Buddy Rose or Nick Bockwinkel?

[Dylan Waco]

I am calling Matt D out here. Bock was his hero and now he is scanning through Buddy. He has watched plenty of both guys at this point. I realize not as many people have seen peak Rose, but these are two of the forgotten all time greats. So for those who have seen a decent sampling of each where do you stand?

[shoe]

I feel I've seen my fair share of both. I would rate both really high. Rose though is the better worker in the ring. Though I preferred Bock's interviews, and he had a better look. They both had great matches with a variety of different opponents. Both guys had strong matches with Martel, and Hennig. Both had great psychology. Both were great tag workers . Both were extremely versatile workers. They both were so varied in what they did in the ring. Though I thought Buddy was the more versatile worker.

[Matt D]

You're a bastard. This is going to be really hard until I see Babyface Rose, but I can at least compare/contrast and will do so in the next twenty four hours or so.

[KrisZ]

Went with Bock here as he was on a high level for a long period of time having great high profile matches as well as his whole character in general being top notch. Buddy is fantastic but just not at Bock's level as an overall performer.

[Exposer]

Buddy Rose is the greatest American multi-man tag wrestler of all time, the greatest rope runner of all time, one of the five most versatile wrestlers of all time, and had a great match with Chief Jay Strongbow.

 

Nick Bockwinkel was the best wrestler in a promotion with a number of great workers, was the best wrestler in a company when he was well past fifty years old, is one of the ten best tag wrestlers of all time, is one of the ten most versatile wrestlers of all time, and had a good match with Boris Zukhov.

 

Nick Bockwinkel also started wrestling in 1955 and the majority of footage we have of him is from 1975 to his retirement. We have a good majority of Buddy's entire career. Unfortunately, this hurts Bock. Therefore, my pick is Buddy. If we had the first half of Bock's career then this question might be a lot different.

[Grimmas]

I haven't seen much of Buddy outside of his Backlund and AWA matches, so I won't vote.

However, I do want to comment on Bockwinkel, because I think old man babyface Bockwinkel is one of my new favourite wrestlers. I had his match with Larry Z number 2 and his match with Stan Hansen at number 6 on the AWA set. As great as he was as a heel, him as a clever former heel babyface was just so great.

[khawk20]

Nick Bockwinkel was the complete package as a wrestler in my eyes, so he gets my vote. I am biased as I grew up watching Bock. Buddy I saw much later, and I appreciate his work and have developed an even greater appreciation for his mat skills due to the reviews he gets on this site.

 

One of the great misses of 1986 was that Nick Bockwinkel vs. Buddy Rose, to my knowledge, never got made as a singles match in the AWA. Even a TV main event throw-away match, non-title if necessary, would have been great fun.

[Dylan Waco]

Christ almighty why didn't they book Bock v. Buddy instead of Zhukov just one of those times.

[KrisZ]

Yeah that is a travesty....imagine Bock teaming up with the Midnight Rockers

[Exposer]

Dammit, now I'm livid about this match not being booked. That is kind of infuriating.

[JerryvonKramer]

and had a great match with Chief Jay Strongbow.

Shit, Strongbow has another good match? I thought it was just the Valentine one.

[Matt D]

Alright, this is really tough. Both guys could work an incredible variety of matches. Maybe Buddy could go a little harder than 40+ year old Bock but considering the way Bockwinkel would pinball for Verne or the intesnity he showed in his babyface matches vs Larry or Hansen, it's hard to really put them too far apart. Bockwinkel always came in with a plan and his matches almost always made a lot of sense, but Portland was a territory that was more logic driven than any place in the world.

 

Buddy was certainly more innovative in moves, counters/transitions and I'd say in finishes too but part of that was the nature of the weekly format in Portland which is something Bockwinkel was not beholden to. Both guys could have great matches with subpar talent. Both guys would have matches that looked wildly different and told different stories. I think MAYBE Bockwinkel had a wider range of character and that's not a slight against Buddy who had a real consistency of character that played into the logical nature of his matches. It's just that Bock would portray a wider range depending on his opponent. Sometimes that's a pro, sometimes it's not. I don't like a lot of the Hogan and Verne matches, to be honest. I don't think Buddy would have wrestled those matches that way either. He's hugely giving but not so much so that the match means less for it.

 

Both guys were amazing tag workers with Buddy really standing out for his antics on the apron, the likes of which I've never seen anyone else do, and integrating new tricks all the time and Bock for his near perfect ring positioning and timing. Buddy may have been slightly better at selling a bodypart but Bockwinkel's full body selling may have meant slightly more in the context of big matches. It's tricky. Bock has some longer matches with a bigger feel and Buddy has all the 2/3 falls ones.

 

I think where I am now, from what I've seen and relative to his age, I would put Bock slightly above Rose, but once I see two things (Babyface Rose and some of Rose's sprintier work with Dynamite Kid) I reserve the right to move things one way or another. I think Bock could go ALMOST as well as Buddy but when he does, his matches may lose something that Buddy's don't. I guess I wonder if Buddy didn't have a slightly better mind for putting together matches, but I'd have to see more to be sure since Bock had one of the very best ever.

