khawk20

The most obvious place to look for it next is hockey. Why? Because a high sticking penalty goes from two to four minutes automatically if it draws blood. It can be the tiniest nick and it applies. It wouldn't surprise me if hockey players are already trying to bite their lips when a stick comes up on them. They need a blade incident to happen in order to examine and fix that rule..put some ref discretion back into the mix.

See, I think he does get the credit he deserves and isn't under-rated, but I also hang around online with a lot of AWA guys who see Bock the same way I do. I also grew up with Bock as AWA Champ in the 70's and early 80's, so that skews it somewhat for me as well. A Bockwinkel Promos dvd....I like, I like. I am going to explore what it would take to do this.

The short answer is that he was having those fun matches at 50+ years old. That should speak of his abilities as a worker throughout the body of his career, even if you have not seen any of it. Bockwinkel as a wrestler was the real deal. He seemed to be able to have good matches with anyone...matches without a specific formula, just a nice ability to adapt to the opponent's style, not to "submit" to the opponent's style but more the ability to shape his own strengths around the work of the opponent. This speaks nothing of his tag work with Ray Stevens in the early 70's. There are many examples on video I would recommend you check out at some point. Some of the workers he had really good bouts with include Billy Robinson, Rick Martel, Ric Flair, Jumbo Tsuruta, Tito Santana, Hulk Hogan, Jim Brunzell, Crusher, Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie, Jerry Lawler (Bix has a great comp showing all their goodness)..there are more but those are the first ones I could think of. Add that he was a killer interview, made even better in tandem with Bobby Heenan, and there were few champions in wrestling in the 70's and early 80's that fans wanted to see lose their titles more than Nick. Bockwinkel = Complete Package.

The ballot for nagasaki might be interesting...I wonder how many voters will even know he's a seperate performer from the Nagasaki that graced the U.S. as a Ninja-type for so many years? Will he be given even less consideration on first glance from the voters because of it? Will any UK stars get enough votes that anyone would even notice that?

That match actually exists. It aired on World Pro in Japan a few months after it happened and just recently found it's way intot he trading circles. Somers seemed to have a real love/hate realationship with Verne. He quite and came back more than once, and he actually ended up doing Verne a favour and filling in for Zurkov when he moved to the WWF while still AWA tag champ. Soldat Ustinov and Somers lost the tag titles to Lawler and Dundee in October 87.

They (High Flyers vs. Strike Force) rematched on 8/29/82 in St. Paul. Almost the entire match is available for that one (sans the opening 5-7 minutes). Another classic, not as frantic as the 8 minutes of the first bout but it's great action. The ending is really stiff.

Ted Grizzley of Toronto/WWE Jobber fame comes to mind first. AWA jobber Nacho Barrera was my next thought.

It was debated for the longest time in recent years as to whether this match ever really took place and it was more or less proven on the Kayfabe Board. Dave had this one right. I imagine regal said he was walking out that very night which is why there was no TV (not to mention it was a spot show). It was very similar to the Crusher/raschke victory over Patera/Blackwell, where they only filmed the dressing room celebration after the match but no film of the title change. that would ahve been around when patera had the McDonalds incident and though I believe that the titles were changing hands soon anyways, perhaps that hastened the switch. Still should filmed it, though. This turned into that stellar angle where Rheingans wrestles kaissie in St. Paul, but a big masked guy comes out and saves Sheik. Greg runs in, Masked guy kills him, gets unmasked as the returning Brody, prompting Verne Gagne to run in and save Greg and Rheingans. Good pop but it's pretty funny to watch now. It of course set up the main event (more or less) at Wrestlerock, alluded to by Dave as in the planning stages at the end of the recap. this ties into this bit: According to Nick Bockwinkel, he and Lanza bought the Winnipeg office from Verne in the fall of 1985. You can look at this two ways: One, Verne saw he might get pushed off of TV in Winnipeg and got out while he could, or Two, Lanza talked Verne into selling that office to him and Nick knowing Vince would be coming in. Lanza might have also been able to leverage a position in the WWF out of it if he bought the office with Vince's blessing/co-operation. In other words, Lanza played Verne to make the Winnipeg transition go smoother. Both scenarios have merit, IMO. When the AWA ran it's last show in Winnipeg, attendance was at a two year high the last three months worth of shows. The last AWA show on 1/16/86 was the highest attended in Winnipeg for quite some time. It featured Martel trying to regain the title from Hansen and Flair defending against Bockwinkel. It might have been the last steadily successful AWA office, actually. TSN actually taped the first WWF card in Winnipeg for TSN Wrestling to replace the AW stuff, but Vince apparently wanted to use stock generic TV squash stuff for them and TSN wanted original, higher quality matches. As such the WWF and TSN parted ties after about two or three shows. David had the one Vegas TV match against Hansen which is pretty good, actually. He had one tag title match with Slaughter in January before Garvin and Regal lost the tag titles, too. Other than that, hansen/Jr. might have had one or two matches for the title in the Northeast but that's it, and David never did become an AWA regular. The Rockers were born about a month-month and a half into his AWA time, of course. Verne had brought Jannetty in around the same time seperately. Not sure if this ever made TV as i don't recall seeing it. Also why was Scott Hall going for a foreign object? he was a traditional face. maybe he just had to adjust himself or something. LOL...I love stuff like that.

