The legacy of the Dynamite Kid is a complex one to digest.
Perhaps the most succinct way of putting it came from Julie Hart, his former sister-in-law, who one day told me, “Really, he was the best wrestler there ever was,” said Hart, who saw more than her share of great wrestling and was the wife of Bret Hart. “And as great as he was as a wrestler, he was every bit as miserable of a human being.”
Realistically, when you watch pro wrestling in 2018, the thing you realize is that when it comes to in-ring wrestling, the modern style that combines some American style with old British, Lucha Libre and Japanese style had its primitive and most influential roots in the 1981-83 matches between Tiger Mask and the Dynamite Kid.
The two only had a handful of singles matches, all but one in Japan, but every match was a classic that lived on through videotapes, and was really the first of the classic videotape feuds. Their matches were released years later in best selling videotape and laser disc collections in Japan.
Many modern wrestlers who may have never even seen or studied those matches are still doing matches based on the style they developed, whether copying Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Jushin Liger, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Katsuyori Shibata or probably any sub-200 pound wrestler who spent any time working in Japan.
Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid go together like Peanut Butter & Jelly, Magic and Bird, Ali and Frazier, Evert and Navratilova. You say one and it immediately brings up the thought of the other.
In a poll nearly 35 years after their heyday in Japan when TV Asahi did a network special asking the public who the greatest pro wrestler of all-time was, Tiger Mask was voted third, and the reason was his matches with Dynamite Kid.
Tom Billington sacrificed his body like few in wrestling to create those memories that lasted more than a generation. In doing so, he garnered injuries that led to heavy use of pain pills, overcame being too small by gorging himself with steroids to the point he had one of the most freakish physiques in the era of physiques. He injured his back so badly just after his 28th birthday that he was never the same. His body was so shot that his career was over one day after his 33rd birthday .
He was confined to a wheelchair before he was 40. From that point, while his matches stood the test of time, he was largely forgotten, a recluse in England, not wanting to see hardly anyone or be seen. Whatever news would come out about him was never good. It was mostly health problems, whether it be hospitalizations, seizures, part of his leg being amputated, a stroke in 2013 and heart problems.
On 12/5, his 60th birthday, he passed away.
“There are people in life that have a ripple effect both professionally and personally,” said Bret Hart. “Tom `Dynamite Kid’ Billington was one of those people. The second professional wrestling match of my career was against Dynamite. I benefitted from his greatness and through our matches in Stampede, WWE and everywhere in-between, I became a better wrestler because of him. Dynamite truly was the best wrestler ever, pound-for-pound. Tom was family, my brother-in-law, and we were very close. In many ways, I felt like one of the few people who truly knew him, both the good and the bad. I saw Tom one final time this past June in England, and I can only hope that he is finally at peace. My thoughts are with his children, Browyne, Marek and Amaris, and the entire Billington family.”
One can’t separate the magic he could do inside the ropes from the sadistic behavior outside of them.
He created a reign of terror in Stampede Wrestling and WWF when he was there, whether getting into fights himself, or setting up others to fight for his amusement, practical jokes that were sometimes amusing but often cruel.
He came from a family of boxers and tough guys, but he grew up small and was drawn to amateur wrestling and gymnastics, while being taught boxing by his family. His father took him to wrestling matches while growing up. He met Ted Bentley, and started training at the famed Snake Pit in Wigan, where, as legend had it, the toughest men in the world battled each other behind closed doors for generations. The Snake Pit was the home of Bert Assirati, the scariest and most dangerous wrestler in England of the 50s, and later people like Karl Gotch, Billy Joyce and Billy Robinson.
He was wrestling professionally at the age of 16. He was 19 when Bruce Hart met him while touring England, and had never seen anything like him. Dynamite was about 5-foot-7 and 165 pounds, far too small to make it in North America by the standards of the day. But Hart was amazed by what he saw and told his father. Billington was offered $350 a week to wrestle for Stampede Wrestling.
