Maurice Vachon

One of 13 children from a working-class Montréal family, Maurice Vachon was Canadian freestyle champion at 174 lbs. in 1947-49, competed at the 1948 Olympics, and won a gold medal at the 1950 British Empire Games as a middleweight. He spent a few years working as a bouncer in Montréal, but then turned professional and became best known as “Mad Dog” Vachon. To succeed professionally, Vachon bulked up, shaved his head, grew a goatee, and became known as a reckless rule breaker. Vachon would use foreign objects, filed fingernails, his teeth, and a punishing finishing move, the Piledriver, all of which made him notorious and caused him to be banned in three US states. It also made him very popular, however, among the fans of pro wrestling.

In 1961 Vachon was recruited to the American Wrestling Alliance (AWA) by Vern Gagne, who he had met at the 1948 Olympics in London, where Gagne was an alternate for the US. In 1964 Vachon upset Gagne to win the AWA heavyweight title, although Gagne quickly regained it. Between 1964-67, however, Vachon won the AWA title five times, usually losing it rather quickly. In 1968 he returned to Montréal, where he wrestled for the International Wrestling Association (IWA), winning that title, before returning to the AWA in 1969. In the late 1970s he turned more to tag team matches, eventually teaming up with his old nemesis, Gagne, and they held the AWA tag team championship for one year, before losing it to Jesse Ventura and Adrian Adonis.

Vachon continued to wrestle into the 1980s, joining the Worldwide Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1984. He retired from competition in 1986, with a retirement show in Montréal, after 30 years as one of the most beloved villains in professional wrestling. He and his wife later settled in and near Omaha, Nebraska, where Vachon lost a leg when he was struck by a car while jogging. He continued to do promotional ads in Canada, both in beer commercials, and as a food critic for a Québec City television station.