The OtherArena

[jdw]

That's a cool list of matches.

Remember, folks - we're not a tape trading site. Never have been, don't have a protected forum in the back for shilling stuff, won't have one in the future.

If posters happen to have these matches and want to talk about them, that's what the thread is for.

Potential tape traders need to keep that in mind as well. I don't want cease & desist letter from McDevitt, and I don't want to be forced to yank threads where we're talking about great wrestling matches because the WWF reads them as being shills for matches in their library.

Everyone generally knows the rules. We've been talking about wrestling matches from all over the world for nine plus years here. We've gotten exactly ZERO cease and desist letters about it over those years.

Let's work to keep that streak alive.


John

[goodhelmet]

I wasn't shilling the set here. If you'll look at the other places I post, that is shilling :)

To be honest, and Loss can back me up on this, the whole purpose of the comp was to make a case for Backlund as a great and under-appreciated worker. This is one of the reasons I relied on you guys so heavily on compiling it. I knew which matches were my favorites but I needed to have some direction in matches that I needed to seek out or may have slipped under my radar.

[jdw]

Wasn't aimed exactly at you, Will. Just a general reminder to everyone involved in these threads, and ones like them. We're a "discussion board". :)


John

[goodhelmet]

OK cool. I know the rules of this board and will only bring up my comps if they apply to certain threads. Plus, anyone from here who picks up my comps usually posts at other boards so there aren't any new customers to be had.

Speaking of my comp...

I think I need to watch some of the matches to see how they compare to other matches against the same wrestler. You could even add the DVDVR set in there so the 2 Ivan matches can be compared to see where the first one wnet right and the 2nd one went wrong.

From my set, I have these potential comparisons...

Bob Backlund vs. Antonio Inoki (NJ 7/27/78)
Bob Backlund vs. Antonio Inoki (NJPW 11/30/79)
Bob Backlund vs. Antonio Inoki (NJ 12/6/79)
Bob Backlund vs. Antonio Inoki (Miami 4/16/80)

Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (MSG 2/19/79)
Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (MSG 11/23/81)
Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (MSG 4/23/84)

Bob Backlund vs. Hussein Arab (Iron Sheik) (MSG 6/4/79)
Bob Backlund vs. Iron Sheik (MSG 12/26/83)

Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera (MSG 1/21/80)
Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera (MSG 5/19/80)

Bob Backlund vs. Hulk Hogan (Philly 4/12/80)
Bob Backlund vs. Hulk Hogan (NJ 5/30/80)

Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (NJPW 9/30/80)
Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (MSG 2/16/81)

Bob Backlund vs. Larry Zbyszko (Philly 10/11/1980)
Bob Backlund vs. Larry Zbyszko (AWA 2/1/85)

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (Philly 1/10/81)
Bob Backlund vs. Sgt Slaughter (Philly 3/21/81)

Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco (Texas Death Match) (MSG 9/21/81)
Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco (Philly 10/17/81)

Bob Backlund vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (NJ 1/1/82)
Bob Backlund vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (NJ 8/5/82)

Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (MSG 1/18/82)
Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (Landover 3/28/82)

Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (MSG 8/30/82)
Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (Philly 11/25/82)

Bob Backlund vs. Nobuhiko Takada (UWF 12/22/88)
Bob Backlund vs. Nobuhiko Takada (UWFi 11/7/91)

Bob Backlund vs. Shawn Michaels (San Antonio 1/5/93)
Bob Backlund vs. Shawn Michaels (Poughkeepsie 8/16/93)

Bob Backlund vs. Bret Hart (Ocean City 7/3/94)
Bob Backlund vs. Bret Hart (San Antonio 11/23/94)

[Loss]

I'm interested in comparing Backlund's opponents to each other. Muraco v Adonis v Patera v Slaughter v Rose is fun talk.

I'm glad to see Backlund/Zbyszko from 10/11/80 on the list. That's probably the best singles match I can recall seeing Zbyszko in.

[goodhelmet]

That is the great thing about Backlund.... you could say the same thing for several of his opponents including Dusty , Patera, Koloff, Valentine, Inoki, Hogan, Muraco, etc. Many of these guys had thier best matches against Bob and I don't think that is a coincidence. To any naysayers that would say, "Oh, they just carried Bob that night", it would be absurd.

