Billy Robinson

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Matt D]

I would have absolutely no problem with Robinson ending up on people's top tens. His 1980 match with Bockwinkel is one of my favorite of all time and he has a ton of other good stuff. Of course one thing that came out of the Melzter bio of him recently was the sheer, painful realization of how much of his most classic runs we'll never see.

[WingedEagle]

The Bockwinkel match still blows my mind, but I can still probably count on 1 or 2 hands the number of Robinson matches I've seen and have enough fingers left over for dim sum. What else is out there that I have to check out?

[Matt D]

Check out his stuff vs Abdullah if you haven't already.

 

I really need to watch this tag:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9RxPjoOj3I

 

I'll be honest in that I haven't watched the long Inoki match either.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1oT-YtmHdI

 

He's someone where we have enough footage to know he is really, really good, but I'm not sure we have enough footage to see him in enough situations. I see matches as learning opportunities, not necessarily notches on the belt. With Robinson, we can learn a ton, but I'm not sure if we can learn all that we have to.

[WingedEagle]

Thanks, just bookmarked all of that. Plan is to plow through these and Funks vs. Sheik/Abby tomorrow afternoon if I can stay away from the '93 yearbook.

[NintendoLogic]

Baba/Robinson is probably both guys' best match. The epitome of thinking man's wrestling.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRs2GpPPRg

[Venegas]

Billy Robinson seems like my type of wrestler. Pioneer of the catch-as-catch can style, trained a ton of awesome guys, and to top it all off, he was Sakuraba's coach! Unfortunately, I've seen zero Billy Robinson. Thankfully, there's a ton of his work on YouTube, and I'm going to watch them all (or most) today. I'll edit this post with the links to the matches I watch and my thoughts on them.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGfELeWXeVo

 

vs Verne Gagne; IWE 11-20-74 2 out of 3 Falls

 

Man alive this was good. These guys must have ran the ropes a minimum of five times in total, but with selling, struggle, and narrative, they managed to make every single second of this the grappling war that Pro Wrestling should be. Almost every hold that was slapped on felt like a potential fall-ender. The transitions were very clever and organic. Towards the middle of the third fall I thought this was already an incredible match and then the last few minutes just blew me the hell away. Verne was also a beast in this and deserves credit and a closer look at from me. While not the most 'action' packed match until the end, the struggle for everything kept me glued and the ending was balls to the wall. If his other matches are as good as this one, there's no way Billy Robinson doesn't rank extremely high on my ballot.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRs2GpPPRg

 

vs Giant Baba; AJPW 7-24-76 2 out of 3 Falls

 

I liked this even more than the Gagne match. Billy's performance was all time great, and he showed much more character than vs Verne. I enjoyed the opening moments, although I can see some accusing the match of starting slow, but it definitely set the foundation for the great second and third falls. Billy's subtle frustration was awesome, as he would grow angrier and angrier every time Baba got the better of him, to the point of constantly entertaining the thought of punching Baba's teeth down his throat. Very entertaining and exciting work, great selling, and top notch narrative. Finishing stretch was very intense. Can't wait to watch the Jumbo matches....

[Shining Wiz]

Baba/Robinson is probably both guys' best match. The epitome of thinking man's wrestling.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRs2GpPPRg

Giving this a watch....

 

First off, good lord Baba is an odd looking human. Possibly the skinniest arms ever.

 

More importantly, and this is a problem very few here will probably have, but as a grappler Robinson's offense is actually hard to watch at points. Why would you purposely give someone your back, then put both hooks in for them? And how is that offensive?

 

I do like his insistence on working the leg, even if Baba is not as consistent selling it.

 

The slingshotting yourself as a defense to a belly to back is.....odd. Wouldn't that hurt you more? And why would that hurt Baba?

 

So, Robinson looks nice and crisp in this match, and while it's not bad, certainly doesn't blow me away or think that either guy is a shoe in.

[Shining Wiz]

30 minutes in to Robinson/Inoki...much better.

[Timbo Slice]

He'll be on my list. One of the best workers of the 1970's, if not the best. The Bock match in 80 is tremendous stuff. Automatic in for me.

