Ted DiBiase: brawler or technician

[Dylan Waco]

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

I don't think there are all that many people looking for excuses.

[jdw]

The company certainly has for most of the past decade.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Honestly, if there were a bunch of three star Ted Dibiase WWF matches I'd think more of his run than I actually do

 

But there is:

 

6/25/88 Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage (MSG - steel cage)

 

7/31/88 Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage (Wrestlefest)

 

11/24/88 Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage/Hillbilly Jim/Koko B. Ware/Hercules vs. Haku/Ted DiBiase/Akeem/Red Rooster/Big Bossman (Survivor Series)

 

3/8/89 Ted DiBiase vs. Bret Hart

 

4/24/90 Ted DiBiase vs. Shawn Michaels

 

11/22/90 Ted DiBiase/Undertaker/Greg Valentine/Honky Tonk Man vs. Dusty Rhodes/Koko B. Ware/Bret Hart/Jim Neidhart (Survivor Series)

 

11/23/90 Ultimate Warrior vs. Ted DiBiase

 

4/15/91 Bret Hart vs. Ted DiBiase

 

8/22/93 Money Inc. vs. The Steiner Brothers (cage match, Summerslam Spectacular)

 

These are just from the top of my head, and some of them are pushing **** or even more. I could probably point to more if given time. The idea that Ted doesn't have a string of THREE star matches in WWF is simply not true.

[ohtani's jacket]

That's not a bunch of three star matches. That's the best Ted Dibiase WWF matches you can think of. I really mean more than just the usual suspects.

[JerryvonKramer]

You wouldn't give those matches ***?

[soup23]

I would say those are all 3 star matches from the best of my memory but he would need to have many more than that for me to consider him having a bunch throughout his run. Bobby Eaton so far in 1990 has been a part of 8 3 star matches by my count and 3 four+ star matches. I know unless the Midnights vs. Rich/Pillman match from Havoc drops considerably that will be bumped up to 9 which is as many as listed here for Dibiase.

[Dylan Waco]

You don't have to go to Crockett/WCW to see the difference. I like Ted fine, but even if we grant that those were all "solid" matches or whatever the hell *** means, there are guys who's rep are not as strong as Dibiase who have as many or more in the WWF.

[Dylan Waco]

Also which of those matches is pushing four stars????

[JerryvonKramer]

Also which of those matches is pushing four stars????

Savage cage match, I'd push for the Wrestlefest match too.

 

Steiners cage match

 

The Bret and Michaels matches.

[Dylan Waco]

I like all those matches fine. Don't think any makes my top 300 WWE matches in history. Maybe not top 500. That's not me being hyperbolic either and that's one reason why I look at Dibiase's output and find it totally unimpressive.

[JerryvonKramer]

Another three-star I'll throw out is the 10-minute match with Dustin Rhodes. The tag from Rumble with Dusty and him is pushing 3-star too.

 

I think you've got to understand how WWF utilized Ted though, it wasn't to have great matches, it was to go out there with guys like Virgil or Hercules or Warrior and drag decent matches out of them.

 

DiBiase wasn't Flair, but he was good enough to get a guy like Virgil over strong.

[Dylan Waco]

I think that's how you want to believe they utilized him because it is a good way to excuse his weak output. I mean it is a decent narrative to run with if you are going in with the idea that Dibiase has to be an all time great worker. But it ultimately still reads as an excuse.

 

Compare Dibiase to Piper. You don't ever hear anyone talk about Roddy as an all timer. Yet when I recently watched a lot of 80's/90's Piper in the WWF my impression of him was much more favorable than it was of Ted. We can say "well Piper had advantages because of the style he was working" which is something I guess you could argue to an extent, but then that shoots holes in the whole "Ted as technician" talking point, and I'm not really sure that it speaks well for Dibiase that Piper at WORST had matches as good with Savage and Bret as he did and had matches working opposite guys like Orndorff and Bruno that work on a level beyond what Dibiase was able to pull off with most anyone in the WWF.

