Ted DiBiase: brawler or technician

[JerryvonKramer]

jdw - I think with anyone working in WWF in that timeframe looking for a ****1/2 match is a mistake. You have to just appreciate what guys do in matches rather than looking for a classic match itself. So in a sense, yes -- looking at execution, selling, charisma in the ring and so on. You're not going to get any technical matches or epics, they weren't allowed to happen. Looking at structure to an extent has to be a secondary thing because WWF was so formulaic.

 

I honestly believe that. 80s WWF post-Backlund era requires a different mindset to get into properly. It's pointless trying to judge it against the same criteria as Crockett or All Japan. It's an entertainment-heavy product, so really entertainment should be the criteria you judge it on. For me, in THAT environment, Ted was a top 2 or 3 worker. Would only put Savage and maybe Steamboat when he was there ahead of him.

 

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

There's something I can't put my finger on that has been bothering me about this post. I think it's because buried in here is a logical argument that goes something like this:

 

DiBiase gets outworked on the mat by Tenryu

Therefore Tenryu is a better wrestler than DiBiase

 

Even if that conclusion is true, I'm not sure that this as an argument is valid since y'know wrestling matches aren't real so no one is really getting "outworked". I'm not saying it for certain, but I have a vague feeling that some confusion between kayfabe and guys working a match is going on here.

[goodhelmet]

Jerry, clarify your 1st paragraph. Are you saying the wrestlers didn't expect to work classic matches or that fans should not expect classic matches.?

 

Also, when someone gets outworked on the mat, it doesn't necessarily mean that one wrestler got the better of the other and gains an advantage. It means that the shit one wrestler did looked cooler than what the opponent attempted.

[NintendoLogic]

There's something I can't put my finger on that has been bothering me about this post. I think it's because buried in here is a logical argument that goes something like this:

 

DiBiase gets outworked on the mat by Tenryu

Therefore Tenryu is a better wrestler than DiBiase

That's not what I'm saying. I do think Tenryu is better than DiBiase, but it has nothing to do with matwork. Hell, I probably care less about matwork than anybody on this board. I'm just saying that if you're making a case for DiBiase as a master technician, a match where he gets outworked in that regard by a guy who isn't exactly known for his mat prowess is rather problematic.

[KrisZ]

I was looking at some old wrestling mags from 1987 yesterday Apter and non-Apter and this was around the time that the Million Dollar Man gimmick was being born and every writer was shocked that the "master wrestling technician" DiBiase was using cheap tactics. It wasn't just Meltzer it was the mags too.

[JerryvonKramer]

Jerry, clarify your 1st paragraph. Are you saying the wrestlers didn't expect to work classic matches or that fans should not expect classic matches.?

I'm saying that we, as fans, shouldn't judge WWF by the same criteria that we judge All Japan or Crockett or any other work-heavy product.

 

Let me make an analogy. Do you judge drama by the same criteria you judge comedy? The answer is no. You judge comedy by how much it makes you laugh plus a few other things, you judge drama on another set of variables.

 

So in the world of film, we as the audience gudge things based on genre expectations.

 

We should do the same in wrestling. It is clear that the 80s WWF is a different genre of wrestling from what Crockett was doing. It's not a fair comparison, apples and oranges. Should only judge apples on your expectations of apples.

[Dylan Waco]

That is what the 80's sets are for and as someone who has watched a lot of 80's WWF pre and post Backlund I can tell you there are plenty of really good matches both within and outside of that context. Saying there weren't and that it wasn't a goal of the style strikes me as a smoke screen excuse to cover for Dibiase's low output of quality matches, though I don't think that's necessarily your intention.

[Matt D]

I can watch a comedy and a drama and judge the two of them side by side. It's not that hard to do if you've seen a lot of both comedies and dramas. Yes, they're trying to accomplish different things, but you can judge how well they accomplished the things they tried to accomplish, the level of difficulty innate in what they were doing, etc, and make a decision.