[khawk20]

[shoe]

On the 12-10-06 on the Wrestling Observer Live show a caller brought up that Brian Danielson reminds him of Backlund. Dave's response was that Danielson was a million times better. Danielson is talented, but that's a pretty obnoxious statement on Daves part. Backlund headlined for years haveing good matches in front of big crowds. Backlund has always been hit or miss for me. More hit than miss, but not consistantly great. Danielson is good, but I'd rather watch a Backlund match in MSG than some rec center.

[khawk20]

[jdw]

One really never is going to get Dave to come around on Backlund as a worker. As much as people who think Backlund was a "good worker" roll their eyes at Dave's comments about Bob's work, he in turn thinks the people who see Bob as a good worker are off their rocker.

I think him changing his view on Backlund as a HOF candidate, largely due to the MSG business during his reign, is as far as anyone could expect him to go.

It's probably more worthwhile to chip away at what's left of the old consensus of Bob as a worker. The concept that he could only have good matches when in with a good worker or being carried by a good worker. The "Bob was goofy" concept. The notion that Bob didn't know what he was going in there. The claim that he always kicked out at one out of paranioa and that it killed the drama of his matches. Etc. I think some headway has been made in even those ones, at least given where Bob finished in the GWE poll.


John

[jkc31]

I would like to have seen the Orton match from 5/82 in Philly. The Superstar match was only okay with maybe the stupidest finish ever.

[Loss]

I honestly think a big part of the problems some people have with Backlund is that they can't get past the Howdy Doody-style persona, the bad haircut and the singlet. Never stopped them from getting into Kurt Angle, though.

:)

[jdw]

I lot of what gets knocked about Bob's work is evident in other peple's work and *doesn't* get knocked.

Bob gets knocked for his awkward bumping. In reality, he bumps similar to Dory Funk Jr. The difference is that Dory was even worse looking when bumping, Bob is more theatrical with it in playing to the crowd, and Bob is willing to splat himself with bumps from the ring to the floor with regularity where as Dory wasn't as game in that regard.

Bob gets knocked for his theatrical selling. Bob's over theatrical selling is similar to Rick Steamboat's. While Ricky at times has "overly theatrical selling" tossed at him, those who do almost instantly hedge that by putting over Ricky as being great selling as a babyface in trouble. I tend to think Ricky is a better seller, but Bob's "goofy selling" is in the same school. It's hard to knock one while accepting the other.

Bob gets knocked for having using a crappy move like the atomic drop. If you actually watch a fair amount of *good* wrestling from the 70s and early 80s, you'll quickly realize how many *good* to great workers used the atomic drop for heated near falls. It's not a favorite move of mine, but it was over, and good workers used it. Bob happened to use it as a finisher, and if folks pay attention to the crowd reactions, the move was over like hell.

But even pointing to Bob's atomic drop tends to miss the point. The quy had about as much offense as any US heavyweight this side of Harley Race. If you watch just a few matches of his you might not notice it, since he both tended to mix it up and also have opponents in the WWWF/WWF where you just don't roll out a boatload of high end offense against them. But if folks watch the matches on the list above, it's going to wack them over the head just how much he brought to the table. The one hour draw with Inoki, very early in his reign, is an excellent baseline of what he brought to the table even then. It was a lot. And you'd see things in that match popping up in later matches, and with other things being added like the German Suplex or the hangman neckbreaker. But to hear it told, Bob brought the Atomic Drop, not much else, and even that one sucked and wasn't cool.

Bob gets knocked for being boring on the mat. Actually, if you put Dory's work on the match opposite Bob's, Bob wins. I don't think it's very close. Dory's controling segments tend to be boring as all hell - there's little intensity to them, they don't play to the fans much, they don't tend to build to a mat-highspot. Dory-in-peril is best described by Dory selling the hold like he's constipated and that turn just won't come out. He's "uncomfortable" rather than actually in pain.

In contrast, Bob both on offense and defense on the mat plays to the crowd. On offense, he might work work an arm with strikes, slip on an armbar while looking out to the crowd with a theatrical nod to his fans that "I've got him now", and then eventually build to his rowing armbar where the crowd chants along with each row. Goofy? Who cares. Much like Flair begging off is goofy, what matters is that it *connects* with the crowd. Bob does that when working holds.

