Ted DiBiase: brawler or technician

[ohtani's jacket]

We'll have to disagree about whether you can be a technican without working the mat, but if Misawa isn't a technical wrestler then what is he? Part power wrestler, part brawler, part flyer, part strongest fighter, part Kings Road/Four Corners of Heaven whatever?

AJPW simply didn't do that kind of thing. Don't be too reductive. That fucking terrible Bret Hart vs Tiger Mask II match was as close to Wigan-style counterwrestling as Misawa was ever gonna get. It just wasn't one of his strengths. Nobody's perfect. Misawa was not a great technical wrestler, he essentially left all that behind to build his own style.

 

Misawa had a solid amateur background, the same as Kawada. The pair of them were at least as good as Liger. The difference was the promotion. Liger was voted best technical wrestler in the WON for a few years before Benoit took the award and I ask you whether either guy was a great mat worker or whether it was a matter of execution. Misawa as the ace of All Japan was supposed to be a technical wrestler.

[JerryvonKramer]

Matt D - how about as a basis of comparison watching a random Dibiase match from Mid South from 85 and a random WWF match from 88?

[Matt D]

Now we're going all over the place.

 

The WWF match up I actually want to look at is against Hercules. They feuded for a while and he physically can't do some of the things he did with smaller babyfaces with Hercules. I think that'll be telling.

 

As for mid-south, I need to think what I want to see. Maybe vs Terry Taylor?

[Frankensteiner]

I recall liking that Taylor match if it's the one from a July TV episode.

 

Another idea would be to compare how he wrestled babyface Jake Roberts in '85 and then '89.

[Clayton Jones]

The Armstrong match from 2/10/85 is another good one although the Taylor match is probably the best example of technical DiBiase on the set.

[NintendoLogic]

We'll have to disagree about whether you can be a technican without working the mat, but if Misawa isn't a technical wrestler then what is he? Part power wrestler, part brawler, part flyer, part strongest fighter, part Kings Road/Four Corners of Heaven whatever?

I don't know. There isn't really an established term to describe a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type. Jim Ross used to use "catch-as-catch-can style" to describe Shawn Michaels, but that's quite wrong.

 

Misawa had a solid amateur background, the same as Kawada. The pair of them were at least as good as Liger. The difference was the promotion. Liger was voted best technical wrestler in the WON for a few years before Benoit took the award and I ask you whether either guy was a great mat worker or whether it was a matter of execution. Misawa as the ace of All Japan was supposed to be a technical wrestler.

The difference is that Liger had plenty of matches where he spent a significant amount of time on the mat. You can argue about the quality of it, but it was there.

[Matt D]

Ok so I Watched the Taylor/Dibiase match (I'm pretty sure it was the one from the mid south set, the bait and switch with the Nightmare match), and Dibiase is a shitty, shitty technician in the match, even while JR is going on about how he is one. The story of the first half of the match is that Taylor is a far superior wrestler and Dibiase takes back over when he gets a cheap punch in the corner. When he takes over it's all punches, stomps, chokes on the rope, chokes, clotheslines. The one time he tries even a little bit of arm work early on, Taylor reverses it quickly. When he tries a hip toss, Taylor reverses it into a backslide.

 

He does a quick knee breaker out of nowhere to get the figure four on, but that's really IT. Even the figure four Taylor reverses andthen he starts on leg work of his own before Dibiase pulls out the knucks.

 

But what they sell him as is someone who knows a lot of moves and can execute them, and someone who can make tactical moves at key times. But that has a mean streak. And someone who can do all the moves which is why it's such a shame he uses the tactics he does.

 

I guess, if I was going to say from a working point of view what he was here, it's someone who can work well AGAINST a technician. He eats all the 80s babyface arm offense well. He helped make Taylor look really good, going so far as to really stretching out the knucks shot that ended it with a few near misses all due to Taylor's "prowess."

 

For Herc vs Dibiase I picked a January 1989 MSG match, which is probably deep into the feud so they've been around the loop. It's a Virgil-banned-from-ringside match.

