• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Wrestling great Rene Goulet led life of happiness and joy

Posted: Dec 23rd 2019 By: Mike Mooneyham

It was love at first sight. The two had met many years earlier on a beach in Quebec City, a provincial French-Canadian town with Old World charm located near the confluence of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers.

“We couldn’t have found a better place to meet,” recalled Bob Bedard.

“He was athletic and nice looking, and I was only 17 or 18 years old,” chimed in the former Pierrette Cote, who would be his future wife. “What was not to like?”

After dating for a short year, the two tied the knot. It was a love affair that would last nearly 70 years.

Only its earthly bond ended with the passing of Robert Bedard, much better known to generations of wrestling fans as Rene Goulet, a highly respected performer who wore a number of hats during his decades in the business.

Rene passed away on May 25 at the age of 86, although word of his passing was not made public until two weeks ago, as the family had made the decision to maintain privacy.

Goulet broke into the business in the late 1950s in his native Quebec City. Like many stars of the era, he made his way through a number of territories, including the World Wide Wrestling Federation, where he held the promotion’s tag-team title during a two-month span from 1971-72 with the great Karl Gotch.

Goulet retired in 1986, at which point he became a road agent for the WWF, where he could often be seen in various storylines breaking up fights in the ring. He worked in that capacity before leaving the company in 1997.

Finally off the road after the grueling schedule that has always been part of the wrestling business, his last 20 years finally afforded him uninterrupted time with the love of his life.

Match made in heaven

While the wrestling profession historically has produced a climate detrimental to healthy and long-lasting relationships, this husband-and-wife team was a pure unadulterated success.

I often marveled at the way they interacted, as their youthful vibrancy seemed to belie their age, always looking younger than their birth certificates would indicate. Whether the two dedicated fitness enthusiasts were cutting the rug at one of longtime friend Ric Flair’s Christmas parties or swinging the clubs at a charity golf tournament, handsome Rene and beautiful Pierrette were truly a match made in wrestling heaven.

I once asked Rene how they were able to so smoothly navigate the wrestling journey and avoid some of the pitfalls along the way.

Not only did the two weather nearly three dozen moves during Rene’s mat career, they would say that their marriage was made stronger by the sacrifices they had to make.

What made it all work so smoothly, both would agree, was a deep understanding and mutual respect.

“First of all, of course, there has to be love,” explained Rene. “Then there’s respect between each other. It won’t work without respect. At our house nobody’s the boss. Whatever she says is OK, whatever I say is OK. We always talk with each other before we make a decision. Thank God she was very good with that, because it’s hard to last that long in the wrestling business. It’s almost a miracle. But you have to work at it.”

“They are a fabulous couple … a testimony to commitment,” pro wrestling great Cowboy Bill Watts once said. “I’m so proud to know them.”

Maintaining home life

Goulet, better known to longtime fans in the Mid-Atlantic area as Sgt. Jacques Goulet and later as a road agent for WWE, considered himself one of the lucky ones. During his 40 years in the business, he saw many of his colleagues succumb to the temptations of the road, forsaking family for one-night stands in every wrestling town on the circuit.

“We knew some guys who went through three or four wives,” Pierrette said in a 2003 interview. “They changed wives often. It was also difficult to get along with the second wife if you were really good friends with the first one. Most of the second ones didn’t want to hear anything about you. But that was understandable.”

Goulet made it a point to work in territories where the miles weren’t so long that he couldn’t return home after a show. He stayed away from areas that involved great driving distances between towns and thus made it difficult to spend much-needed time at home.

“Most of the guys would go out to the bars on the road,” he told me. “I’d go home. I used to try to pick my territories. I spent 10 years in and out of Minneapolis. That was the best territory at the time.

“We didn’t work more than three or four times a week, and I was home a lot. In the ’70s I worked for Dick The Bruiser (in Indianapolis) a good bit, and that was even better, only a couple of times a week.”