 

I'm not saying Dibiase wasn't a great talent or a great worker in this prime. Not saying the MDM character wasn't great/memorable. Not saying he did nothing of value in the ring in the WWF (I like aforementioned Dustin match for example). But the output of the guy was not good at all relative to his talent and the excuses offered up for him in this thread don't work with me when you've got equal or lesser talents working in the same rough era who were able to do more.

[Matt D]

Hercules isn't really that bad. Virgil wasn't any good until late 92 though. He was very good come late 90s Saturday Night Tapings.

[KrisZ]

DiBiase wasn't needed for great matches in WWF it was his gimmick that was important and as long as he was shining in promos and skits then the other stuff was extra. DiBiase was pretty nondescript in the ring if you think about it, sure he had his moments such as the Savage and Jake feuds but the other stuff was all gimmick up until Money Inc. then he kinda got his groove back working tags with IRS.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm not trying to make excuses for DiBiase, I was just saying he does have a handful of ***+ matches, with some pushing **** if you look.

 

I haven't taken an EXTENSIVE look at his TV matches though, I haven't seen all the DiBiase in WWF that there is. Mostly all of the matches I cited are found on PPV, SNME or Coliseum Home Video which I watched right though going on 7-8 years ago. I might need to re-evaluate some of those matches too. It's been a long time since I watched the Jake match, for example. Ted himself always says it's one of his career matches, he even said once I think that it was his best match. So that might be better than I remember it being. (Also stuff like the Owen Hart match from 89, the SNME Savage match from before Mania -- a lot of this stuff I have on VHS, it's just sitting in my parents attic, also have an early best of MDM comp on laser disc somewhere, 5 discs, probably lost).

 

But this is why I don't like "great matches" as the only barometer of someone's work. Take Piper, for example, sure there are more "great matches" you can immediately point to from him in WWF than from Ted. But match in - match out, who is working more smoothly? Who is executing better? Who is bumping better? Who is making their opponent look better?

 

Ultimate Warrior probably has more "great matches" in WWF than Ted too. Does that mean we think Warrior's in-ring work was better than Ted's? It's a nonsense barometer. As late as 89 Meltzer is still going on about DiBiase as a top 2 or 3 US worker, how many ****+ ratings did he give him in 88? One or two maybe. It's not just about the classic matches or as you say "out put", it's about the little things too.

 

These aren't all "excuses", they are fundamental questions about how we judge workers and specific runs.

 

Yes, the WWF run was mainly about character and gimmick and angles, yes, he didn't have any truly amazing matches there, but that does not mean we can write him off as a worker or suddenly say that Roddy Piper or Ultimate Warrior were better workers than him. Great work does not always equal great matches. Can you point to any matches where DiBiase is actively bad? Where he's lazy? Where he botches? Where he misses his cues? Where he doesn't execute well? Where he doesn't get all the basics and fundamentals of wrestling spot on?

 

In a way I wish this conversation was not about DiBiase but someone else, because it looks like I'm sticking up for my childhood favourite, I'm not. I'd make a similar argument for someone else working in that timeframe in that company whose main job was to get over a gimmick. Parallels might be made to Rick Martel, but again I'm a long way from re-evaluating or exhaustively surveying all the Martel in WWF that there is.

 

WWF had a habit of treating guys like DiBiase and Martel as "good hands". So what we get is them being good hands. I'm not sure the same applies to Piper or Warrior.

[Loss]

Want to put DiBiase under the microscope?

 

Maybe do so in this new forum?

[JerryvonKramer]

Loss, bit work intensive but I wonder if you could move this thread and all other single wrestler threads to that sub-forum to give it a kick start. Good idea mind.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not trying to make excuses for DiBiase, I was just saying he does have a handful of ***+ matches, with some pushing **** if you look.

I don't think that's terribly impressive. No one calls The Islanders an all time great team and they aren't terribly well remembered - they have at least as many matches that are high quality as Dibiase. If you think that's unfair compare Dibiase to other similarly pushed guys from the same rough era - Piper, Savage, Hogan, Andre - which one of the guys out of that group feels like that fell short of their potential as a worker? I'm not saying it to slag Ted, nor do I think it's entirely his fault. But he's a guy who lacks the depth or memorable performances you expect from an "all timer."

