Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Different styles of the NWA touring champ


Johnny Sorrow

Recommended Posts

Exactly. Harley was a touring champ, and his style was all about that. Go everywhere, do all the spots people who have read the mags expect, make the local guy look like he has a chance, and leave with the belt while the fans feel their guy got fucked. Rinse and repeat EVERYWHERE. To me, THAT'S what makes an all time great.

 

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I've been seeing though is that not every NWA champ worked the same way. Race and Flair were variations on the same theme, and I've not really watched Terry Funk's run yet, but Dory and Brisco didn't work like that.

 

Dory was more or less an evolution or continuation of the Lou Thesz type. Brisco is like every 80s blowjob babyface you can think of, but better and grittier. I've seen people suggest before that Brisco worked subtle heel sometimes, but I've not seen much evidence of it yet. He's not working subtle heel in Japan against Baba or Inoki, those seem like face vs. face matches to me. Jumbo in 74 has a "young buck vs. wily veteran" feel to it, and that's as close as I've seen to Brisco-as-Thesz. I have two whole discs of Brisco as NWA champ in the US to come though, so will be able to say more in the next month or so.

 

I have a feeling that Terry Funk worked more like Harley and Flair, but that's based on matches of his I've watched from the 70s when he wasn't champ.

 

I think I know what you mean. Brisco was definitely better than Harley at intense grappling. When I say ahead of his time, I mean you could've send Brisco forward 20 years in a time machine, and he'd have stepped into most '90s feds without much adjustment. His spring, his quickness, the snap in his execution were all remarkable. Billy Robinson is the other '70s star who always hits me the same way, and I know I'm not the only one to make that association.

 

Harley, by contrast, has always struck me as a proto-Flair, though he crammed in more high-end offense, relative to the late '70s, than Ric did relative to the mid-'80s. In terms of the bumping, the signature spots, the way they worked as touring champs--very similar. I enjoyed their '84 All Japan match because it played on how much Harley and Ric were two sides of the same coin.

 

I need to revisit Harley though, because I'm mostly talking about years-old impressions. I imagine he was perfectly fine at working holds, just as Flair was, even if neither could stack up to Brisco in that realm.

I think Brisco could fit into any promotion at any time, 80s, 90s, 00s, now. I really think the guy was that good. Some of the stuff I've seen has been later on in his career working pretty effectively as a heel in Georgia against Brad Armstrong and Sweet Brown Sugar, for example. I think he could have worked a more spot-heavy style if someone asked him to.

 

 

Brisco was just a tremendous, ahead-of-his-time wrestler.

This makes me think of Race, but (and I haven't done the legwork enough, but from what I've seen) is it that the forward-looking elements were different between Brisco and Race, and Brisco actually kept the elements of the 70s style that some of us miss and appreciate while adding another element and Race jettisoned those for HIS element that he introduced?

 

I don't know. Does that even make sense?

 

It's been hard to say with Race so far, because a lot of the matches have been clipped, so I'm getting stuff like 15 minutes of a 2 out of 3 falls that might have gone 30 or 40 minutes. I can't tell if there is any rhyme or reason to the clipping, but it's POSSIBLE that they cut out all of the headlocks and other holds and only kept in the highspots. It's POSSIBLE.

 

I think the fact I can't tell does say something about Race in general though, which is that it would be entirely believable that he was working these matches almost exclusively through giving or taking suplexes and big bumping spots from the top. If it was Flair, I'd know that the opening 10-minutes of obligatory token matwork would have been cut. With Race, I can't tell.

 

But I don't think the fact that Brisco did matwork discounts him from being considered really "ahead of his time" either. Watch Rick Martel or Steamboat or DiBiase as a babyface in the 80s or even in some matches Bret Hart in the 90s and they spend a comparable amount of time on the mat. Seems to me that Brisco established a lot of the standard tropes of your typical "technical babyface". His moveset (fireman carry takeover, atomic drop, drop kicks, big "comeback punches", suplex variations) wouldn't look out of place in any later era.

 

Harley seems to be the man chiefly responsible for the gradual decline of matwork and greater emphasis on high spots.

 

Brisco's legacy seems to be more in the expressive way that he sold and how he worked as a babyface, which "looks forward" in a different way.

