1982

[Grimmas]

Who is the greatest wrestler of the year?

[elliott]

Jerry Lawler - Has feuds with Bockwinkel, Dutch Mantell & Andy Kaufman. Probably the start of Lawler's prime. 

Another wrestler to note - Buddy Rose has the great feuds in Portland with Curt Hennig & Matt Borne. Leaves the nest and has runs in WWF & NJPW. We're firmly in Rose's prime. 

[Tetsujin]

Oh I"ve never Heard about Rose in New Japan before. Needless to say I'm interested. Any match recs about his run there?

[elliott]

On 5/11/2023 at 3:21 AM, Tetsujin said:

Oh I"ve never Heard about Rose in New Japan before. Needless to say I'm interested. Any match recs about his run there?

Hulk Hogan & Buddy Rose vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Yoshiaki Yatsu (NJPW - 5/12/82) is a good match 

We have another match vs Yatsu 5/6/82

He goes back in 1984 and we just have a match teaming with Dusty vs Inoki & Fujinami 1/6/84. The Dusty & Rose team sounds amazing. Wish that was like 1978. 

 

 

[Mr JMML]

It's Lawler, no one was close.

[tcg91]

10. Dynamite Kid
1982 was much better for the Dynamite feud with Tiger Mask, as their bouts in the summer finally clicked and moved on from some irritating habits. Dynamite was a blast throughout the year, tagging with Bret Hart in New Japan and then also facing him in Stampede, even though his best matches were obviously the ones against Sayama.

9. Stan Hansen
Another good year for Hansen, as he immediately got involved with All Japan’s biggest guys. Him and Terry Funk had a very good match in September and Hansen also managed to get a few pretty good performances out of Giant Baba. Hansen and Bruiser Brody formed a vicious tag team and they had a positive run during the RWTL at the end of the year.

8. Terry Funk
Funk brought it again, as his matches against Hansen and Brody felt like good deals and highlights of All Japan’s year. Regardless of his performances in singles matches, Terry and Dory also had a bunch of solid tag matches throughout the year, working as amazing babyfaces against their aggressive opponents.

7. Nick Bockwinkel
Bock didn't have a classic in 1982, but he surely had plenty of damn good ones. He mostly shined in AWA, but also had a couple of good matches against Lawler in Memphis, plus a few shining performances in Houston (loved his Ricky Morton match from July). He also toured All Japan and put on decent stuff against Jumbo.

6. Tiger Mask
I think Sayama did very well, as he got more comfortable with the gimmick and dropped a few irritating habits. His best matches against Dynamite Kid were in the summer of 1982, but I also appreciated his bouts against Bret Hart, Steve Wright and Kuniaki Kobayashi. Sadly, his WWF tour was not exciting at all.

5. Jumbo Tsuruta
Jumbo was clearly getting better and started chasing his first World Title, adding purpose to all of his gaijin battles against former World champions. The match against Flair was the highlight of his year and proved his resilience. As usual, he tagged with Baba a lot and managed to do most of the work.

4. Bob Backlund
Not Backlund's strongest year of the early 80s, but still a very good one. He gave Adrian Adonis his best matches and program ever, did well against Bob Orton and Greg Valentine. The Buddy Rose feud was somewhat of a letdown as I love Rose, but they didn't click too well and you could see the fans were not 100% into Backlund anymore.

3. Kerry von Erich
His two matches against Flair were amazing, especially the one from August, while the cage match a tad too overbooked for me despite being a great spectacle. He also had a really strong contender match against Harley Race in June, plus a few good little matches here and there in the Dallas territory.

2. Jerry Lawler
Lawler had a strong year in Memphis, especially when battling Nick Bickwinkel in the fall, even though his best match was against Dutch Mantel in March, where his babyface punches were so satisfying. The Flair bout from August was somewhat of a letdown, while the Andy Kaufman feud is not really my cup of tea but was entertaining enough.

1. Ric Flair
What a great year for the Naitch. He brought the Flair formula everywhere in the NWA, making all of his babyface challengers look great and creating hype for return matches. Jumbo, Lawler, Kerry and David, Sawyer, Colon, Reed all benefitted from this. Flair had an outstanding series of great matches and it is a shame we don't have a lot of footage from his Georgia or Florida work for that year, because everything he touched in 1982 turned into gold.