Best U.S. Worker Of The 80's?

[Dylan Waco]

This probably will come across as overkill to some, but since we have threads for the 90's and 00's and we have several 80's sets released this could at minimum be a good resource/central hub of sorts.

 

I know people will disagree with this, but I actually don't think there is a CLEAR winner here.

 

Top Ten Contenders:

 

Ric Flair

Jerry Lawler

Bill Dundee

Buddy Rose

Ricky Steamboat

Nick Bockwinkel

Curt Hennig

Rick Martel

Sgt. Slaughter

Barry Windham

Tully Blanchard

Bob Backlund

Randy Savage

Terry Funk

Ricky Morton

Bobby Eaton

Harley Race

Dick Murdoch

Arn Anderson

Greg Valentine

Tito Santana

Tommy Rogers

Dutch Mantell

Ted Dibiase

 

Off the top of my head those are guys where if I saw there name in someone's top ten I wouldn't find it surprising at all.

 

I actually think you could make a case for some other guys (Chris Adams, Tommy Rich,Michael Hayes, Ron Garvin, Dusty, Hogan, Buzz Sawyer, Dr. Death, Jerry Blackwell, Dennis Condrey, Wahoo, and probably others I'm forgetting) but the point is that is a pretty hefty list of guys that would not look odd at all in a top ten. And again I don't think there is an obvious number one, though I acknowledge that most people would default to Flair (for the record I'm to the point where I would strongly consider leaping Lawler over Flair).

[Kostka]

It's between Lawler and Flair for me.

[Ricky Jackson]

Savage is my pick. I have no problem with any of the other names, haven't seen much from a lot of guys (Rose, Morton, Rogers, Mantell, Eaton, Murdoch), and would throw in Dynamite Kid (not enough great stuff in USA?).

[Dylan Waco]

DK's best stuff in the States was in Portland working with and opposite Buddy. Really it's the only DK stuff I think holds up all match at all.

 

Rose is an interesting candidate. I still think a case could made that he was the best wrestler on Earth in the cumulative period from 77-84. In 85 he really didn't do shit and there are holes at the end of the decade but man alive was he good in the first half of the 80's. I'd rate 80, 82 and 83 as off the charts years, with 81 being a bit down due to competition but still a very strong year that was on the level of anything anyone else in the States (or anywhere really) was doing at that time. 84 we don't have a complete picture going from memory but what is there is really good. I think his AWA run in 86 through the first month or two of 87 is insanely underrated as I don't see any real decline as a worker at all at that point, he's just used in a slightly different fashion (tag worker) and is just as effective. 88 and 89 he was morbidly obese, but still a shockingly good bumper capable of having fun matches.

 

Number one feels like a stretch even for me, but top five does not even if I'm unsure whether or not I would have him there myself.

[El-P]

The thing that jumps to mind immediately is that there are a lot more clear cut contenders for the top 10.

I guess Flair, Savage, Windham, Morton, Funk, Backlund, Blanchard, Dundee, Eaton would be my favourites.

I'm not overly familiar with Terry Gordy's 80's US work, but if he was as good as he was in the early 90's in Japan, he should be right there too. DiBiase, Lawler, Slaughter, Bockwinkle wouldn't be too far behind I guess.

[Dylan Waco]

The strength of Slaughter is that his best stuff is HOLY SHIT great and holds up better than some of the better stuff from the more "obvious" names.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, I know it isn't cool to like DK anymore, especially his Tiger Mask stuff, but he was one of my childhood favorites and I still dig most of his pre-back injury work. Honestly, I've seen very little of his Portland run.

 

Early-80s Slaughter has become one of my favorites in recent years. Need to really dive into Bockwinkel and watch some of his lesser known stuff someday. Need to REALLY dive into Rose someday. What I've seen of his early stuff has been one of the great revelations of the last few years for me.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think the case for Rick Martel being in the top ten is pretty strong. Are there ten better workers than him who had better a better 80s?