[peachchaos]

I've only seen a little of each guy, just their famous pimped classics. Very impressive stuff all around. Guess I should reserve judgement until I see more Portland and AWA, but judging by their most highly regarded matches, it's gonna be tough.

[Matt D]

I know some people feel strongly about only watching wrestling on their TVs and not their computers or what not (and for those people, Will might have some interesting ideas to discuss with you), but it is astoundingly easy right now to find pretty much all there is of Buddy in Portland for 1979 and the first half of 1980 on youtube and there isn't a single person on this specific message board that shouldn't drop at least half of what they're watching (presuming the other half will be lucha) and just watch chronologically.

 

I can't imagine a better use for your wrestling watching time.

[Childs]

I voted for Bock and suspect the gap might widen if we had more tape of him. I love Buddy. He was maybe the most imaginative wrestler I've ever seen and also a great athlete. But one of my absolute favorite things in wrestling is a tough heel champion -- a guy who might stooge a little and has no regard for rules but when the chips are down, will beat your ass to keep his gold. Bock was as good as anybody I've ever seen at that and with slight tweaks, made the same character into an effective babyface. He just really fit what I want out of my wrestling.

[peachchaos]

pretty much all there is of Buddy in Portland for 1979 and the first half of 1980 on youtube

Thanks for the head's up.

 

I have seen the Rose/Sommers feud with the Midnight Rockers and the feud with Borne from Portland. Needless to say, I'll take all the Buddy I can get. Fantastic worker.

[Dylan Waco]

I voted for Bock and suspect the gap might widen if we had more tape of him. I love Buddy. He was maybe the most imaginative wrestler I've ever seen and also a great athlete. But one of my absolute favorite things in wrestling is a tough heel champion -- a guy who might stooge a little and has no regard for rules but when the chips are down, will beat your ass to keep his gold. Bock was as good as anybody I've ever seen at that and with slight tweaks, made the same character into an effective babyface. He just really fit what I want out of my wrestling.

 

I wanted to respond to this because Childs is someone who has watched as much Buddy as me and probably about as much Bock as me - and yet his description of Bock here is something that I think fits Buddy at least much as it fits Bock if not more.

 

With Bock I think the genius is that he wrestles damn near every match differently and he can turn on the stooging and/or champion in survival mode when necessary. These are also traits Buddy has. The difference is there are occasions I can think of where Bock would spend an entire match in peril, showing ass, et and survive via DQ or a fluke. I'm not averse to that sort of thing at all, especially because he didn't do it any match. But thinking back, I really struggle to think of situations where Buddy did that. A large part of that has to do with the 2/3 falls nature of Portland wrestling, but to me the description Childs makes here of Bock "a guy who might stooge a little and has no regard for rules but when the chip are down, will beat your ass to keep his gold," actually fits Buddy much more than some might think.

[Childs]

Yeah, I didn't mean to diminish Buddy in that respect. I know we've both talked about how nasty his offense was as we've gone through the Portland footage. I guess what I love about Bock is that there was a ruggedness to even the simple stuff he did. And it always suggested to me how tough he was beneath all the heel window dressing. But it's parsing between two guys who'd both me in my top 20 all-time.

[shoe]

These guys might be the most un formula wrestlers ever.

[goodhelmet]

From a footage standpoint, I'd take Buddy Rose hands down. Bock will have tons of great matches from the AWA set do well in the rankings including the #1 match. However, Buddy Rose will anchor the entire promotion of Portland when that footage is released the same way Lawler anchored Memphis. Without Buddy, there would be no Portland set. Without Bock, we would have a much weaker AWA set but it would still exist.

[Childs]

That argument basically penalizes Bock for wrestling in a bigger promotion with more good workers. I have no problem with anyone saying Buddy was better or that he got more out of limited opponents (in fact, I just nominated a match against Tony Borne that illustrates his genius on that front). His creativity and versatility as a performer allowed Portland to put on good television week after week. But he shouldn't win the argument just because he was a shark in a duck pond.

[goodhelmet]

I tend to think that it rewards Buddy for doing more with less. When Buddy leaves, Portland crumbles. That has nothing to do with Bock. It is all about Buddy.

[Microstatistics]

Both are tremendous and huge discoveries of the GWE project for me. I have watched as much as I could find for both and right now would put Rose slightly ahead. Bock has higher highs but I have seen disappointing Bock performances especially outside of AWA. Buddy has never disappointed me and has elevated literally everything I have seem him in.

[I Broke Bruno's Neck]

Tricky Nicky blows Rose away. Rose was great in Portland and his early WWF run. In AWA, I thought Rose was protected by being in a tag team situation and going against 2 workers who were miles ahead of him in Michaels & Jannetty. Bockwinkel was still on strong at the age of 52 when he had that 60 minute draw against Hennig on ESPN.

[I Broke Bruno's Neck]

Tricky Nicky blows Rose away. Rose was great in Portland and his early WWF run. In AWA, I thought Rose was protected by being in a tag team situation and going against 2 workers who were miles ahead of him in Michaels & Jannetty. Bockwinkel was still on strong at the age of 52 when he had that 60 minute draw against Hennig on ESPN.