[1980-10-20-WWF-MSG, NY] Bob Backlund vs Sgt. Slaughter

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[JKWebb]

Another example of why Slaughter is so great. He's just tremendous with his selling and bumping here. Backlund shows off his strength with his offense. Great match between these two. Love it.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WWF Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund vs Sgt. Slaughter - MSG 10/20/80

I need to go back and listen to the Titans of Wrestling episode on this show because I want to hear their take on heel Bob Backlund. Normally, I would not get on the case of a babyface blindsiding the heel, attacking the heel with the heel's gimmick (swagger stick) and then causing the heel to take a nutty bump (Sarge's classic out of control over the top turnbuckle bump) thus whipping the crowd into the frenzy. However, when you add this to the fact that Sarge had the Cobra Clutch on Bob and Arnie hits Sarge with a chair to trigger a DQ saving the title then Backlund hits a pilerdriver and an atomic drop. I got to call a spade a spade that's downright being a no-good, egg-sucking heel! I gotta say in between the red hot start and the awesome finish run this match was pretty damn good. First ten minute was standard Bob Backlund kicks ass. Man, he has a great bodyslam. Sarge is such a great opponent for him because he can bump like a pinball. The armbars did get long in the tooth and go nowhere. Once Sarge took over by throwing Bob out and playing the King of the Mountain the match got reinvigorated. I thought it was an excellent King of the Mountain with some great selling from Backlund. I liked the bodyslam on the floor. I loved the transition with Backlund desperately shoving Slaughter into the the post to knock him loopy. Then Bob shows off his crazy strength by suplexing Sarge back into the ring and he held him up and then threw him. They fight in the corner and Sarge ends up getting busted open by the exposed part of the turnbuckle. Backlund is just working that cut, you can see how bloody his fist becomes. What I thought was really interesting about this match is how close Sarge gets to winning. Backlund is very rarely shown as vulnerable. Late in the match, Sarge is running Backlund into the post, not once but twice. Then he hits the Slaughter Canon. I had this weird feeling come over me and I was like is Bob in trouble? Then he applies the Cobra Clutch! I was like Holy Shit! How is Bob getting out of this predicament. It is pretty lame that his manager interferes at this point. This is a pretty cool Backlund match because it actually feels like he could and was going to lose. Great start, pretty good shine, the heat segment was awesome and the finish run from the bladejob on was red hot. The ending is a bit of a turn off, but a really interesting Backlund match. ***3/4

[SAMS]

1980-10-20
WWF
Bob Backlund (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter
WWF Heavyweight Title Match
Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA
★★★
Card

You get the classic Slaughter bumps and the Backlund strength spots. Those two things alone were good enough to carry this to being a very good match. This was the first chance to see Slaughter in MSG and that initial corner bump he did took my breath away. He was a pinballing machine. Backlund for his part had some excellent moments, I think the highlight for me was when he effortlessly caught Slaughter mid-air rebounding off the ropes and then wheeled around the ring before slamming him. There are few who can deliver a strength spot the way Backlund can.
The connective tissue is where this falls down though, and this is a consistent issue in my mind for Backlund. I don’t find him working a limb or a hold particularly compelling, like at all. Here it was the arm and the match ground to a halt in the middle due to this. It’s not uncommon for Backlund to take a lot of the match, but here it must have been 90/10 in his favour and I wasn’t seeing the hook for any future matches if he was just going to steamroll Slaughter so easily. In the end Slaughter did manage to lock on a surprise Cobra Clutch and in a pathetically poor thought out finish (unless they did some serious explaining on TV later on) Skaaland comes out of nowhere to nail Slaughter with a bright red chair to ensure a DQ loss for Backlund but a title retention nonetheless. A heel move if I ever saw one!

[tcg91]

This was fine and got nice crowd support from the MSG, but the action wasn't great overall. The best part was easily the beginning, when a furious Backlund was clearly dominating and Slaughter bumped big time for the champion. The shine segment was followed by a few disappointing minutes, the match slowed down excessively and failed to pick up against towards the end. Backlund added a bit of drama by bleeding, but then he was disqualified due to outside interference, which quite at least bizarre for a babyface champion
**3/4