 

But this is why I don't like "great matches" as the only barometer of someone's work. Take Piper, for example, sure there are more "great matches" you can immediately point to from him in WWF than from Ted. But match in - match out, who is working more smoothly? Who is executing better? Who is bumping better? Who is making their opponent look better?

I'm not a guy who thinks "great matches" is the be all and end all. I don't even agree with Loss that is the rule and the deviations are rare exceptions. Having said that it tells me something when guys who are generally thought of as weaker workers, are able to do more in the same rough setting as guys who are generally thought of as better workers. Does Ted have better execution and bumping technique than Piper? Probably so, but mechanics in a vacuum don't mean much to me. Did he make his opponents look better? I don't really get the impression that Dibiase was more or less good as Piper at that, but even granting that you can cherry pick all day and night. Alex Porteau was better on the mat, executed holds better, ran the ropes better, had better moveset than Mick Foley. Is Alex Porteau a better wrestler than Mick Foley? Sure Foley had more great matches, but you can create a mechanical framework where Porteau is clearly better. It's worthless, but you can do it.

 

Expanding on this was Ted as good at connecting with crowds through his work as Piper? I like Ted and don't think he was terrible in that regard, but I also don't think he was in the same universe as Piper, to the point where it would be hard to take a contrary argument seriously. And since I know that you think transmission of character through work is a big part of the "total package" deal that is wrestling, it seems like this would be a massive, massive plus for Piper, particularly as it relates to the way you usually describe the WWF of this era.

 

But we can go farther than that and ask other things.

 

Ultimate Warrior probably has more "great matches" in WWF than Ted too. Does that mean we think Warrior's in-ring work was better than Ted's? It's a nonsense barometer. As late as 89 Meltzer is still going on about DiBiase as a top 2 or 3 US worker, how many ****+ ratings did he give him in 88? One or two maybe. It's not just about the classic matches or as you say "out put", it's about the little things too.

The Warrior talking point is mine, so you are trying it on the wrong guy

 

Invoking Meltzer is meaningless to me. Dave is a guy who always had his favorites, lots of whom were related to sources and reps. When he latches onto something he's not going to give it up, which is why every NJPW show of the last year has had a MOTY or GOAT level match or Greatest Show In Wrestling History tag affixed to it. Dave is someone I take seriously as a reporter and historian, but I don't take him seriously at all on work and I don't think citing Dave's opinion is proof of "little things" analysis. Far from it actually.

 

Speaking of which there are very few people online who push more for the "little things" as valuable metrics of looking at wrestlers than me. The problem is that Ted really doesn't stand out in that regard during his WWF run. Was he an all timer at engaging the crowd? I really don't think so and I think that's why we can't point to any consensus "holy shit this is awesome" level matches. Was he an all timer at projecting character and meaning into his matches? I don't see it. Was he an all timer at having fun, exciting or otherwise interesting squash matches? I don't know of anyone who has ever made this argument about Ted, so I assume no one believes it.

 

This will seem like a troll, but I'm serous when I ask this - was Dibiase even as good at the above things as The Nasty Boys? I honestly don't think so and more to the point I don't think he was CLOSE. Saying "well he had a pretty powerslam, a cool belt and I dug the trademark cackle" would be one mode of argument I guess, but I don't think that's really a "little things" assessment.

 

These aren't all "excuses", they are fundamental questions about how we judge workers and specific runs.

What are?

 

Yes, the WWF run was mainly about character and gimmick and angles, yes, he didn't have any truly amazing matches there, but that does not mean we can write him off as a worker or suddenly say that Roddy Piper or Ultimate Warrior were better workers than him. Great work does not always equal great matches. Can you point to any matches where DiBiase is actively bad? Where he's lazy? Where he botches? Where he misses his cues? Where he doesn't execute well? Where he doesn't get all the basics and fundamentals of wrestling spot on?

Saying Piper is better than him in the WWF isn't writing him off - Piper was good in the WWF, particularly at the things that you would want a WWF wrestler to be good at based on the "character, gimmick, angle" metric you are pushing. Piper was better at giving those thing meaning in his matches than Dibiase. Piper was a better WWF worker than Dibiase.

