Ken Patera

[jdw]

Just out of interest, how was/ is Ted regarded in Japan? Like was he thought of as Hansen's second? Was he rated? I heard his shoot a few years ago and he talked about always being appreciated there, but I don't know exactly what he meant.

He was appreciated there. People in the US overrate how big he was there. I made that point elsewhere in the thread.

 

John

[khawk20]

I don't pay attention to drawing power but while watching AWA footage and old WWF footage, Patera's stock as a quality wrestler is going up, up up!!!

Patera's run from Jan-May of 1980 main eventing aginst Patterson and Backlund at MSG are some of my favourite WWF matches ever.

 

Overall Patera has always been one of the most believable heels I've ever come across because he has the "bullying prick" schtick perfected, even in his interview style. I get the impression that it's a general reflection of his true personality in real life, which is why it looks so natural on him.

 

His time as a face, however, always looked incredibly forced and out-of-place to me. It was rumoured that Patera was going to get the Blackwell face role in the AWA in 1984 (apparently it was extremely close to going that way). I'm glad it happened as it did as Patera in the Blackwell role vs. Sheik and his army I think would not have worked at all. I just don't see how Patera could have been successfully cast as a babyface, even against those guys. I thought his face time in the WWF in later years was awful.

 

DiBiase is a little easier to think of as a face sicne my first exposure to him was as a face in the late 70's. He was so good as a heel in Georgia a little later that it made you wonder how he was ever a fan favourite, period. DiBiase was another natural heel, imo.

 

They'd have made a helluva tag team in the early 80's.

[JerryvonKramer]

Does anyone have attendance figures for MidSouth? Can't find them anywhere.

[goodhelmet]

I don't pay attention to drawing power but while watching AWA footage and old WWF footage, Patera's stock as a quality wrestler is going up, up up!!!

Patera's run from Jan-May of 1980 main eventing aginst Patterson and Backlund at MSG are some of my favourite WWF matches ever.

 

Overall Patera has always been one of the most believable heels I've ever come across because he has the "bullying prick" schtick perfected, even in his interview style. I get the impression that it's a general reflection of his true personality in real life, which is why it looks so natural on him.

 

His time as a face, however, always looked incredibly forced and out-of-place to me. It was rumoured that Patera was going to get the Blackwell face role in the AWA in 1984 (apparently it was extremely close to going that way). I'm glad it happened as it did as Patera in the Blackwell role vs. Sheik and his army I think would not have worked at all. I just don't see how Patera could have been successfully cast as a babyface, even against those guys. I thought his face time in the WWF in later years was awful.

 

DiBiase is a little easier to think of as a face sicne my first exposure to him was as a face in the late 70's. He was so good as a heel in Georgia a little later that it made you wonder how he was ever a fan favourite, period. DiBiase was another natural heel, imo.

 

They'd have made a helluva tag team in the early 80's.

 

Watched the Boston Idol 1980s Addendums while prepping for the new WWF set and Patera has been really impressive. Right now, if I were a betting man, the two Backlund matches from January and May are locks for the set. He carried Pedro Morales to the best Pedro match I have ever seen and the October 1980 match should make the set. He was in a really good Bruno match that may make the set. Along with Valentine and Tito, Patera is one of those guys I am actively looking for more matches since he strikes gold so often.

[KB8]

Man, the Patera/Backlund Texas Death Match from MSG might be my #1 when we get to the new WWF set. I recall the January match being pretty excellent as well.

[goodhelmet]

I don't know if it would be my #1 but easily a Top 5 contender.

[soup23]

Couple of down days at work means I was able to sift through and digest this thread.

 

I have to commend Dylan for the work done here as it really is comprehensive and gives a good understanding of the plight of Patera's career. I still don't know if I would vote for him but consideration is mandatory based on this results and it just made me crave watching a lot of these older shows. Patera's work in 1980 is really great and I look forward to his AWA matches.

