Jacques Rougeau Recalls Violent Backstage Feud With Dynamite Kid

Jacques Rougeau has a championship legacy in WWE. He won the Intercontinental Championship as The Mountie in 1992 and also won the company's tag team championship on three occasions.

Rougeau is also remembered for a notorious and violent backstage feud with Dynamite Kid. It played out while both men were working for what was then the World Wrestling Federation during the 1980s.

At the time, Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith were teaming as the British Bulldogs. They were infamous for their backstage pranks. They raised the ire of other wrestlers, including Jacques Rougeau.

"I think of all the times that they were doing bad jokes to people," Rougeau told It's My Wrestling Podcast. "Cutting their pants in the winter before they went to the airport, things that were not nice, shaving a guy's hair.

"I think that Vince and the boys would laugh about it because it was always something about ego," Rougeau continued. "I think he would laugh almost like people that are afraid to face their bullies in life. You could be sitting in a class at school and you have this guy who's always doing dirty jokes or being mean. Then he looks at you, you have two choices. You could either look at him and laugh because then he's not going to touch you because you're on his side. Or you can make a man out of yourself and don't look at him and not acknowledge him."

The situation between Jacques Rougeau and Dynamite Kid came to a head in 1988. According to multiple accounts from people who were in the WWF at the time, Dynamite Kid attacked Rougeau backstage. Rougeau was left battered and humiliated.

Jacques Rougeau got his revenge weeks later. Armed with a roll of quarters, he attacked Dynamite Kid backstage, knocking out four of Dynamite's teeth.

The former "Mountie" assumed he would be fired over the incident. To his surprise, Vince McMahon did not do that. Looking back, Rougeau thinks McMahon was afraid of the British Bulldogs and felt some regret for not stepping in sooner to put an end to the Bulldogs' backstage pranks.

"I think he was half encouraging it and half saying, 'Hey guys, that's not funny, you know?'" Rougeau recalled. "I think it wasn't the way maybe to approach it because the Bulldogs were saying, 'Okay, he heard it. He laughed a little bit, but he didn't fire us, so I think we could keep going.' They got worse and worse. So when I stood up, the only guy who stood up to them, I think Vince realized that he screwed up, that he shouldn't let it go that far."

Jacques Rougeau's last match for the WWF was in 1998. He has had a strained relationship with the company over the years since then. Rougeau retired from professional wrestling on several occasions. The last time was in 2018.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit It's My Wrestling Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.