Martin Austin Ruane (10 October 1946 – 29 November 1998) was a British Professional Wrestler and actor best known as Giant Haystacks or Loch Ness. He debuted in 1967 as Luke McMasters and was also billed as Haystacks Calhoun, taken from the American wrestler with the same name. This was changed to Giant Haystacks. He competed primarily as a Monster Heel, for obvious reasons. He was a huge star and a major ratings draw on ITV. He also competed as Loch Ness for Stampede and had a brief, aborted run in WCW in February-March 1996. He died of cancer in 1998.
He was a 1x British Heavyweight Champion
and a 1x Stampede International Tag Team Champion with the Dynamite Kid.
Tropes associated with Giant Haystacks/Loch Ness:
- Belly Flop Crushing: Trope-namer (along with his archenemy Big Daddy) by way of his method for finishing matches, being to squash his much smaller opponents.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: With the Dynamite Kid. He was 6'11, 699 lbs., Dynamite was 5'8, 228 lbs.
- British Teeth: During his WCW run, commentator Dusty Rhodes said "he's got those summernote teeth."
- Captain Ersatz: Capcom's Saturday Night Slam Masters series gave us a humongous brit called Titanic Tim. They even shared the same hairdo.
- David vs. Goliath: Inverted with his wins over the more normal-sized Marcus Bagwell, Alex Wright and Scotty Riggs. Played relatively straight when Lex Luger defeated him by countout, in that Luger was only the David by default, since he was never thought of as a "little guy". Subverted when the Giant defeated him in his last appearance, at WCW UnCensored 96, since that was Goliath Vs. Goliath.
- Evil Versus Evil: His feud with Kendo Nagasaki (the British version), since they were both heels.
- Fat Bastard: He was a heel and weighed over 600 lbs. What more do you need?
- Finishing Move: Elbow Drop
- The Giant: 6'11, and over 600+ lbs.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He stood well over a full foot above his wife, Rita. They actually held the record for the biggest height difference between a married couple.
- Mighty Glacier: Huge, not very mobile. Of course, a lot of times he didn't need to move very fast, since he tended to just flatten his opponents.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Loch Ness
- Power Stable:
- (in Stampede): Foley's Armynote
- (in WCW): The Dungeon of Doom.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real: Haystacks was being interviewed for Northern Irish television by sports reporter Jackie Fullerton, a man used to more mainstream sports such as football, rugby and Gaelic field sports. After being asked the loaded question as to whether wrestling is pre-scripted and prearranged and the moves choreographed, Haystacks offered to talk the interviewer through one of those prearranged and choreographed moves. he then talked the interviewer through his signature piledriver move, lifting him up about seven feet above ground level and then slamming him down to the padded crash mat. The hapless interviewer is then seen groaning in agony and unable to rise. Giant Haystacks looks down impassively and says at this point he should be following through with the belly-flop just to make sure. Having conveyed the point that even when it's pre-arranged and choreographed it can still hurt, he leaves the stage.Fullerton: Is it not all a bit choreographed and is it not all a wee bit of a sham?
- Ring Oldies: Was already 49 when he arrived in WCW.
- Squash Match: His opponents would often bounce off of him, and all he'd need to do was drop the elbow for the pin.
- Stock Ness Monster: As Loch Ness, who was supposed to be the mythological monster.