Rene and Pierrette moved to Charlotte in 1977 and never looked back. Quebec City might have been a world away from Charlotte, but the couple grew to love the city with its fine restaurants, theaters and recreation. Plus, Pierrette would say, “Living on the East Coast you’re not far from anything. You can go to Florida, you can go to New York. You have the mountains, you have the ocean. And we love golf, so it’s perfect for us.”

Seeing the world

Before breaking into the wrestling business, Goulet was a bodybuilder who loved hockey and was an aspiring boxer until told by a pro that he’d be punch-drunk by the time he was 25. So he found a trainer and gave wrestling a whirl, working out with fellow Quebecer and future mat star Louie Tillet. It was several years after getting married that Goulet had his first “real” pro wrestling match with Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon.

Although Goulet didn’t speak English and didn’t know anyone in America, the legendary Vachon, a native of Montreal and a legitimate amateur wrestler who represented Canada in the 1948 Olympics, encouraged him to broaden his horizons and helped get him a gig in Verne Gagne’s Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association.

Goulet told his wife that he’d give it six months; if things didn’t work out, he assured her they would return to Canada and he would pursue another line of work.

“She didn’t mind at first. She didn’t think I would make a career out of it, but everything went well. I gave it a try, and we’ve been on the road ever since,” he said.

In addition to paying the bills, wrestling provided the couple an opportunity to see the world. They moved 32 times during Goulet’s career — from one end of the country to the other, as well as tours of Australia, Japan, England, France, Italy and Germany.

“You’re moving around, but you’re traveling and you’re learning all kinds of new things that you wouldn’t if you were living in Quebec,” Pierrette said in a 2003 interview. “You know you’re not going to live there all your life ... We’d always stay in the best place we could possibly find. The apartments would be beautiful. That was our priority — to have a nice place and to enjoy it. You take the good parts and you forget about the rest. Wherever you live is different.”

It was still difficult pulling a U-Haul trailer from territory to territory, and enrolling their daughter, Johanne, in a different school every time Goulet would leave an area.

“The traveling, along with the packing and unpacking, wasn’t always easy, but it was fun,” said Pierrette. “All I ever asked Rene was to tell me a month in advance when we might be moving.”

“My wife never worked outside the home,” said Rene. “She was a housewife who took care of me. That’s the way we were raised. My mother never worked. She took care of the family.”

Learning the language

In the beginning, the language barrier proved to be a major obstacle for both Rene and Pierrette.

The only two English words Goulet knew were “yes” and “no.” But he was athletic, handsome and a sharp dresser, and matchmakers saw him as a top babyface (fan favorite).

“I understood much more than Rene did when we came over to this country,” said Pierrette. “I was the one who’d make him practice and tell him what the words meant. The first six months in Minneapolis were very difficult. I had a dictionary and I would listen to TV and try to figure out how to write the words I was listening to. I would look in the dictionary to see what those words meant and I would try to use them in conversation after that. After six months I was able to speak to people.”

With his limited English, Goulet faced an uphill battle in the ring, where communication between the participants was vital.

“I remember working with Larry Hennig when I first got to Minnesota,” he recalled in his thick French accent. “Even worse than me not understanding English, he would be talking ‘carney’ (a type of code language in wrestling spoken in a pig-Latin dialect) in the ring, and I was completely lost. That was a tough time. I didn’t know much because of the language barrier, but I was getting over as a young guy.”

His interviews were limited to “Merci beaucoup” (“Thank you very much”), but he caught on like wildfire. Promoters also asked him to drop his real name, Robert Bedard, and take on a new persona as Frenchman Rene Goulet (he bore a striking resemblance to popular singer Robert Goulet).

“It was fine with me,” said Goulet, who was billed from Nice, France, and dubbed the “Number One Frenchman.”

Championship gold

A solid technical wrestler and later an effective heel as Sgt. Jacques Goulet (allegedly of the French Foreign Legion), Goulet would make his mark in a number of territories over the next couple of decades.

Goulet, who shared the WWWF tag-team title with master shooter Karl Gotch from December 1971 until February 1972, fondly recalled the wrestling wizard.

