Some families build dynasties in business. The Rougeaus built theirs in the ring, and in a few weeks, AEW is going to say so out loud in front of their hometown.
AEW has confirmed it will honor four generations of the Rougeau wrestling family during the Buy In portion of AEW Redemption on Sunday, July 26, live from the Bell Centre in Montreal, per Fightful and POST Wrestling. It is being billed as 80 years of the family in professional wrestling, and once you trace the family tree, that number checks out.
It Starts With Eddie Auger in the 1940s
The Rougeau story does not actually start with a Rougeau. It starts with their great-uncle, Eddie Auger, who competed in Quebec rings back in the 1940s. Auger’s nephews, Johnny Rougeau and Jacques Rougeau Sr., picked up where he left off and turned that into a career. The brothers started wrestling together in the mid-1950s, and by 1967, Johnny Rougeau had founded All-Star Wrestling, the promotion that made the family a fixture of Montreal television for a generation.
Jacques Rougeau Sr. became a genuine star in his own right, winning the Montreal International Heavyweight Championship five times through the 1960s and 70s and feuding with the likes of Abdullah the Butcher and The Sheik. Wrestling historian Patric Laprade has called the Rougeaus “the royal family of Quebec wrestling,” and by the time Jacques Sr. retired in 1986, his sons were already carrying the name into the next act.
The Fabulous Rougeaus, and a Theme Song Jimmy Hart Never Gets Enough Credit For
Jacques Sr.‘s sons, Raymond, Jacques Jr., and Armand Rougeau, all continued the family business, but it was Raymond and Jacques Jr. who took it international. Jacques Jr. debuted in the WWF in February 1986, Raymond followed six days later, and together they became The Fabulous Rougeaus. They lost at WrestleMania III to Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake, then turned around and briefly upset The Hart Foundation for the WWF Tag Team Championship at the Montreal Forum that August, a result later overturned to a disqualification.
What really made The Fabulous Rougeaus unforgettable, though, was the entrance. Jimmy Hart wrote them All American Boys, a bright, brassy, unapologetically over-the-top theme that ranks among the best of his catalog, and considering Hart also wrote entrance music for Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, and dozens of other WWF stars of the era, that is a real compliment. It is exactly the kind of song that gets stuck in your head thirty years later. We have it embedded below so you can hear it for yourself.
The Mountie, The Quebecers, and a Career That Kept Reinventing Itself
Jacques Rougeau Jr. did not slow down once The Fabulous Rougeaus ran their course. In 1991, he relaunched as The Mountie, a corrupt, cattle-prod-wielding Royal Canadian Mounted Police character who beat Tito Santana at WrestleMania VII and briefly held the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Two years later, he teamed with Pierre Ouellet to form The Quebecers, a three-time WWF Tag Team Championship-winning duo that feuded with The Steiner Brothers and Marty Jannetty and The 1-2-3 Kid. Between two gimmicks and three different championship reigns, Jacques Jr. spent the better part of a decade never leaving the main event picture.
Raymond Rougeau’s Second and Third Acts
Raymond Rougeau eventually moved from the ring to the broadcast booth, becoming one of the most familiar voices in WWF‘s French-language commentary for years. His latest chapter has nothing to do with wrestling at all. The Stunner covered his re-election as mayor of Rawdon, Quebec earlier this year, where he won a second term with 59.1 percent of the vote at age 70. Not many wrestling legacies include a stint running municipal government, but the Rougeaus have never done things the ordinary way.
Why AEW Is Doing This, in Jacques Rougeau’s Own Words
The tribute traces back to a phone call. Speaking to wrestling journalist Bill Apter, Jacques Rougeau said AEW executive QT Marshall reached out personally to invite him and Raymond to the Bell Centre, and that the news left him too excited to sleep.
“QT called me up, and he asked me if Raymond and I would like to go to the Bell Centre. He says they would like to honor the Rougeau family, the four generations. And so they’re going to have something. I don’t know what they’re going to have. I’ve had a few sleepless nights lately because I’m so excited. I’m so happy. I wish my uncle Johnny and my dad, who died, and my great uncle would see this moment. WWE, unfortunately, they don’t talk about the Rougeaus anymore. And unfortunately, they never put us in the Hall of Fame, which I was bitter about for many years.”
It is unclear exactly what AEW has planned for the Buy In, only that Ray, Jacques Sr., Jacques Jr., and Armand are the four generations set to be recognized. But for a family that built one of the most enduring wrestling legacies Canada has ever produced, largely without a nod from the company most of the world associates with the business, having a national spotlight put back on them in their own city is the kind of moment worth celebrating regardless of the specifics.
AEW Redemption airs Sunday, July 26, from the Bell Centre in Montreal. In the meantime, here is the song that started it all for a whole generation of Quebec wrestling fans, Jimmy Hart‘s All American Boys, as performed for The Fabulous Rougeaus.