[NintendoLogic]

I'm curious about really high-end Slaughter work. What else is there besides the Iron Sheik feud and the Final Conflict cage match?

[Mad Dog]

The Pat Patterson matches were good for Slaughter. There's some Japan work that's good. I remember liking his matches with Backlund quite a bit. There was a brawl with Nord the Barbarian on AWA Television that I enjoyed a lot. His battle with Nemesis Enforcer showed his true workrate capabilities, even if the Enforcer turned out to be a bitch after taking out all those other Joes beforehand.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm curious about really high-end Slaughter work. What else is there besides the Iron Sheik feud and the Final Conflict cage match?

That's the apex that I was referring to, but it's an apex that few can touch. You could easily make a case that the MSG Boot Camp match and Final Conflict are the two best gimmick matches in U.S. wrestling history, and the two best matches in general from the promotions they occurred in.

 

I'd rate the Paterson and Backlund matches on the next level down. I like them a lot but they aren't on THAT level. I'd also rate them below the Starrcage Main Event (teaming with Blackwell v. Adnan/Superstar/Tonga), the AWA handheld v. Hansen, and his match as Super Destroyer 2 v. Greg Gagne.

[shoe]

The thing that jumps to mind immediately is that there are a lot more clear cut contenders for the top 10.

 

The reason being in the 80's the guys legit worked 8+ years out of the 10 or more. In the 90's a lot of the great workers from the 80's were getting injured,getting old like Steamboat or Flair or the landscape changed in 95 or so and smaller guys who were great workers were getting shots in the states like Guerrero,Misterio,etc who never would have gotten a chance to shine in the past.

[Dylan Waco]

I think the case for Rick Martel being in the top ten is pretty strong. Are there ten better workers than him who had better a better 80s?

He's got a case, better than some might suspect on the surface, but I don't think he's a top ten lock.

 

Martel is a guy who's stock has gone up A LOT with me through watching AJPW, AWA and Portland. I imagine the Montreal sitting in my DVD player right now will continue this trend. But the Montreal and AJPW aren't germane to the discussion.

 

His Portland run is really great when you consider his age and I think you could make a case for him as Buddy Rose's best in ring opponent. Not saying that's set in stone, but it's certainly arguable and at minimum he would be on a VERY short list in that discussion. Still, AWA is where he lives and dies as a candidate. There is plenty of really good Martel in the AWA. He's got virtually no duds. He was often paired off against guys that people were not buying as challengers as champ (Zhukov and Garvin most notably) and always got the most out of those matches. The best Bock matches are really awesome. I thought Tito was the star of Strike Force in the AWA and the WWF but Martel was a good compliment if nothing else.

 

What Martel does lack is a clear cut "holy shit that was awesome!" type of match, where he is the clear star.

 

Here is what I wrote comping Hennig to Martel in the "Who Was Better?" thread this Summer

 

Rick Martel or Curt Hennig?

 

This is a pretty easy comp to make because here you have guys that worked in a lot of the same places and in similar roles.

 

Anyway looking at this across the board:

 

Portland

 

Martel and Hennig both worked there and were both great there very early in their careers. Martel's matches against Buddy may have been better than Hennig's matches with Buddy, but Hennig's non-Buddy matches may have been better. One thing I do think is that at this point Martel was better working long, and Hennig was better as a sprint worker. That would change some over time, though I don't think Martel ever got really good at working shorter, tight matches the way Hennig could. I would probably call this a "tie."