 

I use to love WCW Worldwide as in middle school/high school. Fun show with interesting match ups. Loved the Pro too. Lots of matches where guys worked hard, didn't botch things, didn't miss cues, executed things well, got all the basics and fundamentals of wrestling spot on. A guy like Mark Starr seemed really solid to me in that respect when I was growing up. I have no clue how he would age now as I haven't gone back and watched a ton of Men At Work matches. But my impression of him was that he was a guy who did what he was supposed to do and was convincing as a hard hat, construction worker, and ambiguous partner of Chris Kanyon. I don't recall Starr having any great matches and don't think he was a great worker. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the in ring work of Mark Starr and the in ring work of Ted Dibiase in the WWF was great.

 

In a way I wish this conversation was not about DiBiase but someone else, because it looks like I'm sticking up for my childhood favourite, I'm not. I'd make a similar argument for someone else working in that timeframe in that company whose main job was to get over a gimmick. Parallels might be made to Rick Martel, but again I'm a long way from re-evaluating or exhaustively surveying all the Martel in WWF that there is.

 

WWF had a habit of treating guys like DiBiase and Martel as "good hands". So what we get is them being good hands. I'm not sure the same applies to Piper or Warrior.

Martel's gimmick was more mid-cardy than Ted's was. I get the point you are advancing, but what I don't believe is that the "good hand" label meant that Ted was doomed to have so few matches that stand out.

[ohtani's jacket]

You wouldn't give those matches ***?

I'm sure they are. The only one I've watched recently is the '89 Bret/Dibiase match and that was pretty solid. But you mentioned Arn, who's a guy who had a metric shitload of three star matches. It actually occurred to me this morning that Ted's best WWF performance may have been the 45 minutes he spent in the ring during the 1990 Royal Rumble.

[jdw]

Here's the DiBiase challenge:

 

03/07/88 Savage vs DiBiase (03/12/88 SNME)

03/27/88 Savage vs DiBiase (WM)

04/25/88 Savage vs DiBiase (MSG)

05/27/88 Savage vs DiBiase (MSG)

06/25/88 Savage vs DiBiase (MSG - Cage)

07/09/88 Savage vs DiBiase (Boston)

07/23/88 Savage vs DiBiase (Spectrum)

07/31/88 Savage vs DiBiase (County Stadium, Milwaukee)

08/06/88 Savage vs DiBiase (Boston)

08/27/88 Savage vs DiBiase (Spectrum)

09/24/88 Savage vs DiBiase (Spectrum - Cage)

 

We know that Savage had excellent house show and big matches against Santana and Steamboat. They weren't all home runs, but a fair number of them raised above "solid" to be "very good" or "great" within the context of the WWF in the 80s.

 

So how many great or really good ones are in this series?

 

I know opinion varies, as some think the MSG cage match was great while I've never found it mind altering. So we might get some differences. But this is Ted's signature feud in the WWF, it headlines and drew, and we've been given a lot of examples of it to look at. How much of it was ****+?

 

One can also look at the brawler/tech aspect as well.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Part of the problem with this jdw, is that I am going on footage I watched on the Macho Madness VHS tape almost a decade ago, but I REALLY liked that MSG match and the Wrestlefest one when I watched it then (and the SNME IIRC). BUT that was in the context of spending almost a year trying to find a UK PAL version of that tape. I forked something like £20 for it in the end, of all the tapes I bought back then, that was the hardest one to track down and I'm fairly sure I ended up getting a copied version of the US SCART tape.

 

So those matches had a certain mystique for me, added to the fact Ted was my favourite guy. But I remember really, REALLY enjoying them.

 

I have never seen the matches that aren't on that tape except for Mania. And don't tend to watch matches on VHS anymore, so haven't seen the ones that are in some time.

 

My feeling is that Savage and DiBiase had TERRIFIC chemistry, as good as Savage's chemistry with either Flair or Steamboat. They aren't ***** because there are a lot of bullshit finishes and Virgil getting involved and all the usual WWF stuff, but they are solid **** matches in my book. It's peak Savage vs. peak or near peak DiBiase, I don't know why anyone would expect less.

