jdw

That tends to explain why you see things differently than we do. :/ This is on his set: 01-21 Bob Backlund vs Ken Patera WWF Title (MSG) 03-24 Andre The Giant & Pat Patterson vs Bobby Duncum & Ken Patera (MSG) 04-21 Pat Patterson vs Ken Patera IC Title (MSG) 05-19 Bob Backlund vs Ken Patera WWF Title (MSG) 07-26 Bob Backlund vs Ken Patera WWF Title (Spectrum) 08-09 Ken Patera vs Tony Atlas IC Title (Shea) 08-23 Ken Patera vs Gorilla Monsoon (Spectrum) 10-20 Ken Patera vs Pedro Morales IC Title (MSG) 12-29 Ken Patera vs Pat Patterson (MSG) Make sure to also watch this: 11/08/80 Ken Patera vs Bruno Sammartino Which is useful as a comp to the very heated Bruno vs Larry matches from early in the year.

This.

What JDW said first: His work against Backlund, Bruno, Patterson, Atlas and Pedro showed his years of working in Mid Atlantic. Flair, as NWA Champ, worked the style he perfected in Mid Atlantic. That's what I was trying to get across, and have for years when talking about Patera's work as a heel in 1980: Folks who think he worked as Muscle Heel (say Nikita Koloff) would be surprised by how much he worked instead in a Mid Atlantic fashion of selling, begging off, bumping, stooging. That's not to say he was Buddy Rose, or was as great of a bumper as Harley Race. But if one watches his 1980 stuff in the WWF, you easily see someone could have worked a lot of places as a Heel Champ. The guy flat out worker great, and against a variety of different workers (which NWA Champs do).

FWIW, we should probably break this off into two thread because it's getting all mixed up: * Who other than Flair in 1981 * Who other than Race in 1983 One is someone who can (i) headline Starcade against Flair while (ii) being able to fully hold up his end as NWA Champ for 160+ days. The other is an actually long term NWA Champ. As in Kiniski, Dory, Bisco and Race. Even Terry Funk, as much as we love him, couldn't get through a year as NWA Champ before it was time to move on. Those are two wildly different things. * * * * * I'll give an example. I mentioned that I didn't think Dusty could run with the WWF title for 5+ years like Backlund did. On the other hand, I did say he probably could get about a year out of it, depending on the opponents. Two different things. I also think that he could have done a wickedly great run as a Heel turning on Backlund if someone in the WWF happened to see the May 27, 1980 Backlund-Dusty match from Japan. I can easily picture a six-man series for Dusty where he gets five title matches at MSG, four defenses, three matches each against Bob and Bruno. So there's a lot Dusty could do that would work in the WWF. Dusty Dynasty Reign... that's harder to picture, as great as he was.

Patera in the WWF in 1980 worked a style that flat out show his years of working in Mid Atlantic. I'm not fully sold on Patera being an option in 1983. I tend to think Patera hiring The Bounty Hunters to take out Flair would be a negative on Patera's role in the storyline and how he was seen in JCP as a champ, while it totally worked for Race at that point in his career. I'm also not 100% certain that a large enough chunk of the NWA Promoters would have wanted Patera... just doesn't feel like they were as high on him as we are looking back. But, he could easily have worked a NWA Heel Champ style.

