OJ's WWWF/WWF thread

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco (WWF, 11/29/81)

It took a while for these guys to realize they were in a no holds barred, Texas Death Match, but once they did they turned it into the most entertaining version of a Muraco vs. Backlund brawl you can imagine. But it only lasted 13 minutes and ended with a dodgy pin. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco (WWF, 2/18/83)

This was one of the better Backlund/Muraco matches, IMO. Vince was joined on commentary by Gorilla, who did color. He was still fairly new to the commentary game at this stage and not so jaded. However, there was an awkward period in the middle of the match where Backlund had Muraco in a side headlock that went on for too long and Vince and Gorilla struggled with how to call it. They wound up getting pissy, but it was forgotten about when they turned it on for the finishing stretch. It was an exciting stretch, but ended with a stupid finish where Backlund lost his cool and struck the referee. He did that kind of shit way too much for a champion at his level. Afterward, he struck his manager then attacked Muraco while he was being interviewed by Kal Rudman. Murao had a shit eating grin wider than Haystacks Calhoun's backside. He was inside Backlund's head and loving it. If only he brought that sort of psychology to his matches. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 5/23/83)

This may be my favorite Backlund vs. Slaughter match. It helps if you watch the angle leading into the match where Slaughter challenged Backlund to beat his record at the Harvard Step Test only to attack Bob and whip him with his swagger stick. Bob is pissed before the bout saying that Slaughter had hurt everyone close to him  and that he had tried to keep the beating a secret from his daughter but she had seen the footage at a friend's house. What follows is a frantic brawl where Backlund gets, in the words of the Macho Man Randy Savage, only a piece of what he wants from Slaughter. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 8/13/83)

Another fun chapter in their '83 feud. Backlund is still incensed about the whipping he received and beats the shit out of Slaughter for most of the bout, but Slaughter claws and fights his way back into the bout and there's a cool finish where Slaughter is standing on the apron and catches Backlund in the cobra clutch. He thinks he's won the bout but young Joey Marella counts him out and Slaughter puts the cobra clutch on Marella after the bout. Gorilla is on commentary with Dick, which isn't half as fun as Kal being there, but the times were a changing. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 10/22/83)

This was a very good brawl between the two. It was a Sicilian stretcher match, but instead of doing a bunch of spots with the stretcher like most workers do, they beat the crap out of each other until Backlund finally got the chicken wing on Slaughter and the Sarge passed out. The refs dumped Slaughter out of the ring like he was a piece of trash and that was enough for Bob to win the bout. Great creepy/intense interview with Rudman afterwards. Why isn't Rudman in the booth?  Love that guy. 

These two had a Texas Death Match the month before, but I can't find it anywhere. Let me know if it's out in the wild somewhere. 

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 10/20/80)

Howard Finkel can barely stifle his laughter when Slaughter gets on the house mic and starts singing the Marines Hymn. Backlund sure liked to get his shine at the beginning of a match. Has there ever been a babyface who had a longer shine than Bob Backlund? He's a kick-ass, killer babyface, so it's not terrible to watch, but it's half the match. And when Slaughter takes take over, it becomes a back and forth brawl where the Sarge ends up bleeding. Backlund's feats of strength never cease to amaze. The dude was a freak with that shit. This is good stuff, but when Slaughter gets Backlund in the Cobra Clutch, Skaaland hits Slaughter over the head with a chair. That's some bullshit right there. If heel managers aren't allowed to stay at ringside at MSG then how the hell can Skaaland justify pulling that shit? Not only that, but Backlund gives Slaughter a piledriver after the chair shot. That's a heel turn in my books. Such a bizarre finish. They did a similar spot in Philly three years later but it was after the bell and Skaaland was looking to prevent his man from suffering an injury. This shit was bogus. 

[Ricky Jackson]

I'm not a conspiracy guy, but I don't think one can ignore the obvious, multi-layered conspiracy against "rule breakers" in the WWWF/WWF lasting from 1963 to about 1997. Managers being banned from ringside, obvious fast counts by refs, feet on the ropes being ignored, bs blood stoppage decisions that always benefitted the "good guys", refs turning a blind eye to selfsame good guys breaking the rules, etc, etc. And screw Arnold Skaaland, combs his hair with buttered toast-looking MFer

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm so glad you mentioned his hair! What's up with that?

