Ted DiBiase: brawler or technician

[JerryvonKramer]

It's well known that Dave Meltzer always thought of DiBiase as a technical wrestler and as one of the best in the world. That opinion has since been challenged on boards like this and DVDR and DiBiase no longer enjoys his position as being a "top 5 worker anywhere in the world for the 1980s".

 

Will is one of the more vocal defenders of DiBiase and his line is that we shouldn't think of Ted as a technician but as a brawler and that his best matches in MidSouth are bloody brawls.

 

I was reading one of the books I got recently: The Prowrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams by Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson. DiBiase and Steve Williams have an entry. Let me quote from it:

 

If you wanted brawling, Dr Death Steve Williams could provide it. If you wanted technical wrestling, Ted DiBiase could handle that. ... "I thought they made a good team, Doc the big brawler and Ted the technical wrestler", said Hacksaw Jim Duggan. "I always joked with Ted that he knew how to wrestle, but he couldn't fight a lick."

That's Duggan saying that.

 

Why did everyone in the industry, including guys who worked with him closely characterise Ted as a technician if he was this great brawler?

 

I'm not having a go at you Will -- just questioning the revisionist position on this one. From what I've seen of Mid-South there's no doubt that Ted was a great brawler, but I still maintain that he was as good technically as anyone in the 80s. For those who disagree, why? What doesn't Ted do well?

 

Sorry for making a whole thread out of this seemingly small issue, but it's a case where the revisionist position is almost 100% opposite to the conventional wisdom. The gap is too large.

[Matt D]

Isn't he really more of a power wrestler in WWF (relative to the moves of the time).

 

I'm only partially kidding.

 

More seriously, I think one issue is the definition of "technician." That really needs to be hammered down.

 

But this goes back to what I was saying in the other note. If every wrestler in the world says one thing, and the evidence in the matches say something else, it'd be crazy not to go with the evidence we can actually see, especially in a case like this.

[jpchicago23]

I can see both point of views on this one actually. I think what Will means is that Dibiase was a better brawler than technical wrestler so thats what he should be considered as. His stuff in Mid South is light years ahead of any of his other stuff and those were for the most part brawling matches. He was a good stooge seller and had excellent punches a lot like Lawler. In fact i think you can compare the two styles wise but thats just my opinion. Whether he was a babyface with a fiery comeback or a dick heel with the likes of Matt Borne and such i agree that he is better off labeled as a brawler. I mean really his technical stuff that ive seen is more because he's working with technical wrestlers like Flair and Savage or whomever. All of that is not to say that he wasnt a good techincal wrestler though because he definitely was and could work holds and tell great stories like a lot of others in the 80's i just think his brawling is what outshined everything else.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I am not Will, but I wanted to chime in.

 

Back in the day, it seemed rare for smaller guys to get labeled as brawlers. Unless you were big, had some sort of fanatical look, or both, you got labeled as a technician. It seemed like "technician" was another way to say a guy who wasn't a big hulking menace was a good wrestler. When you look at Dibiase, you don't immeidately think, "Uh oh. This guy could kick my ass."

 

I also think some of this could go back to the "Who gives a shit what wrestlers say" discussion. I know I don't really give a shit what Duggan has to say about whether Dibiase is a technical wrestler or brawler. He probably barely knows the difference. If Dibiase had long frizzly hair, face paint, a crazed look in his eye, and wrestled his exact same style, Duggan would probably say he's an all-time great brawler.

[goodhelmet]

Show me the great technical masterpieces that Ted was involved in.

[goodhelmet]

Also, Dory Funk Jr. is known as a superb mat technician. If you have ever seen Dory Funk roll around on the mat, you have to wonder what the fuck these people are smoking.

[Matt D]

At least you see where they're coming from though.

 

Ted just didn't do any of that. That's the difference.

[goodhelmet]

Is the definition of great mat technician boring the piss out of people for an hour?

[Matt D]

What i'm saying is that you can at least call Dory a mat technician, whether a good one or a bad one.

 

You can't call Dibiase one, one way or the other.

[goodhelmet]

Agreed.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm not sure that there ARE the technical masterpieces there, but that doesn't mean Ted wasn't a great technician. When he had a chance: with Savage, with Bret, with Shawn he tended to have pretty good matches with more technical wrestlers.

 

But my argument would be this:

 

How many brawlers do suplexes, piledrivers, and backbreakers as part of their standard offense? How many have a submission hold as their finisher? And how many brawlers are able to execute any of those moves as well and as smoothly as Ted did? As I mentioned in the top 5 thread, I maintain that DiBiase has the best powerslam of any wrestler. I see it as at least an equivalent of Arn's spinebuster or Barry Windham's suplex-into-a-pin.

[jpchicago23]

To me a mat technician were guys like Bret and Malenko and the like. Crisp holds and very fluid movement with little gaps between moves. And it isnt always about having the widest range of moves but executing a few moves very well and occasionally slipping in the hidden gem they had in their back pocket.

[Matt D]

Though I'll admit one thing. I've seen a lot of heel dibiase, both in Mid South and WWF, but I've seen less of his face work, especially from Georgia, but also in mid-south.

 

You look at a match like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-6JVsDr2c

 

And you see some semblance that he did some early (and vaguely interesting) armwork but even more, that when he was using the figure-four as a finisher, he'd set it up on some level in a vaguely technical way?

