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The Rougeaus/Bulldogs backstage war is a favorite of mine too.
The incident began at a house show in Syracuse, New York. The Rougeaus saw that the match list said there would be two tag-team matches - The third and the eighth match. Now a ride from Syracuse to Montreal was very short, so they asked the staff if they could wrestle the third match and leave to Montreal from there to have one more day with their families. Since their trip was so short, and the Bulldogs would not being able to go home anyway since they resided in Calgary, they saw no reason that it would bother the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs even said to them that it was okay, but the Rougeaus later had their suspicions that they were not okay with it.
Apparently it was an unwritten rule backstage at that time that you should always have someone watch your clothes when you are not around so no one messes with it. The Rougeaus had asked Curt Hennig to watch their stuff while they wrestled and he decided to cut their clothes to ribbons. When the Rougeaus returned, he quickly ran from the bathroom and came out looking at their stuff pretending to be just as surprised as they were. The Rougeaus instantly blamed the Bulldogs because they were known pranksters backstage. The Rougeaus also went home later and realized their work-out gear was missing too.
After the Rougeaus had left the shit was stirring around the dressing room with how the Rougeaus had rearranged their match time and various other things. Dynamite Kid also heard from Curt Hennig that the Rougeaus were blaming the Bulldogs for messing up their clothing and stealing their gear, and that the Rougeaus were planning on telling Vince McMahon about it.
It all led to the confrontation in Miami, Florida. Jacques was in the dressing room playing cards when suddenly he was punched from behind. When he saw it was Dynamite he kept yelling "what's wrong", but Dynamite kept punching him. Raymond (who was on crutches) tried to intervene but Dynamite punched and knocked him over too. Raymond remarked "Oh, you're going to beat up a guy on crutches?", to which Dynamite replied "No, I'll wait for you to heal and then I'll beat you up".
The incident took place in Miami, where the Rougeaus father lived. Jacques did not talk to his brother or father for three days. When they were on a plane leaving Miami, an announcement came on the speaker saying "Ladies and gentlemen, we're thrilled to have wrestlers from the WWF on board this flight and we want to congratulate Jacques Rougeau on his recent boxing match". It was at this point that Jacques broke his silence to Raymond and said "Wednesday is when I'll get my revenge".
For days, Jacques and Raymond kept to themselves, trying to convince Dynamite that he had won over them. Dynamite would walk by them looking confident and strong, and he would taunt, and bully Raymond and try to intimidate him by sarcastically asking him "How's the knee?".
Jacques gave the impression that he wanted nothing to do with Dynamite and was in great fear of him; all to make their plan for revenge unexpected.
During this time of silence, Jacques even noted that people were treating him with less respect, for not trying to get back at Dynamite. The primary person he mentions was his best friend Dino Bravo, who would simply nod when Jacques greeted him. Meanwhile Raymond was prepping Jacques for the upcoming "attack", by having him practice jabbing all night in the hotel rooms. Jacques broke the silence with his father and called him the night before all of this went down, to which his father said, "get a roll of quarters and hold it in your punching hand, when you deck him".
This led to a TV taping at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Unbeknownst to either the Bulldogs or the Rougeaus was that Vince and the powers that be had a meeting that came to the decision that the next person who starts a fight is fired automatically. Vince had then approached the Rougeaus and said he wanted to see them later. Jacques knew his attack had to happen before this meeting took place. They waited by the corridor of the hallway as wrestlers were coming back from lunch.
Things could not have been more perfect for the attack because all the people that Dynamite was usually with (Davey Boy, The Hart Foundation, Bad News Brown, and Don Muraco) had walked by already, so they knew Dynamite would be alone. Up until Pat Patterson came by and started talking to them, but this did not deter Jacques's determination to do what he wanted to do.
As soon as Pat was walking away Dynamite walked by he started doing his cocky little strut by Jacques, to which Jacques simply said "Hi Dynamite" and punched him square in the mouth knocking four of his teeth out. Jacques kind of lost focus, because he was expecting Dynamite to go down from that punch and not expecting Dynamite fight back. Raymond was screaming for him to start jabbing to which Jacques did repeatedly. Finally Bad News Brown grabbed Jacques to break up the fight and Jacques offered no resistance to being pulled away.
After the incident, Pat Patterson had sent Davey Boy to take Dynamite to the hospital; Jacques looked to Raymond and said "Now we'll go see Vince". When they knocked on Vince's door, Vince opened the door, but could only see Raymond to which he said "I said later guys". Jacques said fine until Vince saw the blood all over him. Hogan was in the office with Vince and took one look at Jacques and said "I'm outta here brother". Even Randy Savage opened his dressing room door and saw Jacques's condition and just shut his door.
Vince did make time to talk to them then, and despite the meeting with the higher ups he said that they were not fired. He said he was going to go get the Bulldogs, and told them to lock the door behind them. The Rougeaus' did more then that as the broke they legs off of chairs in the office in case the Bulldogs entered and a fight started again. Vince came back to the office by himself and said he was sending the Bulldogs to a tour of Europe. The Rougeaus would be going home to Montreal after some house shows in NY. Nobody talked to them the rest of that day and Vince even escorted them to their car.
Sometime later, Dino Bravo went up to Jacques and said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is the Bulldogs gave their notice. The bad news is the Bulldogs gave their notice". Jacques realized the situation he was in with how they are leaving, but now they have nothing to lose. Jacques was in fear of his life so he made some calls to "some people" in Montreal and pulled Dino Bravo aside one night "since he knew what type of person Dino Bravo was" and said "I call my family every night by midnight. If ever I don't call . . ." and then he showed Dino that he had Dynamite's home address and Dino nodded, understanding what he meant.
The final night for the Bulldogs was Survivor Series 1988, where both teams were involved in a tag-team elimination match. The Rougeaus were a little nervous since they did not know what was going on that night and nobody talked to them until about 90mins before the show. Vince asked both teams into his office and it turns out that Dynamite had a high spot he wanted to go over. He wanted to gorilla press Jacques and teeter backwards towards the ropes and as Raymond would come to attempt to make a save, Dynamite would toss Jacques onto Raymond. Jacques immediately said "That's a good idea", but in the back of his mind did not discount the fear of Dynamite dropping him on his head on the concrete on the outside.
After the meeting Vince asked the Rougeaus if they would mind leaving as soon as they were eliminated from the match, not even stopping to take a shower. He did not want to take any chances since it was the Bulldogs' final night.
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