 

By comparison, Dory is almost a 1960s worker. And I said it earlier in this thread that he stubbornly refused to update his style in any way, which makes him an interesting bridge back to a by-gone era. From what Flair said in the recent interview with Austin, it seems like Dory was almost working a semi-shoot in his matwork, a bit like Thesz. Tying guys up in a pretzel and then (shoot) asking them to figure out a way to get out of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Exactly. Harley was a touring champ, and his style was all about that. Go everywhere, do all the spots people who have read the mags expect, make the local guy look like he has a chance, and leave with the belt while the fans feel their guy got fucked. Rinse and repeat EVERYWHERE. To me, THAT'S what makes an all time great.

 

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him.

 

 

Two totally different mindsets. Misawa was coming back to town and making all the same stops on the loop on the next tour. The local ace still had to headline for the next X months if/until the NWA Champion made his way back to town. To some extent that makes protecting the local star a hell of a lot more important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's also not really true that Race (or Flair) would bitch out completely all of the time. You get occasional matches where the babyface dominates and the champ pulls out a cheap last-ditch win, but typically in a 2 out of 3 falls match, the champ will get a fall and wind up winning 2-1.

 

But you can't really have the champ come into town and demolish your local hero because 1) it damages the hero's cred and 2) you presumably want a reason for a REMATCH.

 

But the champ would be booked differently in different places, anyway. St. Louis was the crown jewel, and Muchnick liked the champ to be strong. I watched a bunch of Race in St. Louis and he spent plenty of time on offense, no outside intereference, no ref bumps. Eddie Graham in Florida liked to book the champ in drawn-out technical affairs. He even made Race vs. Billy Graham go a whole hour, but Graham gives you ref bumps aplenty. We don't have much pre-Flair NWA champ at the Omni, but you know in GCW they loved the run-in finish or the bull-shit finish.

 

We can't assume that every match was worked like Flair vs. Luger, GAB 88.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Exactly. Harley was a touring champ, and his style was all about that. Go everywhere, do all the spots people who have read the mags expect, make the local guy look like he has a chance, and leave with the belt while the fans feel their guy got fucked. Rinse and repeat EVERYWHERE. To me, THAT'S what makes an all time great.

 

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him.

 

The NWA champion was SUPPOSED to look vulnerable and like he could lose the title at any time, that was his role. Misawa's role was to be the ace. They are two entirely different roles. The NWA champion was only coming into the territory for a few times a year and you WANTED the fans to think that he could lose every time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Exactly. Harley was a touring champ, and his style was all about that. Go everywhere, do all the spots people who have read the mags expect, make the local guy look like he has a chance, and leave with the belt while the fans feel their guy got fucked. Rinse and repeat EVERYWHERE. To me, THAT'S what makes an all time great.

 

Funny, that 'style' may very well be my absolute biggest pet peeve in all of wrestling. Such a stupid, mind numbing concept. How does the champ come out looking like a credible 'champion' in any way shape or form afterwards? Imagine if every single Floyd Mayweather fight ended with Floyd getting a lucky KO in the 12th round after being down 11-0. So dumb. That's why I feel like Misawa is a very legitimate GOATC, because he perfected the role of an 'ace' in his matches, where his opponents really had to climb a mountain to defeat him.

The NWA champion was SUPPOSED to look vulnerable and like he could lose the title at any time, that was his role. Misawa's role was to be the ace. They are two entirely different roles. The NWA champion was only coming into the territory for a few times a year and you WANTED the fans to think that he could lose every time.
The idea of the 'World Champion' getting his ass kicked in every match only for his opponent to slip on a banana peel and lose is just absurd to me. Yeah, you want the local star to look good, but, shit, you're the WORLD CHAMP, shouldn't you look like one? I'd much rather have the fans think "wow, I'm proud of our guy, he came so close but hey, that's the champ" as opposed to "OUR GUY THAT SCREWED! THAT GUY DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE A CHAMP!" The former is a win-win situation, while the latter is making the local hero look good at the expense of the guy who is supposed to be the world champion. I'll continue to go back to the Mayweather analogy. I don't think anyone has gotten much flak for losing to him, if anything, most became bigger stars just for stepping into the ring with him, because he's THE man. That's what a world champion should be.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The idea of the 'World Champion' getting his ass kicked in every match only for his opponent to slip on a banana peel and lose is just absurd to me. Yeah, you want the local star to look good, but, shit, you're the WORLD CHAMP, shouldn't you look like one? I'd much rather have the fans think "wow, I'm proud of our guy, he came so close but hey, that's the champ" as opposed to "OUR GUY THAT SCREWED! THAT GUY DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE A CHAMP!"

