Dylan Waco

No way in hell Actually I would consider Jack if someone can point to more matches to watch. But he's got a lot of guys he'd have to make up ground on.

Made a minor edit/change to my most recent metric point upping Patera to 199 major market main events total and 100 singles major market main events. Total was upped based on the new Montreal wrestling book. At the end there is a table with the top 50 drawing matches in territory history and the main event that headlined it. Number 43 with an attendance of 16,500 was Andre The Giant v. Ken Patera from 4/11/83. Also worth noting as this period is generally seen as "past his prime" Patera, but here he is still working Andre in the Forum in front of a massive crowd. For the record it was the 15th biggest crowd in Montreal in the 80's and the fourth biggest that wasn't promoted or co-promoted by the WWF. Also after reading Wrestling At The Chase and seeing how often Matysik talks about double or co-main events I am tempted to adjust his St. Louis "main event" numbers but won't for now. Still working on the follow up work which I believe is actually the most compelling piece of his HoF candidacy.

I honestly have no recollection of Bock v. Jarrett. Maybe I will put that in the too watch pile.

Very true. I actually thought about starting a thread for the time frame in question where I would try and formulate a top twenty-five but I got lazy. Breaks of course is someone who would do very well for me during that period. I'd like to see that top 25. There probably isn't enough footage from the era for anyone to compete with the status that Funk, Flair and Lawler have, but there were at least 50 good-to-great workers in Europe at the time which adds depth to the argument. Real question is do I go 77-84 which is the time frame I usually talk about or 76-85 to make it ten years.

I like Beyer, but have not watched him in years. I was never as high on him as his biggest fans, but who knows if that would change now. I like Harley, but I don't think he's on the level of these guys. His best matches are great and he is a guy that has a great "throw shit to the wall and see what sticks" approach in random matches which makes them entertaining even when they aren't great. But I don't like Harley the way I like the guys mentioned in this thread. Point me to matches to prove me wrong and who knows? I think Rey is a top tier guy. Best TV match wrestler of all time, good against huge variety of guys, and even with time missed for injuries has a very substantial run to his credit.

Bockwinkel v. Wahoo - 6/83 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz9znA6cJtI About 9 of 15 minutes are shown and a chunk of that is Bock being annoyed when Hogan gets a grandiose mid-match entrance so he can sit in Wahoo's corner. Hilariously this ends on Heenan interference anyhow. Decent match, mainly used as a set up to further both of Bock's feuds with both men. Nowhere near the level of their classic that made the AWA Set. This does feature one of Bock's tumbling bumps and those get me every time, but over all this is disappointing in the sense that you expect so much more out of these two. Bockwinkel v. Frank Lane - Battle of The Belts Total disaster scenario as a Hurricane keeps Martel from the building so they sub him with Frank fuckin Lane of all people. Alright match but you could tell Bock didn't want to be there. Finish was fucking hilarious. Best part about it was Bock's entrance. Bock/Stevens v. Dick The Bruiser/Crusher - 6/30/73 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFlSRXIJFss This is heavily clipped and it's a Crusher/Bruiser match so you know it's not going to be good going in, but I still find it watchable which is really a win. Bock was clearly the best guy in this. Lots of big bumps for the face offense and I thought the little things he brought during the brief control bits were good. More of an interesting match to watch than anything.

If early voting/comments are an indication I would guess Bock has a good shot to appear in at least half of the top ten and half of the top twenty. I would be very surprised to see many of his matches in the bottom third. I also think at this point he is the least polarizing of the guys who have multiple appearances on the set. The one possible exception to that is Rose/Somers and The Rockers who were paired together in an all time great tag feud for a year straight. I also think it's worth noting that Lawler (who I would rate above Bock), had nothing close to Rose/Somers v. Rockers feud to compete with on the Memphis Set. When all is said and done I think the only person who has a shot at competing with Lawler's top of the heap appearances on a set is Buddy Rose in Portland. Bockwinkel v. The Great John L 50's Bock. Very fun match. Comforting to see Bock with the towel here as it shows long term commitment to gimmick. The grappling in this is a shit load of fun as both guys sink in grabbing holds in a flash and wrenching them in in really interesting ways that would seem abnormal in today's wrestling universe. I really loved how John L kept going for these shots to Bock's face from underneath and Bock was swatting them away with annoyance and seemingly getting more and more pissed as the match went on. John L was like a precursor to Chris Colt here, with tons of douchebag cheating spots that he would do right in front of the ref. Loved the spot with him working the leg lock on Bock with Bock's legs in the rope for extra effect. This had an up tempo, but it didn't feel like guys running through shit and it had a very good performance from both guys. Bockwinkel v. K.O. Matt Murphy More 50's Bock. Really short match, but fun stuff as Murphy tries to roughhouse Bock out of the gate and this turns into a fast paced, studio brawl, with Bock match the challenge the bruising vet and dispatching him quickly with the Octopus after winning the punch exchange. Another different look at Bock as the young face working the mean spirited, bitter old man, brawler.

