[1980-05-10-WWF-Philadelphia, PA] Bob Backlund vs Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[JKWebb]

I went down an early-1980 WWF rabbit hole yesterday.  This is a rematch from their match in April of 1980.  The match in April is really great, and it seems to be talked about a lot more than this one.  But, for anyone that didn't follow-up with this one, I do think it's worth checking it out.  There are lots of great callbacks to from the original bout including the finish, so it tells a really good story.  Also, Backlund goes to work on Hogan's leg in this match, which Hogan sells really well throughout.  Backlund delivers a pretty fired up performance, in particular while working on Hogan's leg during a pretty lengthy submission.  Maybe it's not the great match we got in April, but if you enjoyed that one it's definitely worth your time.

[SAMS]

1980-05-10
WWF
Bob Backlund (c) vs. Hulk Hogan
WWF Heavyweight Title Match
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Card
★★★

This was really very good. Easily the most I’ve seen Backlund work from underneath as Hulk took basically all of the first 10 minutes. First he used his strength advantage to get Bob on the back foot and then strategically worked to keep Bob grounded with a series of arm bars. He used leverage and his own weight to make a reverse Hammerlock look interesting and Bob got in a few hope spots of his own with flash pin attempts to pop the crowd.
Eventually Backlund managed to gain a foothold and produced some consistent work on Hogan’s leg for a few minutes. Hogan’s leg selling may have been a bit awkward but it was consistent and did a good job of showing some vulnerability and highlighting Bob’s offense. I really liked his desperation attempt to get a scissor takedown with only 1 leg, which was unsuccessful, but was a genius idea considering he was on the back foot and knew that in a stand up challenge in that moment that Backlund would easily take him down. 
Things started to even up as Backlund wasn’t able to keep working on the leg and Hogan’s best chance came when he locked on the Bear Hug. I think Hogan’s version is one of the better ones, as he’s able to really lift Bob off the ground which highlights their size difference, and in general Bob is one of the better Bear Hug sellers, as he allows his arms to float around instead of being too static and limp. Finally Backlund popped off a few punches (which he’d held off using earlier), broke free and a series of dropkicks sent Hogan over the ropes. Hogan got his leg caught on the bottom rope, leaving him suspended upside down while the referee continued to count him out and Backlund took the victory.
Unusual match structure for Backlund, but this made Hogan look even more of a legitimate challenger as he had a very strong early period working over Backlund. The escalation was organic and natural, and while this never built to a grand climax and had a somewhat limp ending, this was very solid and presented both men in a very good light. 

[tcg91]

This was better than their previous bout, as it was only 20 minutes long and Hogan didn't dictate the pace for the whole time. I liked the fact Hogan used the bearhug again, as it worked really well last time, he was also good at selling the leg that Backlund targeted with good consistency. The announcers were not great during this, but they pointed out how big Hogan was and you could tell that Backlund was doing his best to look like he was overpowered. There is another count-out finish, this time to Backlund's favour, but at least this time we got a more realistic conclusion and the loser doesn't look like an idiot (like Backlund did in the previous bout).
***1/2