Archie Gouldie, a headliner throughout the world for more than three decades as The Stomper as well as The Mongolian Stomper, passed away today at about Noon. He was 78.
Gouldie had been battling Alzheimer’s of late. He fell and broke his hip two weeks ago. He underwent hip replacement surgery, but never recovered from the surgery and passed away in his sleep.
While he worked all over the world, he was a legend as arguably the greatest heel in the history of Stampede Wrestling. Gouldie was a tough ex-football player who attended matches in Calgary, and thought he was tougher than the wrestlers. He hit the ring once in a match and grabbed the mic from Ed Whalen and challenged the wrestlers. Stu Hart, the promoter and policeman at the time in the early 60s, invited him over to his house if he thought he was tough. Hart, as he was known to do in that era, tortured the football player with wrestling submission moves, and beat
him so badly that he never came back to challenge wrestlers. The feeling was that he was another weightlifter football player type who thought wrestling was fake and easy.
Several months later, Gouldie apologeticly asked Hart to train him. It wasn’t long before he was Hart’s biggest drawing card. Because he was from Carbon, Alberta, there was never any pretending of who he was or that he was actually a monster who couldn’t talk from Mongolia while in that promotion.
He rarely did interviews in the United States, and had a number of different managers over the years including J.J. Dillon, Gary Hart and Don Carson. However, in Canada he was best known for menacing interviews, such as when he scared a young Bret Hart to death when he vowed to destroy the Hart House, brick by brick, while he was feuding with Stu. Later, Bret and Gouldie wrestled numerous times and Bret considered Gouldie one of the greatest wrestlers of the era. He came in and out (of the territory), holding the North American title eight times, if not more, with his best run coming in the late 60s.
Gouldie first became The Mongolian Stomper in 1963, in the Central States. He had runs everywhere from California to Australia, as a top star, but the places he would have been best remembered would have been Western Canada and Tennessee. He drew a number of sellouts as a Memphis headliner, and would be one of the most successful draws ever in that part of the
country aside from Jerry Lawler and Jackie Fargo. In Eastern Tennessee, he was even better known as a monster like character who held the Southeastern title 11 times.
His last major run came playing an unstoppable monster role for Smoky Mountain Wrestling in the mid-90s. He was well into his 50s, but a conditioning freak who was still muscular, particularly his legs, at that age from long bicycle rides to and from work. The fans bought him as a monster and that status was always protected in the booking. He and Kevin Sullivan had crazy brawls during that time period.