Ted Dibiase runs the gauntlet

[shoe]

Changed tack here a bit and watched the MSG leg of Savage vs. Dibiase.

 

Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 4/25/88

Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 5/27/88

Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, cage match, MSG 6/25/88

 

Individually, these matches aren't that great but taken together as a three match swing the accumulative effect is that you pretty much get everything you want out of the Savage/Dibiase feud. It's not as good a feud as Tito vs. Savage or Savage/Steamboat, but it's not terribly far behind. I liked it more than Hogan/Savage to name another of Savage's major 80s feuds.

 

What's frustrating about WWF houseshows from this era isn't that you don't get a proper finish (it's understandable that they want people to come back the following month to see their hero inch closer to his goal); what's frustrating is that they cut short the finishing stretches of most matches. I honestly think if the match times had been slightly longer and there had been more drawn out and dramatic finishing stretches it wouldn't have mattered what finish they used, the matches would have felt a lot more complete. As it is, you can't really rely on any one match to get a complete picture of Dibiase/Savage. You have to watch all three to get the satisfaction that you might ordinarily get from watching a great match from another promotion because of the aborted payoffs in each "chapter" leading up to the cage match. It's a bit like watching the TV build from other promotions as opposed to say the big arena matches of Lawler/Dundee and other workers.

 

The 4/25 match is Savage's first title defence as champion and has quite a hot beginning. Ted's selling is good and he worked well with Savage, but my impression was that it was Randy's qualities as a performer that carried the feud. The 5/27 match sees Ted get a seemingly legit busted nose, which adds a bit of ruggedness to Ted's control work, and the cage match is well known so I don't really need to describe it. I wouldn't personally peg any of their matches at four stars because I don't think they had that one complete, self-contained classic that goes 20 minutes plus and has the kind of dramatic narrative you expect from this kind of wrestling. However, I haven't seen a bad match out of them yet (on the houseshow circuit) and Ted has looked good in all of the matches although below Savage. So I think this feud is a major plus on his WWF resume.

 

The Jake/Dibiase MSG leg, however...

 

Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 11/25/89

Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, no DQ, MSG 12/28/89

Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 1/20/90

 

These were exactly the type of boring matches I expected Ted Dibiase and Jake Roberts to have before I started this project. I don't know whether the earlier match I saw was an anomaly or some kind of novely factor, but these matches after Roberts came back from his surgery were so bad I almost fell asleep about a half a dozen times. Both guys control segments suck, the matches generally go 20 minutes without making you want to watch a 20 minute wrestling match and Jake doesn't sell as well as he did in the match I said was good. The idea is basically that Jake gets the DDT on Virgil in the first match (as well as draping Damian on him), the DDT on Dibiase in the second and a Million Dollar Belt title shot in the third. The progression makes sense, but the matches are pointless. The no DQ match is ridiculous. Why work the same boring match you worked the month before if there aren't any DQs and you can brawl. You hate each other's guts, it's a grudge match, the guy nearly put you out of wrestling, stop fucking around lying in holds. The Million Dollar Belt shot is a beat beyond what people wanted to see as well. Once he got the DDT on Dibiase that's it. I was really disappointed in these because like said with the earlier match from '89 it left me wanting to watch the rest of the feud. Should have known better.

 

I always thought these were Ted's best feuds. I remember liking the Ted/Roberts stuff. Seeing that you thought they were boring makes me want to go back and watch it again. I remember liking the NO Dq match the most out of all of the Roberts matches.Though the stip wasn't 't worked to my liking.

[ohtani's jacket]

If you can get into the rhythm of what the two are doing you may enjoy the matches more than me.

 

I spoke too soon when I said that Savage and Dibiase never had a bad match on the houseshow circuit. The 8/6/88 Boston match is a real lame duck.

