Our History
WORKFORCE FITNESS PERFORMANCE CENTER
Welcome to Workforce Fitness Performance Center! Located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where we continue the tradition of helping people break into professional wrestling and producing the best wrestlers in the world.
Imagine being named alongside such Calgary-Trained Wrestlers as Brian Pillman, Owen Hart, Teddy Hart, Rachael Ellering, Taya Valkryie, Davey-Boy Smith Jr., Viktor, Tyler Breeze, Gama Singh, Rick Titan, Test, Edge, Christian, Rhino, The Beast From The Middle East, Ken Shamrock, Mark Henry, Droz, Crush, Rhonda Singh, Natalyia, “Champaigne” Gerry Morrow, Bad News Allen/Brown, Edge, Andrew Martin “Test”, Lance Storm, Chris Jericho, Jason Reso & Bret “The Hitman” Hart. All these legends were trained in the city of Calgary, Alberta, and all their training stemmed in one way or another from the infamous Hart Dungeon or under the guidance of our Head Coach Leo “The Legend” Burke at the WWF Training Center in the Bret Hart Mansion.
The WFPC is a Sports Organization that is proud to offer regulated forms of physical activity that is organized as a contest between two or more participants for the purpose of determining a winner by fair and ethical means once students have acquired the necessary skills to perform a full match. The WFPC is also a Physical Activity Organization that offers physical activity and exercise for the purpose of integration into daily life to optimize health and wellness. And the WFPC is a Recreational Organization that offers activities for a person or group in order to make their leisure time more interesting, more enjoyable and more personally satisfying so as to enhance social functioning, assist in individual and community development, and improve quality of life by sharing their interests and activities with family and community members.
Hart History and Our Origins
Train With Harts and Legends
The Hart Dungeon or Hart Family Dungeon, otherwise known simply as The Dungeon, was the gym and wrestling school located in the basement of the Hart mansion. The school was created by WWE Hall of Famer Stu Hart, patriarch of the Hart wrestling family and is known for having produced some of the greatest and most successful professional wrestlers of all time, where one of your in ring handlers and coaches Torrin Rex Hart learned firsthand the secrets of the trade.
History
Stu Hart, Torrin’s grandfather acquired the former Calgary Army Hospital Mansion in 1951 and transformed its basement into his personal training center shortly thereafter. This was done because Hart needed a training facility after the founding of his first wrestling promotion in 1948. Although, the nickname itself developed over time when Stampede Wrestling became world famous.
Aside from professional wrestlers, the Dungeon provided training grounds for various athletes from strongmen to football players. The majority of Hart’s sons trained in the Dungeon and went on to become involved in the wrestling world including Bret & Owen Hart. Other famous Dungeon graduates include Billy Graham, Greg Valentine, Allen Coage, Davey Boy Smith, Brian Pillman, Jushin Thunder Liger, Steve “Dr Hannibal” Gillespie, Ricky Fuji, Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, Chris Benoit, Justin Credible, Edge, Christian & Mark Henry. Natalya, daughter of Jim Neidhart and granddaughter of Stu, was the first ever woman to graduate from the Dungeon. The final graduate of the Hart Dungeon was Tyson Kidd (now Natalya’s husband) and brother-in law to Torrin Rex Hart who trained along-side our very own The Beast From The Middle East, The Man They Hale “Ali” under the Hart Family.
I take a lot of pride in being one of the last guys that had the hands-on training from Stu Hart when I went to the Hart Family to train … It was a good experience just to be there, to imagine all the people that had been through there, and all the blood, sweat, and tears that had been paid … Going to the Hart Family for training was kind of like, if you’re a very religious person, going to the Vatican.
- Chris Benoit, WWE Unscripted, p. 54
One of the first televised acknowledgements of the nickname “Dungeon” was by then WWF color commentator Jesse Ventura. Its first significant exposure was in the documentary Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows. In it, the Dungeon was moderately filmed for the first time and Stu Hart is shown demonstrating wrestling holds on a pupil. Bret also discusses being trained by his father and having submission holds applied to himself, often with graphic descriptions from his father of the holds’ impact. A bonus feature on Bret’s DVD set also shows him discussing the Dungeon.
Various activities took place in the Dungeon, ranging from weight lifting to Catch wrestling. Bret Hart has described the Dungeon in interviews as having holes in the walls and ceiling from bodies being driven into them. He also noted that practices could, at times, be as intense as MMA styled fighting. In July 1998, the WWF filmed a match between Owen Hart and Ken Shamrock in the Dungeon for the Fully Loaded Pay-Per-View.
Reputation
During the period when Stu Hart was regularly training individuals at the school, it held a reputation for being one of the harshest wrestling schools in the world. Graduating from it was considered very impressive and something which would be brought up on air on televised wrestling shows. Hart himself also garnered a reputation for being borderline sadistic in his training techniques, and was known to torture his pupils with legitimate submission wrestling holds he had learned as a sports wrestler. Buddy Roberts described the place as “like a torture chamber”. In contrast to his descendants, Stu never took money for his training services and did it mostly for the love of the artform of professional wrestling.
3 Original Dungeon Trainers
- Stu Hart
- Mr. Hito, head trainer after Stu Hart
- Kazuo Sakurada
List of Notable Dungeon Trainees #34 Torrin Rex Hart, #61 Steve “Dr Hannibal” Gillespie & #66 The Beast From The Middle East, your New Pro & Amateur Wrestling Coaches. 66 Dungeon Trained Men + 1 Woman #67
- Abdullah the Butcher
- Allen “Bad New Allen/Brown” Coage
- Al Oeming
- Archie Gouldie
- Ben Bassarab
- Billy Jack Haynes
- Blake Norton
- Brian Pillman
- Chris Benoit
- Chris Jericho
- Yvon Durelle
- Christian
- Davey Boy Smith
- Harry “Davey Boy Jr” Smith
- David Hart Smith
- Tyler Mane
- Dynamite Kid
- Edge
- Eduardo Miguel Perez
- Fritz Von Erich
- Gama Singh
- Gene Anderson
- George Scott
- Gorilla Monsoon
- Greg Valentine
- Dean Hart
- Smith Hart
- Ross Hart
- Wayne Hart
- Bret Hart
- Keith Hart
- Bruce Hart
- Owen Hart
- Torrin Rex Hart
- Teddy Hart
- Jason Helton
- The Honky Tonk Man
- Jake Roberts
- Jim Neidhart
- Jos LeDuc
- Junkyard Dog
- Jushin Thunder Liger
- Justin Credible
- Ken Shamrock
- Klondike Bill
- Lance Storm
- Larry Cameron
- Luther Lindsay
- Hiro Hase
- Mark Henry
- Masahiro Chono
- Michael Majalahti
- Nikolai Volkoff
- Paul LeDuc
- Ricky Fuji
- Roddy Piper
- Ruffy Silverstein
- Sandy Scott
- Shinya Hashimoto
- Steve Blackman
- Steve “Dr Hannibal” Gillespie
- Superstar Billy Graham
- Tyson Kidd
- Tom Magee
- Viktor
- The Beast From The Middle East, The Man They Hale “Ali”
- Natalya Neidhart
