Early Life
Hart played football for the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1938 and 1939 seasons. Stu Hart began amateur wrestling when he joined the YMCA in Edmonton in 1929. By 1937 he won a gold medal in the welterweight class from the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada. His amateur career peaked in May 1940 when Hart won the Dominion Amateur Wrestling Championship in the light heavyweight category. It must have been a bittersweet win for Hart as by that time the Phoney War had ended in Europe, and World War II had erupted. This led to the cancellation of the Olympics ending one of Hart's greatest dreams. Hart did enlist in the Canadian Navy and served as the Director of Athletics.
Hart was trained in catch wrestling as a young boy by a bunch of older boys. They used to 'streim every day, but Stu kept coming back. Stu once said "his head would be blue by the time they let go of him". Stu taught this 'shoot style' to all who trained under him in the 1980s and 1990s with the thought that teaching his students real submission moves would make their pro wrestling style sharper.
Read more about this topic: Stu Hart
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