 

The earlier 7/9/88 match is a working version of the 7/23 match from Philly. Savage wears a neck brace in the 7/9 match which gives Dibiase something to go after on offence. You could argue that he doesn't do it that well, but at least it becomes part of the storyline and leads to the Million Dollar Dream. My childhood memories of the Million Dollar Dream being a big deal are kind of getting shattered here, though, because for a big nearfall it sure gets treated like an ordinary sleeper. I guess that should come as no surprise since everything gets truncated in these matches instead of drawn out (and when shit did get drawn out in the Jake feud, I complained it.) Dibiase removes the neckbrace and throws it in Elizabeth's face and man was Elizabeth a shitty actress. I don't think she adds a single thing to these matches other than some cleavage. There was one match in this feud where Dibiase attacks her ankle after the bout and instead of screaming or crying she's worried about her dress being hitched up. It's kind of amusing how gently Dibiase twists the ankle too given how much of a control freak Savage was over Elizabeth. Anyway, the 7/9 match is building to something decent when they suddenly pull a DQ finish from a Savage small package. Why they couldn't have made that a nearfall and kept going for a few minutes to a better finish is beyond me. Have Savage sell some more, let Dibiase get more and more frustrated that he can't put Savage anyway. It's not that difficult to have a more complete match that still sets up the following month's cage match, but I suppose people came either way.

[ohtani's jacket]

The 12/14/89 Ontario Jake vs. Dibiase match is more of the same, but it has a cool promo beforehand where Jake says the Million Dollar Belt is in Damien's bag, only if Virgil sticks his hand in there it may not be Damien he finds but one of Jake's more dangerous snakes. A series of clips follows with Jake holding one nasty looking snake after another and being totally and utterly Jake.

 

I also saw a Boston match of theirs from the year before (1/9/88), which was better than Jake's return matches in '89 but nothing special. As Jake would say, I've seen all of this feud I need to see my man.

[ohtani's jacket]

The 9/24/88 Philly cage match isn't essential viewing for the Savage/Dibiase feud -- it doesn't add anything to the feud and is basically the MSG cage match reworked -- but it has great heat and is a strong finish to their houseshow run.

 

The 7/31/88 WrestleFest match from Milwaukee is just the second Boston match with a clean pin rather than Virgil interfering. Nothing special. I would recommend people watch either the MSG leg or the Philly leg of this feud and skip the rest.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm going to finish this off looking at Ted vs. random opponents starting with One Man Gang.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. One Man Gang, Houston 6/7/87

 

Technical Ted Dibiase was a face here, working the hammerlock against big One Man Gang. Never really got out of first gear, but it wasn't the sort of match you expect to get out of first. OMG was about as inspired as Big Daddy. I'm sure he would've shown more life if he'd been working Hogan on this card. Strange to imagine what Ted's WWF career would've been like if he'd remained a face. I can't picture it.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ted Dibiase vs. Roddy Piper, 4/16/91 and 4/22/91

 

These were fun bouts while they lasted. I wish they'd had a program in the late 80s with a three match swing ala the Savage and Roberts feuds. These matchws were really just a tie-in to the Dibiase/Virgil feud with a bit of Piper/Sherri schtick and Dibiase going after Roddy's injured knee. The crowds were pretty dead at this point. Awful finish for the MSG match as the bell suddenly rings causing Piper, Dibiase and Sherri to stop and gawk at the time keeper. Finkel announces that Danny Davis has called the match off to prevent Piper's knee from being further damaged, Piper tears Sherri's dress off and that's the payoff basically: Sherri's ass. Never before seen.

[jdw]

vs. Jake Roberts

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Jake Roberts, MSG 4/24/89

 

This was much slower than the other Dibiase matches I've watched. The first third basically consisted of Ted trying to avoid both Damian and the DDT. Eventually, Virgil was able to distract Roberts long enough for Dibiase to take over and he had the longest heel control segment I've seen from him thus far. His work here was quite methodical, but Robert's selling was excellent and Ted had a good mix of killer looking elbows and showboating in front of the crowd. The Million Dollar Dream made its gauntlet debut here. Does anybody remember when Ted started using it as a finisher, because it wasn't so much as teased in the Savage/Hogan matches. There were a couple of teased comebacks from Jake, including a really cool armdrag/hiptoss reversal, and by the time he made it back onto offence I was so into the match that I was ready to see him hit the DDT. The finish was a nice piece of business as Jake got the win without hitting the DDT on Dibiase and got Virgil and Damian in the ring together without draping the snake over him. It was a satisfying result without paying out the two things the fans wanted to see and left plenty in the tank for the remainder of the feud. It definitely had me wanting to watch the rest of the feud so I'm calling this a good match.

I liked that match a fair amount. Good, solid, reasonably smart house show match. Disappointing to hear that the later matches weren't up to snuff.