[jdw]

I don't pay attention to drawing power but while watching AWA footage and old WWF footage, Patera's stock as a quality wrestler is going up, up up!!!

Patera's run from Jan-May of 1980 main eventing aginst Patterson and Backlund at MSG are some of my favourite WWF matches ever.

The entire run is quite good. The two MSG matches with Backlund are terrific. The Patterson match that made the original set is very smart/solid, but better in the full version than the marginally clipped one on the original set. The Philly match against Backlund that exists (with Gorilla as the ref) is solid. I really like the Shea Stadium match with Tony Atlas, which is almost Nitro-style in cramming stuff in and making you wish that a 12-15 minute version for MSG or Philly existed. I'm not a huge fan of the Pedro match "overall" since Pedro isn't all that great in it other than spurts, but Ken is very good. I really love the 11/08/80 match with Bruno as another smart match where both worked well.

 

Jan-Dec 1980 Patera was one of the best heels in the world at the time. If someone ever made a 1980 Yearbook, he would be all over it and look great. One of the best years of a heel in the 80s.

 

John

[Matt D]

From what I've seen, Patera as a Sheik. AWA was such a patriotic territory (But in a way completely different than mid-south). With the olympic build, if he didn't jump we could have gotten a massive Patera/Rheingans feud. I think he could have potentially been a huge babyface in 84 in AWA, if he did turn instead of Blackwell.

[khawk20]

From what I've seen, Patera as a Sheik. AWA was such a patriotic territory (But in a way completely different than mid-south). With the olympic build, if he didn't jump we could have gotten a massive Patera/Rheingans feud. I think he could have potentially been a huge babyface in 84 in AWA, if he did turn instead of Blackwell.

I disagree because Patera as a face always seemed so forced. The man was a natural heel to me. As a face in the WWF in the later 80's and in the AWA in 89-90, I never got past the sense that he was about to Pearl harbour his tag partners and friends at any given moment...and even if there was nothing going on to foreshadow that happening, it would have still worked because Ken seemed like such a vile motherfucker that he could switch back at any time.

 

Patera vs. Rheingans I don't think would have worked because I've never seen Rheingans as having any sort of drawing potential. Patera vs. Sarge in the same setting, for sure.

 

Patera's stuff with the Sheiks is great but you have to ignore Kaissie's insistence that Patera be called by his new name "Lawrence of Arabia", and the AWA announcers actually trying to do that on house shows. Yikes.

[Matt D]

From what I've seen, Patera as a Sheik. AWA was such a patriotic territory (But in a way completely different than mid-south). With the olympic build, if he didn't jump we could have gotten a massive Patera/Rheingans feud. I think he could have potentially been a huge babyface in 84 in AWA, if he did turn instead of Blackwell.

Patera vs. Rheingans I don't think would have worked because I've never seen Rheingans as having any sort of drawing potential. Patera vs. Sarge in the same setting, for sure.

 

 

I think it could have worked specifically in 84 in a lightning in a bottle sort of way. Actually, I was 3 in 84, so I'm just guessing, but looking at AWA tv and what I watched of the olympics on youtube in the last week, the US Wrestling Golds seemed like a big deal to me. I just think Turncoat Olympian vs Former Olympian and Current Olympic Coach would have worked with that specific crowd. It practically writes itself.

 

With Brad, did they really give him stuff to do or did they just toss him out there on the idea that his credentials would be enough to draw?

[khawk20]

He had a decent little feud with Crusher Blackwell in 81 that I thought would push him to the next level, but he really didn't do much in the immediate afterburn of that feud. His tv match with Bockwinkel in 83 and subsequent title match in St. Paul were decent, but not the kind that would elevate him to the status of being a legit draw.

 

The Blackwell feud, for example, ended with Hogan making the save in their blowoff after Brad beat Blackwell. This segued into Blackwell-Hogan matches. Fast forward to Rheingans-Zurkov around 85-86, and Rheingans gets saved from Zurkov by Sgt. Slaughter.