 

But then I like the Bushwhackers vs Beverly Brothers way more than most people because I think they did what they went out to do in a successful manner. It doesn't mean it'll stack up well against something with a much higher level of difficulty or complexity, all else equal, though.

[Loss]

I'm a firm believer that any match from any promotion, style or era can be compared to any match from a different promotion, style or era.

 

There were also great matches in 80s WWF. It may not have been as emphasized, but many times, wrestlers managed to have great matches while still serving their many masters.

[Strummer]

Not defending anyone but one of the things the guys complained about during that time was that different agents were telling them different things to do during their matches. I remember Ted specifically griping about that about 5 or so years back. Strongbow would want the match one way but then would be overruled by Lanza,etc. Then you had to please Vince. Plus guys in the ilk of Ted were used to make the the roid monsters look good. But yeah there were opportunities to shine in the right environment.

[S.L.L.]

It's not a fair comparison, apples and oranges.

They're both fruit.

 

I don't expect the exact same things from a comedy film as I do a drama, but I do expect both of them to be good.

 

If the expectation I'm supposed to have of a genre is that it's going to suck...then the genre sucks.

 

And yeah, I know, we're supposed to watch it for the "entertainment"...you know what I think is really, really entertaining? Good wrestling matches. And that's not to say there aren't a lot of other things in wrestling that entertain me, but I can get those things from every other form of entertainment in existence, and almost all of them do those things better. I mean, if all I wanted was to watch a rich asshole talk about how great he was and treat everyone around him like shit in an entertaining matter, why would I waste my time with this guy....

 

 

....when I could be watching this guy....

 

 

Ted DiBiase is simply not as compelling of an actor as Orson Welles, so if I'm gonna give a shit about him, he has to provide me with something Welles doesn't. And as it happens, I've never seen Welles break out a fistdrop as pretty as DiBiase's, nor a powerslam as slick as DiBiase's. Ted DiBiase fills a hole in my entertainment world that Citizen Kane cannot.

 

But he didn't do it through technical wrestling, and more to the point, even we accepted your premise that Hogan-era WWF should be judged primarily on non-match elements, I'm not sure how that proves anything about DiBiase being a technician. What, because being a technician was part of his character? OK, I guess, but that tells us less than nothing about what Ted's actual value as a wrestler was and why. Understand that when Will says Ted was a brawler and not a technician, he is looking to make a slightly more insightful comment than "Stan Hansen is a cowboy and not a mummy".

[ohtani's jacket]

We should do the same in wrestling. It is clear that the 80s WWF is a different genre of wrestling from what Crockett was doing. It's not a fair comparison, apples and oranges. Should only judge apples on your expectations of apples.

I agree with you here. I don't know that 80s WWF was an entirely different genre from Crockett but they were certainly distinguishable from one another. As a wrestling fan, I wish Ted Dibiase had a higher number of good matches, but from a WWF perspective I think it makes more sense to judge him by how well he wrestled as his character rather than whether he was technically good, though this may be truly of practically all workers and I still maintain that he was a ring technician. I watched that '89 Bret/Dibiase match and when Bret countered the rear chinlock with a top wristlock and Dibiase went for the hair, that mother knew what he was doing.

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't understand SLL's post at all.

 

Why watch DiBiase as the Million Dollar Man when Citizen Kane exists? Is this question really being posited? Am I going to dignify it with an answer?

 

I can't entertain the idea that the world of 80s WWF and films made by Orson Welles exist as real alternatives that can be compared.

 

The kooky, kitchsy "entertainment" world of pro wrestling is not in any way comparable to what you can get from other forms of entertainment. It's its own world, with its own internal logic. I fear further discussion along these lines will veer off into absurdity.

