Dick Murdoch

[Dylan Waco]

I am not planning on shitting on Dick (ew) but that I think the idea that he is an obvious top thirty guy is pretty rich. To me there are very, very few obvious guys I could put at that level, and virtually everyone of them has a much stronger resume of matches than Murdoch does. To test Will and other Murdoch advocates a bit where does Murdoch rate compared to Misawa, Kobashi, Jumbo, Liger, Hansen, Bockwinkel, Flair, Tenryu, Casas, Santo, Dandy, Satanico, Fujiwara, Fujinami, Regal, Eddie, Rey, Savage, Lawler, Dundee, Choshu, Vader, Buddy Rose, Akiyama, Taue, Breaks, Funk, Hashimoto, Finlay, Morton, Bryan and Race? I'm not saying this is my top thirty-something, but these are the sort of people Murdoch has to be seen as the equal to, or superior of, to get into the top tier. Does he fit into this group?

[goodhelmet]

I have him over most of them right off first glance. I think my write-up from the microscope sums up what he excelled at. He has the matches in his resume. The qualities he excels at are ones I value the most. If superior selling, brawling, punching, limb work isn't somebody's cup of tea, then Murdoch isn't the guy for you.

[Dylan Waco]

Hey if you have him over most of those guys you have him over most of those guys. I just haven't seen anything even bordering on a compelling case for him to be rated with more than a couple of those guys, and that is coming from someone who liked the write up you did a ton.

[goodhelmet]

That sounds like the most backhanded compliment ever... "I like the argument you made but it didn't convince me one bit."

[KrisZ]

Let's be honest guys the real shining moment of this thread is that my Nina Hartley line has been reborn.

 

Murdoch is one of my all-time favorites because he lived his gimmick to the tee and when it came to delivering when it counted he did it in spades. Of course we know all the criticism of him working house show matches but I don't really care about that because he is far from the only one to have off nights. Another great trait Murdoch had was that he was just as effective as a babyface or a heel.

 

Murdoch's matches with Reed & DiBiase in 1985 were so fucking great.

 

I'm not going to rank Murdoch as high as Will is but he is a definite on my list and also the WON HOF.

[Dylan Waco]

It didn't convince me he was a top thirty guy. That is hardly an insult.

[JerryvonKramer]

Look on the bright side Will, at least he read it.

[Ditch]

I'm with Dylan in terms of placement. Plenty of amazing wrestlers who I'll have ahead of Murdoch; doesn't mean he wasn't stellar in his own right.

[goodhelmet]

It didn't convince me he was a top thirty guy. That is hardly an insult.

 

Fair enough. I will start doing direct comparisons as the project goes on later with guys you mentioned.

[goodhelmet]

Look on the bright side Will, at least he read it.

 

True, I just ignore all of that rambling praise of Dory Funk you have posted.

[Matt D]

i still think he has flaws in what I've seen (even in the match below where it's downright crazy that he'd keep using knee-based offense even if his selling is amazing) but he'll definitely make my list. Just watch the performance here.

 

[NintendoLogic]

A while back, I came across a Murdoch match I really liked. It's a brawl between him and Ted DiBiase from Houston.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ew2WwJkF0c

 

He has a strong chance of placing highly on my list if I see more of him punching dudes in the mouth as opposed to sitting in a short arm scissors for 20 minutes.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Look on the bright side Will, at least he read it.

True, I just ignore all of that rambling praise of Dory Funk you have posted.

 

It is sad that when so many of us are being so open minded about all this, you remain closed-minded. You're a wrestling bigot, goodhelmet.

 

I'd also be surprised if you don't like that Sheik-Abby series, or the matches with Horst Hoffman. Don't you like his Lawler match?

 

Blind prejudice.

[TravJ1979]

I just watched a Murdoch v. Humongous in Mid South that was supposedly the latter's debut. So simple, but Murdoch takes this stiff and makes him look like a million bucks due to his masterful selling and decision to bleed everywhere in a rather short match. A feather in the cap of Murdoch supporters.