[jdw]

What's frustrating about WWF houseshows from this era isn't that you don't get a proper finish (it's understandable that they want people to come back the following month to see their hero inch closer to his goal); what's frustrating is that they cut short the finishing stretches of most matches. I honestly think if the match times had been slightly longer and there had been more drawn out and dramatic finishing stretches it wouldn't have mattered what finish they used, the matches would have felt a lot more complete. As it is, you can't really rely on any one match to get a complete picture of Dibiase/Savage. You have to watch all three to get the satisfaction that you might ordinarily get from watching a great match from another promotion because of the aborted payoffs in each "chapter" leading up to the cage match. It's a bit like watching the TV build from other promotions as opposed to say the big arena matches of Lawler/Dundee and other workers.

To a degree, I agree.

 

Savage-Tito matches work on some level as stand alone matches. But I tend to think they work much better as an arc:

 

02/08/86 Boston: Tito Santana vs Randy Savage

03/16/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs Tito Santana

04/22/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs Tito Santana (No DQ)

05/19/86 MSG: Randy Savage vs Tito Santana

06/14/86 MSG: Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino

07/12/86 MSG: Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino (Cage)

 

Tito drops the title in the first. He has no luck winning the belt back, with the final MSG singles match with Bruno as guest ref leading into the tag team match. Tito finally gets his "payback" in the cage match, though Macho keeps the belt.

 

The No DQ match is a high point, and to a degree it's the strongest stand alone match. But the context of why it's no dq (Savage causing a dq to save his title in the prior match), and the general increasing dislike between the two, comes across stronger by watching the prior matches.

 

It's possible we'd get the same thing by watching the full series of MX vs R'n'R matches in say Greensboro in 1986.

 

John

[ohtani's jacket]

Ted Dibiase vs. The Red Rooster, San Francisco 3/7/90

 

This was a nice competitive squash and the type of Dibiase performance I was searching for when I started this thread. Call me crazy but I actually think Taylor was kind of decent as The Red Rooster. I also got to hear Jesse here and he cracked me up straight away. He was talking about how the Rooster must feel at home at the Cow Palace when the director cut to a slightly large woman in the crowd and suddenly you hear Jesse say: "there's a cow right there." Then later on, when Virgil had stuffed the money down the Rooster's throat he goes on about how the Rooster can afford to buy his weight in chicken feed. I think I prefer Jesse to Bobby, to be honest.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Greg Valentine, New Haven 11/11/91

 

This was all right, but they were hardly given any time at all. Which is a bummer because I love me some Hammer.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Demolition Smash, Wichita 11/1/89

 

For a throwaway match on a pre-Survivor Series show I thought these guys put a lot of effort into a 10 minute bout. Of course just when it was getting good Zeus came to ringside to remind us of how awesome the wrestling at Survivor Series was going to be and Axe eventually made the save, but I guess you've got to expect those sort of pre-PPV goings ons. I wouldn't say this eas exactly Flair vs. Road Warrior Hawk, but I think it showed that there was at least some relation between tag workers and singles stars in the WWF at the time.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think I prefer Jesse to Bobby, to be honest.

Oh definitely. Some on this board, for reasons I simply can't get my head around, don't like Jesse. I think he's easily the best colour man ever and by some distance. I'd take Vince / Jesse over Gorilla / Bobby any day of the week. Shit, I might even take Tony / Jesse, because they had an interesting chemistry. The only partner Jesse isn't great with is JR.

 

I am finally going to get around and watch some Ted tonight. Watch this space.

[JerryvonKramer]

DiBiase vs. Poffo was not available but when I searched I got this instead:

 

Ted DiBiase vs. Paul Roma

 

From what I can tell this is Wrestling Challenge from June 3rd 1990. And fucking YES, Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred on commentary. And Mike McGuirk of the Wrestlefest arcade game fame as ring announcer!

 

Two things immediately here:

 

1. Surprised by lack of music in 1990 for Ted.

 

2. Even more surprised to see the old light green suit. Hmmm. Curious. My suspicion is that this is from Roma's Young Stallions days taped back in early 88 or something. If you look at his tights, that's definitely the gear he wore back then not when he was in Power and Glory. That coupled with the lack of music and the light green means this is definitely old footage dubbed over by Mooney and Hayes.

 

I need to concentrate here instead of marking for Mooney.