heenan didn't care anymore. WCW gave him no reason to care, they just paid him big bucks and confused him with suggestions of how they wanted his commentating to come across. he elaborates more in his book (or his shoot, can't remember which). But WCW being such a clusterfuck gave him little reason to do more than show up for his paycheck is the bottom line.

Some of us appreciate the days of the singular announcer. In today's sports announcing field (with thepossible exception of soccer), there is always someone talking, and quite often about things totally unrelated to the action. I preferred the days when the announcer called the action and didn't feel the need to "fill the holes" when nothing signifigant was going on. In wrestling, Vince at MSG was like that. Okerlund, Kent, and Tronngard were like that in the AWA (pre 1986-ish. Thinking of the old St. Paul Arena JIP's they used to broadcast on the TV shows). As a slightly different, non-wrestling example, look at the old pre-game half-hour shows that CBS used to run before Sunday Afternoon Football. Musburger, Cross, George and Jimmy the Greek. They each did their own thing, didn't swing off on wild tangents unrelated to the games at hand, and all were able to convey their points and thoughts without getting drawn into a vortex of strange, inane conversation that may or may not be related to their own points. The 90 minute pre-game shows now seem to have twice the people talking but only half the useful information conveyed to the audience. Maybe it's just me, but more isn't always better when it comes to announcing and commentating.

Thanks. (also "Ewwwwww"....)

Can anyone make this part of that diatribe less "WTF?" for me?

My feeling on that is that Verne needed a real "name" to be his next heel champ, and he decided to take a chance with Hansen. Several of his closer colleagues tried to tallk him out of it including Nick Bockwinkel as they suspected it would end badly. By '86 Verne was probably starting to see the WWF pulling ahead significantly and he was pulling out all the stops.

I don't necessarily disagree but he only got a single title shot as he ended up mostly programmed with Blackwell..and then he started no-showing those so it ended up Blackwell vs. hayes.

The card was actually 7/14. Courtesy of Clawmaster: 7/14/85 St. Paul, MN @ Civic Center Sgt. Slaughter & Greg Gagne beat Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens dq AWA Champion Rick Martel beat Michael Hayes dq AWA Tag Team Champions Road Warriors beat Scott & Bill Irwin Bob Backlund beat Larry Zbyszko Terry Gordy & Buddy Roberts beat Steve O & Buck Zumhofe Boris Zhukov beat Baron Von Raschke Cowboy Lang & Little Coco beat Little Tokyo & Lord Littlebrook Att 2500 The Martel-Hayes match was their second in as many months. The other Birds interfered. That set up promos for Martel/Crusher (back as a surprise partner) vs. Gordy/Hayes in August. Crusher and Verne had one of their famous money/payoff arguments and Crusher was taken off the card and replaced by Curt Hennig. Hennig was not a real star yet but it's not fair to say that the August show was hurt because of him being there instead of crusher...the Hayes-Martel feud just didn't draw. A big part of that was Hayes was too similar to Jim Garvin and that program had just concluded (three matches worth) a few months previous. that, and Hayes was far inferior in the ring than Garvin was so the initial matches between the two were not good. One other note, the LOD-Irwins bout on that card was the first of two (they rematched in August). Both good, bruising bouts, but it's obvious that the bloom was off the rose for the LOD in the AWA at this point, too. If Verne would ahve pulled the trigger on a Freebirds-LOD feud right about here the AWA would have been far better off for it through the summer and fall. I can only imagine how Dave would have went off had they given the title back to Bockwinkel, who was perhaps the only viable option at that point. Hansen was still 6 months away. Martel's main challengers from July through the end of the year included Hayes, Zbyszko, Zurkov, Bockwinkel, and Hansen starting in September. Gordy, Lawler and Jumbo also had shots, but one-offs. Not sure who could have possibly been plugged into the Champion role at that point, unless you gave it to Zurkov and flipped it right away to Slaughter.

