khawk20

I checked on his page, I think the Martel match is from this card. There is no listing for a 9/29/83 Winnipeg card in Claw's archives. 12/8/83 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada @ Arena AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel beat Rick Martel via pin Referee Buddy Lane Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell no contest AWA Tag Team Champions Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera when Sheik Adnan tired to hit Greg Gagne with his arm cast. Gagne ducked and Adnan hit referee Buddy Lane instead. Bunkhouse Match Blackjack Lanza beat Bobby Heenan Mad Dog Vachon no contest David Shults when Mr Saito & Baron Von Raschke interfered Mr Saito beat Baron Von Raschke Superstar Billy Graham beat Steve Olsonoski Bulldog Bob Brown beat Bill White via pin Att: 5,084 It could also be the 2/3/83 show: 2/3/83 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada @ Arena Cage match AWA Tag Team Champions Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell beat Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel beat Rick Martel with help from Manager Bobby Heenan Wahoo McDaniel beat Bobby Duncum Baron Von Raschke beat Sgt Jacques Goulet Jesse Ventura beat Buck Zumhofe Ken Patera beat Steve O Att: 8,896 Note: Note Mad Dog Vachon attacked Blackwell and Sheik Adnan after the main event tag bout was over. I suppose a cross-refence with the style of ropes and filming with other matches that may be on video might identify it properly. I bolded the bouts on those cards that I believe there is video of (although they could be same match, different year or date with the same participants).

Date is wrong...Verne didn't win the title until July 18th. That match is 2/20/81, St. Paul Auditorium (Roy Wilkins Aud). It's a new upload but the match has been around forever. You likely watched it for the 80's set and forgot about it. Here is the card: 2/20/81 St. Paul AWA Champion Verne Gagne beat Nick Bockwinkel Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell beat Jerry Blackwell & John Studd AWA Tag Team Champions Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura beat Tito Santana & Ray Stevens (sub Juan Valez) Brad Rheingans beat Steve Regal Buck Zumhofe beat Bill Howard Curt Hennig beat Kenny Jay The bolded matches all exist on video.

June 28th is right, my bad on the date, but it's the Minneapolis Auditorium. Check out how sparse the crowd is on that match when the lights come up. The date on that Martel match sounds familiar. Winnipeg? If so, good match, not sure if the date is right off the top of my head. That must have at least been reviewed for the AWA set if it didn't make it on, if it's the same one I'm thinking of. Verne-Bock I will have to check out if you can provide a link but I think that might be 2/20/81 from the St. Paul Auditorium, not the Civic Center (adjacent building that turned into Roy Wilkins Auditorium). Decent sized venue, it's where ECW had their PPV where Jerry Lynn won the title in 2000. The AWA ran it instead of the Civic Center sometimes. That match is from I think the same card that we got the High Flyers-Studd-Blackwell match from that aired on WWE Classics. That card may also have been the debut of Brad Rheingans. If I remember later I'll check it out.

I'm guessing the Bock-Baron was from Winnipeg? That would have been from 1985. They had a match on 6/19/81 from the Minneapolis Auditorium too. That one I think scared Verne a bit. Bock had just got the title back by acclaimation when Verne retired, and they matched him up with Raschke, who hadn't been in all that long as the avenger for Mad Dog Vachon and was incredibly over with the fans...probably your #1 babyface singles guy at that moment in time. It was thought that matching Bock against Baron would draw very well (and it should have), but they underestimated how many people were turned off by Bock getting the title back for basically nothing, especially being unable to regain it from Verne for almost a full year prior. The house for the Minneapolis show was pretty poor, as can be seen in the video of the match. I have always thought that scared Verne into realizing how negatively the fans were reacting...which prompted Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie to get the next title match in the Twin Cities. Kaissie was actually a real contender in singles at that time and was in the middle of a feud with Tito Santana after Sheik cut Tito with his sword on TV. The Tito series was cut short (most markets only saw one match in what was going to be a multi-match feud) to plug in Kaissie vs. Bock. The idea was to get Nick cheered by taking on the biggest heel in the territory, and as such build his cred back up as the champ. Sound idea except they forgot that Bock had someone even more loathesome in his corner as far as the fans were concerned...Bobby Heenan. Once that clicked in, Heenan was mostly kept away from the matches with Kaissie so that the heat would stay on the Sheik. In their first Minny match, as I remember it Heenan was bloodied badly in a singles match earlier in the card and couldn't be at ringside. In their No-DQ match after that with a designated special referee, Kaissie attacked Heenan with the sword at the start of the match and had to be helped to the dressing room, bloodied, so he wasn't around either. Heenan would return at the end of the match briefly for a good reason...if Kaissie-Bock with Raschke as the ref from Minneapolis is on youtube I highly recommend checking it out, the finish is quite excellent. The same match went down in Winnipeg a few months later with Vachon as the ref, but it isn't nearly as good or effective IMO. Raschke in the Twin Cities was crazy-over back then, which is hard to picture, I know. After the Kaissie series, Bock had his heat back and it was business as usual for the Champ until he met Otto Wanz a year later. I don't know it for sure but I've always believed that Kaissie-Bock never would have happened if Baron-Bock hadn't drawn poorly and scared Verne and Wally into re-thinking things...and if I'm wrong and Verne and Wally had a long-term plan that went exactly like this did, then it marks some extremely shrewd promoting and matchmaking.