The point of Starcade was that it built over time: St. Louis, MO - June 10, 1983 Missouri Heavyweight Champion & Central States Champion Harley Race pinned NWA World Champion Ric Flair to win the title in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match; fall #3: Race pinned Flair by lifting his shoulder out of a back suplex, with Flair pinning himself Then you had Flair-Race going around the circuit, with Race hanging onto the belt. Then you had the Big Angle: Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling - 8/31/83: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Champion Harley Race via disqualification at around the 22-minute mark when, as Flair had Race in the figure-4, Bob Orton Jr. appeared and held off an interfering Dick Slater until Orton and Slater both attacked Flair, hit a spike piledriver, and wrenched Flair's neck; moments later, Roddy Piper and Wahoo McDaniel came out to clear the ring and check on Flair (Nature Boy Ric Flair: The Definitive Collection) Race's Bounty Hunters attack Flair. Then you had Flair's comeback, and him going around the horn against the Bounty Hunters, often with Wahoo being his back up though at times Piper. For the most part, Flair was kept away from Race after the Big Angle though Starcade. You can see that in the results Kris posted above: Race was doing business elsewhere. That's one of the reasons the match did such huge business, not just in the building but across the territory in closed circuit: this thing had the shit built our of it. This wasn't some 30 day or 60 storyline. This was 160+. If you're a mark, there's almost a sense that Harley is back on one of his four year periods of dominating the belt. After all, Ric only had it for under 2 years. Maybe Ric is just a pretender to the thrown. WWF @ Allentown, PA - Agricultural Hall - January 25, 1983 Ivan Koloff (w/ Freddie Blassie) pinned Barry Hart at 2:34 with a kneedrop off the top to the back (Koloff's return after a 3-year absence) WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - December 26, 1983 (24,592 which included several thousand in Felt Forum) All American Wrestling - 2/12/84: Tito Santana pinned Ivan Koloff at 15:46 with an elbow drop off the top (Koloff's last appearance) He was in the WWF through the whole thing. It's also worth looking at how he was view in the WWF at the time, the territory where he had nearly all of his career highs: WWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - April 25, 1983 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) defeated Ivan Koloff via submission at 28:36 with the Crossface Chickenwing WWF @ Baltimore, MD - Civic Center - May 21, 1983 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund defeated Ivan Koloff WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - June 4, 1983 WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) defeated Ivan Koloff via submission with the Crossface Chicken Wing at 16:45 after avoiding a clothesline Boston Garden: no challenges for the title. He was a one-and-done challenger in 1983 for the title. This after working the following title match series at MSG previously: 2 matches - 1969-70 1 match - 1971 (title change) 3 matches - 1975 2 matches - 1978 Ivan in 1983 isn't the Ivan that you think he is... not even in the WWF. Wait... it gets better. When he went to JCP at the end of 1983 post-Starcade, his introduction was to be handed the Mid-Atlantic Title by new US Champ Dick Slater. Like Mike Rotundo giving Rick Steiner the Florida Title after winning the TV Title. That's the guy you want to put the World Title on and headline that biggest card in the history of JCP up to that point. The point of Backlund winning the title was to instantly get the belt off the WWF's top face (Bret) and hand it a couple of days later to someone Vince wanted to be the new top face (Nash), without: * having to do Bret vs Nash at that point (save it to pop the Rumble) * having to job Bret to Nash (which Vince didn't do) * having the belt on Backlund for long (fewer fingers than are on a hand) That's not remotely the same thing as headlining Starcade with Flair-Ivan. Not a good option.

In 81? No way. In 83? Very unlikely, but I would say a better shot than Ivan. He was heading to the WWF: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/championship83.htm As far as Ivan winning the title in 1983 rather than Race, my thought would be to look up the number of WWF Champs who won the NWA Title between 1963-1986.

I think in 1983 that the NWA Promoters in general still had a ton of power. The decline came when Vince went national, then again in 1985 when Crockett started eating up more of Flair's time and of course decided to go national more so in 1986. But in 1983, a large chunk of the core territories were still strong, with powerful promoters, and JCP still was a fairly narrow promotion within their borders. I don't think Crockett was going to fight the NWA over this. After all, he didn't go into GA instantly after Vince bought GCW out: Ole & Co. got the territory. I think if we look at 1985, Flair is still beholden for much of it to the NWA: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1985.html Look at Mar-May: he's JCP at the start of March and the end of May, but it's hard to find JCP in between. In fact, that looks like when the worm finally turns: June 1985, with a metric ton of JCP dates starting to pile up after that. I think Valentine would be a good option. Perhaps a bit too much like Flair to sell to the NWA Promoters (as in it would feel like having Flair 2 coming in), and of course too JCP (had been there forever other than the two runs in the WWF). But if you could convince them of it, he'd probably work well. We have very limited results for Harley over at Hisa's site: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1983.html Whereas Flair has been the subject to some extensive record books over the years to pull his results together from. Anyway... If we look at where he worked, does it look like something David could have pulled off? I don't think so.

