[1980-07-18-AWA] Verne Gagne vs Nick Bockwinkel

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[paul sosnowski]

This is for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, which has been held by Nick Bockwinkel since November 8, 1975. The show is outdoors at Comiskey Park, Chicago.

The footage is great quality, and was part of an AWA Classics PPV called Turkey Day Turmoil that aired in 2001, Mean Gene Okerlund is doing voiceover commentary. It is NOT complete, it is CLIPPED. Bobby the Brain Heenan accompanies Bockwinkel at ringside.

 

The bell rings and Bockwinkel charges at Verne and hits him with a Thesz press. Bock hits the ropes and Verne catches him in a bodyslam. They lockup and Bockwinkel hooks him in a full nelson. The 5 minute call is made at the 50 second mark..wtf. Gagne breaks the sleeper and gets a hiptoss. They circle around each other a bit and Bockwinkel gets a hammerlock on Verne's left arm. Gagne tries to take him down to the mat, but Bock holds on. Back to their feet, Verne finally breaks the hold with another toss, Bockwinkel claiming it was a hair pull and pleads to the referee. Bockwinkel consults with Heenan. Collar and elbow tieup, and Bockwinkel backs Gagne into the ropes, but is met with a huge slap to the face. Gagne sweeps Bock's leg out from under him twice, and Bockwinkel gets frustrated and goes outside the ring to talk to Heenan again. Clipped...back in the ring, Gagne takes Bockwinkel down with a hammerlock, Bockwinkel tries for a bodyslam, but now Verne retains the hold. 10 minute call after about 5:50 of action seen here.

 

Gagne continues to work the arm, flips Bock and takes him down with a top wristlock into an armbar. Gagne jumps down and sits on the arm. He grabs both arms and puts his foot in Nick's back for a type of surfboard. The referee asks Bock if he wants to quit and Bockwinkel vehemently shakes his head NO. Bock keeps trying to escape and counter, but Verne takes him down. Clipped again. Now they are tying up in the corner, Bockwinkel pounds a fist to Gagne's chest, but Gagne comes back with a big chop. Gagne grabs Bock's leg and give him a big uppercut, before whipping him to the opposite corner. He whips him across the ring again and drives a knee into Bock's chest. But wait...Bockwinkel slides outside the ring and slams Verne's left leg three times into the ringpost. Gagne tries to take a break outside, but Bockwinkel pulls him back in and drops an elbow onto Verne's thigh. This time, Verne actually does pull Bock's hair, but the ref catches him. Bock applies a spinning toehold, but Gagne breaks it with a punch to the face. Bock drapes Gagne's leg on the bottom rope and drops a knee on it. Bock tries for a figure four, but Gagne tosses him off. Bockwinkel continues to work the leg while on the mat, grinding his fist and elbow into Verne's knee and hip. Gagne regains control and drops his knee over Bock's face, before both men finally get to their feet. Gagne is limping and nails Bockwinkel with a big chop, he goes for a slam but cannot hold him and Bockwinkel winds up on top for a two count. Bockwinkel kicks the hamstring, we get a 20 minute call at about 13 mins of action. Bock tries to drape Gagne's leg again, but Verne moves out of the way and Bockwinkel's knee hits the mat. They exchange some blows, Verne sends Nick flying down with a huge hammer to the chest. He hits a flying kneedrop then tries to roll up Bock for a two. Side headlock, a shoulderblock, both men collide mid-ring and struggle to regain their footing. Bockwinkel is up first and dumps Verne on his head with a piledriver. He goes for another but Gagne reverses it and backdrop suplexes him for a two count of his own. Gagne whips him to the ropes, but misses a dropkick. Nick tries for a splash, but also misses, he turns around right into the GAGNE SLEEPER. Bockwinkel falls to his knees, the referee checks his hand and he is out!!! The bell rings and we have a New AWA World Champion at 22:08. (15:44 shown).

 

Bobby Heenan furiously jumps around the ring. Greg Gagne celebrates and hugs his father, along with other babyfaces, Tito Santana, Steve Regal(awa version), Mad Dog Vachon, Billy Robinson and the Crusher. They carry Verne around the ring as fireworks go off in the stadium for his 10th title win. 3 1/2 *** (won't go higher due to the clipping)

[Chorros3]

Love the sight of ballpark wrestling. Bockwinkel charges right from the bell and quickly gains firm control with a hammerlock in spite of Gagne’s best efforts to break it. After some chicken shit complaints from Bock, Verne turns the tide by controlling the arm as well and frustrating the champ, who proceeds to seek Heenan’s advice a few times. The fight breaks into strikes and Bock catches the leg to smash it into the ring post, going after it like a shark smelling blood. The knee gives out on Verne while trying for a body slam and the finishing stretch revolves around his hope spots and narrow escapes, like reversing a piledriver into a back body drop. He catches Bock into the sleeper hold for the win and the title. Afterwards, the babyface portion of the locker room swarms the ring to celebrate. Can’t go wrong with clear face/heel dynamics, ***1/2 (mostly due to clipping of the early parts, If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say about ***3/4-**** if we would’ve gotten the whole thing)

[SAMS]

1980-07-18
AWA
Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Verne Gagne
AWA World Heavyweight Title Match
Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Card
★★★

Thought that this was excellent and only dragged down by the obvious clipping which lost us roughly a quarter of the match.
To start both men struggled over simple holds designed to wear their opponent down. Bockwinkel grabbed a standing arm hold and later on Verne countered with a surfboard. But both men did an excellent job, both when giving and receiving these holds, in adding little touches, like an extra tug or yank, to ramp up the leverage and keep things interesting. The fact that they made such simple moves compelling over a sustained duration is testament to these two.
Slowly Verne began to build momentum and take more control, sending Bockwinkel into the turnbuckles on two fantastic bumps and Bock resorted to ducking out the ring more than once to regain his composure. The final time he did this it appeared like he was merely playing possum and he wrenched Gagne to the mat and posted his left leg. Gagne’s selling here was spot on, as he took his time outside the ring, visibly steeling himself knowing that he had to re-enter the ring and continue, now less than 100%. Bockwinkel unsurprisingly targeted the leg immediately and continued this tactic to the end. 
Verne threw out a few flash pin attempts that a man in his 50s really shouldn’t be able to execute as well as he did and he hit one of my favourite moves, the bounce off the ropes into a forearm smash, that sent Bockwinkel for a loop. They were both able to get across the sheer impact on moves like this.
Despite the leg injury you could feel that Gagne was gaining momentum once again and I was waiting to see if Heenan would make an appearance, but even when Gagne locked on his sleeper hold he held back and Bockwinkel was lights out handing the championship back to the boss.
The story they delivered was simple but executed fantastically. Just wish that we hadn’t had the clipping but hey, can’t have it all.

[tcg91]

The match is slightly clipped, as we only get 15 minutes instead of the total 22. Anyway, this was tons of fun and probably the clipping helped the match and made it more tight. They wrestled a really smart "less is more" bout and sometimes that is all you need. This goes exactly as you would imagine: Gagne is on fire, Bock takes all the bumps and then dominates for most of the match, until Gagne finally makes his comeback. It's good, not great, but the crowd was into it and so everything worked very well. However, Mean Gene is absolutely terrible on commentary and didn't do anything for me, he sounded like he didn't care at all.
***1/2