 

Of course, VON KRAMER is making a mostly WWF argument, so I imagine it's moot.

[jpchicago23]

How many technical wrestlers used a loaded glove as a finish too if we're going by the use of a finisher to define a technique. Hell Shawn was a pretty good technician and used a kick.

[goodhelmet]

I'm not sure that there ARE the technical masterpieces there, but that doesn't mean Ted wasn't a great technician. When he had a chance: with Savage, with Bret, with Shawn he tended to have pretty good matches with more technical wrestlers.

 

But my argument would be this:

 

How many brawlers do suplexes, piledrivers, and backbreakers as part of their standard offense? How many have a submission hold as their finisher? And how many brawlers are able to execute any of those moves as well and as smoothly as Ted did? As I mentioned in the top 5 thread, I maintain that DiBiase has the best powerslam of any wrestler. I see it as at least an equivalent of Arn's spinebuster or Barry Windham's suplex-into-a-pin.

He had decent matches with Savage, Bret etc. but never as good as the brawls he had in Mid South and those guys all had GREAT matches with other people but never with Technical Ted. What a shame.

 

Also, most brawlers use those wrestling moves. Suplexes and piledrivers were pretty standard weapons in most 80s offensive wrestlers. My point is't that Ted couldn't wrestle a standard wrestling match. My point is that he was GREAT when he was involved in brawls.

[jpchicago23]

I'm not sure that there ARE the technical masterpieces there, but that doesn't mean Ted wasn't a great technician. When he had a chance: with Savage, with Bret, with Shawn he tended to have pretty good matches with more technical wrestlers.

 

But my argument would be this:

 

How many brawlers do suplexes, piledrivers, and backbreakers as part of their standard offense? How many have a submission hold as their finisher? And how many brawlers are able to execute any of those moves as well and as smoothly as Ted did? As I mentioned in the top 5 thread, I maintain that DiBiase has the best powerslam of any wrestler. I see it as at least an equivalent of Arn's spinebuster or Barry Windham's suplex-into-a-pin.

He had decent matches with Savage, Bret etc. but never as good as the brawls he had in Mid South and those guys all had GREAT matches with other people but never with Technical Ted. What a shame.

 

Also, most brawlers use those wrestling moves. Suplexes and piledrivers were pretty standard weapons in most 80s offensive wrestlers. My point is't that Ted couldn't wrestle a standard wrestling match. My point is that he was GREAT when he was involved in brawls.

 

 

Exactly. Lawler and Gordy used piledrivers and were some of the best brawlers of all time, as well as Funk. I think people are taking it as an oversight to his ability and not as a shining on what hes best at. It's like saying Bret Hart is a great technical wrestler and having someone point out he had good brawls with so and so. Well yea he can have good brawls but hes still a better technical wrestler. All and all i agree Dibiase is in the brawling category to me. I mean his best matches were against guys like Duggan and Murdoch who are definitely brawlers.

[goodhelmet]

Dick Murdoch's title matches against Butch Reed were wrestled in a classic title match mat style as well and did well in the Mid South polling. I still want to see Dick Murdoch punch a mother fucker in the face and bleed.

[shoe]

Also citing Duggan or any wrestler you have to take with a grain of salt. If you look at a lot of these shoots . The guys have a hard time remembering their career. Let's not even talk about someone else's career.

[shoe]

Plus Dibiase was thought of as a future NWA champ. The NWA champ was thought to be a technical master by the general public and probably wrestlers. Plus his run in St. Louis gave him a rep as a technician. So I think these assumptions over time became truths. Looking at the footage he is a great brawler.

[goc]

Dick Murdoch's title matches against Butch Reed were wrestled in a classic title match mat style as well and did well in the Mid South polling.

Bill Watts talked in his shoot about making Ted Dibiase and Paul Orndorff do an hour broadway as babyfaces. He said they hated him for booking it but went out and had an awesome match. If that made tape and was as good as Watts said it was, it would likely help shore up the "Dibiase as great technician" defense. But looking at Mid-South, that kind of technical style was only really done in babyface vs babyface situations and it just wasn't something they were going to be doing a whole lot of.

[Childs]

This is an aside, but how the fuck are we talking about Shawn Michaels as a technical wrestler? Even the best version of Shawn had a notably limited repertoire.

[Matt D]

He was thought of a future NWA champ when he was a babyface in Mid-South, WWF and Georgia, right? Most of the matches most of us have seen with him are after the Georgia run, no?

[jpchicago23]

Shawn was as technical as Dibiase ever was in my book. Not saying he was the greatest. And since when did having a wide range of moves make you a technical wrestler? You gonna tell me Teddy Hart is a technical wrestler because his moveset isnt limited?

[shoe]

He was thought of a future NWA champ when he was a babyface in Mid-South, WWF and Georgia, right? Most of the matches most of us have seen with him are after the Georgia run, no?

 

My point that I was making is that was the rep he had. That rep carried over. You know when you make that 1st impression, that is the impression that sticks. It is obvious that his high end work us as a brawler. Yet he also had a lot of finesse when it came to his bumping.

[Childs]

I think of a technician as someone with an above-average assortment of moves that he executes very well. That isn't Shawn Michaels, who was all about bumping and charisma. If Shawn Michaels is a technical wrestler, that illustrates the absurdity of the term.

 

And no, I don't think of Dibiase as a technician either, though his offense was better executed and more painful looking than Shawn's.