 

If you watch wrestling solely for the matches and not for the skits and so on, fine. I'm just saying that 80s WWF was a product heavily geared towards the entertainment side of things (that product is probably not for you). I'm saying you should judge what people do in that context against that backdrop of it being an entertainment-heavy promotion. If you want to judge DiBiase's acting talent against Orson Welles, then ... fine. But I think that is quite an extreme and, dare I say it, a positvely mental position. There are SOME cross overs between film actors and wrestlers but not enough to warrant serious comparison.

 

As to the point about DiBiase as technician or brawler, I already accepted and concluded that he's somewhere in between. Talk had moved on a little bit to assessing his overall worth as a worker.

[Matt D]

We should do the same in wrestling. It is clear that the 80s WWF is a different genre of wrestling from what Crockett was doing. It's not a fair comparison, apples and oranges. Should only judge apples on your expectations of apples.

I agree with you here. I don't know that 80s WWF was an entirely different genre from Crockett but they were certainly distinguishable from one another. As a wrestling fan, I wish Ted Dibiase had a higher number of good matches, but from a WWF perspective I think it makes more sense to judge him by how well he wrestled as his character rather than whether he was technically good, though this may be truly of practically all workers and I still maintain that he was a ring technician. I watched that '89 Bret/Dibiase match and when Bret countered the rear chinlock with a top wristlock and Dibiase went for the hair, that mother knew what he was doing.

 

The biggest thing I got coming out of the Taylor match was that Taylor's stuff was just okay but Dibiase did a great job of making it look better than okay, even if he didn't come out on top of the exchanges or do anything particularly flashy.

[S.L.L.]

I know I made that post less than 24 hours ago, but I'm a little sad nobody made a joke about people on this board overrating Kane.

 

Anyway....

 

The kooky, kitchsy "entertainment" world of pro wrestling is not in any way comparable to what you can get from other forms of entertainment. It's its own world, with its own internal logic. I fear further discussion along these lines will veer off into absurdity.

I'm afraid it's already veered into absurdity if you're seriously going to argue that kook and kitsch are qualities wholly unique to pro wrestling. Pee-Wee's Playhouse ran from 1986 to 1991, pretty much spanning DiBiase's entire run as a singles star in the WWF. If I'm in it for kook and kitsch and not something else, what does Ted - or really any wrestler - have to offer that Pee-Wee can't match or beat? He's a better actor, he's funnier, he's more creative, his show is more visually dynamic....the only advantages Ted has are what he does in the ring. So if I'm not supposed to judge him based on what he does in the ring, there's really not much reason to invest in Ted unless I really need my kitsch to have an evil rich guy...in which case I will watch Dallas, thank you very much.

 

If you watch wrestling solely for the matches and not for the skits and so on, fine. I'm just saying that 80s WWF was a product heavily geared towards the entertainment side of things (that product is probably not for you). I'm saying you should judge what people do in that context against that backdrop of it being an entertainment-heavy promotion. If you want to judge DiBiase's acting talent against Orson Welles, then ... fine. But I think that is quite an extreme and, dare I say it, a positvely mental position. There are SOME cross overs between film actors and wrestlers but not enough to warrant serious comparison.

No, a mental position is saying that any successful wrestling pro wrestling promotion ever took the focus so far away from the ring that one could - nevermind should - judge a wrestler's worth without taking their ringwork into consideration at all. That is a huge misreading of what was going on in the Rock 'N' Wrestling era. The fact that the WWF in that period didn't run very smark-friendly shows in no way means that the matches weren't critical.

 

But even if I accept that idea, the fact remains that the defining feature of wrestling as a genre is wrestling. If you dismiss the wrestling from wrestling, you're left with just another TV show. There's nothing shielding it from comparisons to every other form of entertainment, because it's not doing anything different from them. It's just doing what they do, only worse.

 

If I'm not supposed to judge Million Dollar Man-era Ted based on what he does in the ring, then I have to judge him as an actor. And as an actor, he's no Orson Welles.

 

As to the point about DiBiase as technician or brawler, I already accepted and concluded that he's somewhere in between. Talk had moved on a little bit to assessing his overall worth as a worker.

