Richard Charland

Richard Charland became a wrestler with the encouragement by Mad Dog Vachon. The mat legend had met Charland, as a youngster, who was studying judo, and told him to consider professional wrestling as an option. Charland listened, and took up amateur wrestling for a few years before turning pro in 1972, at the young age of 16. He debuted in the Montreal-based Grand Prix Wrestling, and beat Pat Gerard Jr. in his first match.

In 1974, he wrestled his first overseas tour for International Wrestling Enterprise in Japan, under the name The Tempest. In 1975, he would move to Toronto, to wrestle for Maple Leaf Wrestling. After a year in Toronto, he went to the United States in 1976, wrestling for The Sheik's Big Time Wrestling in Detroit, under the name Mauler Malone. He would remain in Detroit for nearly two years, before returning home to Montreal in 1977, and made a brief return to Detroit in 1979.

In 1980, Charland joined the upstart Lutte Internationale in Montreal. Soon after, he won his first title, the Canadian International Tag Team Championship, with Len Shelley. A year later, he and Shelley would lose the titles to Swede Hanson and Le Bourreau, but regained the titles the next year. However, their second reign wouldn't last as long as their first, as they lost the titles months later to Gino Brito and Rick McGraw.

In 1984, Charland would return to Japan to wrestle for the shoot-style Universal Wrestling Federation. While there, he would wrestle the likes of Mach Hayato,…