 

Ted very generous in the early going as Lord Alfred RIDICULOUSLY suggests that Paul Roma is creeping up the ranking as a contender for the world title. What a stupid thing to say. Ted jaws some fans, which is enjoyable but spends quite a long time on the outside.

 

Kneelift from Ted, couple of forearms, Irish whip, nice clothesline. Stops to shout at the fans and pose a bit. Two rights and sends Roma outside. I think the idea of "technical Ted" does need to be put out to pasture at this stage. He's constantly working his character though, which should be commended. He's spent as much time shouting at the fans as he as doing stuff in this match.

 

Takes it outside, slams Roma into the apron followed by a bodyslam. Goes back inside to jaw the fans some more. Roma rolls in, another right. Brief hope spot from Roma, cut short by a eye rake. Reverse knife edge from Ted now. Another right. That right punch is his default basic offense, as a graduate of West Texas State, he throws a good punch. Rome makes a comeback now with a couple of elbows, but it's just a hope spot. Ted cuts it short with elbows and knees and a double axehandle from the 2nd rope. Pair of fist drops gets a 2 count.

 

Roma gets a sunset flip out of nowhere for 2, then an inside cradle for 2. Fans seem to be cheering him. Ted is pissed now. Backbreaker. Lax cover gets a two. Gorilla: "He didn't hook the leg!!!" (Gorilla wasn't actually there, but someone needed to say it). Really weird rights and lefts from Roma now who is moving like a plastic action figure. Gets a foot in the face in a turnbuckle spot for his trouble. Stomp from Ted as Lord Alfred says "Rockin' Robin is a bit skinny for me". Throws Roma back outside and this match seems to have died. More posing and jawing the fans from Ted now -- really we need to transition to the next gear at this stage.

 

Suplex back in by DiBiase and Hayes says "really, I haven't seen Roma take a beating like this for some time in a match". Gutwrench suplex (Gorilla: "and a beauty"), another lethargic cover gets 2. Ted very pissed off now and slams the mat the frustration. Big bodyslam. Ted goes for his 2nd rope elbow spot but waits for AN AGE before doing it. Of course, he misses. Time for another really shitty Roma comeback now. The fans do still cheer! Big dropkick by Roma but for some reason he awkwardly hesitates and then does an elbow drop. This match is not helping the case for Roma as an underrated worker at all. "Sloppy cover" says Lord Alfred, "very sloppy Paul". He hits a crossbody from the top rope but Virgil jumps up on the apron and like an idiot he breaks his pin to go and see him. Clothesline by Ted. There's the scoop powerslam. Million Dollar Dream and it's over.

 

He stuffs some bills in Roma's mouth for good measure. "He's a great philanthropist", says Lord Alfred.

 

This was a fucking terrible match. It went 12 minutes or so but it felt like 20. DiBiase was very very slow here in his offense. Move. Pose. Jaw the fans. Move. Throw Roma outside. Pose. Jaw. Pose some more. Move. and so on. He also gives Roma very little after the initial shine. It's a 4 minute squash match stretched out to three times that length.

 

We got all of the signature offensive spots here apart from the piledriver, but they were too spaced out in the lethargic pacing of the match to really hit the spot. Even the powerslam was anti-climactic. Not a good Ted performance and the less said about Roma here, the better. MVP was Alfred.

 

Also, Chad ... look what I found:

[soup23]

I unfortunately decided to watch that Perez match last night and review on the PTB board. I am safely chalking up my Perez fandam as placing him in the "could occasionally rise to the occasion and have a very good performance" category. He was dreadful in that match.

[JerryvonKramer]

I've just spent more time than I cared to trying to find out when that Roma vs. DiBiase match is from. I refuse to believe it's from June 1990. Roma was in the middle of a push there and on the surrounding weeks of Wrestling Challenge has several wins over Buddy Rose. DiBiase just didn't wear that light green suit after early 1989, he had music and the Million Dollar Belt by 1990.

 

Why would they randomly show a 2-year old match on Challenge and even go to the trouble of getting Mooney and Hayes to dub it over? I'm baffled by it.

[shoe]

I unfortunately decided to watch that Perez match last night and review on the PTB board. I am safely chalking up my Perez fandam as placing him in the "could occasionally rise to the occasion and have a very good performance" category. He was dreadful in that match.