[Childs]

I watched some Billy on the treadmill this morning and goddamn he was good. Talk about a guy who could show up today and fit in just fine athletically ... that's Billy.

 

The 7/24/76 match with Baba is one of those masterpieces that just never gets old. The key in the build was they treated every move, even a Baba body scissors, as if it mattered. Because of that, something like Baba blocking Billy's early suplex attempt could actually feel like a moment. But by the third fall, they were just bringing the offense. Billy hit a flying forearm off the apron, a wild cross body off the ropes, a beautiful standing dropkick after he blocked a Baba boot. And the timing on the finishing spot was incredible. Definite MOTDC and something people should watch in considering the case for each guy.

 

Then I watched Billy against Abby from 12/9/76, and Billy looked just as good brawling as he had working holds--tough and relentless in everything he did. The match ended the way most Abby matches did, so it wasn't as complete as the Baba classic. But it gave a sense of Billy's range.

 

Then he was back to working terrific battles over a Boston Crab and a headlock in his first match with Jumbo from '77. Basically, I just love Billy Robinson, and I will have trouble ranking him below some great wrestlers who put a lot more brilliant performances on tape.

[JerryvonKramer]

For guys looking at the Billy Robinson case, I've just watched two matches that will surely add to it:

 

Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk vs. Billy Robinson and Les Thornton (12/01/1980) - just a fun sprint, but you can see how great Robinson was at throwing and taking bombs here. and the interplay with Terry Funk is heated.

 

Dory Funk Jr vs. Billy Robinson (03/07/82) - 30-minute match and more or less a showcase for what Robinson could do. Good performance from him, playing heel, keeping it moving, good intensity, and big bombs towards the end. He also takes a big Curt-Hennig style bump.

 

I did also watch Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk vs. Billy Robinson and Horst Hoffman (12/06/77), which really left me cold, but I could see some people enjoying that one. He does the random big Hennig-bump in that one too.

 

--------

 

I'll tell you where I am on Robinson: on his day, he's a fantastic wrestler. But he's also a guy, who I think, could dog it when he wanted to. He had disappointing performances in AWA right around the time he had that match for MACW / AJPW with Dory. Suggests he could turn it off and on, which is the sort of thing that I've seen Bret Hart criticised for.

 

Not decided where he'll finish for me yet.

[shoe]

I haven't seen the 3/7/82 match in a while. I remember it being very dull. Robinson would do a cool thing here and there. Then back to dullsville. I need to revisit it eventually .

[shoe]

I really enjoyed his series with Jumbo from the 70's when I watched them years ago.

[JerryvonKramer]

I haven't seen the 3/7/82 match in a while. I remember it being very dull. Robinson would do a cool thing here and there. Then back to dullsville. I need to revisit it eventually .

Coming off the back of 12/06/77, which is a snoozefest, I thought it was positively action-packed.

 

There is a moment about two thirds of the way in when Dory gets an armlock on and you can feel the energy being sucked out of the match, but I thought Robinson did an excellent job of keeping things interesting for 90% of the time.

 

I think it is the sort of match that would confirm someone's prejudices about Dory, it really isn't one of his better performances, but I think Robinson more or less carries it to ****. It's a feather in his cap.

 

I'll tell you what Pete, it's a hell of a lot more exciting than those fucking Inoki vs. Backlund matches we watched (and Valentine vs. Backlund).

 

*Okay, okay, I'll get my coat*

[shoe]

I went back and revisited the 3/7/82 and was pretty wrong about it being boring. Billy was great here at pushing the action. Dory though if he didn't have Billy pushing the action he would have been content to sit in holds. Not to shit on Dory entirely his European forearms were quite nasty at times. The carny counters by Billy were nicely worked. I liked Billy's work on Dory's back though it did look like Dory kinda flubbed it at 1st, but they got it right a few seconds later. I didn't quite understand why Billy was selling his back in the earlier stages. What I liked about the mat work was that it seemed like a contest. Later Billy starts going after the leg. He has a way of applying leg locks, and working the leg that looks like he's adding extra torque to it. We see Dory with a neat reversal that sets up his spinning toe hold. Parv I new exactly the moment you're talking about with Dory and the arm lock shutting the momentum of the match. Eventually we get a draw out of this. One thing about Billy is he does so much great stuff that sometimes it hurts the flow of the match and it did a little here. He'll go from working the arm, to the back, to the leg etc. Still this is a good match 3 3/4*.