Bob-in-peril? Bob was one of the very best matworkers of the 70s and early 80s when it came to working peril of the heel's hold. He didn't do it by just laying in the hold looking constipated, or even kicking his feet like it hurt a lot. Bob would work it by trying to get out... he's almost out... he's just about out... and the heel drags him back into it. The heel's hold *built* to Bob trying to get out of it, damatically building the attention of the fans, only for Bob to get tossed back into it. It's a common face-in-peril technique. Bob just did it better than just about anyone else. He also could sell the damage with subtle things like his smacking his hand to keep it and the arm form going number in a hold. He also could sell the heeling short cuts that threw him back into the hold with his goofy clinching of the fist "I'm gonna hit him" only to be admonised by the ref not to. That's a classic face spot that one can see ultimate babyfaces like Gagne using all the way back in the 50s.

Bob had all this shit down pat.

Which hits another criticism of Bob - he was an indiot who had to be led in the ring. For an idiot, Bob seemed to know how to do a lot of stuff in the ring. One of the most fun things when you see him in there with Dusty is watching Bob "sell" the legendary Dusty Lounger by trying to counter and escape the hold in ways that bent Dusty around in a pretzel. One can pop Dusty tape with Flair or just about anyone else and you simply aren't going to see Dusty's hold be worked in that fashion. Why? Because *Bob* brough that to the table - it was a common way in his work to counter the Dusty Lounger when other people applied it. You can watch Inoki slip it on him back in 1978, and there's Bob both selling the damage of the hold, and rather than using it for a rest hold (as Dusty and 99% of his opponents did), Bob is looking for ways to counter Inoki's application. The beauty is that the move was *designed* in pro wrestling to be a hold that allowed the defensive wrestler to counter and work spots from. Bob, the idiot, was a freaking master of a hold that most in wrestling used as nothing but a rest hold at that point.

Those to me are a variety of ways that when you look at the criticism generally tossed at Bob that they have problems holding up when compared to the *good* work of the era.

I regularly point to Bob-Inoki vs. Dory-Brisco since they are 60 minute matches in Japan that go similar 2/3 formats. No one really says that Dory-Brisco was them having a "bad night". Instead, it's a match that's long been praised. I just don't think it holds a candle to Bob-Inoki, either on the mat, in moves, in build, in drama, in work to the finish, in structure, in selling, in playing to the crowd. The only thing it has on Bob-Inoki is that Dory and Brisco are a pair of legendary workers, while Bob is a goof and Inoki was a inconsistent worker. In other words, expectations of which match is suppose to be great, and which one is suppose to be goofy.

I wasn't a Bob Fan. Neither was Yohe. Hoback couldn't get us to watch him at King of Chickens. Frank couldn't convince Yohe that Bob was anything other than "goofy" over in an old thread on Wrestling Classics.

Frank's old Backlund & More set opened out eyes. Perhaps he hit us at a moment when we were willing to set aside out old biases against Bob and watch with an open mind. Or maybe the stuff was too good, and some of the contrasting stuff was clearly weaker, that we couldn't deny what was on screen.

Which ever it was, I do appreciate it. If you can open your mind to a worker that you have strong, longstanding biases again, it really breaks down your own personal walls on being receptive to a lot of different things in wrestling that you previously thought were weak. Or goofy. Or that you overlooked.


John

[khawk20]

[Iron Chad]

Bob crying when his belt got broken, I don't even remember by who offhand, seems to be something he gets slapped with a good bit. I used to remember thinking Bob was a goofy sumbitch from reading about that before I saw any of his matches other than his late Mr. Bob Backlund stuff which was cool, but the matches were usually pretty boring.

I finally saw the clip a couple of years ago, and it was pretty bad. Whoever thought that was good idea and booked the TV segment should have their head examined. You see in the DVDVR from one or two of the later matches (especially the tag with B. Brian Blair that was one his last, if not last, televised matches of his first run) that the crowd boos the shit out of Bob and you can see a tiny hit of heel in him, even though Bob always incorporated some standard heel stuff in his schtick, which I found surprising and entertaining when I expected to see a milque-toast All-American rasslin' boy.

I could understand thinking he was goofy if that's all you saw along with the aforementioned numerous horrible pictures of him in the Apter mags. However, it's hard to deny the scads of great matches with varied opponents. The Backlund and More set was a huge eye opener for me. I actually seek out Bob's stuff now.

-Chad