“Beware the ides of March–”
The famous Shakespearean line pulled directly from the play “Julius Cesar” was all too fitting for former pro-wrestler Dino Bravo on March 10th, 1993. The man once known the world over as “The Canadian Strong Man” sat alone in his home in Vimont, Laval, Quebec on a cold, snowy winter night. His wife and daughter were both attending their routine ballet lessons as their beloved husband & father sat watching a game of hockey on television. It is speculated that sometime after Bravo’s wife and child left the house, a friend, colleague or person Dino both knew and trusted had entered the house by simply knocking on the door and having Dino invite them in. With no signs of forced entry and no footprints anywhere in the house’s snowy exterior, it is believed that this is the most likely scenario.
A friend knocked on the door, was invited in, they sat speaking with Dino as the hockey game carried on in the background and at some point, the assailant excused himself from the room, instead, walking behind Dino, taking his back and ending his life. Later that evening Dino’s wife returned home and found his body still sitting where he was when they had left, a remote control sitting loosely in his hand as his lifeless frame was riddled in 17 gunshots; 7 of which were in the head, the other 10 to his torso area, leaving the living room splattered in blood as his wife stood in shock, discovering all of this while holding their sleeping daughter in her arms. In what seemed to be a crime scene straight out of a mafia movie, the man that spent the 80′s dubbing himself as “The World’s Strongest Man” was gone. He was only 44 years old.
As a child, I was completely unaware of this story. I would regularly rent countless WWF Coliseum VHS video tapes from a small “mom & pop” video store and would scoff without hesitation anytime a Bravo match popped up; I am not talking about “scoffed” as in I disliked Dino as a heel, I scoffed because I was of the idea that wrestling should be more of a technical, high flying type of art form, and wrestlers of the mid 90′s like Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Shawn Michaels were captivating my attention over old school grapplers and strong men like Dino. Renting “older” era wrestling tapes was almost disappointing to me at that point as a 10-13 year old kid. I would pick them up and be in awe one minute watching excellent technical matches between teams like The British Bulldogs and The Hart Foundation, and the next minute I would be onto a 10 minute “snoozer” between two grapplers or over sized “big men” who spent 6 of those 10 minutes of match “testing strength” or holding their opponent in a simple arm twist or bear hug and found it extremely hard to believe that there was ever a point in the past that this captivated any kind of audience, let alone the masses that spawned the ultra popularity of pro-wrestling. As my casual fandom grew into a pro-wrestling addiction, I began learning more about this sport I love so dearly, yet somehow the pug-like strong man in light blue tights never came up on my radar, that is, until a boring summer evening forced me to find a way to entertain myself.
I threw in WWE’s first Bret Hart dvd set and let it play. I had seen it countless times, but never really focused on the little details. As the DVD played there is a scene where Bret talks about his first really big injury; a broken sternum in a match where Dino Bravo launched him from the ring apron and onto the steel security railing below. Not wanting to lose the contest to Bravo, Hart remained on the floor and allowed himself to be stomped, and worked over, eventually leading to him being counted out rather than being pinned or submitted. Out of sheer curiosity, I wondered if “The Hitman” had any real life beef with Bravo culminating in this incident, so I did what most people do and googled it. Instead of finding what I was looking for, I found a plethora of short articles and websites detailing the brief, yet grim circumstances surrounding Bravo’s death. After tearing through about 6-8 articles, I had pretty much only come up with the one story…
“Dino Bravo was murdered; shot 17 times from behind due to his involvement with smuggling illegal cigarettes over the Canadian border using his connections to the both the mafia and ties to the “natives” (who were given tax breaks on cigarettes sold on their reservations) to illegally import cigarettes. He was 44.”
I thirsted for more information from that moment forward. I would routinely ask in pro-wrestling forums, or search for answers in wrestling interviews and could never really get any new leads to what it all boiled down to. In fact, instead of leads, I seemed to garner more misinformation than information, as people debated the facts, some of which even arguing the minute details like the “actual” date of his death or if Dino even been discovered by his wife (a rumor told to me by 3 or 4 different forum posters) as it was greatly rumored that the two were separated and he lived alone in a small apartment due to years of money mismanagement and heavy spending. It wasn’t until recently when a transcript appeared on “reddit” detailing an interview with pro-wrestling legend “The Model” Rick Martel that really blew the case open for me.