 

The thing is that the champ's defense against the local star was all that those fans were going to see. As far as they were concerned the champ was dominating competition everywhere else and their guy was the ONE he couldn't beat fairly. So you can't factor in the idea that the champion was getting his ass kicked in every match. Your Mayweather analogy actually works in favor of this method because in the fans' eyes that's probably what the NWA champ was 99% of the time and their local hero was the one guy who had his number.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the heck is the UN title?

 

I love the idea of a UN title. You could take it to the south and play up that you're a heel who's going to come in and take everyone's guns away to get heat. The babyface could be The Mountain Militia Man who's going to rename the belt the Backwoods Moonshine Championship if he wins.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the heck is the UN title?

 

I love the idea of a UN title. You could take it to the south and play up that you're a heel who's going to come in and take everyone's guns away to get heat. The babyface could be The Mountain Militia Man who's going to rename the belt the Backwoods Moonshine Championship if he wins.

 

It was a title made for Jumbo. They really built it up and he would defend it against a who's who of wrestling. He defended it against a variety of former world champs and other big stars . The fans began to view it as a world title.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That match against Brisco in 76 -- I believe -- is actually the final of the tournament when he won it.

 

The UN title is still technically active as one third of the Triple Crown. See this thread for more. PWO's very own jdw has a pretty complete history in there:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/27887-ranking-prestige-of-top-titles-in-all-japan-before-the-triple-crown/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brisco worked heel as NWA champ when needed many times.

 

 

The promoters only wanted one thing out of the champion and that was to be more often than not a credible heel challenger who the fans would want to pay to see the face try and beat. Face NWA champ vs. heel opponent was not desired unless the NWA champ was in his home territory and even that at times didn't work the best like when Flair turned heel in JCP in 1982 and he was not nearly as effective as he was as a face. When Dusty had his 3 month run as a face NWA champ he mainly worked the territories he could draw in like CWF, GCW, & JCP which left out PNW, Los Angeles, Fritz, Southeastern, and Japan because the NWA champ was not working for New Japan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched every Brisco title defense in the US on tape here.

 

I'd agree that he's put in the role of the de facto heel NWA champ, but not that he's "working heel". The closest he gets to being an out and out heel is vs. Spiros Arion in Australia and even then he's kind of neutral. He's not doing anything to rile the fans, and he doesn't work like I've seen heel Brisco work later in the early 1980s.

 

The most heelish thing I've seen Brisco do as champ is dump a guy outside the ring to cut off momentum, and once or twice he's got so fired up he's used the fists illegally. But he's not really going to eye gouges or face rakes, let alone doing anything overtly heelish. I mean compared to, say, Lou Thesz, he's an angel, and it's not like you'd think of Thesz as anything more than "subtle heel".

 

He's definitely booked into the same spot as the heel NWA champ would be, but he's still effectively a face or tweener. Handshakes. Clean breaks for the best part.

 

Kris is right though in general. He also tends to be booked babyface much more in Florida, although there are some matches of him as a babyface on the road, for example against Jerry Lawler in Memphis and against Race in Houston. He wrestled Buddy Colt a lot in Georgia, and Johnny Valentine in Mid-Atlantic. He was a face in those matches. They'd basically put Brisco wherever they needed him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since you brought it up Jerry, what other formulas are out there?

 

Venegas - did you see the post I made up there about not every NWA title match having the banana peel narrative? That's one of about 10 different NWA title formula matches, and they probably went to it less than you think.

 

 

Some common narratives. People will probably be able to think of examples of all of these just using Ric Flair alone:

 

- The challenger is good, but the champ is the better wrestler. This was Dory's calling card in the early 70s. But they'd still go to it later on. I get the impression this is how Thesz was booked too.

