Harley Race

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Timbo Slice]

I've seen some really good Harley stuff and I don't see how he can't make my list. And that's without seeing much of him in Florida.

[W2BTD]

I have no idea what people around here think of Harley, but I could never understand how this guy was such a major star. He perpetually looked like he was 50, wasn't much of an athlete, was a mediocre promo, and I don't think I've ever seen him in a match I liked. He was the only wrestler I've ever seen that was able to drag Flair down to his level. He was shot by 1980 but managed to stay relevant for almost a full decade after. I'm completely baffled by this dude's success.

 

He's a guy who I always feel like i'm forcing myself to watch. I have total disinterest in him, aside from his amusing wobbly selling.

[JerryvonKramer]

After I am done with Dory Funk Jr, I will switch focus to Harley Race. I already started reviewing his matches here.

 

So far he's had very disappointing matches (e.g. against Steamboat) and very good ones including:

 

vs. Terry Funk. (JIP – 2/6/77) My rating: **** / B+

vs. Jumbo Tsuruta. (6/11/77) My rating: ****1/2 / A-

vs. Giant Baba. (10/31/79) My rating: ****1/2 / A-

 

From the AWA set there is also:

 

vs. Rick Martel (4/20/86) My rating: ****1/2 / A-

 

A few things:

 

- Race is generally not typical of the era because he worked an all-action style. That means big bumping and big bombs. He's not your typical 70s mat-based wrestler. He has more in common with Kurt Angle than with any other 70s star I can think of.

 

- As a result, I don't know what you mean by "wasn't much of an athlete". Sure, the only six-pack he ever had was a six-pack of beer, but Harley pinballed about almost as much as a Mr. Perfect. He routinely worked hour broadways. He worked his arse off. This strikes me as an extremely shallow comment. What you mean is "he didn't have a nice body".

 

- Harley worked as NWA champ similarly to Flair, only I'd say on occasion he was MORE a bitch champ than Flair was in that he'd give the opponent 90% of the match (see vs. Backlund, vs. Steamboat). This is the weirdest thing to me about him, because he has a tough guy image but worked like a total bitch. It's even weirder when you consider the fact that Harley is probably a better offensive wrestler than Flair -- he has more bombs in his locker, but often he doesn't use them.

 

- From my limited sampling in the 70s so far, he seemed like he was a different proposition in Japan from working in other territories.

 

- There is a LOT of Harley to get through, much more than Dory or Jack Brisco or even 70s Terry Funk. For whatever reason, we just have more of him. I will plow through it eventually and encourage others to check out some of it too, but until that time I don't think we can write him off.

[BillThompson]

How about we use weak, instead of bitch, could do without the negative female connotations.

[Shining Wiz]

How about we use weak, instead of bitch, could no without the negative female connotations.

+1

[JerryvonKramer]

If we must, fine.

[goodhelmet]

Oh christ

[Ricky Jackson]

But then we would be offending all the weak people. Can't have that in 2014

[Johnny Sorrow]

Ugh, how about we use negative terms towards people who don't get Harley? Jesus fucking Christ.

[funkdoc]

with bill on this one

 

whenever i hear people use "bitch" like that i just think of john romero and laugh. it's something i associate with people who never grew up past their teen jock or metalhead phase

[Graham Crackers]

The attitude in this thread in response to Bill's request is not the kind of thing that'll make this board seem very accepting to new posters. I'm not saying that any phrases need to be banned but when a word that already has connotations is complained about and the response is to go directly to scoffing is only going to serve to alienate potential posters.

 

I'm not offended by the word bitch but this attitude is a bit much for me. It's it really such a burden to make an attempt at empathy?

[Busterira]

Harley Race was a fucking bad ass. I am stunned at the criticism of him. I guess I am just an old man (42). It has to be a generational thing,70s-83 he was amazing.

 

The reason the NWA felt the need to put the belt on him is because they knew no one would shoot on him and take the title away back when things were WAY different back in the territory days. You can't explain how difficult it must have been being the traveling NWA champ back in Harleys day. He couldn't trust anyone and every promoter and wrestler was after you. He was on his own every night going into enemy territory and no one could have handled it better then him. The guy was mauled by the Zbyszko brothers Stanislaus and Wladek for his training. Harley Race might be arguably the toughest wrestler that ever lived and that is not hyperbole.