 

I'm glad you saw the light. What you just said is a fair assessment in my eyes. I always thought he could do something kinda neat in a match , but just not put it completely together . Thus would lead to a lot of inconsistency .

[PeteF3]

I've just spent more time than I cared to trying to find out when that Roma vs. DiBiase match is from. I refuse to believe it's from June 1990. Roma was in the middle of a push there and on the surrounding weeks of Wrestling Challenge has several wins over Buddy Rose. DiBiase just didn't wear that light green suit after early 1989, he had music and the Million Dollar Belt by 1990.

 

Why would they randomly show a 2-year old match on Challenge and even go to the trouble of getting Mooney and Hayes to dub it over? I'm baffled by it.

Didn't watch the match but it's in two parts on Youtube. That would indicate that it's a longer bout which would point to this:

 

- Ted Dibiase (w/ Virgil) defeated Paul Roma via submission with the Million $ Dream at 10:01 (1/4/89; Birmingham, AL; Jefferson Civic Center)

 

And DiBiase's announced from his winter residence.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ted Dibiase vs. Kerry Von Erich, London 4/24/91

 

The Dibiase/Von Erich matches weren't very good as you can probably imagine from Kerry's general state at the time, but this one at least got a decent amount of time. Piper annoyed the fuck out of me on commentary here putting over his beef with Dibiase every five seconds. I realise Von Erich didn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things at this point, but call the guy's match ffs. The finish sucked too. It looked like it was heading for a double countout, but Sherri scratched Von Erich's back allowing Ted to slide back in. The timing seemed off and the camera man had a bad angle. Ted seemed to call it, Sherri was late for the spot and Von Erich looked pretty stupid falling for the whole thing.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Dusty Rhodes, Boston 6/3/89

 

I think this was Dusty's television debut on his return to the WWF. The first thing he does is slip on the ropes trying to do a Rock-like pose on the turnbuckle. Nice one. Man, was he trying hard to get over with the crowd. This was goofy but kind of fun. Dusty gave a bunch of Ted's money away to kids at ringside and there were these feral Boston kids screaming into the camera and pointing at the cash. Suddenly, I realised what it must have been like for the Lakers to visit Boston Garden at the time. The finish here was amusing. Dusty won with a roll-up after Dibiase collided with Virgil on the ring apron and Lord Alfred Hayes tried to put over how clever Dusty was. It's too bad I've been watching so much Dibiase over the past few days because Ted fell victim to that same collision on a number of occasions. You'd think him and Virgil would've sorted it out.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Tito Santana, San Francisco 11/15/88

 

I think I watched this for the Tito Santana vs. the World thread. It hasn't gotten any better. It's not a bad match, but the wasted potential of a Ted/Santana match just so you can run some Hercules interference is really annoying, and I was surprised to see so many of the same sequences from the UK Dibiase/Von Erich match. I mean whole stretches. To give an example, Ted had this whole lock-up routine he used to do that wound up with him getting beaten up on the outside and slither back into the ring crawling on his backside. He really is quite Flair-ish in a way, I think.

[Matt D]

Ted Dibiase vs. Tito Santana, San Francisco 11/15/88

 

I think I watched this for the Tito Santana vs. the World thread. It hasn't gotten any better. It's not a bad match, but the wasted potential of a Ted/Santana match just so you can run some Hercules interference is really annoying, and I was surprised to see so many of the same sequences from the UK Dibiase/Von Erich match. I mean whole stretches. To give an example, Ted had this whole lock-up routine he used to do that wound up with him getting beaten up on the outside and slither back into the ring crawling on his backside. He really is quite Flair-ish in a way, I think.

It's like how the only match we have (that I know about) from the later Dibiase/El Matador feud in Dec 91-Jan 92 is the CV one with the manager Cam on Sherri the whole time. Now it's actually sort of entertaining especially when she begs off on Tito and goes "I ALWAYS LIKED YOU!" but it's sure as hell not a match.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Roma match is definitely from '88. The Wrestling Challenge banner is different from the one they used in '90.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ricky Steamboat vs. Ted Dibiase, King of the Ring 09/07/91

 

Lousy match. I'm really starting to hate Dibiase's headlocks. They're about as exciting as a Rick Rude chinlock.