 

Dibiase sells Herc's punches so well. Herc has these cool stalking clotheslines and okay, no, I'm not doing play by play here. Just to the point.

 

 

Dibiase makes it to the ropes in a clever way with his feet going over the top to break the early full nelson. Again, Dibiase is making his opponent look like a million bucks but there's nothing technical about Hercules. The transition is Dibiase grabbing a hold of the trunks from a prone position and tossing Herc out. When he takes over it's a bunch of strikes, slams,stomps and shots on the outside. This is clipped and when we come back, Herc is fighting out of what looks to be a chinlock. Herc gets a flash small package reversal out of a slam attempt but Dibiase gets up first and stomps. Finish is a series of corner clotheslines by Hercules with Dibiase ducking under the last one and doing a double leg shoot and putting his feet up on the ropes.

 

Ok, here is the concession I'll make.

 

Dibiase is a technician in this one way. He's portrayed as a wrestler with great ring savvy and ring positioning, who can turn the tide at a moment's notice and take advantage of a situation. From a kayfabe perspective I can buy that to an extent. It seems to most show up in his transitions and his finishes.

 

I Could see other wrestlers calling him one because he's so good at bumping and stooging and selling the importance and emotional impact of a move, and I suppose that could be considered a technical element of wrestling?

 

But that's all you get, Von Kramer. His heel offense sure as hell isn't "technical" by any definition of the term.

[ohtani's jacket]

The difference is that Liger had plenty of matches where he spent a significant amount of time on the mat. You can argue about the quality of it, but it was there.

All New Japan workers spent a significant amount of time on the mat. Does that mean they were all technical workers? It was a prerequisite. Obviously, in Liger's case it's part of why he was considered the world's finest technical wrestler (when the matwork wasn't cut from TV), but I'd be willing to wager that moves played a far bigger part.

[ohtani's jacket]

But that's all you get, Von Kramer. His heel offense sure as hell isn't "technical" by any definition of the term.

A heel technican who didn't take liberties would be a pretty shitty gimmick.

[Matt D]

In Mid South there was more of the sense that he was a heel technician who took liberties INSTEAD of doing technical STUFF.

 

In WWF there's not even that.

 

Either way, he was a heel technician who didn't have technical offense. Tully Blanchard is a much better example of a heel technician who started out trying to do technical stuff and got out matched, at which point he resorted to the cheating and dirty fighting. Ted was punching and ambushing from the get go.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's the WWF. I don't think it's realistic to expect Dibiase to wrestle like Tully. Curt Hennig didn't wrestle like AWA Curt Hennig in the WWF, did he? He was still considered a technician in the WWF.

 

Also, aren't you watching a match from a guy Dibiase was supposed to be feuding with? Wouldn't it make more sense to watch a wider sample? Jobber matches, random Prime Time matches, matches against other technicians, etc.

[Matt D]

I watched some stuff. I made some concessions. More so than most of the other people in the note.

 

I still think the biggest issue is to look at his babyface work before the black glove came on since that's when he got the classification in the first place and what I saw in the one Patterson match I watched made it seem like it was a real possibility.

 

I'm pretty much done with this.

 

Other people can absolutely look though. My gut says that in jobber matches where Ted has a heck of a lot less to give up, he's going to be the punch/stomper with a few power moves that we remember him to be.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think Matt D has gone above and beyond here and it wouldn't be right to ask him to do more.

 

I have seen probably more DiBiase jobber matches from the WWF than most. I'll tell you what they consist of:

 

Punches, kicks and stomps to start. Interspersed with posing and taunting the crowd.

 

Maybe an Irish whip, DiBiase sticks his head down for a backdrop, if it's a real jobber's jobber it hits, if it's a name jobber we get:

 

Gorilla: "That was a cardinal mistake for a pro"

 

Token jobber offense until either A. DiBiase has had enough and cuts it short with an eye gouge or something or B. Virgil interferes.

