Al Tomko, 77, Pro Wrestler and Promoter
Ed Varner
many photos)
Al Tomko -- a true original -- dies
By GREG OLIVER - Producer, SLAM! Wrestling
Historian Vern May once said, "To hear Al Tomko tell it, nothing
special ever happened in his career, he never had heat with anybody."
With Tomko's death on Wednesday at age 77, it is time to tell some of
his stories.
From his early days in Winnipeg, to promoting in Manitoba and British
Columbia, to his post-wrestling life creating pet treats, Tomko
marched to his own drum.
Tomko learned he had pancreatic cancer in June, and he had a pacemaker
put in. "For the last year, he's been in and out of hospital many
times," said his widow, Mary. "Even yesterday, he went so peacefully.
My sisters were just saying that his pain tolerance must have been so,
so high. He did not complain."
Dealing with Tomko was like dealing with a cantankerous uncle.
He was sent a copy of The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Canadians,
since he was featured in it. His response to this writer? "I'd say 90%
of what you wrote in the book is not true. It's better to get the
facts before you write a book. I don't mean to be insulting or
anything," he said. "You got all this information, just not from the
right people." Thanks, Al.
What corrections should be made then?
"The best thing you can talk about is myself. I started wrestling in
Winnipeg. I had a club called the Olympia Club. I trained 90% of the
people who turned pro, from Roddy Piper, plus other people," he
bragged. "Then you mentioned, what the hell is the Italian little
guy's name, [Tony] Condello. He was 5-foot-2, he was a jobber that we
used to send down to Minneapolis to job for the other guys. There's so
much that's not true it's not even funny. George Gordienko that was a
very bad story about him. He's dead now. He was a very good friend of
mine."
One moment, he would be a little sentimental -- "The past is just
memories but they creep up on you once in a while" -- and the next, he
would be addressing his greatness, especially as a promoter in
Vancouver, having bought Sandor Kovacs' share of the All-Star
Wrestling promotion, and later buying out Gene Kiniski as well.
"A lot of people say, Al, you're famous because you're the guy that
had the original idea of Vince McMahon. I started the music, bringing
the guys out to music, different lighting, different stuff like that,"
he said. "Not as much as he's got, but it was a start. The Auditorium
was packed every match just about."
The stories are legion from the workers who toiled for Tomko in
Vancouver. But Ed "Moondog" Moretti stressed Tomko's importance even
through the difficulties. "He was the boss, he had the right. He gave
us work, I'll give you that. I worked for him for a long-time, off and
on. There's good and bad, but I'd like to concentrate on the good."
What was the good, Ed? "He wasn't a hard-assed prick like a lot of the
promoters are. The only thing I guess he should have done is
concentrated more on business because he had good talent, he really
did. There were some guys that really could work. We started to draw
money, but when we started to draw money a lot of times, he'd pull the
rug out from underneath us. I don't know why, to this day, I don't
know why."
Tomko, who was born November 22, 1931, got his start in Winnipeg,
having met local wrestler Ole Olsen at the gym.
"He more or less started me out in wrestling," Tomko said of Olsen. "I
started working out with him at the YMCA. If you're good, people
notice you, right? That's it." Tomko debuted in 1954. Tomko opened the
Olympia Wrestling Club in Winnipeg in the early 1950s and trained many
local wrestlers. When he left to pursue non-wrestling ventures, the
Olympia Club closed down.
But the wrestling ring called him back, this time to Winnipeg's famed
Madison Boxing & Wrestling Club, where he developed into one of the
top villians of the era.
"We had a circuit around Manitoba to train these guys, we'd do the
small towns so they would learn how to wrestle before they hit the big
time," Tomko said. Piper, for one, used to live in Tomko's gym
basement.
In 1966, Tomko became the Winnipeg representative for the AWA. In
early 1967, Tomko was ordered by AWA honcho Verne Gagne to buy the
local Madison club as the monopoly on the territory was threatened by
impressive attendances at the local club's cards. Tomko bought the
group, then eventually dropped its programming. During his time with
the AWA, Tomko served as a mid-card wrestler for the local cards.