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Bob Orton Jr. (WWF, 5/22/82)

This was a really good match. I wish they'd had a longer feud against each other as they were evenly matched. Orton wasn't the most demonstrative heel in the history of professional wrestling, but he knew how to get under an opponent's skin and he was a proficient stooge and bumper on top of being a competent wrestler. That made him a solid match up for killer Bobby Backlund, who could mow through an opponent if they didn't have their wits about them. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Bob Orton Jr. (WWF, 6/26/82)

This was a fun lumberjack match with Orton doing an excellent job of playing to the cheap seats, but like I said in my previous post, I really wish we'd seen more of this feud. They had a match at MSG in August of '82 that wasn't taped. The August MSG card that was taped featured the excellent Buddy Rose match, so I can't complain too much, but they moved on from this a bit too quickly on television. In fact, the finish sets up a new feud between Orton and a disgustingly roided Ivan Putski. 

[Ricky Jackson]

I think Bob writes in his book about how Vince Sr had big plans for guys like a returning Superstar Graham, Ray Stevens and Blackjack Mulligan for the fall of 82. He didn't see dollar signs in Orton or Rose, so they were basically one and done placeholders at MSG before the supposed bigger draws got their shots. Yes, Kung Fu Billy drew three straight MSG sellouts, but apparently wasn't a draw elsewhere and was seriously washed in the ring. Stevens and Mulligan were also washed, and weren't drawing either, so they didn't even get a single MSG main event with Bob. IIRC Bob thought they should've done more with Orton and Rose instead of going with past their prime guys who could no longer work at a main event level. Late Vince Sr seemed to love bringing back guys who drew well in the past instead of trying new faces, and 1983 of course has a rep for a stale main event scene, despite some good matches, as you've covered. But looking at the available MSG #s for 83 show strong attendance, so I think a lot of the "territory in decline" narrative comes from old Observer's and their anti-Bob bias. It's kinda hard to argue against Vince Sr's thinking when it comes to 83, but his picks for main event heels in the Fall of 82 were definitely questionable 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (WWF, 4/23/84)

It's so weird seeing Backlund as a former world heavyweight champion, but kind of cool seeing him square off with Valentine one last time as the Hammer's the opponent most synonymous with Backlund in my mind. I'm not sure of the circumstances surrounding Backlund's departure from the WWF. He didn't last too long after the death of Vince Sr. I wonder what sort of role there would have been for him if he'd stayed on in the WWF. Could he have hung around the IC level? Turned heel at some point? Does he have a place in the Rock 'n' Roll era?

[Ricky Jackson]

The old story goes that Vince Jr wanted Bob to turn heel, specifically by dying his hair and doing a punk rock gimmick and Bob refused and quit. God knows what that would've been like but I guess it may have got him involved with the Rock n Wrestling MTV stuff

[ohtani's jacket]

That reminds me of Bobby Barnes in the UK who went from being a Gorgeous George type to a punk rocker with dyed hair. I wonder if Vince was serious or he was trying to push Howdy Doody out the door. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Jimmy Snuka (WWF, 7/31/82)

This was a whole bunch of nothing. Snuka made a big deal about going backstage and bringing Lou Albano to ringside since Backlund had Skaaland with him, which is fair enough. Rudman was obsessed with this joke he thought up about changing Fred Blassie's pencil neck geek to fat neck freak. He also addressed drug users telling them there's no bigger high than the high Backlund gets from coming to the ring. That may be true. Instead of Backlund controlling the beginning of the bout, it was Snuka on top, and it wasn't pretty. The match ended with a big brawl where Skaaland threw shome shitty looking punches at Albano, who did an even shittier job of selling them. Bob did land a nasty looking piledriver on the Superfly, though. 

[SAMS]

On 1/9/2024 at 1:25 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

That reminds me of Bobby Barnes in the UK who went from being a Gorgeous George type to a punk rocker with dyed hair. I wonder if Vince was serious or he was trying to push Howdy Doody out the door. 

Was it a punk rocker vibe that Barnes was going for? The change kind of just happened and I don't recall Walton ever really addressing it, but I always got the sense that his new look was emulating Freddie Mercury to an extent, switching from something androgynous to that short hair and bold moustache combo. I do think it was a positive change though as it prevented him from feeling dated with his old 70s look and instead gave him something that felt decidedly 80s.