If you love it and choose to do it, why even bring it up? I hate this sort of shit.

I was disappointed even before that, when Miz could have eliminated both HHH and Cena in the Battleroyal on RAW and instead went over unceremoniously. It was the perfect opportunity to get some fresh blood in the main event. I was totally suckered by him hiding until it was down to three, too. Too bad. Wasted opportunity...not unfamiliar territory these days, however.

You mean Eddie, right? Floyd (his kid) was more a pseudo-gay persona if I remember right. No, Floyd did lawyer stuff in Memphis. Oh, ok..I was only really familiar with Floyd's work in Montreal.

You mean Eddie, right? Floyd (his kid) was more a pseudo-gay persona if I remember right.

No, no he isn't....but he has it pretty much bang-on as I see it the same way. Greg's singles "pushes" were about the same as anyone else that was a face in the AWA for a lengthy period of time. By comparison, Brunzell probably got more title matches than Greg did. The High Flyers as a team were really, really over during both of their runs with the belts and they would occasionally end up with some singles title matches through it as well. Greg get shat on a ton these days for two reasons: 1) Most of the people commenting on how awful Greg was as a wrestler speak from a post-1984 viewing pespective. If your first exposure to Greg Gagne was his Rambo gimmick with Slaughter, or his run with the TV title, it's an easy step to take to call him overpushed and a bad worker. This is mostly derived from the time...Hogan, LOD, and other larger wrestlers were reshaping the wrestling landscape and it was a landscape that Greg obviously didn't fit. As a side point to it, sek mentions Greg wouldn't "jump ship" (obviously). This makes Greg getting pushed in an era where Vince could potentially steal anyone of your guys in a major feud or program logical. Unfortunately it didn't translate well on TV. 2) A lot of AWA discussion focuses on "Why did the AWA die?", "How bad was the booking?" and "Stupid decisions by Verne in the late 80's". Greg being "pushed" ends up being a big part of these discussions and over the years the myth of the overpushed Gagne has taken root. A lot of it also has to do with the fact that it's an easy trolling point towards long-time AWA fans. Those that saw Greg pre-1984 will say he was fairly pushed and was a talented, over wrestler in that area. Those that only saw him post-1984 will argue the opposite. Both sides will always agree to disagree. These days, there are many more post-1984 people on the boards than pre-1984, so the myth of Gagne as a poor overpushed worker will probably take even greater hold as the years roll along. That is a shame.

Actually I don't think it is available complete, just in clip-form.