 

Rheingans never really did the saving and sort of got left to fend for himself a lot. Funny enough, he would probably have had a decent series with Hennig in 87-88 but it was right around then that Vince picked him up to be a JTTS-type for several months. By that point it really was too late for Brad to get to the next level, and given the pay in the AWA was quite low at that point, the jump was all about money.

 

Brad did come back when Vince was done with him. Verne was in no position to hold a grudge by then.

[khawk20]

Another way to look at it is if Brad had shown any sort of drawing power in his first three years in the AWA, he probably would have been a serious consideration for the title reign that Martel got, especially since Verne already had to be careful about who he gave his belts to with Vince raiding him so regularly. Brad was probably as loyal as someone would be to Verne outside of Greg in 84.

 

Brad never being seriously considered for that spot tells me a lot about his viability as a main eventer.

[Dylan Waco]

Decided to go through this again on a whim tonight and look over some other things.

 

I think if anything I underrated Ken's initial AWA and return to AWA runs. He was in the main or semi-main of tons of cards that did really good business during both periods.

 

Also while it is impossible to get an accurate count because of lack of figures for major arenas and the "double main event" nature of some of the shows, worse case scenario Patera was in a drawing match on 80+ shows that did 10k or more. It's very probable the number is close to 100.

[Dylan Waco]

Want some advice on something. I am going to work on a bunch of more concise data points to showcase the strengths of Patera's career. One that I'm working on right now is tracking down all of his major title matches (by that I mean NWA or WWF world title matches) and every major market/large arena show headlined. Solely so I can avoid accusation of bias I am leaving almost every disputable "main event" match off the list. This means a lot of co-main event/headline feud matches will NOT appear on the list (I may correct for that with a second list that would include secondary title matches and title defenses or even a "featured match" metric, though that is more arbitrary and opens things up to accusations of bias). There are issues where it is impossible to say what is the "true" main event particularly in the WWF with the oddball structuring of cards relative to other territories. In those instances I will list the "other" possible match so people can judge for themselves. I'm also including relevant appearances on super shows here because it feels like this is the right place to put it.

 

One problem I'm running into though is how to handle MACW. Because they ran so many shows and a lot of the venues even in bigger markets were not huge it is hard to get a strong feel for what arenas/towns should be a part of this metric. I have included Charlotte because of it's historic standing as a "wrestling" town and I will include Greensboro as well (though offhand I can't remember if he ever technically worked up top there). On the other hand you have towns like Raleigh which are much bigger now than they were then where Patera headlined a lot. He headlined some in Richmond which is a big town and was probably one of the bigger towns in the territory even then but I don't know how to handle it. It seems like including only Charlotte and Greensboro is "wrong" but I'm not sure what other spots I should include. If anyone has any ideas on how to handle this let me know.

 

Edit:

 

Leaning toward including Richmond and not Raleigh. Looks like it may have been one of two 10k plus buildings that were regular on the circuit. Roanoke was just under. Raleigh 7k. This is not easy

[khawk20]

I may have access to a partial Ken Patera record book done by One Fan Gang on the Sports and Wrestling Website soon. It is unfinished and he's passing it along to Clawmaster, who said he'll post it.

 

Even a partial record should help this a bit. I'll pass it along to you once it gets posted over there.

[Dylan Waco]

Cool. That could really help me fill in some gaps. I found some extended NJPW results from Patera's 84 tour last night that I previously had missed.

 

I decided to include Richmond on my big venue/major market list but not Raleigh or Roanoke (which was a nearly 10k seat building). I don't want to give the impression that I am artificially inflating Patera's numbers. I'm hoping to get up these numbers this weekend, though it may be a while longer. There are other metrics a record book could really help me with as things develop.

[Loss]

Even in small markets, if there are cases where you can see that Patera's presence or absence had a noticeable impact (positive or negative) on the gate, it's worth mentioning, whether it's with an asterisk or not.