That...is not apparent from your writing at all, but OK.

[JerryvonKramer]

SLL, two of Vince's flagship shows TNT and Primetime were almost exclusively angle and skit driven. There were clips of matches and occasionally they'd show full matches from MSG (often just squashes though to showcase one guy), but there would be maybe 15 or even 20 minutes at a stretch where there were no matches going on.

 

I don't believe Vince saw matches as the most important part of his product. It was the colourful characters. It was the promos. He's the most successful wrestling promotor in history and his product wasn't match heavy. Primetime was carried by Gorilla and Bobby Heenan as a double act, not the wrestling.

 

Hell go and watch the Halloween special SNME or the one where they have a bloody water slide race.

 

I don't accept though that because it's so entertainment driven that it's "just another TV show". Clearly that's what Vince thought in his head somewhere, especially when it came to TNT, but the fact that these guys are ultimately getting in a ring makes it pro wrestling.

 

I cannot explain the appeal of that product to you if if you'd rather watch Dallas or Citizen Kane.

[jdw]

SLL, two of Vince's flagship shows TNT and Primetime were almost exclusively angle and skit driven. There were clips of matches and occasionally they'd show full matches from MSG (often just squashes though to showcase one guy), but there would be maybe 15 or even 20 minutes at a stretch where there were no matches going on.

Primetime?

 

24 years ago this week:

 

1/12/88:

- Bret Hart pinned Paul Roma (w/ Jim Powers) at 12:59 with an elbow drop from the middle rope after a backbreaker (12/29/87; Hamilton, Ontario; Copps Coliseum)

- The Ultimate Warrior pinned Steve Lombardi with a gorilla press slam at 7:43; Warrior used Jimmy Hart's "Crank it Up" as his theme music for the match (12/29/87; Hamilton, Ontario; Copps Coliseum)

- Koko B. Ware pinned Iron Mike Sharpe with the Ghostbuster at 6:03 (12/29/87; Hamilton, Ontario; Copps Coliseum)

- Dan Spivey pinned Lanny Poffo at 8:41 with a neckbreaker after Poffo missed a dropkick (12/29/87; Hamilton, Ontario; Copps Coliseum)

- Cowboy Lang pinned Lord Littlebrook at 12:20 after hooking Littlebrook down with his feet; Lang used Jimmy Hart's "Crank it Up" theme for his entrance (10/23/87; Paris, France)

- Demolition (w/ Mr. Fuji) defeated Billy Jack Haynes & Brady Boone (sub. for an injured Ken Patera) (w/ Ken Patera) at 10:22 when Smash pinned Boone after dropping him throat-first across the top rope (12/11/87; Houston, TX; Sam Houston Coliseum)

That's not really an uncommon week. The week before:

 

1/4/88:

- Jim Duggan pinned Sika with the running clothesline at 9:16 (12/26/87; Madison Square Garden)

- Dino Bravo (w/ Frenchy Martin) pinned Hillbilly Jim at 9:27 with a running knee to the back as Jim was distracted by Frenchy on the apron (12/5/87; Philadelphia Spectrum)

- Jacques & Raymond Rougeau defeated the Conquistadors at 13:07 when Jacques scored the pin following a double team move off the top (12/26/87; Madison Square Garden)

- WWF Women's Champion Sensational Sherri pinned Velvet McIntyre at 14:31 when the momentum of a crossbody by the challenger put Sherri on top (10/23/87; Paris, France)

- Iron Mike Sharpe pinned SD Jones at 7:33 after hitting him in the head with his forearm support (12/26/87; Madison Square Garden)

- Bam Bam Bigelow (w/ Sir Oliver Humperdink) pinned King Kong Bundy (w/ Bobby Heenan) at 3:56 with a splash after Bundy missed a splash of his own (Best of the WWF Vol. 15) (11/17/87; Des Moines, IA; Veterans Memorial Auditorium)

 

Similar.