 

I am up for the challenge of going through all of those matches now in 2013 if that footage exists online easily. Does it? Hell, I'll do a blow-by-blow account if need be, just for interest's sake. My hypothesis is that Ted is being sold short, but the proof will be in the pudding.

[jdw]

My guess is that most of those matches are online in the usual places, and thus aren't hard to find (as opposed to finding them on disc).

 

The comment isn't that anyone has to watch *all* of them. But I suspect various posters here have watched a number of them, or could search around for them. Shoe, for example, has watched a ton of WWF 80s stuff. I think Dylan has watched a good deal as well.

 

The points are:

 

* Savage had some well received feuds in the WWF in the 1986-87 period, not just for being famous but also match quality

 

* those feuds kicked out a number of good-to-great matches in various settings

 

* there's more Savage vs Ted than just SNME, Mania and the MSG trio

 

* so if those don't hit the mark, the others might

 

Example: in trying to find a Savage-Steamer match before The Angle aired but after the feud started, I had to sift through a couple to find one where everything clicked. The other(s) weren't bad, had flashes, but also didn't hit that "very good" or "excellent" level. In turn, finding something between The Angle and Mania was for years a problem: the Spectrum matches after the Angle aired just weren't great, and the two never worked a singles in MSG. Then Montreal popped up... and it was a gold mine.

 

With Savage-Ted, there's:

 

SNME

Mania

Post Mania Rematch(es)

Cage Blow Off

 

There's also the stuff at SummerSlam, which fits in but itsn't as important at looking at Savage-Ted.

 

So the questions are:

 

* what are the best post-Mania rematches

* which cage match is best

* can one piece together a 4-5 match sequence that best captures the feud with as good of matches as possible? And are there any really good matches in there?

 

My recollection is that the SNME match is pretty decent. In turn, the Mania match isn't. That's on long ago watching. Either way, we're generally stuck with them since they're the front end of the feud and can't be swapped out. But after that, there are at least 7 different rematches to look at, and 2 cage matches. That's a lot of chances of have some very good to great matches.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

JvK: Well, Ted, I've got to tell you ... you probably hear this all the time, but I'm one of your biggest fans. Back when you were wrestling Hogan, I was the one kid who'd be cheering for you When everyone else was liking Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart, I was a Money Inc fan.

 

Ted: Ha ha.

 

JvK: One thing I've got to ask you. On the internet, for months now, I've been involved in this debate: "is Ted DiBiase a brawler or a technician?" We've seen all your Mid South stuff, tagging with Stan Hansen in All Japan, as well as WWF ... there's this guy in Texas called Will who swears that you're a brawler. He's always saying "Ted DiBiase's a brawler". I've argued that you are a technician. How do you see yourself?

 

Ted: I was both, when you're a worker you have to be both. Y'know, I was trained by Terry Funk, one of the greatest brawlers, but he was a great technician too. When you're a worker, you have to do what the situation demands of you -- and I was notable for both.

[Guest Andrews]

Loved watching Ted in Houston and Mid South, when he went to NY his style changed totally to fit the new character, which on balance was a worthy transition. When he went to Japan after NY swinging bull ropes with Hansen, it just didn't seem right.

[JerryvonKramer]

For those of you who haven't been listening to the Titans shows, now we're done with 1979 I can make some conclusions re: babyface DiBiase in 1979. He was a much more "technical" or "scientific" worker than either Ted in Mid-South or Ted in late 80s WWF.

 

He'd target a bodypart and work on it with some aggression. Still not really a mat worker though. He's not working holds so much as punishing limbs. Typically he'll isolate an arm and then do 7-8 kneedrops on it. He also does punches.

 

Soon I'll be seeing some Ted in St. Louis. If he works in roughly the same way, I think there's enough to say that at no time in his career was Ted a true "technical" worker in the vein of a Billy Robinson or Dory Funk Jr or Dean Malenko. I don't really see him working holds much.