[1980-12-09-NJPW] Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen

[SAMS]

1980-12-09
NJPW
Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen
Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan
★★
Card

Maybe it was just in light of my expectations of a match between these two, but this felt pretty uninspired, all the way down to the finish. Hansen put on the pressure throughout and Backlund was forced underneath, the impetus placed on him to carve out some sort of resistance. The problem was that he didn’t push back on his end strongly enough and when he did it wasn’t that interesting. Hansen, as always, looked singularly credible, but this highlights a flaw, in that a match being interesting or compelling often relies on his opponent’s willingness or ability to rebuff him, and that’s not always the case. At this point I don’t think you could call him a broomstick worker.
Bob had a mini comeback at the end, but as soon as he applied the Abdominal Stretch Hogan appeared, they laid the beatdown on him and left. So a DQ loss for Hansen but I guess the logic is they dealt some damage to him before their final tag league match coming up. The attack was maybe a couple clubbing blows to the back from Hogan and a stomp or two from Hansen and that was it. If they were trying to get across what I think they were then it fell way short from what I felt was satisfactory. Nowhere near as interesting as Hogan carrying Inoki back into the ring with a rope tied around his neck for sure.
One thing is that it will be fascinating to see how Hansen and Backlund differ in how they worked this match compared to Hansen’s upcoming run in New York in ‘81. I’m fascinated to see if Hansen changes things up based on the environment. I’ve seen smatterings of him in Georgia and SECW this year, but all in studio settings so it’s been hard to judge his versatility on that front.