A piece in the Winnipeg Free Press on January 26, 1974 by Maurice
Smith talked about Tomko. "In 1965 Al Tomko took over the promotional
reins at a time when pro wrestling was at a low ebb in Winnipeg but
gradually through good matchmaking and promotion, he was able to bring
the game back to its present unprecedented popularity," it claimed,
adding that Tomko was named AWA promoter of the year in 1972.
"All I've done in the years I've been promoting," Tomko said in the
article, "is give the people what they want and make sure they get
their money's worth for their entertainment dollar."
In Stampede Wrestling, Tomko was first Cosmo #1 under a mask, and on
his next run, Leroy Hirsch, a play on the famed football star "Crazy
Legs" Hirsch.
Central Canadian Championship Wrestling was another Tomko promotion in
Winnipeg, launched in 1972.
In 1977, Tomko vacated his Winnipeg home to move on to Vancouver,
where he would take up the reigns of All-Star Wrestling. He bought out
Sandor Kovacs, leaving Gene Kiniski as a reluctant partner, with Don
Owen, the Portland promoter, having a percentage as well.
"Kovacs wanted to get out and he sold it to Tomko. Then to me, his
idea of promoting wrestling was different," said Kiniski. "But then
this gets into a business deal, and I'd rather not talk about it. I'm
one of these people, my word is my bond. It ended up costing me a big
bunch of money because of my stupidity. I trusted people. It just
didn't work out that way." In the end, his portion was sold to Tomko
as well.
The territory was never the same. "Al Tomko killed Vancouver and the
whole territory. I worked for Al about four times and he was just lost
when it came to wrestling. What a shame, Vancouver was a fine place to
work," once said Bulldog Bob Brown.
John Quinn didn't have a kind word to say about Al Tomko. "Tomko was
very much like Otto Wanz. A wannabe. He thought he could wrestle. He
didn't have a clue. He couldn't wrestle, couldn't book, didn't have a
clue. He took a territory, we were always sold out within 20 seats in
Vancouver every Monday night. When Tomko took over, going over the
gate receipts, they went down every week," Quinn said. "I went to
Tomko and said to him, 'Tomko, you've given me a cheque for $360. I
spent that on the road.' He said, 'John, do you have a trade?' I said,
'Yeah, wrestler.' He said, 'No, do you have another trade.' I said,
'No.' 'Well, labourers get $5 an hour.' I thought, 'You f******
moron.'"
At his website, DutchSavage.com, Dutch Savage shared his recollections
of how the Vancouver territory changed with Tomko's emergence. "How
was it to work for Al Tomko as he slowly killed one of the best
territories on the planet? I didn't want to go up there when he bought
Gene, Sandor and Don out, but Don begged me to help him with the book.
So for about five months we slowly got the territory going again. We
finally got the houses up and a couple of sellouts at the garden and
I'll be dipped if he didn't book himself with the champion up there
and put himself over and take the belt. I wasn't there that week: no
wonder he didn't want me up there on that Monday night card; he put
the strap on his own waist. Don asked me to go back up there several
weeks later, and I told him to forget about it. Incidentally, did you
ever see Tomko work? 'Nuff said. Working for Tomko, how do I put
this...was like kissing your favorite donkey. Yuk. He was a nice guy,
don't get me wrong , but my granddaughter could out work him. Some of
his ideas sounded like a Jerry Springer program."
Ah, now we're getting into the colourful stories of Tomko, and they
continued right through 1989, when his All-Star Wrestling promotion
ran out of gas and folded, despite its extensive television airings
across Canada through CTV affiliates. Very little remains of the
promotion, as the tapes were reused at the BCTV studios, and Tomko's
stash got trashed. "I had a bunch, but they spoil after a while,
dampness, if you don't store them right," he said.
"He was a funny guy. He had all these old stories that he'd tell you
about a hundred times about his old days working for the AWA and
stuff. You'd hear each story about ten times a week," recalled
Michelle Starr.
As for Sgt. Al Tomko, an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of
Sgt. Slaughter in the 1980s, when the name was brought up, Tomko just
laughed.