 

Primetime wasn't really almost exclusively angle and skit driven. The show was a combination "re-cap" of the week's syndication shows (and SNME if there had been one) and wrestling matches. Looking over the matches that made Primetime in 1988, over 100 were from MSG, Philly, Boston and the LA Sports Arena. Some were squashy, most weren't. I'm willing to bet that there were more than 200, and possibly 250, non-squashes on Primetime. Even in that Bret vs Roma match, while Bret was clearly favored, they worked a competitive 13 minute match.

[jdw]

TNT was of course a different beast, but if it was on the air for 2 years it barely got there. It wasn't one of Vince's flagship shows like Superstars, SNME, Challenge or Primetime. It was more of a vanity show, which Vince got out of his system.

 

John

[goodhelmet]

SLL, two of Vince's flagship shows TNT and Primetime were almost exclusively angle and skit driven. There were clips of matches and occasionally they'd show full matches from MSG (often just squashes though to showcase one guy), but there would be maybe 15 or even 20 minutes at a stretch where there were no matches going on.

 

I don't believe Vince saw matches as the most important part of his product. It was the colourful characters. It was the promos. He's the most successful wrestling promotor in history and his product wasn't match heavy. Primetime was carried by Gorilla and Bobby Heenan as a double act, not the wrestling.

 

Hell go and watch the Halloween special SNME or the one where they have a bloody water slide race.

 

I don't accept though that because it's so entertainment driven that it's "just another TV show". Clearly that's what Vince thought in his head somewhere, especially when it came to TNT, but the fact that these guys are ultimately getting in a ring makes it pro wrestling.

 

I cannot explain the appeal of that product to you if if you'd rather watch Dallas or Citizen Kane.

Jerry, you completely ignore that the entire business model of wrestling in the 80s was to get people to the house shows. The skits, characters, bad acting, lame storylines... all there, even in Vinnie Mac Land, to get people to watch the house shows. If the wrestling part was so unimportant to Vince, he wouldn't have guys working 300+ days a year, many times without months off (if you believe the wrestlers). Wrestling matches were very much a part of his product and the whole purpose of all of the fluff was to get people to go watch the MATCHES at the house shows. If the skits and interviews and vignettes were the most important part of Vince's world, they would have had skit heavy and promo heavy house shows. They didn't. The TV existed as one long infomercial for the house shows.

[jdw]

... and what Will said.

 

John

[KrisZ]

And that's the problem with TV these days is they don't build for the important shows which are PPV's now not house shows. Promotions should have more squashes while having some matches with top guys but do matches with guys not tied to each other so you don't get overkill every week like having the same two guys wrestle each other 6 times on TV/PPV in a month which is what happens now pretty much.

[jdw]

And that's the problem with TV these days is they don't build for the important shows which are PPV's now not house shows. Promotions should have more squashes while having some matches with top guys but do matches with guys not tied to each other so you don't get overkill every week like having the same two guys wrestle each other 6 times on TV/PPV in a month which is what happens now pretty much.

Disagree. We've talked about that here before, and fairly recently. TV for the WWE is by itself a massive revenue stream. Not just from the large rights fees, but also in driving house show attendance for Raw and SmackDown (which are higher than average non-TV house shows), and also merch (live at Raw and SmackDown), etc.

 

The WWE generates more revenue from TV than from PPV now. The notion of going back to more squashes on Raw and SD is problematic because it's not a lock to hold up the ratings, which in turn drive the rights fees.

 

John

[Matt D]

What we need is the Event Center

[jdw]

What we need is Product That More People Give A Shit About.

 

Everyone wants to look for excuses rather than where they lie: the Product and the People who Create the Product.

 

John

[S.L.L.]

SLL, two of Vince's flagship shows TNT and Primetime were almost exclusively angle and skit driven. There were clips of matches and occasionally they'd show full matches from MSG (often just squashes though to showcase one guy), but there would be maybe 15 or even 20 minutes at a stretch where there were no matches going on.