When his voodoo made Ultimate Warrior sick, that was it for me for a few years.

AWA Team Challenge Series, actually a decent concept but with poor execution and a constantly shifting roster that made it impossible to follow. Plus a lot of shitty, shitty gimmick matches. I would love to see the WWE try something like that with their roster for two or three months. If they did it right, it could be pretty interesting. At least the rosters would stay intact. Hansen walking out of Denver and Bock being awarded the title was absolutely the worst thing that could have happened to the AWA title in 1986 and really signalled a downturn in the promotion's perception amongst average wrestling fans. It was much worse than Nick getting the title via acclaimation in 1981 since the promotion was doing very well and there was time to get his reign on track after some initial concerns (Bock-Raschke in Minneapolis in June 1981, when Baron was the top face in the promotion, was very poorly attended and set off some serious alarm bells).

In the 80's if a jobber or smallish heel tried to bodyslam a much bigger babyface, the face would just stand there and smile while he tried doing it, and then usually give the smaller guy a finger wag after the second or third futile attempt and then slam him...to show him how it's done. Never liked that spot.

Watched some Southeast from 1981 over the weekend. I loved seeing an "evil referee" angle going on back in 1981. I love the visual dynamic of Southeast at that time. The Faces have the good ol' country boy vibe going on and the heels are just the greasiest looking and acting men you could ever meet...and then you have Mr. Saito being himself in the middle of it all. He seems both out of place and completely in the right place at the same time. I appreciate that they don't shy away from the arena clips on their TV, either, including a Stan Lane vs. Bill Dundee clip from Femphis that was fun. I also viewed some of Ed Whalen's "Pro Wrestling Plus" TV from TSN in Canada back in the late 80's. Basically the same format as the Pedicino show. Biggest negative in these shows were Ed Whalen himself (never a big fan). The clips were maddeningly short for the most part but that's undertstandable due to the nature of the program. One other aspect I thought was interesting was Whalen taking time out during one of the shows to go over some "shoot" wrestling news and rumours associated with wrestlers in the WWF. He was talking in one segment how Muraco and the Bulldogs had left the WWF and were heading into Stampede, and in another how the Killer Bees were fired from the WWF and were rumoured to also be coming to Calgary. Nothing eath-shattering, but at the time I can see it being a real "stop and pay attention" point for the fans.

lol If these guys had come along in, say, 84 or 85, they would have had a development curve in the AWA like the Nasty Boys...Start out getting squashed, eventually getting a gimmick and working their way up the tag team ladder, mid-card type. Whether or not they would have gotten the push right to the top is hard to say, but they would have been much better prepared for that to happen with some real seasoning under their belt, and it would have aided them when they moved on to other areas to work. Their problem, and the same thing happened with many of the latter-day AWA guys, was that there was no more time to allow for a natural development like I noted above. Most of the guys pushed were all that was left, and they were not ready...and I think that hurt them as they moved forward as The Beverly Brothers. I would be surprised if they make many people's list, if any.

Yeah footage..."enough" matches, in terms of length, is problematic. That R and R clip is maddening because it's so short and I think the full match would have been a lot of fun.

Bock vs. Hennig = Flair vs. Magnum Bock vs. Verne = Flair vs. Race Bock vs. Lawler = Flair vs. Rhodes Bock vs. Robinson = Flair vs. Ron Garvin (maybe Terry Funk?) Bock vs. Martel = Flair vs. DiBiase (maybe) Bock vs. Hogan = Flair vs...good question, actually. Vader? Monster Heel vs. Monster face as opponents is the initial thought here...both fighting "monsters" as it were. Also: Bock vs. Brunzell = Flair vs. Morton. Both Champions made you believe that the face tag wrestler might actually pull off a title win, which is an incredible skill to have IMO. These all were the first guys that popped into my head in doing the comparison. There are likely better comparables in a lot of cases on Flair's side of the ledger on that list.

If Gagne is pissed about Nick getting the title back we know it's probably 1981, although Verne wasn't shy to bring stuff like that up well after the fact so it could be later. If he's wrestling Rick Hunter, the TV airdate I have for that one courtesy of Clawmaster's archives is 6/14/81. If it's the Barrera match I couldn't find a listing for it in 1981. Bock sure beat the hell out of Tony Leone on TV a lot that year, though.