 

AWA

 

This is tough because it depends on what you want to include. I think there is no question that Martel was better as the companies anchor, but that had a lot to do with the decline of the AWA and the position the company was in by the time Hennig got the belt. If you include Martel's international defenses I think his case gets stronger, but without those I would go with Hennig for sure, and even with them.... Martel had great matches with Jimmy Garvin, Brad Rheingans, Bock, Jumbo, Race (actually this was after he lost the title from memory), Choshu and Flair during his reign and it is hard to argue against them. Having said that Hennig's babyface work before he won the title was really great. He was excellent in tags, had far better offense back then (though Martel's was better), worked FAR stiffer than Martel, and was a considerably better bumper. Everyone knows about the great Bockwinkel series (and those matches hold up VERY well in my view), but he also had a pair of excellent matches with Hansen prior to winning the belt in 86 and after the heel turn had a run of defenses (and after he lost the belt matches) with guys like Greg Gagne, Wahoo, Lawler, and DJ Peterson that I would have absolutely no problem calling great. To be fair to Martel his run was shorter than Curt's but I still think Curt showed himself to be far more versatile here than Martel did. Pretty close, but I would rate Curt over Martel. Just a lot more you can point to to be honest.

 

WWF

 

Totally disagree with Jerome here that the best thing that happened to Hennig was Mr. Perfect. From a business/making money standpoint sure. From a worker standpoint it killed him dead and was so obviously the deathblow to him as a great in ring talent that it's actually a point I think is not even debatable if you have seen the footage I have. Will and I have talked about this at length and he theorizes that Hennig was just made to be a babyface. It's hard to argue against that since Hennig is an unbelievably great babyface in both the AWA and Portland. The only problem with that theory is that his initial heel turn in the AWA was brilliant as well and his work MAY have even IMPROVED during that period. Also the Mr. Perfect character was definitely a lot of fun. The problem is that in the ring the Perfect character was totally lowest common denominator wrestling, all about bumps and one or two offense moves. The Bret matches are good but overrated. I like the Garvin match for what it is but it's not something that even borders on being very good, let alone great. He was fun in the tag with Poffo v. Hogan and Warrior from SNME. I liked at least one of his matches v. Tito and the Doink match from Raw in 93 (which honestly comes across as a Doink carry job in hindsight). Other than that I can't think of a thing he did that stands out. His offense was garbage, he seemed to revert back to being FAR better in short matches though even then he was a shell of his former self, he just didn't seem to give too shits about anything other than taking huge bumps. I don't blame him really, but when I think of guys the WWF killed Hennig is at the top of the list. He wasn't awful there, but he was really middling given his talent and that is bad enough.

 

Martel is tough to peg. He was never used in an ideal situation, but when he was given chances I thought he looked better than Hennig. Strike Force was a good team - in some ways better than any other team in the WWF at the time - but they don't really have a lot of matches you can point to as worth going out of your way to see. "The Model" gimmick was silly but worked in the context of the WWF at the time and honestly the Jake feud was more memorable and interesting to me than anything the Mr. Perfect character did. His matches with Hall and Savage were good showings and honestly I like his draw v. Bret better than Hennig's draw v. Bret and think Martel was a lot better in the match than Hennig was in his. It seems strange to say, but I actually would rate Martel's WWF work over Hennig's.

 

Post-Prime

 

Hennig had some pretty shitty post-prime stuff in WCW, but at least partially redeemed himself with the West Texas Rednecks where I would call him "pretty good" though certainly not great. His Hogan match from the XWF and late WWF return were probably better than they should have been but not memorable in any way.

 

Martel only has a few months of post-prime work that you can really point and it has been heavily mythologized. I didn't find that there was anything approaching "great" in his brief WCW run, but what there was was a guy who could obviously still go and almost certainly would have hit "great" if he hadn't gotten hurt. He was the best guy in every match he had and the Booker T stuff is at the very least worth watching.

 

It's really tough to say, but overall I think I would go with Hennig by the slimmest of margins for two reasons:

 

1. Hennig was a better heel than Martel by a fairly wide margin and they were no worse than equals as babyfaces.

2. Hennig's ability to work big epic matches eventually equaled Martel's, whereas I don't think Martel ever got as good at working balls to the wall sprints.

 

Having said that I have not seen much of Martel's Montreal run and if that turns out to be as good as the rest of his stuff I could see flip flopping on this pretty easily.