 

I don't believe Vince saw matches as the most important part of his product. It was the colourful characters. It was the promos. He's the most successful wrestling promotor in history and his product wasn't match heavy. Primetime was carried by Gorilla and Bobby Heenan as a double act, not the wrestling.

 

Hell go and watch the Halloween special SNME or the one where they have a bloody water slide race.

 

I don't accept though that because it's so entertainment driven that it's "just another TV show". Clearly that's what Vince thought in his head somewhere, especially when it came to TNT, but the fact that these guys are ultimately getting in a ring makes it pro wrestling.

 

I cannot explain the appeal of that product to you if if you'd rather watch Dallas or Citizen Kane.

Jerry, you completely ignore that the entire business model of wrestling in the 80s was to get people to the house shows. The skits, characters, bad acting, lame storylines... all there, even in Vinnie Mac Land, to get people to watch the house shows. If the wrestling part was so unimportant to Vince, he wouldn't have guys working 300+ days a year, many times without months off (if you believe the wrestlers). Wrestling matches were very much a part of his product and the whole purpose of all of the fluff was to get people to go watch the MATCHES at the house shows. If the skits and interviews and vignettes were the most important part of Vince's world, they would have had skit heavy and promo heavy house shows. They didn't. The TV existed as one long infomercial for the house shows.

 

Don't forget PPVs. Last I checked, Mania III was headlined by the Hogan/Andre match, not the Hogan/Andre contract signing. Vince cared so much about the angle and so little about the match that he gave the former away for free on TV and made you pay for the latter.......what?

 

I don't accept though that because it's so entertainment driven that it's "just another TV show". Clearly that's what Vince thought in his head somewhere, especially when it came to TNT, but the fact that these guys are ultimately getting in a ring makes it pro wrestling.

So...you agree with me? Because that's basically what I was trying to argue - that wrestling is it's own thing not comparable to Citizen Kane or Dallas because ultimately, they get in the ring. If them getting in the ring is unimportant, it's just another TV show. DiBiase is not Orson Welles. He's not Larry Hagman. He's not even Paul Ruebens. His schtick is not enough to warrant my interest unless it's backed by fistdrops and powerslams. It's like he's wrestling gold, and you're Richard Nixon trying to change the standard.

[KrisZ]

And that's the problem with TV these days is they don't build for the important shows which are PPV's now not house shows. Promotions should have more squashes while having some matches with top guys but do matches with guys not tied to each other so you don't get overkill every week like having the same two guys wrestle each other 6 times on TV/PPV in a month which is what happens now pretty much.

Disagree. We've talked about that here before, and fairly recently. TV for the WWE is by itself a massive revenue stream. Not just from the large rights fees, but also in driving house show attendance for Raw and SmackDown (which are higher than average non-TV house shows), and also merch (live at Raw and SmackDown), etc.

 

The WWE generates more revenue from TV than from PPV now. The notion of going back to more squashes on Raw and SD is problematic because it's not a lock to hold up the ratings, which in turn drive the rights fees.

 

John

 

I didn't say do all squashes just more than now which is zero but if you look at WWE they already do a lot of matches less than 5 minutes anyway so they are basically squashes. Ryback got over by squashing dudes so there is no way they shouldn't do that with all their new guys or monsters.

 

What really needs to change is the amount of repetition in matches such as tonight we just had Cena/Dolph, Eve/Kaitlyn, and Team Hell No/Rhodes Scholars and it seems like they have wrestled each other in some type of pairing for the last month and they are doing Dolph/Sheaums on Main Event on Wednesday which they have been programmed to death.

 

You go back and watch how Mid-South did TV in 1985 they had matches with their top guys every week but it was guys who weren't directly tied with each other. The roster is big enough where Cena only needs to work Dolph on PPV and house shows not every RAW, SD, or Main Event in some form or fashion....he could work guys like Barrett, Tensai, or 3MB where Dolph could work guys like Kofi, Santino, or Bryan/Kane.

 

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