Uh... why would workers be told to sign NDA's? Were they told future plans of the company / new company that might or might not involve them and to not break kayfabe on there? BTW, the finish sounds horrendous if anyone was actually paying for the iPPV. I'd be pissed off if I bought a ticket. On the other hand, for free... there's morbid entertainment watching a promotion do something crackpot. At least the first time. Eventually, as with WCW, it wears off and you're left with a promotion that pisses you off.

That.

Last 20 years? I hadn't even met Dave 20 years ago today. Wouldn't until August 28, 1993 at a show. Not with Dave. This specific bullshit story, however, does annoy the fuck out of me.

Went back and looked at your edited post. You have Dave first hearing about the "Savage Is Too Crazy" explanation in 2001. You have him saying he heard about the "Savage Fucked Steph" years before that, but dismissed it. The problem with that: Vince wanted to bring Savage back not long before the "Savage Is Too Crazy" explanation. There simply isn't enough daylight in there, Bix. Which is a consistent problem with the shape shifting of the story: if we slow down and try to fit the pieces together, they don't. Unless we toss away everything that's been written and just go with: "I think Savage fucked Steph because I think Savage fucked Steph." Which is easy enough if we want to turn off our brains. John

Zero desire to. But you can if you'd like.

Largely what Dylan and Bix have said. You need to work backwards: * the point was for Flair to challenge at Starcade That really was the whole point. * it was short term... but not *that* short 57 - Race I (Dory --> Harley --> Brisco) 7 - Baba I (Brisco --> Baba --> Brisco) 5 Dusty I (Race --> Dusty --> Race) 7 Baba II (Race --> Baba --> Race) 5 Baba III (Race --> Baba --> Race) 4 Rich (Race --> Rich --> Race) 88 Dusty II (Race --> Dusty --> Flair) 167 Race VII (Flair --> Race --> Flair) 18 Kerry (Flair --> Kerry --> Flair) The three Babas, Dusty I and Rich were purely title turn arounds: drop it to put ove local guy, with the belt instantly coming back. Kerry was essentially that as well: he got to mini-tour Florida and Japan as a bit of a nod to Fritz rather than dropping it back to Flair before Flair left Texas. But he didn't really become a true touring champ. Race I and Dusty II were more "bridge champs", but long then the typical bridge champs you'd seen in the WWWF/WWF with the exception of Superstar. Two months, three months... you have to go around the circuit a bit. You can't put the belt on just anyone to do that: you have to have a little confidence in them. Race VII was almost twice as long at Dusty II. He was going to hit a lot of parts of the NWA, including a trip to Japan. You really, really, really need some confidence there. Race was someone that NWA Promoters had some faith in being able to come in and draw against their local guys. He also had a track record of being reliable as an NWA Champ, Houston not withstanding. You don't hold the belt from 1977 through half of 1981 without being reasonably reliable for promoters. He also wasn't completely "Old News": he held the belt just two years earlier. How many guys were there at that time that could fit those roles? In turn, he was someone that Crockett knew he could book against Flair to give Starcade proper heft. How many guys were there who could fit that. I think Terry would have been great in this role. But: * we would have to look at the old WONs to figure out when the Retirement started getting planned I don't recall when it got announced. But it was a Big Deal to All Japan as they were trying to fight a red hot New Japan. In addition, while getting Terry to defend in All Japan might have done business, it would have been a very limited number of dates: Race got just one defense, and it was so obscure that it oddly got left off several title defense lists that I've seen. Anyway... Terry couldn't have worked a full 3-4 All Japan series while being NWA Champ. They NWA Champ *never* worked that long in Japan in the 70s and 80s, instead typically going over for a week or less. It's also doubtful that he could have made two trips to Japan: Race was pretty booked up in the US. In turn, Terry's primary commitment at the time was to All Japan. He typically did what helped them, and then worked around it elsewhere. It's a little hard to see him taking it. * Terry was pretty Old News: 1976 was a long time ago from 1983 That's a really long time in pro wrestling. One