If Not Flair Then Who?

[MikeCampbell]

What about Lawler? The NWA Champ had been making occasional stops in Memphis, I could see Lawler and Jarrett agreeing to jump onboard if Jerry gets the nod with the strap. The only problem I'm seeing is that I don't beleive Lawler/Kaufman had happened yet in '81. So, was Lawler really a big name outside the area?

[clintthecrippler]

I haven't seen the match in a while, but my recollection is that Martel worked not-so-subtle heel against Jumbo in All Japan. He wasn't cheating and stooging, but Flair didn't really do that in Japan either.

I think the argument against Martel is mainly more that he hadn't had exposure in the main territories where the NWA champ would be at the most often. The match he had as AWA Champ against Jerry Lawler in Nashville I think is a great example of what Martel as "scientific heel touring champion" would have looked like, but in 1981, he simply did not have the exposure an NWA Champion would have needed for that ability to sink in against local heroes in the territories that the NWA Champion was most important to at that time.

[goodhelmet]

What about Lawler? The NWA Champ had been making occasional stops in Memphis, I could see Lawler and Jarrett agreeing to jump onboard if Jerry gets the nod with the strap. The only problem I'm seeing is that I don't beleive Lawler/Kaufman had happened yet in '81. So, was Lawler really a big name outside the area?

I just read this thread now and Lawler was the first name that jumped out at me in a "What If" scenario.

 

IF Memphis would have been a card-carrying NWA territory the same way St. Louis was and not perceived as the "cartoon" show (which is complete bullshit) then Lawler would be the #1 choice. First off, he has demonstrated later he could play both a face and heel at the same time for different sets of fans. He heels it up on tour, comes back home to Memphis as the hometown hero. If being a heel who can bump and stooge for his opponents is mandatory, Lawler was the best at it. He was an unbelievable promo so I don't doubt he could get over in any town you push him in. Lawler is by far the most intriguing candidate. Hell, I can see Lawler going to Portland as a face champ to battle the evil Buddy rose. I can see him going to Mid South and squaring off against Duggan or JYD or Dibiase in whatever role you want him to play.

[Matt D]

My new answer is Bill Eadie.

[El-P]

I was wondering why no one had dropped Lawler yet. I mean, seriously, on PWO it took three pages to drop Lawler's name on this ? I'm shocked. And although I'm not as high on Lawler as a lot of people around here are, he's also the first name I thought about, really, and I think he could have been pretty terrific in the role. Really, instead of going places to meet challengers, Lawler drew almost everyone else to Memphis, so as the King of Memphis he was kinda the touring NWA champ in reverse, and excelled at it.

[goodhelmet]

I think they were looking at the confines of the NWA territories. Was Memphis even a card carrying member of the NWA?

[KrisZ]

The only tie to the NWA Memphis had was the Mid-America title that they bought off of Gulas.

 

Lawler and his lack of wanting to travel a lot is a big mark against him here. He would venture outside of Memphis at times but there was no way he was going to be a touring champ in this era.

 

1986 was different because Crockett had cut back a lot of the touring that Flair did.

[Matt D]

I think if they offered it, Lawler would have jumped at it though.

 

If Bill Eadie doesn't work, my new answer is Johnny Walker.

[KrisZ]

Masks and NWA titles didn't go together. Tim Woods & Johnny Walker will tell you that

[jdw]

Don't go by Apter mags.....they always ranked the US champ as the #1 contender and the National/Georgia champ as #2 or #3

Yep.

 

01/27/81 Roddy wins US Title from Flair

 

Held it until August.

 

John

[Matt D]

Masks and NWA titles didn't go together. Tim Woods & Johnny Walker will tell you that

I'm in the midst of the lucha set. Masks and missing fingers and/or eyes are awesome.

[jdw]

 

This is Thesz vs. Wild Bill Longson, let's watch it together.

Longson was one of the top heels of the era, if not the top heel. He largely only worked as a heel. He also was a traveling heel rather than a heel anchored full time in an area Of course Lou is going to work face. No one ever said that Lou never worked as Face or non-heel as champ.

