Why I’m not a fan of Jacques Rougeau Jr.

I wanted to do this column for a while, but I also felt that while Jacques Rougeau Jr. is a well-known wrestler in the wrestling world, it was such a local story that it probably wouldn’t interest many fans, so I decided against it. But now that it’s been announced that AEW will honor the Rougeau family at Redemption, I thought it finally made sense to write this column.

1. Why I Actually Respect the Legacy of the Rougeau Family

First of all, I just want to start by saying that while I’m not a fan of Jacques Jr., I am still a fan of the rest of his family and respect their legacy. They did so much for the Montreal wrestling scene over the years that I don’t think you would have guys like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Speedball Mike Bailey in major promotions if it wasn’t for their influence.

Johnny Rougeau is a legend, in my opinion, who deserves a lot more recognition than he’s getting. Jacques Sr. didn’t have a huge career and isn’t as well known as Johnny or even his sons, Jacques Jr. and Raymond, but he still deserves to be recognized for his contributions to the business. Raymond was probably one of the best all-around wrestlers in the business during the late 1970s and 1980s, but his lack of charisma compared to his brother Jacques limited him. Even so, I was a huge fan of Raymond back in the day.

One of my favorite moments that I saw live involving Raymond was actually his final wrestling match. It was at a WWE house show at the old Montreal Forum. WWE had done an angle for the local Montreal crowd between Raymond and Owen Hart, which led to Owen challenging Raymond to a boxing match in Montreal. The match happened, I think, in 1994 or 1995—I’m not 100 percent sure—and Raymond beat the crap out of Owen and won the match, sending the crowd inside the Forum into a frenzy. That was one of my favorite moments as a wrestling fan.

2. A History of the Wrestling Career of Jacques Rougeau Jr.

I’m not going into detail about Jacques’ career before WWE because, let’s face it, we all know why WWE signed him and Raymond in the first place. Instead, I want to highlight a few key moments from his career.

The Rougeaus signed with WWE in 1986 and were booked as babyfaces for two years. During that period, they were pretty much a lower-level tag team that was mostly there to put over other teams. While they technically won the tag team titles at a house show in Montreal, the decision was reversed, and it was never mentioned again.

Then you have the whole backstage incident between Jacques and the Dynamite Kid. This is the famous story that Jacques continues to tell to this day about how Dynamite was bullying him, and eventually Jacques decided to hit him with a roll of quarters as payback for everything Dynamite had done to him. For years, that was the only version of the story out there, so it was easy to believe that was what really happened.

Then, a few years ago, other versions of the story started to emerge, including one claiming that it wasn’t Dynamite teasing Jacques at all. Instead, Mr. Perfect was supposedly playing the pranks while making it look like Dynamite was responsible, which ultimately led to Jacques knocking Dynamite out.

Which version is the real one? I honestly don’t know, but it’s interesting that this incident now has multiple versions.

After that, Raymond retired in 1990, and Jacques was repackaged as The Mountie one year later. This led to a very interesting situation because the RCMP didn’t like the way they were being portrayed by WWE. As a result, WWE reached an agreement that Jacques couldn’t use The Mountie gimmick in Canada. Everywhere else in the world, he was The Mountie, but in Canada he was simply Jacques Rougeau. This led to some hilarious local promos where Jacques would completely forget he couldn’t mention The Mountie character and would have to stop mid-promo to correct himself.

During his run as The Mountie, he had two memorable moments. The first was his feud with the Big Boss Man, which led to the Jailhouse Match at SummerSlam 1991. He lost, went to jail, and was absolutely hilarious in the post-match vignettes. The second was winning the Intercontinental Championship from Bret Hart at a house show in Springfield, only to lose it to Roddy Piper at the 1992 Royal Rumble.

Outside of that, he really didn’t do much and was mostly used to put other stars over. The run lasted about a year, and by the end of 1992, he was gone.

He returned in late 1993 as part of The Quebecers with PCO, and this was probably his most successful—though also relatively short—run in WWE. He won the tag team titles multiple times and feuded with teams such as The Steiner Brothers, Bret and Owen Hart, and, sadly, Men on a Mission.

Unfortunately, like I mentioned, the run didn’t last very long. About a year later, Jacques had what was supposed to be his first retirement match—yes, he had multiple retirement matches—and left WWE.

If you believe Jacques’ version of why he left, which I personally don’t, he claimed that Vince McMahon told him The Quebecers wouldn’t lose the tag team titles to Men on a Mission at WrestleMania, and they didn’t. While they technically lost the match by count-out, they retained the championships at WrestleMania X. That’s why I feel this story was largely made up by Jacques to justify his departure, especially considering he didn’t actually leave until September 1994, a full six months after WrestleMania.