In the interview, Martel detailed this all began when Vince McMahon called for Dino’s release from the WWF sometime around 1992. With the company looking to create flashy, exciting stars, guys like Dino Bravo were becoming passe. In an effort to save Dino’s career Martel kindly offered to form a tag team with Bravo:
“Dino tried to stay in the [WWF] but he just couldn’t…Vince didn’t wanna have him back. I remember I called Pat Patterson and I suggested that I team up with Dino – because I liked Dino. I said, ‘I’ll take the bumps and [do] all the moving around and he can do the strong stuff…I’m sure we can make it work, you know?’ He said, ‘No, no…we just think that Dino doesn’t fit anymore in our plans…’ —Rick Martel
Bravo’s last high profile bout came at Wrestlemania 7; where he was defeated by “The Texas Tornado” Kerry Von Erich in a contest that clocked in at just a tad over 3 minutes. After that he was removed from television, relegated to working the “house shows” and smaller caliber events in the “B” cities with smaller venues and attendance, working as a “face” (good guy role) against lower mid-card wrestlers like “The Barbarian” or “The Mountie” before his career ended in April of 1992. A little before his release he confided in Martel that he would more than likely get involved with organized crime, as he knew nothing outside of being a professional wrestler and just so happened to have married into a family with an “uncle” who was the head of the mafia in Montreal, Quebec. Martel also confirmed that Bravo was also in over his head from years of poor spending, stating:
“…Dino had kind of painted himself in a corner. Dino liked the high lifestyle…he had a sports Mercedes, he had a big home, you know…and [suddenly] wrestling was over. Dino couldn’t be a 9 to 5 guy…he didn’t have any business experience of any kind. Wrestling was his whole life. And back then, WWF was the only game in town. So if he couldn’t do it for the WWF, what could he do?…”
I remember we were in Europe and he confided in me. ‘Rick…I know I could go into crime and do really good money…but I don’t wanna go that route…I know myself and I know what kind of guy I am…’ Dino was the kind of guy who [always wanted] more and more [but not when to stop]. He knew himself and he knew his demons. —Rick Martel
The rumor mill also ran rampant, stating that no one knows why Bravo never tried to go to WCW; I too even speculated as to why Dino wouldn’t try and go out south to a promotion that was happily scooping up former WWF talent between the years of 1992 forward. “The only game in town” (as stated by Martel) wasn’t necessarily true as former WWF mainstays like Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Davey Boy Smith, Rick Rude and others had made the jump to WCW and done well, so it was kind of odd to hear that Bravo hadnt tried to do the same. A little more clarity came to that when I discovered a comment on a “Slam! Sports” post:
“Dino Bravo was my favorite wrestler since the beginning of the 80’s until the end. I had the chance to train with him in Laval; where he lived ( 5 minutes from Montreal ), I must admit that he was a very distinguished and generous person to all of his fans in Quebec!I am only shocked by the tragedy that occurred since he was the father of a beautiful little girl.He mentioned to me a few months before his death that he had been screwed by the WWF. He was considering ending his career in the WCW but he wasn’t sure because of his family (he didn’t really want to move from Montreal). Past is past but I will never forget this powerhouse that bench pressed 675 pounds in front of everybody in “Atlantis gym” in Laval and always gave his best in the squared circle. – WE WILL ALL REMEMBER YOU! “BON VOYAGE CHER AMI”…(translated: “nice trip dear friend”) —Nicholas Tetrault
Not wanting to move his family from Canada, Bravo chose to pursue a life of organized crime. Upon hearing the term “Cigarette smuggling” one might giggle, thinking “how in the world do you smuggle something that is legalized and isnt a weapon?” The reddit post I happened upon was also kind enough to detail this piece of information:
[*Cigarette smuggling is the illicit transportation of cigarettes from an administrative division with low taxation to a division with high taxation for sale and consumption. The practice, commonly used by Organized crime syndicates and rebel groups, is a form of tax evasion. In Canada, between 63 and 79 percent of the price of a package of cigarettes is tax. As of 2009, illegal cigarettes were believed to be a $1.5 billion industry in Canada.]
