The Can-Am Connection were a popular Tag Team from the 1980’s consisting of Rick Martel, the CANadian, and Tom Zenk, the AMerican part of their connection. The reason Martel and Zenk were joined together as a Tag Team was their uncanny resemblance to one another: wavy coal-black hair, powerful physiques, bright boyish smiles, heaping helpings of Movie-star charisma. Put them in a matching pair of white speedos and some flashy red stripper-boots and you were suddenly setting new ratings records.
But there was one important difference between these two ridiculously perfect partners — besides their nations of origin. One was a loser, and one was a winner. Or rather, Zenk was compelled to constantly sell the pain, take the beatings, serve as the whipping boy, which enabled the more senior worker, Rick Martel, to make the save and rescue his damsel in distress. Even jobbers Danny Spivey and Jerry Allen are able to over-power and punish Zenk as Martel patiently waits for the hot tag.
Sometimes the contrast between the wrestlers — which we’ve established provides the tension and drama of the in-ring story — is not only between the two teams, but also between the two members of one team. The fact that Zenk looks like Martel’s little brother, that they dress in identical trunks and boots, only serves to further highlight and underscore the one critical difference that sets them apart: Martel’s supposed superior talent.
To this day, many fans feel sorry for old Tommy Zenk, who has complained in interviews about how he was forced to take all the bumps while that lazy, self-centered Martel watched safely from the far corner, awaiting his moment of glory.
But maybe, just maybe, there is more to the story. Maybe Tom Zenk (the real guy, not his wrestling character) wants to garner the compassion of the smart fans by bitching about how he constantly had to portray the weaker partner — Z-Man the Babyface wrestling character. Ever the tricksters, maybe Zenk and Martel got together and decided to tell a story within a story — Tom Zenk (the real guy, not the wrestling character), pretending to be angry and frustrated because his wrestling character, the Z-Man, was constantly being buried and held back by his greedy, self-centered partner who insisted on acting as the hero.
Maybe the whole thing was a carefully constructed plot to bring the “fakeness” of pro wrestling to the next level. Now that wrestling inside the ring had been exposed as phony-baloney, the wrestler must play two roles — his traditional campy role while in the ring, AND the “real life” sports entertainer frustrated by the politics of the Biz. If so, double Bravo to Mister Zenk and Mister Martel: for their wrestling act inside the ring, AND for their acting outside the ring. (Or maybe Zenk was actually mad in real life that he never got to pin the opponents and “win” the matches.)