[shoe]

I just watched this one.AWA World Heavyweight Title: Verne Gagne © vs. Billy Robinson, 9/7/74. Comiskey Park. We get about 13 minutes of the match with a clip here and clip there. I'm not sure the total time on it maybe KHawk can help with this. It doesn't come across as good as the match from Japan from the 2, but still damn good. Verne is just going after the arm. Billy is constantly looking for an escape. He finally goes all carny in this and escapes and gets Verne's leg. Billy is awesome at attacking the leg.It ends and starts up on the next weeks television show. Here we get a couple of minutes to the build to the finish.

This is the weirdest counts I've ever seen out of a ref.

[Dylan Waco]

Who else has watched fifteen minute Tito v. Billy clip from the AWA? I remember loving it from watching for the AWA project, but I have not seen it since that point and never hear people talk about it.

[shoe]

I watched it 5 years ago or so.

[shoe]

I just rewatched Robinson vs. Tito from 81. From what I saw I thought Robinson looked pretty good. We didn't see a ton of him on offense. What we did see was pretty great. The best part of the match I thought were Robinson's big bumps. When Tito was in control he didn't do much for me. He used a headlock a lot but really didn't do anything with it. I really liked the European upper cut exchange, I wish Tito used that move more often.Overall I felt it was solid, but nothing I need to see anytime soon again. We see about 11 minutes of a 20 minute clip.

[JerryvonKramer]

Pete, how much -- if at all -- do you hold it against Robinson that he was kind of upper mid-card-y for his whole career? I think I have quite a lot of just random Robinson here and there on various different collections of 70s footage from AWA and elsewhere that I haven't looked at yet. I just wonder if a little bit of Robinson's high-end stuff from Japan is carrying him a long way?

[Childs]

I just wonder if a little bit of Robinson's high-end stuff from Japan is carrying him a long way?

 

You could say the same thing about a lot of guys who peaked in the '70s, including Brisco. We have enough of Billy looking really good in the AWA to know he was really good, just like we have enough Jack from various places to know he was really good. But for both guys, the signature stuff comes down to a few handfuls of great matches from Japan.

[shoe]

Pete, how much -- if at all -- do you hold it against Robinson that he was kind of upper mid-card-y for his whole career? I think I have quite a lot of just random Robinson here and there on various different collections of 70s footage from AWA and elsewhere that I haven't looked at yet. I just wonder if a little bit of Robinson's high-end stuff from Japan is carrying him a long way?

I think Childs sums it up pretty good in his post . Both guys have the majority of their high end complete matches in Japan that made tape. Like Brisco both guys have a smattering of clips and highlights in the territories during their hey day .I think it will come down to how you weigh things. The fact that Jack was higher on the card doesn't mean squat to me in the GWE poll.

[shoe]

I think comparing and contrasting between the 2 is going to be interesting . Both guys have high end Japan matches. Do you compare the Briscos tag work to Robinson tagging with Hoffman and Angus? I'm not sure if that's fair. Do you judge highlights of stuff. I say you can look at it, but shouldn't make a case on it. Do you compare opponents . They both had classics against Baba, Inoki, and Jumbo. Billy also had classics against Verne and Bock in Japan. Other common opponents in Japan are Abdullah I feel Billy had a better match with Abby than did Jack.

 

In the states in 82 both worked Funk Jr and again I thought Billy's match was better. Other things to look at are singles matches in the late 79, 80's . This is super close too. Billy has Bock, Tito, Martel, Jumbo , and Blackwell matches and others. Jack has Idol, Flair, Piper, and Muraco.

 

I think we have a lot to evaluate .

[shoe]

We only have Brisco against Dory in their prime to look at. Wrestlers say Dory vs. Billy was just as good. We can't gauge it because it didn't make tape.