 

Then we go into the finishing stretch:

 

Suplex "and a beauty", million dollar fistdrop, piledriver, another fistdrop, maybe the powerslam or another high impact move (backbreaker, gutwrench, back suplex), million dollar dream and that's it. DiBiase wins in 3-4 minutes. $100 down the throat and laughing.

 

That's all we get from 90% of DiBiase squash matches.

 

I think we can all agree a few things:

 

- That aggressive punches are always part of his gameplan -- he was trained by the Funks in Texas so this is not surprising, in some ways you can see both Terry and Dory in him.

- That his core attributes as a worker are selling and execution

- That he seldom does matwork whether in Mid South or WWF

- That he doesn't go in much for counter wrestling as a heel and will resort to brawling tactics or cheating very quickly

- That his basic gameplan for a match is not very "technical"

- That his rep as a "technician" among his peers derives from his rep as a broomstick worker who can make a guy like Hercules look good

- That his rep as a "technician" in kayfabe terms derives from his smoothness and grace in executing various moves such as the vertical suplex

 

I'll leave people to draw their own conclusions from that.

[goc]

I think if we had more footage of Dibiase from St. Louis then maybe we could see where the technician label came from. He may have really been a great technician in St. Louis, but we can only judge him from the Mid-South and WWF footage. In Mid-South the only real "technical" style matches were the rare babyface vs babyface match and he was always a heel in WWF where the most "technical" heel I can think of during that time period is IRS just because you remember him always doing that abdominal stretch w/the ropes spot.

[MikeCampbell]

What about Ted in All Japan? I know of at least one singles match he had with Misawa while he was under the mask.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think if we had more footage of Dibiase from St. Louis then maybe we could see where the technician label came from. He may have really been a great technician in St. Louis, but we can only judge him from the Mid-South and WWF footage. In Mid-South the only real "technical" style matches were the rare babyface vs babyface match and he was always a heel in WWF where the most "technical" heel I can think of during that time period is IRS just because you remember him always doing that abdominal stretch w/the ropes spot.

Hey, y'know Ted did that abdominal stretch too when he was in Money Inc. I think Ted worked slightly differently when he was tagging with Rotunda. They were booked as proper chicken-shit heels almost on a Honky Tonk Man level (as was Jerry Lawler in 93-4). Even against jobbers they were slightly desperate cheating scumbags. Look at this vs. two jobbers

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88IpJzGtEjI

 

Incidental note: he makes a fan shine IRS's shoes before the match, I didn't know he was still doing those sorts of things in 1993 and on RAW.

 

DiBiase's offense in this match consists of: arm wrench, shoulder block, slamming the jobber's head on the mat. Second rope double axe handle. Choking on the top rope and then pulling the rope back so they fall backwards (twice), clothesline over the top rope. Stomps. Suplex. Powerslam.

 

So by 93 there's virtually nothing "technical" about what he's doing. It gets to the stage where he's using dirty tactics even against a jobber.

[JerryvonKramer]

What about Ted in All Japan? I know of at least one singles match he had with Misawa while he was under the mask.

In All Japan he was mostly Stan Hansen's partner and worked as a fellow cowboy. Here's a match against Yatsu and Choshu from 12/12/85 (this is on the AJ set):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRAU94efjt0

 

We do get a chinlock from him. Snapmare. Fistdrop. Punches and forearms. Lots of selling of Choshu and Yatsu's offense including a GREAT spot where Choshu back suplexes him AS Yatsu bulldogs him (Choshu and Yatsu probably have the best double teaming of any team I've seen). Stomps. Backbreaker. Couple of double-team spots (double bigfoot, double elbow, double shoulderblock). Elbow drop. Puts head down for backdrop (gets kick to the face).

 

So even in that setting working as Hansen junior, he's much the same as he is in MidSouth and WWF. There's nothing that I wrote in the summary post above that isn't true of him in that 30-minute match.

 

Incidentally, I'd point to that match as evidence that DiBiase could hang with the best of them and not look completely out of place (I ranked the 8/31/85 match against Jumbo and Tenryu higher, 21 out of 150). Again though great worker =/= "technician",and think with Ted that somewhere down the line the two terms got confused. I just read a WON newsletter dated July 18th 1988 in which Meltzer says he rates Flair 3rd best worker in the world behind Owen Hart and DiBiase -- I still think that Ted doesn't quite get his due because of the mindset that looks only at ***** matches and not at what guys actually do in matches.

