that were hastily devised to "write"  Zenk out of their 1987 season.

According to these scripts, Zenk was - variously - "a cowering idiot" who'd fled WWF rather than face Bobby Heenan and "The Islanders" or had retired completely because it had all become "too hard".  Different versions of where he had gone and why he had left, were rehearsed, ranging from his supposed lack of wrestling skill to various aspersions on his personal and moral character.

Additionally, Martel's account is heavily colored by his disappointment over failure of the very lucrative business deal he had negotiated with WWF. A friend of Martel's explains - "The break-up seriously damaged Rick's earning potential. Rick saw Tom as his key to the money jar.  And [after Zenk's departure]  Rick's earning potential never met what it would have - had Tom stayed."

A final factor coloring Martel's account , according to another of his friends is that,  " despite what Rick says (or doesn't say), he and Tom, from Rick's point of view, were 'best friends.'  Rick took it very personally when Tom quit."
 
Tom Zenk has never given his version of these events in detail.

What follows then are the very few elements of the story that approach the status of "facts" or, at least, themes that have remained reasonably constant across various reports and over time.

• On July 10, in Boston just hours before a scheduled television interview, Tom Zenk, dropped off the keys to their rental car at the front desk, together with a note for Martel who was staying in the same motel, and left for Minneapolis, arriving in time for his mother's birthday.
• Martel, after consultations with Vince McMahon, flew to Minneapolis to convince Zenk to return to see out their contracts with WWF. Tom refused.
• When it became clear that Zenk would not return, WWF threatened to levy Zenk's future earnings until the period of his contract had expired.

• a sense of  betrayal following discovery that Martel had negotiated a contact for the Can-Am Connection in which Martel reportedly received almost 3 times more than Zenk for the same work; this after Martel had assured Zenk that he would 'look after him' (on the basis of their established friendship) in financial dealings with the WWF;
• a general feeling of disillusionment following a series of broken business promises by Martel. These included  promises of an increased push and bigger pay-day if Zenk moved from PNW to IWA, Montreal. Neither eventuated - nor did a promised run as Martel's tag partner in IWA.
• concern at being treated as a ' junior partner' by Martel and being over-shadowed and pre-empted in their ring performances;
• a general refusal by Zenk to sacrifice his regard for personal independence and professional integrity for money and success.

 
 

"I told Rick it wasn't working.  He was constantly trying to overshadow me"

 

A flawed hero ... or a true working man?

Other insiders like Steve Keirn reject this.  "There was never anything wrong with Zenk's work - no character flaws except a natural cockiness."  According to Keirn, Zenk's problems in the sport arose from " telling it as it was- he wouldn't do what  the bookers wanted and if he was forced - then it showed in his face and in his attitude and in his performance. That plus jealousy from other headliners sank his career."

If Keirn and Santana are right , the final irony is that  WWF, having punished Zenk for "bucking the bookers"  with his displays if independence are now paying Austin big money to reprise that very angle for the ratings.