Verne Gagne

[ohtani's jacket]

So I've started watching Verne Gagne matches and it's clear what a major talent the guy was. And not just working holds either. His bumping and selling were fantastic and he had a flair for the dramatic when it came to pacing a bout and putting it over as a marquee contest. That's not the first thing I'd associate with Gagne, but in all of the 50s footage I've watched he's probably the most dynamic guy on the scene.

 

I saw him have a tough, gritty contest with Canadian wrestler Roy McClarity and a fun game of cat and mouse with Don Leo Jonathan. Then I saw him work wonders with Dick the Bruiser. So far the only thing the Bruiser's shown me he looked like a brute, but against Gagne he was working holds and everything was nasty and great. Even against a guy like the Great Togo Verne bust his ass, and it's damn near impossible to get anything good out of a 1950s Japanese heel.

 

Looking forward to seeing more.

[ohtani's jacket]

Yukon Eric? No problem for Verne Gagne. Gagne worked a smart, logical match around Yukon's size and strength advantage that might have been a bit ho-hum if it were any other worker trying it, but Gagne kept up a brisk pace and managed to make the match interesting instead of being bottled down in Yukon's strength holds.

 

Gagne vs. Billy Goelz is a gem. I've been impressed with Gagne as a worker but it's when he shows his wrestling chops that he enters the upper echelon of wrestling greats. This was tough, gritty wrestling. Physical, uncompromising... no quarter given, none taken... And Goelz is just as good as Gagne in the bout.

 

The only disappointments thus far have been the Mighty Atlas matches, but Atlas was an early bodybuilder type who did little more than flex his muscles. Gagne tried to play off Atlas' strength the way he did w/ Yukon, but give Yukon some credit, at least he followed Verne's lead.

[conker8]

 

He is one of the two Golden Era workers I vote for :

First of all, he has the most amount of footage from CFA.

The guy is a natural. His career start in 1949 and he already has good matches one year later (on tape).

Not a top technician guy like a Pat O Connor or a Billy Goelz or even a Lou Thesz, he is in the tier below and he could held his own against these guys.

His main card is the pure babyface : his selling is quite good and his fire is tremendous. He could carry limited workers like Dick the Bruiser or Yukon Eric with his bumping. On offense, he can throw a good punch.

Some recommendations :

Verne Gagne & Bobby Bruns vs Rudy Kay & Al Williams 05/12/1950

Verne Gagne vs Billy Goelz 06/21/1950

Dick the Bruiser & the Lisowski Brothers vs Verne Gagne, Wilbur Snyder & Argentina Rocca 1956

His three matches against Hans Schmidt (Wrigley Field, Chicago and Buffalo)

His main problem is that we don't have footage from the 60's (I would love to see him against Mad Dog Vachon).

In the 70's you can see his match against Jimmy Valiant for an example and it's the same way he worked in the 50's against a Schmidt or a Dick the Bruiser albeit a bit slower

 

I wrote similar things in his nomination thread in the GWE forum.

 

Off topic but I recommend you Frank Stojack vs Dutch Heffner from the 50's, you might like this match.

[ohtani's jacket]

The match against Carpentier was excellent. Shoddy finish, but overall it was better than what Thesz was able to achieve with Carpentier. Most people already know about the 10 min Red Bastien match, but it really is another Gagne gem. The similar length Carl Myer match is fun, though Meyer is an older guy being carried as opposed to a youngster. Finished off the 50s b&w footage with a fun tag between Bobby Bruns & Gagne vs. Rudy Kay & Al Williams. Gagne showed all his strengths as a baby face and Williams was entertaining as a heavily tattooed stooge.

 

Took my first dip into 70s Gagne in a match against Bockwinkel but need to get my bearings on whether he was a 70s maestro or a promoter-wrestler hanging on too long. The footage I saw wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near as exciting as the 50s stuff.

[Ricky Jackson]

His match against Robinson from 1974 Japan is great and he more than holds up his end in it

[ohtani's jacket]

I worked my way through all of the 70s stuff I could find. I don't think it would be right to call him a maestro in the 70s just because of his age. He still saw himself as a key player in the business, and it was really only the longer Japanese match against Robinson where he looked like a maestro. (By which I mean a skilled older worker who is a step slower but still has their wrestling wits about them.) I didn't really care for his stuff against Bockwinkel. The matches were predictable and the finishes with Heenan lacked any sort of spark or originality. For my money, Gagne's work against Robinson blew away the Bockwinkel stuff. In general Gagne was still a pretty good worker in the 70s. I liked his studio match against George Gadaski and he gave a thousand times more interesting performance against Nikolai Volkoff at MSG then you could possibly imagine from the totality of Volkoff's WWF work. But there were little things like his jinking and ducking and taunting that lacked the fire of his youth and seemed kind of silly coming from an older guy. Slapping the top of Robinson's head was bad ass, but not taunting the Brain.

[ohtani's jacket]

Gagne was a pretty good worker through to the early 80s. Of all the Golden Era workers to continue through to the 70s and 80s Gagne lost the least. Of course you could argue that he didn't really do that much in his latter years (certainly, he didn't bump much), but it was really only the mid-80s stuff I saw where it looked like he didn't have the physical strength to pull off the illusion of competitiveness he was trying to uphold. I can live without ever seeing another Gagne/Bockwinkel match, and Baba was awful in their '81 match, but something about Verne was sturdier than Snyder and Rogers' later stuff. Thesz wasn't the figurehead of his own promotion during his "maestro" years, but Gagne probably lasted longer than him too. Granted, he was younger. If you just wanna tip your toes stick to the black and white stuff.