“He was incredible,” said Goulet, part of only the second team ever to hold the WWWF tag-team belts. “As far as shoot, nobody could touch him. He was the top of the top. I don’t even think any of today’s guys could have done anything with him.”

Goulet, who first crossed paths with Gotch in 1978 while working for promoter Ed Francis in Hawaii, said all he could do was marvel at Gotch’s workout regimen.

“He was 245 pounds, built like a piece of concrete and fast like a cat. He worked out all the time, but he didn’t work out with the weights. I never saw him work out with the weights. He was more into conditioning. When we were partners in New York, he was doing a thousand full squats before every match. His workouts were incredible.”

Gotch, who was bestowed the everlasting title of “the God of Professional Wrestling” in Japan, left the American wrestling scene in 1972 after his abbreviated run with Goulet as WWWF tag-team champs, joining Antonio Inoki’s new promotion in Japan as booker.

Goulet also was a three-time NWA Southern heavyweight champion in Florida. He held the WWA world tag-team belts with Don Fargo as The Legionnaires in Indianapolis in 1974. A backstage fight between Goulet and Fargo split up the team, however, and Fargo would be replaced by Quebec bodybuilder “Private” Zarnoff LeBeouf (Pierre Lafleur aka Lumberjack Pierre in the WWF).

Goulet and Ole Anderson held the NWA tag-team title in Georgia in 1977. He and Chris Markoff were billed as the European tag-team champs in Georgia in 1979. He won the 1981 New Japan Madison Square Garden tag-team tournament with partner Andre The Giant, whom he considered one of his closest friends, after defeating the Japanese duo of Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami in the finals.

Goulet wrestled regularly until 1986, and later served as a road agent and official with WWE (then the WWF) until 1997.

Ironically, said Goulet, one of his least favorite territories to work was the Carolinas, where he would lay down stakes in 1977. As for wrestling there, it wasn’t uncommon to work seven or eight times a week.

“Twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday,” he recalled. “We liked it here in North Carolina, but I didn’t spend a lot of time working in the Carolinas. I was pretty good friends with (booker) George Scott at the time. A lot of wrestlers lived in Charlotte, and we decided to buy a house. And right after we bought the house, I went to work in Atlanta.”

Goulet also didn’t like the promotion’s mandate of having its mid-card performers serve as security for the main-eventers. He expressed his dissatisfaction at a meeting before packing his bags.

“There was too much BS at the time in the Carolinas. We were forced to stay until the end of the matches before we could go home. In those days they wanted us around to protect the guys in the main event. If you worked in Richmond, Va., you were 300 miles from home. You wanted to come home, but you had to wait until the end of the show. We weren’t making that much money here anyway, so I left.”

Working for Vince Sr.

Goulet returned to Minneapolis in 1979 after working a few months in Atlanta for Ole Anderson. The burly booker told Goulet to do a job (lay down for an opponent) for an unheralded newcomer, and Goulet told Anderson to “go to hell.” Goulet, who had showed up backstage at the Atlanta City Auditorium that night, took partner Chris Markoff with him and left the territory.

One of Goulet’s favorite periods, he said, was working for Vince McMahon Sr. in New York in 1979.

“I went there along with Hulk Hogan, Ken Patera and The Wild Samoans. It was great. I did jobs for Hogan and put him over like a million dollars. It was a hell of a run.”

Goulet, though, said he didn’t miss the days of working hurt and getting small payoffs for his efforts.

“I tore my right biceps in Atlanta, and the next night I was working in Athens, Ga. I couldn’t take the time off because I wanted my little $40 or $45 payoff. Jim Barnett was the promoter who wouldn’t give (an extra) five cents. You couldn’t do that today, because the guys would turn around and sue them (the promoters). The wrestlers back then were afraid to do anything.”