In a Ring Around the Northwest newsletter interview, Pat Brady talked
about Tomko. "A surprisingly well read man, who could discuss almost
any topic under the sun. Al Tomko booked me for the first time,
September 1985, because I had a car. No bullshit. By the next fall,
I'd been involved in three serious wrecks, including one over a cliff
in the Fraser Canyon. On two of these occasions, he was more upset
about having to cancel shows then about the well being of his
employees. Despite his eccentricities and idiosynchrasies, we got
along well. I had three runs for him and one thing I appreciated is
that he generally have regulars room for artistic freedom."
Brady then added, "It irked us that he pushed his kids."
The two sons of Al Tomko were Terry Tomko (The Frog) and Todd Tomko
(Rick Davis). Neither really had the size to compare with their
father, let alone many of their opponents. Tomko said that both got
out of the business long ago. "It's a thing of the past." Their
daughter, Trisha Kersch, ran the family pet food business.
Tomko and his wife, Mary, had been married since 1960, after meeting
at a gym. "You see, my wife was also a figure skater [with the Ice
Capades]. She traveled, so she was understanding," he once said.
For the last two decades, and up until a couple of years ago, Tomko
ran Tomko's Real Bonesproducts (Trademark Pet Products Inc.), a pet
foods production company based in Blaine, Washington, where he lived.
The dog bones, treats and toys made there were distributed to
retailers from Washington to Florida.
Tomko was inspired when his pitbull, Tyson, almost died from choking
on a rawhide, and he set out to make a new kind of dog treat that
would be safer for his dog to eat. Smoking bones in his backyard let
to making them for others, then a true business.
In this writer's final chat with Tomko, in August 2008, he was, well,
himself.
"No derogatory remarks about me," he said. "I've talked to more people
that write a magazine, they always throw something in."
Why do you think you get unfairly judged, Al?
"It's not being unfairly judged. It's the people doing the writing
don't know the circumstances, or don't know exactly what happend. When
I talk to you, I don't tell you everything.
"There's always two sides to a story, a back and a front."
He is survived by his wife, Mary, four children, Tanis, Todd, Terry
and Trisha, and three grandchildren, Trea, Joshua, and Alexander.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
La N
> http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2009/08/06/10379921.html (with
> many photos)
>
> Al Tomko -- a true original -- dies
>
> By GREG OLIVER - Producer, SLAM! Wrestling
>
> Historian Vern May once said, "To hear Al Tomko tell it, nothing
> special ever happened in his career, he never had heat with anybody."
> With Tomko's death on Wednesday at age 77, it is time to tell some of
> his stories.
>
Crossed paths with him years and years ago. Very homely guy, deadpan,
funny.
- nilita
allenk...@hotmail.com
> http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2009/08/06/10379921.html (with
> many photos)
>
> Al Tomko -- a true original -- dies
>
> By GREG OLIVER - Producer, SLAM! Wrestling
>
> Historian Vern May once said, "To hear Al Tomko tell it, nothing
> special ever happened in his career, he never had heat with anybody."
> With Tomko's death on Wednesday at age 77, it is time to tell some of
> his stories.
>
Very sorry to hear this. I watched All Star Wrestling from Vancouver
in the 1980s, when it used to air on CKVR in Barrie, Ontario. While
the product didn't have the prestige of the NWA Mid Atlantic area or
even the Toronto part of the cross-Canada NWA network, it still had a
charm about it. I was actually surprised to learn from one of the
broadcasts that the Vancouver territory was, at least at that point,
also part of the NWA family. Tomko was quite a character on camera.
As a heel, he'd use Bobby Heenan logic to rationalize ring behaviour.
As a face, he was the veteran who protected the young guns. I can't
speak to the assertion that he slowly killed the territory, having not
known what the Vancouver wrestling scene was like pre-Tomko. I can
only say that, 20 years after it folded, I still remember many of the
names that passed through the area. RIP, Al Tomko.
--
Allen Kirshner
(the alt.music.lyrics TV theme guy)