 

That's Martel v. Hennig - a guy who is another arguable top ten guy. Now look at the list I posted originally:

 

Ric Flair

Jerry Lawler

Bill Dundee

Buddy Rose

Ricky Steamboat

Nick Bockwinkel

Curt Hennig

Rick Martel

Sgt. Slaughter

Barry Windham

Tully Blanchard

Bob Backlund

Randy Savage

Terry Funk

Ricky Morton

Bobby Eaton

Harley Race

Dick Murdoch

Arn Anderson

Greg Valentine

Tito Santana

Tommy Rogers

Dutch Mantell

Ted Dibiase

 

The six guys in bold are the guys where I think it would be near unanimous opinion that they are better than Martel.

 

The five guys in italics are guys who I would have an extremely difficult time putting below Martel on top of those bolded six.

 

I can't see him in my top ten because of that and looking at the list there are other comparisons that are tough for him. For example I'm not buying peak Martel as better than peak Dibiase on the surface. I didn't italic him but as noted above I'd have him below Hennig. Tito may be a tough comp for him as well. There are others.

 

Not saying Martel is bad and I put him on the list for a reason but he's not a "lock" level top ten guy even if you see him as a probable top ten guy.

[Frankensteiner]

Martel/Bockwinkel matches are comparable to Flair/Steamboat, and Martel/Rheingans is blowaway great.

 

I would not put Flair ahead of Martel since he's far too hit or miss (probably in the minority on that). Steamboat would also not be ahead of Martel. His mid-80s WWF run is disappointing. I don't know if it was the gimmick, the style, or something else... but it didn't click. I would say he still had a good run, but the difference between his WWF and WCW work is like night and day.

 

When you stack them up, I can't see an argument for not putting Tito ahead of Steamboat in the 80s either. Steamer had the Flair matches (and in the end had a better career) but when they were in the same setting, against the same opponents (Valentine, Savage, Orton, Roberts, Orndorff, Reed, Muraco, HTM, etc) I think Tito looked better.

[Matt D]

Re: Tito/Steamboat/etc:

 

Is it somehow innately more difficult to have good matches in mid 80s WWF than JCP or elsewhere?

[Dylan Waco]

I'll come back to the meat of your post later, but Martel/Bock matches really aren't comparable to Flair/Steamboat in my view. Not even close really. And I do like that series (Hennig v. Bock I could be convinced on). I love Martel v. Rheingans and think it is a pretty god damned great match. Could maybe be convinced that is Martel's big "HOLY FUCK!" type of performance match.

[Frankensteiner]

Re: Tito/Steamboat/etc:

 

Is it somehow innately more difficult to have good matches in mid 80s WWF than JCP or elsewhere?

When your job is to pretend you're Bruce Lee, yeah I think so.

[El-P]

WWF

 

Totally disagree with Jerome here that the best thing that happened to Hennig was Mr. Perfect. From a business/making money standpoint sure. From a worker standpoint it killed him dead and was so obviously the deathblow to him as a great in ring talent that it's actually a point I think is not even debatable if you have seen the footage I have. Will and I have talked about this at length and he theorizes that Hennig was just made to be a babyface. It's hard to argue against that since Hennig is an unbelievably great babyface in both the AWA and Portland. The only problem with that theory is that his initial heel turn in the AWA was brilliant as well and his work MAY have even IMPROVED during that period. Also the Mr. Perfect character was definitely a lot of fun. The problem is that in the ring the Perfect character was totally lowest common denominator wrestling, all about bumps and one or two offense moves. The Bret matches are good but overrated. I like the Garvin match for what it is but it's not something that even borders on being very good, let alone great. He was fun in the tag with Poffo v. Hogan and Warrior from SNME. I liked at least one of his matches v. Tito and the Doink match from Raw in 93 (which honestly comes across as a Doink carry job in hindsight). Other than that I can't think of a thing he did that stands out. His offense was garbage, he seemed to revert back to being FAR better in short matches though even then he was a shell of his former self, he just didn't seem to give too shits about anything other than taking huge bumps. I don't blame him really, but when I think of guys the WWF killed Hennig is at the top of the list. He wasn't awful there, but he was really middling given his talent and that is bad enough.