[jdw]

One that I'm working on right now is tracking down all of his major title matches (by that I mean NWA or WWF world title matches) and every major market/large arena show headlined. Solely so I can avoid accusation of bias I am leaving almost every disputable "main event" match off the list. This means a lot of co-main event/headline feud matches will NOT appear on the list (I may correct for that with a second list that would include secondary title matches and title defenses or even a "featured match" metric, though that is more arbitrary and opens things up to accusations of bias). There are issues where it is impossible to say what is the "true" main event particularly in the WWF with the oddball structuring of cards relative to other territories. In those instances I will list the "other" possible match so people can judge for themselves. I'm also including relevant appearances on super shows here because it feels like this is the right place to put it.

For the WWWF/WWF, it's always okay to work up drafts of two lists:

 

* clear main events

* are these also main events?

 

And run them by people.

 

Clearly Bruno-Larry Z were main events, even if Bob was also defending the title on the card.

 

In turn:

 

WWWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 29, 1977

Televised on the MSG Network and HBO - featured Vince McMahon on commentary:

Lenny Hurst defeated Rocky Tomayo

Johnny Rivera defeated Joe Turco at 10:51

SD Jones defeated Jack Evans at 8:19

Peter Maivia defeated Stan Stasiak at 7:35 via count-out

Tony Garea & Larry Zbyzsko defeated George Steele & Baron Mikel Scicluna in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0;

WWWF World Champion Superstar Billy Graham defeated Ivan Putski via count-out at 18:01

Bruno Sammartino (w/ Arnold Skaaland) pinned Ken Patera in a Texas Death Match at 12:13

Verne Gagne pinned Nikolai Volkoff at 7:10

Chief Jay Strongbow fought Mr. Fuji to a curfew draw at around the 6-minute mark

 

We can look at that and *know* what the Main Event is. It's not Superstar vs Putski. It's clearly the blow off of Bruno-Patera, while Superstar is between feuds with Bruno (finished the prior MSG) and Dusty (starts the next MSG). This was a throw away defense.

 

No it's okay to compile something like that into the "are these also main events?" list and run it by some folks.

 

It's like this card:

 

http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/...bud90.html#1290

 

I have no idea how Matt lists this on his 10K+ list of doom, and who he gives credit to. Yet *everyone* who is knowledgeable about AJPW in the period knows what the main event is. If one wants to stretch it to call it a Double Main Event and give the gaijin some credit, have at it. But everyone who knows about AJPW would agree that the match that went on second to last was the real draw.

 

John

[jdw]

Even in small markets, if there are cases where you can see that Patera's presence or absence had a noticeable impact (positive or negative) on the gate, it's worth mentioning, whether it's with an asterisk or not.

I disagree. One of the problems when creating a massive data dump is the people's eyes glaze over and they scroll past it fast. You're trying to not only give people information, but also in a way that is easy to work through. You don't draw people over to your view point with a mass of it that they simply eject from.

 

My degree is history. In addition, I was a sports stats junkie from about the age of 6 eating up the back of baseball and football cards. You've seen me post at length about minutia in pro wrestling. But...

 

Even I don't care to see a lot of this:

 

WWWF @ Pittsfield, MA - Boys Club Gym - February 25, 1977 (1,200)

WWWF Tag Team Champions Chief Jay Strongbow & Billy White Wolf defeated Ken Patera & Tor Kamata in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0; fall #1: Strongbow pinned Kamata at 14:15; fall #2: Patera & Kamata were disqualified at the 21-second mark when Patera gave a forearm smash to referee Mario Savoldi

 

Patera main evented at the Boys Club Gym in Pittsfield, MA in Feb 1977... well... okay.