wonders if territory promoters would have been keen on it. As much as the storyline and angles and mic work would have been, there seem to be a lot of things to point to for it not being pulled off. :/ * * * * * As far as Brisco, we need to recall that he begged off of the title at the end of 1975 at a time when the NWA Promoters had zero desire to take it off him. It seems likely that if Jack wanted to hold it until 1978, they would have been fine with him holding it. The reason Jack always gave was being burned out from the travel. It seem hard to expect him to want to go back on the grind, even for five and a half months. We saw how quickly he burned out of the WWF just a year later. There's also a few factors: * it was 1975 when he last held the belt Again, a long time ago * his stature wasn't what it once was He spent 1982 with the Mid Atlantic Title, feuding with Piper and Paul Jones. I'm not going to say the MA Title meant nothing, but it also wasn't the US Title or the World Tag Title, and certainly not the World Title. So right there in JCP itself, he kind of was down from World Title level. Could they have built him up with the angle where it pops Starcade big? Perhaps. But they also made the call to turn the Briscoes at pretty much the same time, givning Steamboat & Youngblood a fresh new set of opponents after the Slaughter & Kernodle ran its course. I don't know. Race was the "safe" pick. Brisco might have been a safe back up, but it seems unlikely that Jack would have agreed, nor than JCP would have looked at it as a great option. * * * * * Dusty wouldn't have wanted to go heel, nor be in position to put Flair over at Starcade. He also couldn't have made that tour of All Japan: he was committed and loyal to Inoki and New Japan. In addition, I don't recall how well Dusty drew as a Touring Champ back in 1981. Clearly Dust was a draw in a lot of places around the country. But Touring Champ, and having to play a different role opposite Local Heroes... that's a bit different from typical Dusty at that point in his career. * * * * * Valentine is a very interesting choice. He was pretty knee deep in his feud with Piper already at the time of the Flair-Race title change. Pretty sure Valentine would have been perfectly fine as a touring heel champ. Valentine probably wouldn't have been able to do the All Japan tour either: he worked several times for New Japan and seemed to be loyal there. Not sure how NWA Promoters would have looked at it. You basically had a JCP Long Term Champ (Flair) and you're picking a JCP Interim Champ (Valentine) for 160+ days to set up a JCP Event (Starcade). That might just piss off the other promoters. * * * * * David Von Erich? I don't think there would be a single NWA Promoter other than Fritz who would want to have the belt on David for 160+ days. No way in hell. * * * * * DiBiase? There never seemed to be a strong push by NWA Promoters to give him a run with the belt between June 1981 and the end of 1985 (when the NWA effectively fell apart). I get the notion that he was "considered" for the belt all the time. But there was a 4 year run where NWA Promoters was very happy to let Flair defend the title in their territories time after time after time rather than thinking, "Hey... why don't we let Ted have the belt for 12 months to freshen things up before going back to Flair?" I guess what I'm trying to say is that "considered" probably isn't the same thing as "a lot of people wanted to give it a try". Also, at that point, did Ted mean dick in JCP to headline Starcade? I get the concept that "Flair could draw against any Heel Champ who took his belt and ran THAT angle?" But again, Harley was a known quantity to JCP Fans. They'd seen him defending that belt against their Heroes since 1977, with JCP Heroes never once beating him to win the title in JCP Land. There was something there. With Ted... ? * * * * * I tend to think Race was the "right" choice. Safe, easy, checked off the most boxes. Terry would have been the most "fun". That would have been some wild shit, and Terry sending in his Bounty Hunters would have been cool to. Also, getting a Terry defense or four in Japan would have been cool. Terry going into Texas would have been cool. Terry defending in Florida would have been cool. This shit would have rocked. I'm not sure how quickly it would have clicked for fans because of the gap since he last held the belt. But Terry was so good on the mic that he probably would have pulled it off. The rest? Don't know if there was a good fit.