Understand me. I haven't seen Hennig in Portland and few things in AWA outside of a few big matches against Bock and Lawler. So I'm drawing a blank on that period. Judging from what came later, I always disagreed about the notion Hennig was a great worker, although I love the two Bret matches. The more I watched him, the less I thought of his in-ring ability (although I would still call him really good most of the time). Hence, the idea that the Mr. Perfect gimmick was the best thing that happened to him, because it put him to another level which he couldn't get to on the strenght of his work alone.

 

Now, if I was to agree with you on his AWA and Portland run and found out I thought he was a great worker then, I would totally take back what I'm saying about Mr. Perfect. Tons of workers have been killed by WWF during that era, it never crossed my mind that Hennig could be one of them since for ever the consensus on him was that he was great *based on his WWF stint alone*. So yeah, drawing a blank on most of his 80's work, although from recollection I don't think I was overly impressed with his work against Bock or Lawler (I tought Martel vs Lawler was much better since you brought up the comparison). It's been a while though since I've watched those matches.

[Mad Dog]

I'm just going to throw Terry Gordy and Bob Orton Jr. out there since neither really got mentioned yet. Gordy had a great decade in Mid-South and the UWF. His Texas stuff was also top notch. Orton kind of fell off the map once he got to the WWF but he was really good before then. Also, Jimmy Garvin was probably one of the top acts of the 1980s.

 

My top 10:

 

Hulk Hogan

Ric Flair

Randy Savage

Ricky Steamboat

Nick Bockwinkel

Jerry Lawler

Ted Dibiase

Terry Gordy

Tully Blanchard

Ricky Morton

[JerryvonKramer]

Dylan - fantastic analysis there. Will say more in a bit.

 

Mad Dog - What about Piper?

[Mad Dog]

His dog collar match with Greg Valentine was pretty good. I think the problem with a case for Piper is he was a fairly limited worker and he wasn't as smart at building matches as Hogan was. I don't think he was particularly good at selling for a heel, he was a good promo and he was in some good matches but those matches never seemed to live up to the actual matches. I've seen some of his Hogan matches and Hogan was clearly the better worker in their matches. I like Piper, I just think there are literally dozens upon dozens of guys who were better in the ring during the 1980s.

[Mad Dog]

Hogan really had a great decade when you think about it. He had the matches with Bockwinkel in the AWA. 1986 was a really strong year as he had the Orndorff feud and there was a really great series of matches with Randy Savage. He also had a good match with King Kong Bundy, a good series with an over the hill Harley Race, Don Muraco, Bob Orton Jr., the Twin Towers and he finished the decade off with the WM5 match with Randy Savage. For a guy that gets shit on for being a bad wrestler, he really had a good run in 1986 and he really put on a lot of good matches throughout the decade.

[MikeCampbell]

I'd give the nod to Flair. But Lawler is only a step or two behind him.

[smkelly]

I'd vote Flair too. His 1989 is likely the best 'peak' year of any wrestler in any promotion during any era.

[Coffey]

I always thought Bockwinkle was overrated as from what I've seen, he's pretty boring (at least to me). I guess I just haven't seen enough stuff. That's pretty interesting to me.

 

When I thought about this thread (as it was obviously coming), I thought of Savage, Flair & Funk first. Thinking about it a little bit more, I still just come back to those names, although the order changes. Lawler is really good too.

 

It's really hard for me to put anyone over Flair.

 

The difference for me between this thread and that 90's thread is that in the 80's, I have to cut my list down. In the 90's, I struggle to fill the list up! So, that's a good thing.