 

Ted Dibiase vs. Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, Boston 9/12/87 and Philadelphia 2/11/89

 

These actually weren't that bad. I especially liked the Boston match. Ted got such awesome heat when he first debut as the Million Dollar Man character. Again, the Boston fans were throwing garbage into the ring and again they got some of Ted's money from the face, which is one way to get folks into your match. Beefcake flapped about like a fish out of water when he sold, but at least it made Dibiase's headlocks seem more interesting. Ted seemed fresher in the beginning of his run, but I guess that was because he was still fleshing things out. The '89 match ends with the Virgil apron spot, which I didn't need to see again.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ted Dibiase vs. The Big Bossman, MSG 4/30/90

 

This was a decent enough match. It was a rare match in Dibiase's ouevre in that it saw him going after an injured body part (in this case the ribs.) The payoff to Dibiase working the ribs was that Bossman ended up beating the shit out of Virgil (more than I can ever remember someone beating up a manager without being DQ'ed), making it to the ropes before submitting to the Million Dollar Dream and surprising Dibiase with a small package. Not a bad TV match.

 

That pretty much marks the end of my Dibiase viewing. Some general thoughts on WWF Ted:

 

I think WWF Ted was a good worker without ever really being a great one. He was extremely dependable and I can't imagine Vince ever envisioning firing him while he could still work. His promo work was great and he played the Million Dollar Man character better than just about any wrestler played their role during the same time frame. That character work didn't always come across in his matches because of the abbreviated heel control segments that we've mentioned many times and that was the biggest surprise for me because I remember Dibiase as being a guy who had cool offence. In reality, he was more of a Flair guy who had his spots he loved to run like sliding backwards on his ass begging off and missing his top rope move and getting a shot to the guts. I hated the Virgil apron spot that was the finish to so many of his matches and his headlock was one of the worst mid-match restholds I've seen from this era of the WWF. But he was reliable. He didn't have a tremendous amount of good matches but he didn't have as many turgid matches as I originally claimed, at least not from this limited sampling. I vehemently disagree with Loss that every match can be good and I think he was handicapped a lot by match length and the finishes to his matches, but he was a solid performer despite all that. I would have liked to have seen him get a proper 25 minute match against Savage or work in a little more workrate friendly environment, but at the same time he seemed like a bumping and selling kind of a guy and I'm not sure he would have benefitted so much from a longer match if he wouldn't have been able to make his offence both focused and interesting. The Bossman match I just watched showed he could do it, but who knows.

 

On a final note, if you fancy watching some WWF Ted Dibiase try the Savage matches and the first Jake match. That should scratch your itch.

[flyonthewall2983]

You can be disqualified for beating up a manager?

[JerryvonKramer]

Think OJ needs to be commended for his work here.

[ohtani's jacket]

You can be disqualified for beating up a manager?

I guess you can't be. I just thought it was weird because it wasn't as though he hit Virgil off the apron or did the spot where the face bangs Dibiase and Virgil's heads together. And it wasn't after the bell either. Bossman pulled him into the ring and did this extended mini-sequence with him during the stretch run.

 

Think OJ needs to be commended for his work here.

It was a drop in the bucket really.

[JerryvonKramer]

One thing I've been struck by reading the WONs from 88 and 89 is that Meltzer doesn't just rate DiBiase, he doesn't just think he's one of the best in the world, he REALLY fucking rates him. Look at this sentence from March 7th 1988:

 

"... I fully agree that DiBiase is the best wrestler in the WWF (and probably the best at this stage of his career than anyone who has worked for Titan in the past 15 years) ...."

 

So he thinks he's better than Savage, and by implication of the parentheses there Backlund, Slaughter, Tito, Valentine and a whole bunch of other guys.

 

It's very difficult to ignore his raging hard on for him during this period and it carries on well into 1989. Can people who have been reading Meltzer for years tell me if he ever EXPLAINS this anywhere? I know his opinion is not worth what it was these days, but it would be nice to see if he ever laid out a case for what he thinks Ted was THAT good.

[ohtani's jacket]

That's some hefty Dibiase love right there. On the other hand, given that he and Savage probably were the two best workers in the company in '88 I guess it's not unwarranted. The comment in parentheses is hard to justify, but given how Dave felt about Backlund, I think you can see from his perspective how he might have thought Dibiase was better than a Tito or a Valentine or even a Slaughter, technically anyway.