Understood. Just wanted to get across that there was a fair amount of time between when Snuka turned (11/22/82 was the first face match) and the Muraco feud (angle aired 6/18/83). Which was almost a full year after the Backlund-Snuka ended in MSG, though it went longer around the horn.

What happened? It doesn't look like anyone at the WON was doing a live thingy on it.

I'm an Ashkenazi Jew and I'm pretty sure I would. There are a lot of things I couldn't so. Even for Sam Walton's kid level of wealth, stuff like Stormfront are places where I'd draw a line. Insane? Maybe. But we all have things we don't do. Stormfront... work for Kissenger... not enough money for that. A million writing for Bleacher Report is rather simple.

Because a central core element of the hardcore movement that grew up around Dave over the past 30 years was to not take the bullshit of the business on face value. People in the business lie. I've been part of that hardcore movement for the majority of those 30 years. I've watched people in the business lie right to Dave's face. I've seen him laugh in people's face ("Tanaka is better than those All Japan buys, Dave"). I've seen him nod buying the bullshit until someone else pointed the bullshit out ("But Carlos... the finish was a DQ"). We had running jokes that lasted for years over bullshit ("Good diet!"). And I've been with him when the bullshit was so offensive that it took him a back, left him speechless, and led to a long rant once we were back in the car away from the goofy worker. So I tend to get annoyed when people feed Dave bullshit, it's pointed out to be bullshit, he alters the Story to get around those facts, has it pointed out that it's still factually wrong, and morphs it yet again. The WON was built on bringing truth out when covering a lying business. I might roll my eyes at crappy fact checking in the Kobashi bio, but it's just sloppy work. Trafficking in bullshit... that's not what the WON is about, and is annoying as shit.

McAdam, or his socko, was in the Classics thread pushing Ted as the Other Bob. I'll admit up front that there's a lot more Ted in the WWF that I need to watch. But from what I have watched, which was largely against Patterson, is that Ted was more "Dean Malenko" than Bruno/Pedro. In the sense of Ted working in his own work, and not playing strongly to the crowd. It was a strong, drastic contrast from Backlund in the WWF at the moment. A lot of the stuff we thought was "goofy" about Bob was actually playing to the crowd. It was goofy, it was theatrical, but it's also interesting to note how many of those things got reactions from the crowd, or kept them in the match. Ted... was kind of Boring Dory relative to a typical WWF Face being Terry-ish in the sense of Theatrical. I don't think that in any way it was Ted being told to tone it down to not show up Backlund. Freaking Putski was 100% about playing to the crowd as a face. Pedro when he came back at IC champ could lay around fifth of gin selling, but when it came time for the Fiery Pedro Comeback, he's play his ass off to the crowd. When Patterson turned, he was doing it. Midcarders, prelimers... you can see various doing it. Ted... didn't really seem to play to the fans in those same ways, and in turn not connect quite as well. Ted was a good worker, and pretty smart. Admittedly, this board is a place where folks tend to believe Ted wasn't as GREAT~! as he was pimped up to be in the 80s... but still tend to agree he was good and smart. Perhaps he would have learned it. But then again, I've thought he was more vanilla as a face elsewhere compared to his heel persona having more theatrics.

Didn't they defend the belt in the Kansas City territory too? Or no? I need to get that book. I have held off mostly after following Scott Teal on Facebook and seeing his repellent politics. Should get over it.... I imagine my politics are insane to most people, as mutualism is not exactly well revered by anyone other than mutualists. Still, I cannot imagine what Teal's politics are like and prefer not to know, though you have piqued my interests.... Quite far to the right.