After that, he went to WCW for a while and pretty much lost to everyone. Ironically, his biggest accomplishment happened at a live event that he actually promoted himself. WCW wasn’t sponsoring the event and only sent a few wrestlers to help him out. That was where he defeated Hollywood Hogan clean. According to Eric Bischoff, that match ultimately led to Jacques being fired because Bischoff didn’t like the idea of the biggest draw in WCW losing clean to someone who was essentially a lower-card wrestler in the company.

After that, Jacques returned to WWE for a few months in a very forgettable run. It was so forgettable that Jacques himself barely seems to remember it. His final televised appearance came in WCW at New Blood Rising, where he served as the special enforcer for the United States Championship match between Lance Storm and Mike Awesome.

3. Jacques’ Post-Wrestling Career

This is where I started to see who Jacques the man was compared to Jacques the wrestler.

After he left wrestling, he started his own wrestling school. If you’ve heard any interviews from Kevin Owens about the school, you already know how bad it was. He also ran shows at the Verdun Auditorium where the cards were mostly made up of his students, and then he would book himself in the main event against established names like the Legion of Doom, Meng, and other legends.

The problem was that he became known as one of those promoters who wouldn’t pay the talent. He developed a reputation for being difficult to work for and unreliable when it came to paying wrestlers, which eventually led to many of the bigger names refusing to appear on his shows.

After that, most of his events consisted of him being booked on top against whoever the biggest star from his wrestling school happened to be. Eventually, he took a step back and let his kids become the focus.

My first interaction with Jacques was at a Comic Con in 2015 when he was a last-minute replacement for Jake “The Snake” Roberts. He mostly used the appearance to promote his wrestling show, but he was still very nice, and I didn’t mind my interaction with either him or his son.

Then came the show itself, which was the first time I realized how much of a con man he was.

It was his annual Christmas show at the Verdun Auditorium. I had purchased floor seats, which cost five dollars more than the regular seats. The only reason I paid extra was because both my dad and I are tall, and it was much easier for us to sit on the floor than in the stands.

When I arrived, the person at the door told me that my seats were actually in the stands. I noticed Jacques and his son greeting fans, so I politely asked if they could either refund the difference or help us get the floor seats we had paid for. Instead, both Jacques and his son completely blew me off and walked away. If it hadn’t been for a security guard stepping in to help us, we would have been stuck sitting in the stands.

4. Wrestling Academy and Other Scandals

After he stopped running his wrestling school and promoting shows, Jacques took a break from wrestling. Following the pandemic, he launched a reality show, but it was plagued with controversy almost from the beginning.

The first season became infamous because Jacques banned the participating wrestlers from selling merchandise or making any money from their appearances. In other words, the wrestlers were essentially performing for free while Jacques was making money selling his own merchandise.

He also made several promises that he couldn’t deliver on. The biggest example was advertising that the winners would receive an AEW tryout, even though nobody in AEW reportedly knew anything about it. The only prize that had actually been arranged in advance was a one-year training opportunity at the Nightmare Factory. The rest of the prize package seemed to be improvised, mostly to attract independent wrestlers to sign up for the show.

The second season was somehow even more chaotic than the first.

One positive change was that the wrestlers were finally allowed to sell their own merchandise. However, the biggest controversy came during the women’s final.

Jacques reportedly couldn’t decide who should win the match, so his solution was to have the match end in a draw and split the prize money between the two finalists. That meant that instead of each woman receiving the same $250,000 prize as the men’s winner, they would have to split the $250,000 between them.

KC Spinelli, one of the finalists, strongly objected to the idea. She argued that it made no sense for the women not to receive the same prize as the men. According to Spinelli, Jacques told her it wasn’t his decision and claimed that QT Marshall said they didn’t have enough money to award both women $250,000.

The match ultimately went ahead, Spinelli lost, and the outcome reportedly caught QT Marshall by surprise. After Spinelli publicly discussed the situation, it effectively ended the working relationship between Jacques and Marshall.

Then you have the latest story that surfaced not too long ago, where Jacques reportedly purchased part of a local wrestling promotion in Gatineau so that he could be honored by the company and wrestle one final match.

To me, that’s an incredibly egotistical move. The sad part is that it apparently didn’t even achieve the reaction he was hoping for. Many fans reportedly weren’t interested in meeting him and even booed him during the event after learning the backstory. When confronted about the situation afterward, Jacques denied the allegations and seemingly hoped the controversy would simply go away.

5. Conclusion

In the end, I have nothing against the Rougeau family or everything they contributed to professional wrestling. I don’t even have anything against Jacques Rougeau Jr. as a wrestler.

My issue is with Jacques Rougeau Jr. the man. In my opinion, he has shown time and time again that he’s primarily concerned with himself and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process. To me, that’s the worst kind of person.

So yes, I’m happy that AEW is honoring the Rougeau family at Redemption. At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually found out that Jacques himself pushed for the tribute and that Tony Khan originally wanted to honor someone else instead.