[Childs]

Watching Dibiase in AJPW does him no favors. He's solid but looks very much like a B+ guy when he's in the same match as Hansen.

[MikeCampbell]

Here's the aforementioned DiBiase/Misawa match from July '87. I figured a singles match with Ted would be a better gauge of him, since he might not be out there following Hansen's lead. And, in this case, I was wrong.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyg6sjPLWzw

 

Ted guzzles Misawa right at the bell with fists, exactly like Hansen would have started with Jumbo or Tenryu. Misawa takes over and keeps him at bay with extended headlocks. Ted takes over with a couple of suplexes and a backbreaker. Ted throws Misawa to the floor and uses a chair and then takes him for a rail ride. Ted's only "technical" moment involves him dropping down to counter a sunset flip (the Bret/Davey finish without hooking the legs). He also uses the Funk spinning toehold, but it's just to let Misawa kick him off so he can go over the top and they can take the match to the floor. Ted tries to suplex Misawa into the ring and Misawa escapes out the back and pins Ted with a German.

 

If anything Misawa looked more technical by being able to slow the action down and control DiBiase with the headlock, and even then, they were just sitting in the hold and killing time.

 

There's also a DiBiase vs. Tenryu match from '83, but I don't have the patience to sit through 25 minutes right now. If anyone else wants to, then have at it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYcvu3ynVxY

[NintendoLogic]

Here's all you need to know about that match: DiBiase gets outworked on the mat by Tenryu.

[blueminister]

Ted guzzles Misawa right at the bell

uh

[goc]

Ted guzzles Misawa right at the bell

uh

 

That's a wrestling term, and I believe just a general fighting term, for dominating a guy.

[blueminister]

Hahaha okay, I don't read much fighting stuff so I thought it may have been a really weird regional euphemism. I'll stick with "devour."

[jdw]

These clearly exist from AJPW via Classics:

 

Ted DiBiase vs. Rocky Hata (5/2/80)

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ted DiBiase (10/23/83)

Genichiro Tenryu vs Ted DiBiase (24/3/1984, JIP)

11/27/85 Riki Choshu vs. Ted Dibiase

04/26/86 Tenryu vs. Ted Dibiase

 

Dan has additional misc AJPW from 1983 and earlier, as to older collectors like Lynch and Frielander. These probably would cough up one or more of the Jumbo-Ted matches in Japan (as opposed to the one in Dallas). There are probably a number of tags pre-Hansen where Ted would be in a more "technical" setting opposite the natives and/or the Funks. But you'd also find a similar amount of Terry and Dick Slater to compare him with in the sense of a more interesting gaijin at his best.

 

My recollection of Ted in the WWF in 1979 was that he was Dory Funk Jr. style: i.e. bland as hell compared to the more theatrical "play to the crowd" mat work of Backlund.

 

All that said, I think there are flashes out there as evidence of Ted being a good mat / hold worker in an old school variety. The 1989 Prime Time match with Bret (that ended up on the Bret DVD) has a long control section by Ted that, to me, blows away similar shitty control sections by Curt opposite Bret. Ted worked his holds well, and brought other offense to the table that was well executed. It's not that ****1/2 match we're all looking for, but it's also the WWF in a house show / Prime Time / CHV type of setting, and you don't get a lot of ****1/2 matches in that setting. I compared it favorably to the Hart-Steamer match that's out there, though it's possible that on rewatch I'd like the Hart-Steamer more.

 

That was sort of a throw away, filler match rather than Bret and Ted going out there to work a classic. It's worked with such ease that you have to suspect that Ted, much like Bret, worked a hundred matches like that against various opponents over the past decade on cards all over the world.

 

Not saying he's a great technical worker. But I suspect that if one sifted through the available matches, you'll find a good number of matches that showed he knew his shit on holds.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

double post