I don't disagree with what you have to say about Dusty, but I'm not sure I see how Bob fits in with the either three NY champs better than Dusty would in paper or in practice. You've watched a lot more Backlund than I have, or at least you've watched it a lot more closely than I have, but I don't see the obvious connection I think Dusty would have been fine for a year. He just doesn't play Endless Champion as a character like Bruno and Pedro and Bob and Hogan did. Parts of Dusty's character were "the chase" and "getting screwed". Those four Endless Champs didn't chase at all. They might get screwed on some level, but never out of the belt until the end of their runs. Granted, Hogan started getting screwed, but the first was to go off to do his movie, and the Taker one was the PPV change in the business. Have Dusty hold the belt for 5 straight years... he's not Dusty anymore, and it's not a lock that all his normal stuff would fly. Dusty himself seemed to get this: he booked Heel Champs far more than the WWF did.

They did a title vs title in Toronto: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/mlg70s.htm Which is interesting as it appears to be Backlund's first appearance at MLG. And a couple of months later had this that everyone wishes was on top:

Again, this is 1983-84. He won the title in 2/78. He dropped it in 12/83. So setting aside 1984 as obviously being past his time, we have a window in 1983 where he was eclipsed?

Couple of things here: "The fans in Philly turned on Bob" is something that happened far later than folks like to recall. I'd have to go back through my thread, but it always was amazing to find a later match where he was still over. It's a bit like the old joint claims: - "Backlund never was over after the Snuka feud because Snuka was more cool" "Wait... what about this Backlund-Rose match two months later where Backlund was SUPER OVER against someone who wasn't exactly a massive star in the WWF?" - "Er... what I mean is... Backlund was never over again after crying when Graham smashed his belt. That's the ticket!" "Wait... what about the Muraco feud in 1983 and the first Slaughter match after the riding crop angle? Super fucking over Backlund." - "Um... it was Philly where he died!" After pointing out Philly matches in 1983, I seem to recall that it shifted over to Boston being where he died. Hard to keep track of the bullshit after a while. Anyway... The point at which Backlund took a back seat to Snuka is hard to tell. Perhaps during the Snuka-Muraco feud. Which took place in MSG on 7/31/83, 8/27/83 and 10/17/83... while Bob had a pair of matches against the Animal and one against The Masked Superstar. They're also at the tail end of his run as champ, after having the belt for five straight years. If that's truly when Backlund ran out of steam, that's actually a credit to Backlund, not a knock.

Dave allegedly heard the "he's too crazy" theory in 2001. He said to you that he'd already heard the "Savage banged Steph" years before that, but dismissed it. There's a problem with that: Keith pointed out that Vince negotiated to get Savage back in 1996 and 1999 when his contract ran with WCW. That's the problem with this: people keep inventing New Versions of this when facts show them to be bullshit. It's a bit like the Stone Cold Superstar story. Some of us pointed out that it was a bullshit idea that Graham thought up after seeing Austin go from Heel to Super Over Face, and after decades of gravytraining his rep as having inspired Hogan, now create a new relevance for himself that "I could have been Austin before Austin!". Nonsensical stuff. Except, after some of us pointed out it was bullshit, at some point Dave tried to lend the "Turn Graham Face" story credibility by saying he heard about it in the 80s and how it bummed Graham out. Okay... fine... that makes sense. Until one looks at Dave's famous Graham interview in 1992. It ain't in there. Despite knowing about this key, life altering element of Graham's life, Dave didn't ask about it. Not only that... but Graham walked through the end of his WWF run, bragged about making more money in the year he lost the title than in the year he held it, and then copped to the cause of him crashing to the ground on being a junkie and totally burned out. Never really heard a good comeback on that, because it kind of shut down the claim. Except of course it lives on in Graham's book. Anyway... Macho Porked Steph just keeps mutating. People want to believe it, so they create new bullshit to keeping believing it.