 

The problem with including all of those, or even a hundred like this:

 

WWWF @ Portland, ME - February 15, 1977

Ken Patera defeated Ivan Putski via count-out

 

Is that it while eyes are getting glazed over by a mass of them and folks start scrolling past the data, they're missing Patera main eventing MSG *4* times against Bruno. Or these:

 

WWWF @ Boston, MA - Boston Garden - April 16, 1977

WWWF World Champion Bruno Sammartino defeated Ken Patera via disqualification

 

WWWF @ Long Island, NY - Nassau Coliseum - April 18, 1977

WWWF World Champion Bruno Sammartino fought Ken Patera to a double count-out

 

WWWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - June 4, 1977 (13,797)

Bruno Sammartino fought Ken Patera to a double disqualification when both men began to box one another

WWWF World Champion Superstar Billy Graham pinned Chief Jay Strongbow at 10:07

 

Where it's pretty clear that Bruno-Patera would be the main of the last one.

 

It's far better to look at a territory and figure out what the major arenas / cities are. Then look at those cards.

 

You can always point to the full data set by providing a link, and a comment that he main evented even more cards in the second & third tier towns.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

I'm going to post my "findings" later, but what I have done is noted the shows that could be reasonably considered dual main events in the WWF. I will explain it in greater detail in the post but there are a bunch of qualifier's I felt the need to make. Most of them error on the side of playing down Patera's impact as a top of the card performer (for instance not including buildings like Roanoke, Asheville or Raleigh in his "major main event" totals even though they were buildings with minimum 7k capacities in a territory that often ran much smaller venues or not giving him ANY "main event" credit for all but a handful of AWA shows where he didn't technically "go on last" despite the fact that the AWA regularly ran double and even triple main events). Right now the broadest possible interpretation under the perimeters I have currently set has Patera "main eventing" 188 "major" shows for no fewer than thirteen offices. I haven't really tried to establish a "conservative" interpretation but I would think even someone inclined to give him no benefits of the doubt would be hard pressed to chip off anymore than thirty of those from his total. Of course some of these are tag matches and some are singles but you'll see the point. I also plan on hashing out a list of common opponents/feuds as in the past I have forgotten to include names like Dibiase and Brisco among the impressive list of people he worked programs with.

[jdw]

Most of them error on the side of playing down Patera's impact as a top of the card performer (for instance not including buildings like Roanoke, Asheville or Raleigh in his "major main event" totals even though they were buildings with minimum 7k capacities in a territory that often ran much smaller venues or not giving him ANY "main event" credit for all but a handful of AWA shows where he didn't technically "go on last" despite the fact that the AWA regularly ran double and even triple main events).

Raleigh is part of the Raleigh–Durham / Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill metro. It's quite large now, about 1.8M. Much of that growth, though, is more recent:

 

Raleigh–Durham

1970: 446,074

1980: 560,774

1990: 735,480

 

But it wasn't insignificant in the 70s while he was there. A couple of other references:

 

Providence

1970: 612,362

1980: 618,514

1990: 654,854

 

Tulsa

1970: 525,852

1980: 657,173

1990: 708,954

 

So not terribly far behind Tulsa, which was a "big" town in Wattsville. I tend to think Providence and Raleigh are borderline: they're clearly not the "major" cities in the territories, but they're not really small.

 

Anyway, JCP looked a bit like this with metros that reached 400K+ by 1980:

 

Norfolk--Virginia Beach--Newport News

1970: 1,023,598

1980: 1,160,311

 

Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill

1970: 840,347

1980: 971,447

 

Greensboro--Winston-Salem--High Point

1970: 742,984

1980: 851,444

 

Richmond--Petersburg

1970: 676,351

1980: 761,311

 

Greenville--Spartanburg

1970: 473,454

1980: 570,210

 

Raleigh–Durham

1970: 446,074

1980: 560,774

 

Charleston

1970: 336,125

1980: 430,346

 

Columbia

1970: 322,880

1980: 409,953

 

One could see a reasonable argument that the cut off is Richmond and above, though the folks you talk to who were in the area back in the day might give you more insight.