 

- The challenger is good, but the champ can take punishment and go longer and he's smarter. This is part and parcel of NWA champ psychology. He's seen it all before. The spunky babyface can wear himself out trying to give the champ everything he's got, the champ has always got another gear he go into. Let's use Flair vs. Luger. GAB 88 is "slipped on a banana peel" or "heel champ was beat and snuck out with an niggling little technicality". Starrcade 88 is this. So what that Flair used a chair, he came out with a win after destroying Luger's leg. He leveraged his know-how, and showed why he's a world class wrestler. It doesn't always have to be something cheap either. It can be a counter or reversal which better plays into the idea of the NWA Champ being smarter, than it does him being lucky. This variant of the narrative seems as common as "banana peel" to me, if not more common. You see a lot of flash pins.

 

- Parity. This is when you get the champ vs. a world class wrestler who could easily win the world title -- usually in these sorts of feuds you get a title switch, but not always. It's Dory vs. Jack, Race vs. Terry Funk, it's Flair vs. Garvin or Steamboat. This is when the NWA gives you your classic matches.

 

- Cheap finish. So the "banana peel" narrative makes the champ look weak and lucky, "if only" it wasn't for that, the face who clearly had him beat would have won. But various cheap finishes are a way out of that and help to keep the champ looking alright and sets up a rematch. Double KO, outside interference causes a DQ, count out, Dusty finish, etc. etc. Reading the Meltzer piece on Bob Giegel, it seems like they increased the range of these finishes after Muchnick resigned in 1975. But to be honest, lots of the Brisco defenses 73-5 had finishes like this. Like the cheapest of the cheap.

 

- Champ vs. underdog who he underestimates. I haven't seen any examples of this outside of Flair. Ricky Morton comes to mind.

 

--------

 

My observation from watching stuff thus far is that Race was booked the weakest out of any of the champs -- weaker than Flair -- or at least that's how he worked it. With him, you'll see a lot of shit like the babyface falling on top for a cover but the momentum being enough to carry Race over for a fluky pin. In some matches he's incredibly weak (see vs. Backlund, vs. Steamboat, and from the looks of the clipping vs. DiBiase in 78), but even then it's not always. The three matches I watched of his vs. the Von Erich brothers towards the end of his long reign (80-81) saw him beat the younger up-and-coming guys fair and square -- David is too injured to continue, clean pin over Kevin, clean pin over Kerry with no "banana peel" narrative.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The Observer back issue that was put up today contains Dave's Fritz Von Erich obit. Fritz was NWA president for a time in the 70s, so Dave talked a bit about how the NWA champion was booked. Under Muchnick, there were screwjobs and time limit draws, but the champion always won decisively in the end so there was no doubt that he was the best in the world. Under subsequent presidents, screwjobs became the rule rather than the exception, and the prestige of the belt steadily declined.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Observer back issue that was put up today contains Dave's Fritz Von Erich obit. Fritz was NWA president for a time in the 70s, so Dave talked a bit about how the NWA champion was booked. Under Muchnick, there were screwjobs and time limit draws, but the champion always won decisively in the end so there was no doubt that he was the best in the world. Under subsequent presidents, screwjobs became the rule rather than the exception, and the prestige of the belt steadily declined.

You do see trends emerge depending on who the NWA president was at the time. Dave kinda touches on this also in his Geigle orbit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also think you see how much the champ was willing to give based on the promotion they came from. For example Harley Race stooged himself out more than any other NWA champ in my opinion. Race's home territory was K.C. A territory where Race had to sacrifice himself a lot to get others over to work with him because it was hard to get main even talent. So for him to go territory to territory stooging his ass off was the norm for him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pete, I'd be interested in your take on the way Brisco worked it. He was babyface or de facto subtle heel at most a lot of places, so he wasn't really stooging -- but he did seem to give opponents a hell of a lot, at least as much as 80-90% of a match which is near-Hogan levels, only often -- unlike Hogan -- you don't get a big comeback but instead a skank win from a reverse inside cradle or similar.

 

I guess the question would be: who was more effective? Did Race need to do all that stooging?

 

Despite being a big fan of Brisco the worker, I have to say a lot of the time I don't see the booking logic. I've really hated some of Eddie Graham's finishes, and think they made Brisco look weak too often when he was meant to be a wrestling machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...