 

That's not the same as Rick Steamboat coming into Texas in 1981 and working Face opposite the Von Erich boys, or going into Memphis to work face against Lawler. You really think that Fritz or Jarrett are going to want Steamer to come in and only work with the Freebirds and Bill Dundee rather than the top babyface?

 

I think you could grasp that if you slowed down to think about it.

 

 

 

Thesz vs. Don Leo Jonathan

Don Leo is a national heel. This was a National Broadcast (like all the fucking Russ Davis stuff), rather than a Local Territory. Lou faced all the country's top stars on those shows, and adjusted to the opponent. It isn't remotely close to what a local promoter would have wanted out of Lou.

 

Again: go watch his match against Verne Gagne, one of the ultimate babyfaces of the era, to get a grasp of how Lou worked when he worked with a face... which was the case in territories that had anchor faces as their top stars. It became even more set in stone as we moved into the 60s and on into the 70s.

 

Again, Thesz worked this like he's "best wrestler in the world". Neither of these two matches bear even the slightest passing resemblance to any Harley or Flair matches I've ever seen. Ever. In short, what the hell are you on about here? I don't mean that in a nasty way, but in a genuine "WTF?!" way.

I can't help it that you ignore the match I pointed to: Gagne. A babyface rather than him working against two national heels.

 

Jerry: "I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat."

 

Sajack: "Okay... which one would you like."

 

Jerry: "Q!"

 

Sajack: "What the fuck?"

 

John

[jdw]

So let's go back and look at the rest of this nonsense...

 

jdw, I must admit I don't really understand how you can say there's no distinction between Race and Thesz or Brisco or even Dory. In fact, I recall last time we discussed this you wanted to try to bitch me out as thinking of "NWA champ style" as being essentially Flair and said ... let me pull up the exact wording:

Okay...

 

I'm guessing that you just don't understand what NWA Champ-style means. You think it's how Ric Flair works, period. Some of us have talked about how Lou Thesz was working NWA Champ-style... and that doesn't mean he was working exactly like Ric Flair.

Okay...

 

 

What I thought of as "NWA-champ style" then, as now, is essentially the way Flair worked as champ. But the way Flair worked as champ seems to me to be a carbon copy of the way Race worked as champ.

 

Namely: the face eats up a lot of the match on top, he makes the face look strong, and then sneaks out with a cheap win or even a non-finish. Harley did this routinely, as did Flair.

An NWA Champ all the way back to these worked against Top Faces in a way to put them over like hell. They bumped, they stooged, they begged, they cheated, they too short cuts. Flair and Race did this as well. Any NWA Champ would need to do this when going into most territories when they're facing a top local babyface.

 

Ric worked that way as his base as well. As did Harley.

 

In addition, Ric bitched out. I don't really get the vibe watching Harley that he was totally bitching out to the degree that Flair was. Just a stylistic thing between the two. Begged off? Sure, but so did Lou. Bumpbed? Sure, but so did Lou. Stooged? Sure, but so did Lou.

 

Which is what I was trying to get across: NWA Champ style go all the way back to Lou. Different wrestler brought their own personalities and styles to it: Buddy Rogers sure as hell didn't work the exact same style as Kiniski, but then again Brisco didn't work like Kiniski, nor did Harley work exactly like Buddy. They all added *themselves* to that base. But the base is still there. It's not something that Harley invented, or that Flair invented. That's just a bullshit thing that old timers like Lou started saying when they wanted to come across with the "Back in my day we didn't do this shit" crap... only for us to catch Lou doing that type of crap on tape against guys like Verne.

 

 

 

Here you are in another thread talking about "NWA Champ style" with ostensibly something similar in mind:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...p;#entry5563532

 

Back in the ring, classic NWA Champ Begging Off, which we now know goes all the way back to Lou Thezs himself. wink.gif Bob calls him out to the middle, but since Harley is working NWA Champ Style here rather than WWF Heel Style, he forces Bob to come into the corner to kick the shit out of him so that he can go with a nice NWA Champ Style Transition in the corner. Harley uses a headbutt to the gut, and Bob sells the shit out of it. The great thing about it if you watch closely is that in his theatrical selling of the hold, Bob eventually ends up on his side with his head in perfect position for Race to use very little effort to drop his knee right on Bob's skull. I'm guessing this is one of those sloppy, blown spots: positioning yourself to be give your opponent one of his favorite spots effortlessly.