If Dino joined the crime syndicate in 1992 following his WWF release, that means his involvement was only a year or less. The debate on why he was killed is also one full of twists and turns and mostly misinformation, with the Martel interview being the most reliable and helpful source. In an effort to get the information to you (the readers) correctly, I will simply quote the Martel interview and will not speculate my own ideas or “guesses” like so many others on the internet:
“Back then in the early 90s the [illegal] cigarette trafficking* in Canada started. A lot of people were doing it. So Dino got into that…[He] went to see the Indians. The Indians had the river so they could pass cigarettes [across] like crazy – or arms – whatever. And the Indians were big wrestling fans, you know? So when they saw Dino they were like, ‘Oh man..!’ They started dealing strictly with him. So Dino had the monopoly with the Indians. He started doing really well.
[After awhile] the cigarette business was doing so great that the cocaine people started saying, ‘Hey, maybe there’s some money in there for us too…’ So the big cocaine guy apparently went to see Dino and said, ‘Look, let me in on your cigarette deals and I’ll let you in on some cocaine deals…’
So what apparently happened is they did some kind of agreement…Dino had a $400,000 shipment in some warehouse somewhere and it stayed there for like, three days…and on the third day when the cocaine guy went to pick it up, the police were there, so they were blaming each other. Dino was saying, ‘You should have picked it up [on] the first day and it never would have happened – you shouldn’t have let it sit there…’There was a lot of heat on Dino. This was a week before he died.”—Rick Martel
Cigarettes smuggling turned into Cocaine smuggling and shortly after, Dino was gone. I have closely followed this case since discovering the news sometime around 2006 and every little piece I compile depicts a man painted into a corner, trying to tip toe out while supporting his family. It makes me wonder what could have been if Dino chose to go to WCW rather than take the route he chose.
As a 30 year old man, I now deeply appreciate his contribution to the business; something I was unable to do as a child. I am highly entertained by Dino Bravo doing push ups with a 460 lb “Earthquake” on his back, his willingness to help get incoming talent over, guys like “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and “The Texas Tornado” all owe Bravo a nod in developing and working with their WWF characters; and most of all how he innovated the “airplane spin”, a move in which you hold a man on your shoulders and spin them into dizziness before dropping them to the mat. I only wish it didn’t take a great tragedy for me to find an interest in Dino’s career.
***interesting sidenote but I believe its Dino Bravo who is doing the airplane spin on the television in the movie “Encino Man” during the scene where Pauly Shore & Sean Astin are teaching Brendan Fraser how to fight***
It has taken me almost 10 years to compile enough worthwhile information to write this piece. All of the puzzle pieces depict a man who loved his craft, a man who loved his family and a man who touched the lives of many people, be it wrestling fans or anyone who knew him otherwise. To his family and friends, he was simply Adolfo Bresciano, born in italy; but exported to Canada, a country he loved and took pride in; He was a loving husband and father, who just so happened to be strong enough to bench press more than 500 lbs and toss grown men around a ring for a living. To the wrestling masses, he was Dino Bravo; the stout, strongman clad in the colors and emblems of his native Quebec, doing what he loved to do for our entertainment. I will borrow a line from the movie “American History X” to end this piece; “…always end a paper in a quote, because someone has already said it best…” and to end this I have chosen a quote I found on a forum, from presumably the nephew of Dino Bravo to describe the measure of his life, hoping he will never be judged by that last few months he spent working in an organized crime ring:
“..To tell you the truth, I’m not a big wrestling fan and never was. However, when I read the memories on Dino’s section (speaking of the SLAM! Sports HOF section), it brought warmth to my heart. I may not know his wrestling career as much as some of you guys out there (great fans! :), but I loved him very much, as he was my uncle. I won’t tell you about his career, since you probably know as much (if not more!) then I, But I can tell you this, he was a great man. And yes, it’s true, he was a father all right, and a good one too! (To Claudia, my little cousin) I just wanted to thank all his fans, for being so supportive, even after his death.–Wallas (AKA Philippe Bresciano Potvin)
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