[ohtani's jacket]

It may have been inspired by Freddie Mercury, though Freddie didn't dye his hair different colors. I'm not really a fan of the gimmick change, or the drop off work, though I can understand he may have been tired of doing the Beautiful Bobby Barnes schtick. He was such an entertaining worker in the 70s. 

 

[SAMS]

I'll admit that I'm not as familiar with him pre-gimmick change, but he's one of my key under-the-radar UK workers out of the guys who made tape a decent chunk of the time. I'm just a sucker for his working style. I've been considering heading further back in time in the near future so if I do I'm looking forward to seeing what he was like in the 70s. 

Okay, with that I'll cease diverting this WWF thread with WoS talk.

[ohtani's jacket]

Every thread should be diverted with WoS talk.

Bob Backlund vs. Jimmy Snuka (WWF, 9/18/82) 

Snuka is so over at this point that he gets cheered over Backlund. Bob-haters are always going on about how he was disliked in Philly, but this is the first time I've heard him booed. Another slow match. They get into a tangled mess where both men are trying to cut the blood supply off from opposing limbs. Dick and Kal grow restless over the amount of "inaction" and Dick practically shoots his load when they run the ropes. Fortunately for me, the downtime gives Kal the chance to go on bizarre rants. He starts rattling off the great champions of the past and then wonders who would win a fight between Backlund and Londos (good question.) He also starts rambling about the old days when matches went 8 or 9 hours and guys would come home from the wrestling at 2 or 3 in the morning and have to explain to their wives where they'd been. He's particularly amused by this and goes on about divorce rates and husbands being whacked over the head with rolling pins. As for the match, advice to readers -- watch the Snuka/Backlund cage match and ignore the rest. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWF, 11/22/82)

I've gotta be honest, this wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It wasn't a particularly good match, but I expected it to be a low point in my WWF viewing and it wasn't anywhere near that bad. The reasons for that were that it was only 12 minutes long (which is non-offensive in itself) and story-wise I liked the idea of the ex-champion coming back for revenge several years later. From that point of view, even the gimmick change worked. I also thought it was interesting that Backlund was using headbutts, fingers to the eye and closed fists, indicating exactly how he pissed he was at Superstar destroying the championship belt. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWF, 12/28/82)

This was another harmless bout between the two. It wasn't a great Backlund match but they can't all be four star classics. At least it forced Backlund to step outside his usual match structure and work a reasonably entertaining sprint. The match was mostly built around Vince and Gorilla squabbling over whether special guest referee Swede Hansen was going to remain impartial. That led to an exciting finish where it didn't seem like Hansen was going to call for the submission on Backland's chicken wing. He finally called it and Graham and Hansen ended up trading blows after the bout, leading to Gorilla trolling Vince over whether he was convinced about Hansen being impartial or not. One of the lumberjacks was Masa Saito. It was never gonna happen, but a Masa Saito vs. Backlund feud would have been cool. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Damn, we should've at least got a MSG one and done with Bob and Saito. I never really considered it before, but now I'm sad we didn't get it.

Vince and Gorilla being strangely antagonistic with each other is a weird footnote in WWF commentary history, as they only did a handful of shows together before Vince stepped away from the booth. Two Alpha's I guess 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Masked Superstar (WWF, 10/17/83)

I haven't watched much Masked Superstar as there's something off-putting about the gimmick for me, but I thought this was really good. The beginning was mostly focused around Backlund striving to get revenge for Masked Superstar assaulting Backlund's protégé, Eddie Gilbert. I believe Superstar gave him a couple of reverse neck breakers in the ring then gave him another on the concrete. Backlund was extremely good at playing the pissed off babyface. He was better at that role than the smiling All-American babyface. He knew how to inflict pain better than most heels do. Things heated up when Superstar took over on offense, and I thought the finishing stretch was exciting. This set up a return match that wasn't televised and then the following month Backlund dropped the belt to the Sheik. There's no indication here that Backlund is about to be dethroned, but they definitely aren't doing him any favors. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (WWF, 2/16/81)

This was better than I remember Stan being in New York. There were some wonky moments where he had to stand around pretending to work a hold and some power spots from Backlund that would have been more effective later in the match, but once Bob started bleeding it turned into the type of wild spectacle you expect from a Hansen match. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (WWF, 3/16/81)

This was a rinse and repeat of their first match although I thought it was structured slightly better. 

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre the Giant (WWF, 3/16/81)

This was a ridiculously fun bout. I wish they'd booked more Andre bouts like this.