[El-P]

When he was serious and willing to go, Dick Murdoch looked like the best wrestler in the world. He was that good. And that good at everything : small time offense (great punches and elbows of course), big time offense (a fucking brainbuster), execution (perfect), facials (great, from serious to comedic), selling (as a whole or in small details), bumping (awesome old-school bumps, the best of their kind) etc… Seriously, he's like WIndham in that respect, I would put him above more pimped guys like Flair when he was at his best.

 

When he was going for comedy, he was goofier than Terry Funk, and he could kill a match. So in a way, he's also like Muraco and Mutoh, the two greatest laziest wrestlers ever. The difference being that Murdoch was always at least fun to watch, whereas Muraco could make you want to throw rocks at your TV and scream in agony, while Mutoh, well, I always liked Mutoh anyway, but he could be a complete troll.

 

So yeah, terrific worker at his best, one of the greatest ever when he's on. I would need to watch more though.

[Matt D]

I never really made the connection of "comedy = laziness" with Murdoch before. I wonder if that's a point of disconnect between Meltzer and people who support Murdoch. I do think that sometimes he goes to comedy (even good comedy) at the wrong time. It never comes off as lazy to me, though. He seems to put a lot of effort into it, maybe even more so than if he went with more conventional work at that point in a match.

[El-P]

I didn't say Murdoch was lazy. I said him going for comedy was akin to Muraco & Mutoh being lazy, because although they all have the potential to be terrific when they want to, they can also kill a match if they don't care. Murdoch doing ridiculous comedy was his way of not caring for the seriousness of what should be a serious match, despite taking some effort. But like I said, at least it was funny to watch.

[goc]

It's not just a Meltzer criticism of Murdoch, even Harley Race talked about it on his shoot interview saying that Dick Murdoch was heavily considered for the NWA title but his propensity for doing goofy comedy was what killed it.

 

Harley said he couldn't understand why Dick was so intent on copying Red Foxx and doing the "Elizabeth I'm coming to join you honey!" thing but I'm having a hard time remembering Dick actually doing a fake heart attack spot.

[El-P]

It's not just a Meltzer criticism of Murdoch, even Harley Race talked about it on his shoot interview saying that Dick Murdoch was heavily considered for the NWA title but his propensity for doing goofy comedy was what killed it.

 

Cornette said the same thing many times. Murdoch as touring champion would have been even better than Flair. There, I said it.

[Matt D]

The Meltzer criticism wasn't the comedy but laziness, right? I'm asking if that was basically the same thing in Meltzer's eyes.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I think Murdoch doing comedy makes him even more of a "one of the best ever". It showed that he was a diverse entertainer who could play lots of different roles. If a guy he was in the ring with couldn't adapt to Murdoch deciding to play comedy, that's on them not being able to adapt and not being a consummate performer. It's not a knock on Murdoch, unless a certain match was booked deliberately to be serious and he decided to not follow the script. Even then, a fellow great wrestler would have played along to make sure the performance/ match still flowed.

[JerryvonKramer]

Still not really seeing it with Murdoch to be honest. I am watching Mid-South run soon though, so that may change, but at this point he's not even making my 100.

[Loss]

It's hard for me to hold Murdoch's comedy against him. The key is not having the comedy in his arsenal, but rather the ability to switch gears, which Murdoch showed he could do many times. Plus, his comedy is actually funny. I even think Dick Murdoch could have had a great match in Michinoku Pro because he had enough schtick to work on the heel side.

[peachchaos]

Not a nock on Parv, but I don't see how anyone could watch the Mid-South set and not see him as a top worker for that promotion, which alone is enough to qualify someone for this list in my opinion.

 

The comedy is definitely a plus for me, as Murdoch is one of the few guys who could still work a quality straight (and most of the time violent and nasty) match while incorporating some comedy bits in his matches. "Incorporating" being the key word here, since unlike Santino, Murdoch never really worked schtick entirely. The only other guys I can really think of that did this well were Terry Funk (i.e. his matches with Hogan) and to a lesser degree Steve Corino (in his ROH face run circa 2010) and Colt Cabana (with varying degrees of success). Cabana and Corino are nowhere near my list, so the fact that Murdoch and Funk were able to be top notch workers and get their comedy stuff over strong is a plus for them in my mind.

[Matt D]

It's not that he does the comedy, but when in the match he often does it.