Hey... cool.... I'm yet again saying that NWA Champ Begging Off goes all the way back to Lou himself.

 

I love how consistent I've been about how so much of the NWA Champ Style stuff goes back to Lou.

 

 

Are you suggesting that the likes of O'Connor, Dory Jr and Brisco all did this schtick of begging off and bitching out for most of their matches?

I'm suggesting that they all did it when going into territories and working against Local Face Heroes, especially ones where the Local Promoters/Workers wanted the Champ to put over the Local Face to the n'th degree. It was a job requirement.

 

There are shadings of it. In Japan, they preferred their Visiting Champ to work "straighter" because they pushed Sport harder. Race wasn't as much of a bumping, stooging goofy champ over there. Harley was so respected in Japan that his nickname was Mr. Pro Wrestling over there. In turn, when he worked against Bob in MSG, it was 100% NWA Champ Touring Heel. It's no doubt something that annoyed people who've seen a lot of Harley on tape from Japan (where most of his quality matches on tape are from), but it's pretty much what you'd expect of Harley coming into MSG facing the top face.

 

 

Are you suggesting that the view we get from St. Louis is not right?

The view from St. Louis is the view from St. Louis: a non-territory, one city town. They brought in people from all over the country, and booked matches in their own style. They didn't book how Memphis did, how Florida did, how Los Angeles did, how JCP did, how Fritz did in Texas. St. Louis is about as removed from the rest of the US as Japan was.

 

It was a power base because of Sam. That's pretty much it.

 

 

Are you suggesting that Johnson and Oliver got it wrong when they listed Thesz, Brisco and Dory Jr in their top 20 faces rather than in their top 20 heels? (8, 12 and 19 respectively by the way)

I think both books are worthless, so I really could give a fuck where they ranked them.

 

John

[jdw]

We see the world in two entirely different ways.

No. It's not a world view issue. It's because you're factually wrong a staggering amount of the time.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

I already talked about this at great length in the other thread, but to me it's Dibiase, Patera and....?

[Matt D]

Billy Robinson!

[Mad Dog]

What about David Von Erich? I know he was in the conversation a little down the road from this conversation. He did work heel in parts of the country as well. He seems like the kind of guy they would consider for the belt.

[KrisZ]

It was too early for the Von Erich boys in 1981...the year after the hype started for them.

[Matt D]

That's the thing with 81. I can think of way more guys for 83-84 and I think we might be missing a few who were hot in the late 70s but not so much later.

[JerryvonKramer]

It was too early for the Von Erich boys in 1981...the year after the hype started for them.

David was getting a monster push in St. Louis in 80-81. Harley put him over very strong in that handicap match where he blades for the Iron Claw.

 

It's early for him, but at least in St. Louis, David got more or less the same push that Ted got in 78-79.

[KrisZ]

Didn't matter though.......he started in Florida late in 1981 which is where his seasoning began.

[JerryvonKramer]

Was Fritz tight with Barnett or not really? How much sway would he have had in 1981?

[Matt D]

I still don't have a good sense of what heels Dusty feuds with in Florida from 75-82 or so.

[JerryvonKramer]

I still don't have a good sense of what heels Dusty feuds with in Florida from 75-82 or so.

I know Pak Song and Ivan Koloff are at least two of them. I have a feeling Ox Baker might have been around some as well.

[KrisZ]

Fritz was a former NWA president so he definitely had his friends and I'm sure Barnett was one of them. Kevin came in for the Summer of 1981.

 

Dusty feuded with lots of guys in Florida in that time such as Pak Song, The Assassin, Ernie Ladd, The Spoiler, Bobby Duncum, Magnificent Muraco, Leroy Brown, Terry Funk, King Curtis Iaukea, Killer Karl Kox, Bugsy McGraw, Sonny King, Jos LeDuc, Bobby Jaggers, Dick Murdoch, Dick Slater, Super Destroyer, Buddy Wolff, etc