Bockwinkel v. Verne - 2/10/79 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHByNkPkZNo I really enjoyed this match because the atmosphere was great and there was a ton of fun offense for the period, but my god did Verne eat it alive. We are missing about two or three minutes of this, but it's nearly complete and in the fifteen or so minutes that are shown Verne is in peril for maybe a combined three minutes....maybe. He basically kicks the shit out of Bock throughout and while there are some really awesome big Bock bumps and Verne's offensive work is interesting and dynamic, this was way to one sided to be a great match. On the other hand I really liked the little runs Bock had, particularly the bit where he just grabs Verne by the throat and runs him around the ring because he's fed up with his inability to hang with him on the mat. I also loved the way Bock would sink his body lower and lower on the piledriver attempts. Really subtle, but really got over how big the move was at that point in the match. Over the top rope spill looked good and Heenan almost bleeding out post match was insane. This is the sort of match that I would probably argue for on a "70's Set" even though it wouldn't place well on my individual ballot at all.

That is another purpose of this thread - can we point to enough to get him into that absolute top tier? Most of the people I know who grew up on the AWA see him that way already but that could just be the "he's our guy" thing....or it could be that he was that fucking good. Having said that..... I want to say Bock was on the AWA Set in 38 or 39 out of 150 matches. He had another ten or so matches that were nominated but missed the cut (to this end it's notable how many of his matches made the cut out of the total that were nominated - that's a very good ratio). Lots of good Bock performances in matches that were too heavily clipped to include on the Set or matches like Bock v. Jake Milliman which give you a different glimpse at his talents but were too short to include or even nominate seriously. That's just 80's AWA. We have Bock in AJPW, Southwest, Calgary, Mid-South and Memphis. Some of this has been watched/talked about more than others. All total Bock probably has nearly fifty matches that have appeared on 80's Sets up to this point. There are things on youtube that didn't make those sets, fall outside of the relevant time period, et. There is a lot of Bock out there that can be discussed and looked at and there are guys who people put in top tens based on runs of a similar length (Bret, Eddie Guerrero, Buddy Rose, et).

Two matches I watched last night when I first started thinking about doing this: Bockwinkel v. Buck Zumhofe - 11/79 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkdov5yMb-E This is Bock in studio setting and that is a setting where I think he is underrated. Really liked some of the studio matches of his I watched during the AWA project, but this wasn't one of them given the time frame. This goes about six minutes and was absolutely outstanding. I like Zumhofe more than most (i.e. I don't think he's terrible) and he was fine here working underneath, but this was just a great Bock performance. He works control with a headscissors for the first portion of this and uses it in a really aggressive way. Story is that Buck works really hard with several nifty escapes and Bock keeps cutting him down. Bock gets more and more aggressive and after Buck gets a brief advantage and takes over on his arm with Bock really bumping around nicely, he snaps and goes into "I've had enough of this shit" mode crushing Zumhofe with stiff shots, hitting two guillotine stile knee drops and then piledriving him for the finish. If this had taken place two months later I would have argued for it on the AWA Set in some capacity. We get to see Bock working a hold in a really interesting heel fashion, bumping and giving some credibility to an undercard babyface, and then doing the appropriate thing by putting him in his place before he got too much in. Really good match of it's sort. Bockwinkel/Stevens v. The High Flyers This is Heenan's debut with Bock/Stevens or at least his tv debut. Very much a match to get over Heenan as a dastardly prick and The High Flyers as up and comers who can hang with the big stars. To that end the heat segments are very abbreviated, but I think they make sense in the context of what this match was trying accomplish. Bock was working as stereotypically heel here as I've ever seen him, bumping big for the babyface offense, cutting off the ring and really working cheap shot after cheap shot. Almost all of his offense consisted of chokes and punches/kicks. There is one really impressive sequence with Stevens/Gagne where they go from a blocked drop kick, to a giant swing, to a Gagne modified headscissors escape which was really sweet looking and had the announcer freaking out. Pretty good match, with a non-finish to set up an angle. This worked as a way of making The Flyers look good and it makes you want to see more Bock/Stevens which is too bad because there is little to none out there.

