Tom Zenk in Canada, 1986

LUTTE INTERNATIONAL
QUEBEC

Summer/Fall, 1986

From October to March, 1986 the Pacific North West had provided Tom Zenk with a good living, in a family based promotion, in a spectacular part of the country. Yet by March, Zenk had left the North West and was heading for Montreal......

Zenk pile-drives the massive Steve Strong (Steve de Salvo) during a 3 on 3 tag match.
In Zenk's corner, regular tag partner Phil Lafon and occasional partner Rick Martel.

During Zenk's tour of the North West, Rick Martel had been trying to capture him for Lutte International - the International Wrestling Alliance (IWA) - a Montreal based promotion in which Martel was part owner, along with Gino Brito, Dino Bravo and Tony Mule.

Martel promised Zenk a larger salary ($1,000 a week compared to the $700 a week in PNW) plus the opportunity of tag action with Martel (a former AWA heavyweight champion) and some championship shots.

In 1986 IWA was running a popular television show "International Wrestling" with Milt Avruskin as announcer and Gino Brito as color commentator.

Zenk was promoted as "The Future Champion of Quebec" and "future world champion" (click for article).

Tom Zenk in interview with Milt Avruskin.

TV fans, during that summer/fall of 1986, saw Rick Martel feuding with Steve Strong and Dino Bravo feuding with Abdullah the Butcher and "The Great" Samu. Tom Zenk stepped into a long running battle between Kroffat (previously partnered by Alofa) and The Long Riders (Bill and Scott "Hog" Irwin).

The Zenk/Kroffat - Long Riders feud incorporated some memorable moments - in particular one match where Zenk was tripled teamed, smashed repeatedly with a ringside chair and juiced profusely.

The Long Riders had been stripped of the Canadian International Tag titles following a controversial match decision. They regained the belts on appeal. On August, 12, 1986, in their first new defence of the titles, The Long Riders dropped them to Zenk and Kroffat, and the two young men became International Tag Team Champions of Canada.

images from our Tom Zenk in IWA tape

Despite the belts and the IWA billing as "future world champion," the bigger pay day that Martel had promised never eventuated; nor did the singles promotion nor the tag opportunities with Martel.

Behind the scenes, the IWA was in serious financial difficulties. Meanwhile the WWF, which had been eating up talent and promotons all over the country, finally ventured into Canada.

Martel and Bravo, recognizing that Lutte International could never outdraw WWF, signed up with WWF after reportedly selling their shares in the company to Brito and Eddy Creitchman (see footnote below).

On October 13, 1986 Zenk and Kroffat dropped the Canadian tag belts to The Long Riders. Within days Zenk was en route to New York as one half of an exciting new WWF tag team - the lookalike 'brothers' from Canada and America - the Can-Am Connection.

Rick and Vince had "taken care of" the paperwork. All they needed was Tom's signature. Zenk refused but was told "Vince insists on a signature. Vince is very big on loyalty....." So he signed... on the understanding that if he wasn't clearing $5,000 a week each, within 6 months, they'd tell Vince they had places to go.... more

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TOM ZENK IN IWA, 1986

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Footnote - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter for 10/19/92 reported- "Louis Acocela, the WWF promoter in Montreal, better know to wrestling fans under his two ring names, either Gino Brito or Louis Cerdan, was one of four men arrested last week in Montreal on extortion and loan-sharking charges. According to an article in Le Journal de Montreal, Acocela, 51 and an ex-bodybuilder were arrested on charges of being collection agents for the loan sharks. Police are looking for a third collector and expect more arrests to be made. According to Montreal Lt.Detective Andre LaPoint, they've been working on this case for three months. Documents seized at Acocela's residence indicate he had more than 100 clients and indicated that in his best week he collected $31,4000 in interest payments alone on loans from $50 to $59,000 and noted interest as high as 2433% based on an annual rate. As Gino Brito, Acocela was well known among the Montreal sports community. His father was a well-know arena wrestler who used the ring name Jack Britton. He later, as a worker in the 1970s, was a frequent babyface tag team champion with Dino Bravo, who was billed as his cousin locally and appeared for a time as a spokesperson on local Subaru auto commercials. Even in the 70s he was part owner of the old Grand Prix promotion based in Quebec. Brito had a few WWF stints using the ring name Louis Cerdan. In the 60s he was mainly a jobber but came back in the late 70s and held the WWF tag team titles with Dom DeNucci. He ended up cutting back on wrestling in the early 80s and was the owner of the International Wrestling office in Montreal (Rick Martel and Bravo also had an interest) in the early and mid-1980s, before the promotion went under and he slid to the WWF where he had been the local promoter for several years."

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