One of Goulet’s most memorable moments in the business occurred in the summer of 1971 in Florida when he took part in one of that territory’s biggest angles ever — turning legendary heel Boris “The Great” Malenko babyface. Malenko, who was probably the most hated wrestler to ever appear in the Sunshine State, became an instantaneous fan favorite after partners Goulet and Dick Murdoch turned on him. The angle led to sold-out arenas throughout the state.

“The people went out of their minds. They loved him. That got over like crazy.”

Still, Goulet said, money-hungry promoters profited from the business much more than most of the wrestlers.

“We were selling out everywhere we went, but we weren’t making any money,” said Goulet, who says he later learned that promoter Eddie Graham was splitting a big portion of the profits with his partners.

“I remember working with Jack Brisco at a new building in West Palm Beach. We had a $10,000 house, which was big at the time, and my payoff was a hundred dollars. That was unbelievable.”
‘Great talent, great man’

Sixteen-time world champion Ric Flair, who suffered his first pro defeat at the hands of Goulet in only his second career bout in late 1972, praised both Rene and Pierrette in a 2003 interview.

“They are really, really nice people. I can’t say enough good about them,” said Flair, at the time a fellow Charlotte resident. “Rene Goulet really took care of me when I was a young guy breaking into the business. Not only did I work with Rene and he took time to teach me, we became very close friends. He was also a damn good worker.”

The trusted veteran and accomplished mat technician broke in a number of young stars including Ken Patera, The Iron Sheik, Chris Taylor, Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell.

“Rene was one of my trainers and one of the best people in our sport,” said former mat star Steve “Mr. Electricity” Regal.

“I worked with Rene many times in 1971 when he was in Florida,” recalled third-generation wrestler and promoter Ron Fuller. “He helped me significantly as a young man trying to find my way in the wrestling business. He was not only a great talent but a great man.”

Veteran sportswriter and longtime wrestling fan Larry Hamel reflected on seeing Goulet in action for the first time at the Orlando Sports Stadium in December 1968.

It left a lasting memory, he says.

“At the sound of the bell, Goulet bounced across the ring to hit Shinya Kojika with a spectacular flying drop kick, 1-2-3, and the was match over in seconds to a huge pop from the crowd. That made quite a first impression. The next Monday, Goulet was booked in the main event, a six-man tag team match in a steel cage. In that Florida run, Goulet seemed to be placed more prominently on the cards in Orlando than in other cities on the circuit. Apropos of nothing, my mom (bless her soul) felt that Rene Goulet was of the most handsome men she had ever seen. But then, my dad was French-Canadian.”

Wrestling promoter Thomas Simpson said Goulet combined a number of qualities that made him such a great talent.

“As a heel, he always had a scowl of disgust on his face. His was a fantastic wrestler, just impeccable psychology. Later as a road agent for Vince, everyone I know praised his mind and professionalism. I wish I had sought him out and picked his brain.”

Goulet was inducted into the George Tragos-Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.

Life well lived

Part of the Vince McMahon inner circle during the late ’80s and early ’90s, Rene Goulet was trusted and respect by WWE brass.

“Perhaps no one was better at breaking up a fight while wearing a suit and randomly holding a rolled-up stack of papers than Rene Goulet,” tweeted Joe Dombrowski.

Former wrestler Bob Blackburn recalled first meeting Goulet in an airport.

“My first memory is from 1986 as a young wrestler and meeting Rene in an airport and being so impressed of how kind he was knowing he didn’t have to be. I remember his love for the business and his passion for making sure business was done properly. My fondest memory, though, is after wrestling and traveling to golf tournaments and the times just sharing a beverage and picking his brain on all the various wrestlers and stories.”

Like many others, Blackburn couldn’t help noticing the close connection between Rene and Pierrette.

“I will never forget the opportunity to go to his home for dinner prepared by Pierrette and the love he had for his wife and the wonderful relationship and life they shared. Rene was a true gentleman and in a class by himself.”

Rene’s obituary requested that donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association. One sentence in his obit, however, spoke volumes about the man.

“He led a good, long and fulfilling life and even at the end never lost his sense of happiness and joy.”