Toward the end of the latest Wrestling Culture podcast on Funk, Flair and Lawler, I started to think about other U.S. based workers who I would put in the absolute top tier. The three names I keep coming back to are Stan Hansen, Buddy Rose and Nick Bockwinkel. I have talked about Rose many times and will probably go on another Hansen kick soon, but for now I want to talk about Bock. Bockwinkel is a guy I have been up and down on over the years. I had always been impressed by his very best matches, but I also saw him as a guy who could grind a match to a halt very quickly and never really considered him on the level of a guy like Flair when it came to touring/ace champ work. After watching for the AWA Set and seeing other things like Bock's stopovers in Stampede and Memphis I really started to think he was someone pretty lateral to Flair on that score (I know Will hates his All Japan stuff, but I haven't seen enough of it to form a real opinion). In a sense I think Bock combines the things people like about Bret Hart, with the things people like about Ric Flair and adds a lot of little touches in between. Matt D has been really impressed with him in the AWA watching and I think Matt's points about Bock's versatility, bringing different things to different matches and opponents, and always having a logical method of attack are dead on. Bockwinkel was a great tag wrestler which is something that doesn't get talked about enough. Excellent at building heat, milking spots, delivering on the big bumps for the face comebacks and hope spots, et. Also his face work was really great. I don't think anyone needs to be convinced on Bock the heel, but as a face he had this great quality to him and it almost felt like the fans relished their chance to finally cheer for the guy that had respected for so long. Recently tomk made the point that Bock as touring champ in "action" matches is not really a strength and perhaps that's true, but I suspect Bock as a studio wrestler is underrated and in many respects superior to something like "Flair v. George South in fifteen minute, near fall fest." On another level Bock is similar to Funk. Both guys were outstanding wrestlers years after what would be considered the peak physical years of the average athlete. In Funk's case this was helped by altering a style dramatically and reinventing himself for different settings. In Bock's case? We really have no clue, because no one has really talked much about what is out there from Bock before the 80's. I always assumed it was more of a retooling for Bock than a reinvention but I don't know that. Like Lawler Bockwinkel became synonymous with a territory after a guy who defined the territory passed the torch. In the case of Lawler he got a real rub from Fargo. In the case of Gagne? Well I'm not sure we can say the same. Despite that Bock is the ace you think of when you think AWA and it is hard to envision 80's AWA without Bock in the spot he was in. In any event I would like this thread to be used to: 1. Compare Bockwinkel to other all time greats. Where does he stack up with the best guys from the States? From Japan? The 80's? Et. 2. Talk about his relative strengths and weaknesses as a wrestler. 3. Look at him both in context to the AWA Set/Khawk's sets and in his role as a touring champ for that company. This is not to say those are the only things that can or should be discussed but those are three things I'd like to hear peoples detailed thoughts on. On my end I will also use this thread to look at Bock matches that I either haven't seen before or didn't make the AWA Set. It's doubtful I will look heavily at Memphis or All Japan, but the Mid-South and Southwest matches I might post links to and comment on. I will look for as much 70's Bock as I can find. The point in doing this is get a bigger picture look at Bockwinkel. Right now I'd see him as a strong top ten contender, I want to see if more footage puts him into a "lock" position in the top ten or even higher.

Very true. I actually thought about starting a thread for the time frame in question where I would try and formulate a top twenty-five but I got lazy. Breaks of course is someone who would do very well for me during that period.

Vince and Hogan are the obvious candidates. I would love to see a book on Verne Gagne like this

This is a good idea. Matches are all pretty different and not cookie cutter. I would recommend watching them along with other notable tags from the set if you are going to bundle watch.

I love Embry. Think he was a great wrestler at his best and he would make my top 100 if we were to ever do that again. I do wonder how much of the rest of his career is out there. I know there is some Southwest and Puerto Rico but how much?

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=16784 KrisZ's excellent run down of II's career

I am eager to follow along with this as I have always contended they were the best WWF team in history and if you add that with their AWA work you start to see them as a serious top five contender.

I'm gonna have to watch some of these Tenta matches because I like the guy, love his debut WWF angle (one of my all time favorite angles ever actually) and always thought he had a cool look among the fat dudes but I don't remember many stand out matches. Also it may be time for a thread on the awesomeness of fat wrestlers where we rate the best of the fat guys. I may even start a fat guy thread where I watch one match (minimum) a day and review it.

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...2658&cmd=tc ROUNDTABLE TIME! Dave moderates a discussion on the people I consider the best three U.S. born wrestlers in history Terry Funk, Jerry Lawler and Ric Flair. In Funk's corner - ME. In Flair's corner - Charles. In Lawler's corner - Will. We debate the pro's of each man's greatest of all time argument, the common complaints against them, other guys who sometimes get mentioned on their level, the most interesting feuds of each man, and what the 80's sets and other footage based projects have taught us about each man. Dave and Will have an inappropriate joke contest, Will attacks Canadians multiple times, I mention Buddy Rose for no reason and Charles apologizes in advance for making an interesting point about Bret Hart and his fans. We end the show with promises of new things related to this board and a SMOOCHFEST. Come feel the love with us.

Two things here. I have never seen any Mad Dog Lefevbre/Pat Patterson matches but I imagine they were outstanding. Second - and this will come across as bullshit - but I posted the above before I had gotten to the part in the new Montreal wrestling book on Lefevbre. Sure enough I get there and you've got Jacques Rougeau comparing him to Arn Anderson and Gino Brito talking about him as anchor of the tag division. Turns out I was pointing out the obvious.

tom is touting Luger/Tully, but if we are talking short lived teams from that era Barry Windham/Ron Garvin was excellent.

Duggan's best stuff in WCW was with Fidel Sierra. Also that match v. Somers is more than just okay.

Yes it is.

I remember when Primo and Miz had a really good match on ECW. Seems like an eon ago

I enjoyed their Superstars match from a couple of weeks back. Both teams are good and I'm with Will in loving the PTP's.