Okay. Say that you’re a wrestling promoter and have a 350 pound guy who’s legitimately tough as well as an arm wrestling champion. How do you promote him?
Hint: Not like this.
History
In 1989 John Nord returned to his home territory of the AWA. However, this Nord was different than the one who’d left. Now Nord was billed as coming from the Canadian northwest, wore a red plaid shirt, carried an axe, and howled. He was now Lumberjack John Nord.
One day as he came out to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Risin’â€, Nord brought out a friend – Scott Norton.
To fully understand Scott Norton, you also need to understand his history. Norton was a tough guy. He was a multi-time arm wrestling champion who’d earned the nickname “Flash†for his quick wins. He had also appeared in Sylvester Stallone’s movie “Over the Top,†which had focused on arm wrestling.
However, this was 1990 AWA.
Norton was brought out wearing jeans, a red shirt identical to Nord’s, and a tuque. In an interview shortly thereafter, Nord gave Norton a new nickname – Flapjack.
It was explained that Norton and Nord had met in the lumberjack camps and (eventually) was noted that Norton had beaten everyone in the camp at arm wrestling. However, the main part of Norton’s backstory was his nickname.
Nord explained how the other lumberjacks had come in to eat one day and discovered that Norton had beaten them back. They found Norton in a chair with a knife in one hand and fork in the other. They asked how many flapjacks he’d eaten and he said 297. This always caused interviewer Eric Bischoff to get a shocked look on his face. Perhaps it was because the number of flapjacks kept going up every time the story was told.
Because of Norton’s howl, the team’s entrance theme was also changed to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.â€
Whenever Nord or Norton would wrestle, the matches would always start the same way. Before the bell ever rang, Nord would run the ropes and bounce off Norton. The two would roar at each other and then begin giving each other chops.
Paired together as the Lumberjacks, Nord and Norton were chasing the AWA world tag team titles held by Wayne Bloom and Mike Enos – the Destruction Crew (AKA the WWF’s Beverly Brothers). But the Destruction Crew had a twist for the Lumberjacks. The undefeated Texas Hangmen (Killer and Psycho, who headed to WCW as Disorderly Conduct) were also in the tag team title hunt. The Destruction Crew demanded that the Hangmen and Lumberjacks face each other and they’d take on the winners.
In the end, neither team was able to defeat the Destruction Crew as during this time period the AWA was rapidly approaching its closure. The company had all but shut down by the end of 1990.
The Lumberjacks were an ill-fated try to cash in on what was pushing the WWF to popularity – cartoonish gimmicks. The story of Flapjack and Nord’s howl were used to get the team over with children, but the rapidly-diminishing crowds did not grab onto the team as much as Verne Gagne would have liked.
The Lumberjacks also illustrate one thing that helped sink the AWA and, a decade later, WCW. Both were in rapid decline and the decision was made to abandon everything that the promotion had always represented (strong workrates for the NWA and strong mat wrestling skills for the AWA) in order to ape the WWF’s formula for success (even going so far to hire the WWF’s writers in WCW’s case). Neither plan worked, and both companies are gone today.
Scott Norton left the AWA during 1990 and headed to WCW, where he also entered into a strong working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he would achieve his greatest fame. Norton left New Japan in 2006. Today he runs his own company called Wild West Championship Wrestling, as well as working for HUSTLE, where he is part of Generalissimo Takada’s Monster Army.
John Nord headed to the WWF after the AWA shutdown where was debuted as the Viking, which was quickly changed to the Berserker. In 1993 he left the WWF and headed to All Japan before returning to WCW in 1997. Nord left WCW in 1998 and retired. Today he works at an auto dealership.
