[1980-11-08-WWF-Philadelphia] Bob Backlund vs Larry Zbyszko

[SAMS]

1980-11-08
WWF
Bob Backlund (c) vs Larry Zbyszko
WWF Heavyweight Title Match (Special Referee: Tony Atlas)
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
★★★
Card

While their previous match was a Larry match, this at least started much more like your classic Backlund match. We got the extended shine and, with Atlas also in the mix, it almost felt unfair, the odds decidedly stacked against Zbyszko. Larry was his ornery best though, getting up in Atlas’ face whenever given the opportunity and once Backlund missed a shoulder charge into the corner he was in the ascendancy and did well to keep Backlund grounded. His elbow and knee strikes to Backlund’s head are the most vicious looking we’ve seen from him and then he turned his attention to choking Bob. I could have done with them going in a different direction here, as Larry sitting in a front facelock while choking Bob wasn’t the most engaging visual and it went on for a fair bit. It worked from a psychology perspective and gave him opportunities to face off with Atlas when he was forced to break, but it wasn’t that fun to watch. 
Backlund started mounting his comeback but Zbyszko was able to repeatedly cut him off. I’ll grant Backlund’s selling through this stretch was really good, he was getting over the residual damage that Larry had dished out to him and it made his final comeback all the better for it. A huge piledriver followed by an Atomic Drop sent Larry to the apron. From there Larry managed to corral Backlund into another choke on the ropes, but this time he wouldn’t relent and Atlas was forced to call the match.
There were some great bits to this. Backlund’s aforementioned selling down the stretch, Zbyszko’s overall character work and his bumping when Backlund did manage to get some offense in. On the negative side I thought Atlas looked pretty green as a referee - he missed a few spots, which kind of broke the illusion here and there, the middle was a touch bland, and the finish felt odd considering they don’t have another match down the line. I’m not sure if they originally planned to have one but we didn’t get the decisive Backlund victory in this series and looking at upcoming match listings they pivot to a Atlas/Zbyszko match in due course.