Anthony Tonin: Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By day, he's Anthony Tonin, mild-mannered education student and part-time elementary school teacher. Come Saturday night, however, watch out.

Off come the designer clothes this Montreal-born 21-year-old favours and on go that mean-guy bandanna, the funky sweats and T-shirt and the knee-high, lace-up wrestler's boots.

TNT is the name and nastiness is his game -- at least, when he's wrestling.

For wrestling, after all, is what this ringside event is called and with reason. While many think of this sport as pure entertainment, 50 per cent remains true wrestling, says Tonin over lunch.

Clad in a Tommy Hilfiger silky T-shirt and shorts, ready for his afternoon teaching physical education to the grade ones and twos at Royal Vale school, Tonin doesn't quite look the part of a Stone Cold Steve Austin clone. For one thing, he's only five foot eight inches and weighs 180 pounds compared to the 300-pounders he may take on in the ring. The next Hulk Hogan, he is not.

Furthermore, he's a university student where most professional wrestlers are already out in the working world. It was while studying social science at Vanier College that Tonin began wrestling and it was a fluke at that.

Having wanted to be a professional wrestler since the age of four when he saw Mr. T on TV's Wrestlemania, Tonin had never found a place to train. Then he met Maxx Fury, known by day as Max Rendilla, a fellow Vanier student. Rendilla saw Tonin fooling around in the gym and suggested they both try out the Northern Championship Wrestling club.

That was in January 1998. Since then, Tonin has been at ringside almost every Saturday night making the rounds of Montreal and numerous Quebec cities and towns, the Atlantic provinces and Vermont. Even when his shoulder was injured after the second match, he didn't miss the following Saturday's show; instead, like a born showman, he incorporated his one-arm incapacity into the match!

What keeps him going? It isn't money. Rare is the match that pays its wrestlers. The wrestlers even pay for their weekly training sessions which in Tonin's case includes two gymnastics and two wrestling practices.

No, for Tonin, it's the privilege of being able to entertain, to make people laugh, generate heckling and, ultimately, be remembered.

Novice though he still is, Tonin/TNT is beginning to get some recognition. "The other day, I was walking down Monkland when someone called out: 'Hey, TNT,'" he says with pride.

As a foulmouthed -- he insults both the audience and his opponent -- mean guy as well as a cry-baby of a loser, Tonin has developed TNT into a distinctive and popular figure, someone the fans love to hate.

Even though many of the fans are francophones and Tonin speaks French, TNT, who has been known to wear a bandanna folded from the fleur de lys and to wear the Quebec flag on his T-shirt, "never" does. Why? "Because he's from the Bronx," explains Tonin. Furthermore, it's provocative and insulting -- which is the whole point of the TNT character, adds Tonin who, in real life, has never been in a fight.

"I'm not the best wrestler, but I am the best entertainer," he says confidently.

Tonin doesn't hide the fact that he would like to make it into the big time, into the World Wrestling Federation or World Championship Wrestling. But he's also practical enough that he won't go that route without first finishing his degree in education. "What happens if I get injured?" he asks. Furthermore, he points out, a career in wrestling usually ends at 40.

He figures that at this stage, he's got the best of all worlds. "I've got a good job. I'm getting a hell of an education. And I'm doing something I've wanted to do all my life: wrestle."

Wrestling and working with young children, as it turns out aren't all that different. "At school, I'm entertaining constantly," says Tonin who has worked with children ever since he was 13 and a camp counsellor.

At Royal Vale, he's appreciated for his ability to respond to the needs and interests of children of a wide range of ages. "I find it interesting that he's so diverse," says Belinda Magee, assistant co-ordinator of the school's after-school program. "He's very focused for someone that young."

Anyone interested in watching Tonin and his fellow wrestlers, each with his distinct persona, may check the following web sites for the next Montreal fight: www.ncw.qc.ca or www.cew.8m.com. The price of entry is $6.

Bronwyn Chester






Wild about Wilfrid, jaded about John


It seems that everything gets ranked these days by magazines as varied as Maclean's, Report on Business and Consumer Reports -- universities, cities, fridges. So why not prime ministers?

A new book co-written by J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hilmer does just that, ranking Canada's 20 prime ministers. A number of historians, including McGill's Desmond Morton, were solicited for their views.

How do the two McGill-trained prime ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir John Abbott (pictured) fare? According to the book, Laurier is one of Canada's three "great" prime ministers, while Abbott is one of five "failures."

The book describes Laurier as "charming, imaginative and gentle, an expert in the softness of compromise and the hard use of power." Laurier "calmly presided over the expansion of the West and the great ferment of industrialization," write Granatstein and Hilmer. The valedictorian for his graduating class of McGill law students, Laurier was also Canada's first French-Canadian prime minister. The authors credit him with building a durable Liberal Party with appeal for both English and French. "He saved the national party system from degenerating into ethnic factionalism."

As for Abbott, a former McGill dean of law, to be fair, his principal failing in the writers' eyes was that he was no one's first choice for the job -- not even his own. He was a reluctant prime minister and a compromise between warring factions of his party. "I hate politics," Abbott once wrote, "and what are considered their appropriate methods. I hate notoriety, public meetings, public speeches, caucuses and everything that I know of that is apparently the necessary incident of politics -- except doing public work to the best of my ability."








They've done this in a way and at a time to minimize public scrutiny and debate, and that leads many people, including me, to believe that something here smells.



Political science professor Richard Schultz, a specialist in regulated industries, talking to The Gazette about the federal government's suspension of Canada's competition law. The move enabled Onex Corp., led by prominent Liberal supporter Gerald Schwartz, to launch a takeover bid of Canada's two national airlines.





Unfriendly skies


What began as a simple letter of complaint three years ago has mushroomed into a popular web site that goes by the name Untied -- as in United Airlines coming apart.

Electrical and computer engineering professor Jeremy Cooperstock, then a graduate student at the University of Toronto, was incensed when his "polite" letter of complaint regarding damage to his luggage and a nearly missed connecting flight due to failed communication on United's part, went ignored by the American air giant.

So he pursued the matter. First with a follow-up letter, then a web site.

Cooperstock wasn't alone among passengers -- or United employees, as it turned out -- in getting no satisfaction. To date, the web site has received hundreds of stories of bad treatment at United's hands -- 483 in the past three months alone.

Few of those complaints have been dealt with by United. In fact, only three over the past three months received responses. But the bad publicity isn't appreciated by the company. (United threatened to sue the U of T when Cooperstock's web site was on its system, so he changed servers.) What's more, www.untied.com -- described on the ABC News website as "an old online veteran" -- may have spawned other air travel complaint sites with equally evocative names. Take NorthworstAir.org or AirlinesSuck.com, for example.

Cooperstock did finally, after 14 months, get an apology for the bad service he received, but by then it was too late to close shop. Too many other people had contributed to the web site and hadn't had their complaints dealt with.

For a vast and frequently entertaining array of travel complaints, or relief in knowing you are not alone in your bad air travel experience, fasten your seat belts and direct your cursor to: www.untied.com.








The Supreme Court is getting bolder all the time in its belief it can get away with more and more activism. The notion that they are humble servants of the Constitution is nothing but hubris cloaked in humility.



Political science professor Christopher Manfredi, an expert on the Canadian Charter of Rights, speaking to Maclean's.