 

The fact is like a bunch guys he is hurt by not having a ton of footage of him in his heyday which was the 70s.

[WingedEagle]

I loved his matches with Baba in AJPW. They put each other over like kings.

[goodhelmet]

I like Race way more than Phil Schneider but way less than Jerry VK. I think he may have been high on my Smarkschoice list but he won't be that high this time around.

[Childs]

After finishing No. 12 in SC poll, Harley has to be one of the "greatest fall" candidates.

[goodhelmet]

Agreed. Part of that isn't his fault. Too many other greats have been discovered.

[JerryvonKramer]

Quite a big batch of Race tonight. I have watched far too much wrestling in the past 15 hours. I had this one day free with no one else around and no distractions ... I was watching Jack Brisco matches at 11am this morning. It's now 3.30am and I'm still in my PJs about to go to bed. Very rare to have a day to myself like this just completely vegging out, but it was nice while it lasted.

 

My main observations on Race from this latest batch:

 

- He could work with anyone, but I'm not sure if he could have great matches with anyone. All of the stuff from St. Louis was clipped but it was a decent chunk of those matches, enough to get a sense on if it was a very good match or not. If they were full, I've little doubt that we'd see the ones vs. Backlund, Rocky Johnson, Murdoch, DiBiase, and Terry Funk as being ****+ ... the common demominator? With the possible exception of Rocky Johnson, they are all great workers. The matches against Dick the Bruiser, Brusier Brody, and all three of the Von Erich boys didn't look so good. Common demoninator? None of them are slam-dunk great workers. I don't think I've seen Harley truly carry anyone yet, which is strange given that one of his key assets is big bumping.

 

- He truly was "all action". I know I've been talking up Harley as being the man chiefly responsible for the transition from mat-based wrestling to a more "action and motion" style, but Race really really REALLY kept things moving. His style is very spot-orientated, a lot of bombs. A lot of spots around bombs and their reversals. Either Harley hits the suplex, or the opponent hits the suplex. Either Harley hits the piledriver, or the opponent hits the backdrop. And so on. Every match is like this. You can see it as a strength or as a weakness, but it's definitely a hallmark of his style.

 

- Harley was much more formulaic than guys like Jack Brisco or Dory Funk Jr. Every wrestler has sequences they like to go to time and again, but viewed in context Harley has many more repeated spots than his immediate predecessors. It's less his "go to" offense, and more the way he feeds opponents reversals. Watch 10 Harley matches and you'll see the same reversal of the piledriver outside the ring, the same missed diving headbutt, the same suplex that is countered and hit by the opponent, etc. Dory and Brisco just don't do that sort of stuff, and I feel like Race's formulas are just a bit more glaring than Flair's signature bumps (two of which Race also does: the flop and getting slammed off the top). I just get the sense that Race is often on auto-pilot and it takes a great worker to get him to do more than his standard fare.

 

None of this is to say that Harley won't make my list, he definitely will, but where Brisco looks like a lock for the top 20, Race doesn't hold up to this sort of scrutiny as well, and is looking more like a top 50 guy. I'd probably have Dory and Giant Baba ahead of him at this point as well.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Harley was fucking awesome and could go anywhere and give the crowd a great show while making the local hero look like a million bucks. In the days where no one was seeing what a traveling champ was doing until he came to town, he was perfect.

[JerryvonKramer]

But Johnny, if we don't criticise anyone and consider all guys who were any good as "fucking awesome", we'll be left with 300 guys in no particular order.

[dawho5]

That's a little bit of a different deal as far as Harley's repetitiveness, Parv. He almost had to be formulaic, much like Flair did before the advent of weekly wrestling on TV. He went to a territory for a little while, challenged the top contender in all of the towns and left for the next territory. The fans in those territories paid to see Harley Race do Harley Race spots. They paid to see him use those methods of showing ass to get their guy over while Harley hung onto the title. You have to look at the difference in the audience demands and the expectations of wrestlers as times have changed. Back then, you saw the NWA champ once or twice a year, so you wanted to see all the signature stuff. Now you see wrestlers weekly (or more often) so they have to come up with different ways of working to the same moves or it gets stale fast.

[BigBadMick]

But Johnny, if we don't criticise anyone and consider all guys who were any good as "fucking awesome", we'll be left with 300 guys in no particular order.