I have always guessed that Dave was personally so far away from the AWA hub (Minnesota) and he hated the way the territory presented itself (always noticable in his write-ups, IMO), that having a middle-man to report on what was going on in the center of the company's universe was seen as a necessity. The middle-man seems to reflect Dave's own bias when it came to the AWA, which is probably why he picked him to do the job. Honestly from my readings it could just as easily be Dave writing those columns. As far as Brody goes, it's hindsight now that Brody refused to do a job in the Blackwell feud, which would make it appear as bizarre as it was. Without knowing that, bizarre is a good description of how the feud played out, but really it was booked fine/in a traditional sense in St. Paul IMO: May 84--Blackwell and Sheik/Abby start having problems in some tag matches June 84--Blackwell wins battleroyal, is attacked by Sheik/Abby/Brody July 84--Blackwell "injured" and out, Brody wrestles Brunzell and Atlas in a handicap match in St. paul (Brunzell wants revenge from Brody putting him out of action in April along with Greg Gagne on TV)...also note that Blackwell was contemplating jumping to the WWF here and if he had done so, there never would have been a feud..Brody would have just been credited with ending Blackwell's career. Sept 9 84--Did not appear in St. Paul. Suspension of Sheik noted from the handicap match but it gets rescinded just after this card, IIRC. Sept 30 84--First Brody-Blackwell match. Blackwell wins on a DQ, Curt Hennig tries to save Blackwell which helps Blackwell's face turn along October 84--Brody-Blackwell Lights Out match. Blackwell pins Sheik to get the win (necessitated when Brody refused to do the job). Greg Gagne runs in to save blackwell during the match, his first time back since April. blackwell face turn cemented when he and Greg embrace after running Sheik and Brody off. (Note: INCREDIBLE POP for Gagne and Blackwell). Thanksgiving 84--No Brody, Superstar in to save Sheik from Gagne in cage, Blackwell saves Gagne. December 84--Blackwell-Gagne lose to Brody-Superstar when Blackwell gets pinned by Brody after a 2 x 4 shot. January 85--Brody L DQ to Blackwell (or DDQ, can't remember exactly) after Slaughter and Sheik interfere. Slaughter was handcuffed to Kaissie at ringside for this bout (Slaughter's debut in the AWA). After this, Brody left for some time. Just a guess: Brody was told it was his turn to job to the face (Blackwell), since he'd got a pin over him and it needed to be evened up..sort of the point for the face to go over eventually, right? And, with that, I think Brody just said "fuck it" and left the area. For every line Larry Matysik writes licking Brody's ass about him "always thinking ahead", there was no excuse for Brody not to lose one to Blackwell in this feud. It was the needed conclusion. Feb 85--Blackwell adn Slaughter challenge the LOD, Brody gone. Even if Blackwell would have been able to wrestle at Wrestlerock a year later, he wasn't getting a pin on Brody, it would have been Nord. Again, non-sensical. So of course the feud made no sense at the end of it all. Sad thing is, I don't think Dave or Mike or whomever would have been any less critical of this feud

Some AWA notes based on the recap: I don't get how Brody wasn't used right in this guy's mind. He was pushed as THE monster heel in the area, never got pinned in his feud that they pushed with Blackwell, was programmed to beat up two major babyfaces in handicap matches...All I can think is that he expected Brody to take a loss somewhere along the way and we know in hindsight that Brody refused to do any jobs, even for Blackwell who he liked. Tough for Verne to get Blackwell over as the top face if he isn't allowed to score a pinfall win in his face-turn feud. 11,000 was a pretty good number but probably at the lower end of the fall/winter season. Through the spring and summer the only other time they would approach this number was at Star Cage in April, which drew between 11-13,000. By the time the summer came attendance was down more than half. This is one of the reasons that Martel held the title for pretty much another full year. Challengers that were more than one and done in that time frame included Jimmy Garvin, Michael Hayes, Nick Bockwinkel, and then Stan Hansen. Single title shots (major market or tv shots) went to wrestlers like Backlund, Saito, Gordy, Buddy Roberts, and Jumbo Tsuruta. Part of the problem was that the Garvin matches, which drew pretty well, were followed by Bockwinkel bouts (second time around with far less impact) and then Hayes, who didn't draw at all in St. Paul or Chicago. Programming Hayes and Garvin so close together killed hayes' impact as a challenger. Contrast that with martel in Winnipeg, where he went from Garvin to Bockwinkel, followed by one-offs with Saito and Zbyszko, and into a program with Boris Zurkov. Zurkov was pushed as a monster heel and his three-bout series with Martel drew very well. St. Paul and Chicago could have benefited from a monster being pushed after Garvin instead of Hayes. At the end of the day, Martel losing the title by, say, March 1985, might have been the wise thing to do. Good point about not having the right challenger to take it, though, although a segue from say Zurkov to Slaughter would probably have worked very nicely in hindsight. Further to my point above, giving Slaughter the belt would have given the fans a new reason to be excited about the Sarge, if he was in fact getting "worn-out" in the fans eyes. part of that would also have been him coming off a year-long wave that started in the WWF....you have to trend down somewhat eventually. Rocks. Excellent. **insert Mr. Burns clacking fingers here** I'd have left too if I was supposed to get the titles but the current champs vetoed my win inside the ring (as told by IIRC Ellering in his shoot interview. Might have beenon the LOD set as well, can't remember). Thanks for the updates, good stuff here as usual.