[Dylan Waco]

I am using Tulsa. I am also using Honolulu (though he had only one main event there). My reasoning is that they were the big stops for the respective territories. I'm also bunching Dallas/Ft. Worth, Oakland/San Fran, and the Twin Cities as it seems silly not to even though I will inevitably run into criticism about how they "weren't the same" back then. I already had Providence worked in. It's a big city, with a large venue IIRC. I also included Denver, Winnipeg and Salt Lake City because they were consistent loop towns in the AWA that ran in big venues. I left a place like Springfield, Mass off even though they regularly got big cards (title defenses, big Bruno matches, et).

 

Actually here is a list of notable omissions from the list:

 

Las Vegas

Green Bay

Omaha

Springfield

Indianapolis

Buffalo

Roanoke

Norfolk

Raleigh

Winston-Salem

Phoenix

 

I could see arguments for all of them.

 

MACW presents the real challenge because the more I look into venues the more weird things I find. I had forgotten how big the Hampton Roads Coliseum is for instance and that would have been a bigger venue than the Exhibition Hall at the Scope by a wide margin.

 

Then you'll find stuff like this:

 

9/17/78 Roanoke, VA @ Civic Center

Tony Atlas beat Ken Patera to win Mid Atlantic Title

Blackjack Mulligan & Paul Jones beat NWA Tag Team Champions Greg Valentine & Baron Von Raschke dq

Mr Wrestling Tim Woods beat Ciclon Negro

Ted Oates & Jerry Oates vs Rudy Kay & Scandor Akbar

David Patterson beat Joe Furr

 

Which appears to be an early match in a multi-month long feud they ran out of Roanoke a nearly 10k seat facility. I don't believe for a second the place was selling out every night or close to it. But the fact that it was positioned to carry a venue of that size is impressive.

 

Then you have Savannah which was theoretically a nearly 10k seat building but by all accounts was never configured for much more than 2/3s of that. The building in Charlotte was much smaller by comparison but again it's a "market of note" and a "wrestling town."

 

If someone can present me with a compelling argument to include any of the towns/buildings on my list I'll do it. I talked to one of the more well respected writers on MACW history today and while it was an enjoyable conversation he seemed to have the same shoulder shrugging take that I have to the whole thing.

[jdw]

I'm also bunching Dallas/Ft. Worth, Oakland/San Fran, and the Twin Cities as it seems silly not to even though I will inevitably run into criticism about how they "weren't the same" back then.

Not sure what you mean by "bunching"... I assume you just mean that you'll include both from those cities, at least in terms of the major arena (i.e. not the Sportatorium, but the bigger places run in Dallas/FW).

 

 

Actually here is a list of notable omissions from the list:

 

Las Vegas

Green Bay

Omaha

Springfield

Indianapolis

Buffalo

Roanoke

Norfolk

Raleigh

Winston-Salem

Phoenix

 

Norfolk needs to be in. It's actually the largest metro in the Mid-Atlantic and clearly got big cards regularly.

 

Winston-Salem is part of the Greensboro metro, so I would only include it if it was the host of a big arena with big attendance like the Meadowlands and Nassau Coliseum were to the WWF in 1985-89. They were part of the New York Metro, and while we can take a look at who main evented at MSG to get a decent idea of what was headlining in the market, we really need to include those two other buildings for a full picture (i.e. to see the Hogan Feuds that didn't play in MSG).

 

The Roanoke metro doesn't have a pot to piss in: 199,629 in 1970 and 220,393 in 1980. It's an easy one to drop off given Norfolk, Charlotte, Greensboro and Richmond are larger and give a good representation of what was headlining. Greenville/Spartanburg, Raleigh/Durham, Charleston and Columbia all should be ahead of Roanoke in consideration. On the other hand, if it's a big building getting packed all the time... I can see it as a money maker.

 

Hampton Roads is part of the Norfolk metro, just the 4th largest city in it so it's not named in the metro.

 

John

[jdw]

BTW - did the Mid-Atlantic Gateway bury their older massive collection of Posters & Results for various arenas?