That's Johnny's perogative! Let him spread the love

[JerryvonKramer]

That's a little bit of a different deal as far as Harley's repetitiveness, Parv. He almost had to be formulaic, much like Flair did before the advent of weekly wrestling on TV. He went to a territory for a little while, challenged the top contender in all of the towns and left for the next territory. The fans in those territories paid to see Harley Race do Harley Race spots. They paid to see him use those methods of showing ass to get their guy over while Harley hung onto the title. You have to look at the difference in the audience demands and the expectations of wrestlers as times have changed. Back then, you saw the NWA champ once or twice a year, so you wanted to see all the signature stuff. Now you see wrestlers weekly (or more often) so they have to come up with different ways of working to the same moves or it gets stale fast.

I'd accept this excuse a bit more if we didn't have tape of Jack Brisco and Dory Funk Jr finding ways not to be formulaic as NWA Champ.

 

Their spots and sequences are just much less obvious than Harley's, which owes a little bit to the spot-heavy style he worked.

 

But it's not like I'm holding Harley to a 2014 weekly TV standard, I'm holding him up against other NWA champs from the 70s.

 

I also think "the Flair formula" is much overstated as we've debated ad nauseum in the past. I think Harley repeated whole sequences a lot more than Flair did. Structurally his matches follow a pattern in a way that Flair's don't.

 

I "get" the defence, I just don't buy it when you compare what Race was doing and what Brisco, Dory and Flair were doing. At this point, I think I'm going to have to take a real look at Terry Funk as NWA champ, just to get the fullest possible picture.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Regarding Savage, the bout with Harley was a lot of fun, but too rushed to help his Wrestler of the Year case. Harley's WWF work is a feather in his cap, though. One that's rarely spoken about.

 

Any Harley matches in particular? I agree it's not commonly mentioned.

I've been plodding through Harley's career on tape in the microscope. I think he's a very easy to watch guy because he worked such an action heavy style. I think he's been a bit unfairly maligned as "the Kurt Angle" of the 70s / early 80s. Near complete wrestler insomuch as he was superb bumping and selling and superb on offense, both things that people can take too easily for granted. If "psychology" means working a body part, it's true that most of the time it's not there. But Harley has other skills, such as making it seem like any opponent no matter how scrub-like has a chance, making babyfaces look like world beaters and still somehow coming out looking like a tough guy. If I have a problem with him it's not that he had no psychology, it's that he worked far too weak, which if nothing else is a real waste of all those big bombs in his arsenal. I hate the bouts vs. Steamboat and Backlund for this reason. Much better when he's allowed proper periods on offense like vs. Martel in 85 and vs. Hogan in 87. Also has great clips vs. Terry Funk and DiBiase, both of whom he had great chemistry with.

 

Overall, to the middle of 81, I think Harley will get a decent placement in my final rankings with top 50 not out of the question. A few months back I was thinking more top 80, but he's grown on me.

[JerryvonKramer]

After this last batch, Race trending up quite a bit.

 

1982 seems like it was a great year for him and losing the title seems to have liberated him as a worker. He gets a lot more time on top and all the matches feel both big time and really competitive.

 

He has three matches that I want to dub "the double-juice trilogy". All three of them have both men bleeding buckets, all three of them end in wild post-match brawls, and I have all three at ****1/2:

 

Harley Race vs. Ric Flair (2/28/82)

Harley Race vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (4/22/82)

Harley Race vs. Kerry Von Erich (6/4/82)

 

I don't want to but I feel compelled to yet again ... I have to call out the DVDR committee for two of their calls:

 

1. Why wasn't the double-juice match with Jumbo from 4/22/82 on the All Japan set? You included the one later in the year and it's clearly not as hot a match. I mean when do we ever get to see Jumbo bleed or show that much fire in the early 80s? Seems like one of the bigger oversights. I'd love to see your notes on that one.

 

2. Race vs. Kerry 6/4/82 DIDN'T make the World Class set? Are you kidding me? I can see a match between them from 83 made top 10, but how could this one be left on the cutting room floor? There's no way this wouldn't have ranked top 30. Again, I've love to see the notes, but it's a headscratcher. At least with AJ you can always point to the amount of quality, but Texas?

 

Anway, post-title Race is really good.