Did you see any of his AWA matches against Martel, or his promos around those bouts? He isn't a favourite of mine but I would never have him on a list of "the worst" based on what I've seen of him. His AWA stuff I thought was pretty good and he was a credible opponent for Martel. If you haven't seen him in the AWA check out some of that work and see what you think.

The stories back in the day in those mags were fantastic excercises in creative writing, and I bet they went a long way towards improving the writers' works and style further down the road.

Funny-depressing maybe. I never thought I would miss WWE Classics On Demand with their limited but fresh monthly offerings...but there ya go.

Awesome. I have the Hunter match, it's really good. Early 1980. Hunter was a good one.

Bockwinkel match list = DROOL (please get me a towel) Funny enough, most of those matches were written about in the Weston Family of mags with various stories. I remember a Rich vs. Bock article specifically, and I have an old AWA promo of Bock and Heenan talking about the upcoming Slater match. Some very exciting stuff coming when all that gets put up. The AWA match rights question is interesting but the reverse rule should ring true in your favour, Bruce. If the footage was sent to another area to promote a wrestler, it became part of their library as a result. it's why footage sometimes popped up in VKM's library before he actually had the rights to it via purchase. "You got a copy, you can use it as part of your own library/promotions/etc." is what the rule seems to have always been. What are the two matches from Minneapolis you have? Very curious if they are "new".

Effective and believable. Not sure if they make my list or not without a rewatch of some of their stuff.

Man I loved this team. Most of the footage we have of them is vs. The High Flyers and those matches are all really good in my eyes. Other matchups they had were against Tito Santana and Ray Stevens (2/20/81), and Bruiser and Crusher (clips of two bouts from later in 1981), vs. Verne and Mad Dog from 1980, and a 6-man with Blackwell vs Hogan and Andre. For a look at them in a different/non-AWA setting, there is a E/W vs. Domenic DeNucci & Tony Parisi match available from later 1981 in Toronto, and a match vs. the Strongbow Brothers from MSG IIRC mid-1982 Jesse on the mic is a thing of beauty in their interviews, so much so that I didn't know Adonis wasn't so bad on the stick himself until many years later. On the other end of the scale, Adonis was amazing in the ring, so much so you could easily ignore Jesse's flawas as a wrestler...Adrain had it covered. Adonis as the Wrestling Machine and Ventura as the Eye Candy/Muscle was an effective mixture. Again Variety of footage may be an issue but their blend as a team and my own personal memories of their work as AWA tag champs make it likely they would make my list.

The birth of this team into AWA tag title contenders was an excellent angle, where they as a new team were given a non-title match in Chicago to replace a Japanese team "that couldn't make it". They won that match, earned title matches because of it, and made an extended run at the tag titles and had an excellent feud with the High Flyers, almost winning the titles many times. (The post non-title win interviews from the High Flyers are great FWIW, they are pissed that their act of helping Wally Karbo fill a hole in the card results in the Sheiks earning title matches.) One thing to consider here might be "variety of opponent", specifically in regard to matches available on video. High Flyers, Dog/Baron, Dog/Brunzell, Verne/Dog...you can see where this went. My memory is fuzzy at this time of the day but I'm not sure how much outside of what I listed for opponents for these two is around in terms of matches that were complete enough to accurately rate this team. Same problem as Blackwell/Patera have IMO. Of course, your individual mileage may vary on whether there is enough. I would say that in my case it isn't impossible I would include them on a Final List, but it isn't any sort of slam dunk. I have the luxury of remembering the impact of their interviews and angles when they happened and of course that will enhance anyone's standing. But going on pure available footage, does enough exist?

I liked them as a team but they really didn't do anything outstanding as a team. The "Sheik's Army" concept when you add Kaissie into the mix made them a team that could drive many angles in a positive direction, and both Patera and Blackwell being powerhouse wrestlers with high-end pedigree made their team believable as a Championship tandem. Outside of the High Flyers, most of the teams they were paired with were makeshift in nature (Dino Bravo/Steve O, Bruiser/Mad Dog Vachon, Jerry Lawler/Blackjack Mulligan, Baron Von Raschke/Mad Dog Vachon, Vachon/Rick Martel). Outside of the Lawler/Mulligan match, I'm not even sure how many complete matches we have of them. There are few that are "long enough", but not nearly as many as I would want to make a real call on them as a team. At the end of the day, I don't know if there is enough available matches to accurately judge their body of work which, as a team, was pretty short to begin with (May 1983 through May 1984). I would probably have a hard time including them on my list. I love how they came together, the hatred they generated as a team in the AWA, and I thought their timing in getting the belts was just about perfect. As far as making this list, I'm not so sure.