When Stu Hart saw him, he was hardly impressed. Stu liked big powerhouses that he thought his fan base would see as real-life tough guys. But before long, Stu was a fan, and considered him one of the best performers he’d ever seen.
Years later, Stu told Dynamite that he believed Dynamite had drawn more money for Stampede Wrestling than anyone in its history.
It was in Calgary that Dynamite first discovered drugs. He discovered steroids from Sylvester “Big Daddy” Ritter, a headliner who could talk great but not wrestle a lick, who later became a huge star as the Junkyard Dog. He discovered speed from a second generation wrestler breaking in, Jake Roberts.
Between steroids and training, he gassed himself up to close to 225 pounds, far too much weight for his frame to handle. But he’d fly around the ring with reckless abandon, working faster, hitting harder and taking bigger bumps than anyone. Still, Bret Hart would marvel at the intense looking blows Dynamite would throw at him that convinced the audience he was hitting so hard while Bret would barely feel a thing.
Once, shortly after both started their career, they had a long match in Calgary which prompted Ed Whalen, the announcer for decades, to proclaim it was the greatest match he had ever seen.
He first went to Japan for the IWA promotion, but garnered more recognition for a match with Tatsumi Fujinami for the WWF junior heavyweight title, but at 170 pounds or so, was considered too small to be credible against the heavyweights.
In 1981, when Hisashi Shinma and New Japan Pro Wrestling made a deal to create a children’s wrestling character, Tiger Mask, a legendary cartoon character, they chose Satoru Sayama, who was 5-foot-5 and 165 pounds for the role. This necessitated using smaller wrestlers to be his opponents. Dynamite had made such an impression that he was chosen to be the guy to lose to Tiger Mask in his debut. Both got each other over and while New Japan had a junior heavyweight title that was pushed hard when Fujinami was champion, it was Sayama’s popularity that really created the division.
Dynamite mostly worked New Japan and Stampede Wrestling in his early years away from England, although he had a successful run in the Pacific Northwest as part of the lead heel group, where he often opposed a young Curt Hennig.
On August 30, 1982, TV-Asahi in Japan was going to tape a show from Madison Square Garden. It would the U.S. debut of Tiger Mask, and to make sure it went well, Dynamite was chosen as the opponent. The two came into the ring looking tiny compared to the stars of the WWF at the time, and were complete unknowns. Within seconds, things changed. People couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The McMahons were so impressed they wanted more dates on Tiger Mask. They didn’t ask for more dates for Dynamite Kid.
But he was doing well. By this point he had grown into being the top star of Stampede Wrestling.
But things changed quickly. Sayama quit New Japan in 1983, so Dynamite was programmed with The Cobra, who was supposed to be the new Tiger Mask, in the top junior heavyweight feud. While Cobra had talent, he came immediately after Tiger Mask and they tried to get him over the same way, and he wasn’t Sayama.
In late 1984, Stu Hart sold Stampede Wrestling to Vince McMahon. As part of the deal, McMahon had to hire his son Bret, son-in-laws Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, as well as Dynamite. Dynamite & Davey, who were not yet called the British Bulldogs, were impressive, but it wasn’t like Vince McMahon had any plans for them.
And it didn’t matter, because at the same time, they got a big offer from All Japan to become a regular tag team, so they quit the WWE. Joel Watts, the son of Bill, had seen tapes of them and wanted to bring them in to feud with the Rock & Roll Express. Bill Dundee, the booker at the time, didn’t think they could draw money. Finally Watts convinced his father to pull the trigger, but at the same time, McMahon had a change of heart, told them he would bring them in, call them the British Bulldogs, and give them a big push.
They were considered the company’s best tag team for a few years, winning the titles from Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake at the second WrestleMania. But Dynamite suffered a back injury at the end of 1986 that really should have ended his career. He recovered well enough to still be a good wrestler, but wrestling was a bad idea as the damage he did by continually wrestling destroyed his body.
We’ll have a larger feature on Dynamite in a future issue.
. Him and Davey Boy Smith were mad over at the time and NO ONE out of the squared circle knew how they were outside if it .
