YR's Pro Wrestling of the Day

[MichaelWinicki]

Guys like Watson, Stecher, Hodge, O'Conner I never really watched or studied that much.

Dibiase isn't in the same galaxy as Piper or Stevens. Dibiase was a great worker and had some solid drawing power in Mid-South and Japan. But, Piper was a huge draw in Portland, San Francisco, LA, Georgia, the Mid Atlantic and the WWF. He was also a key player in Hogan's rise to prominence and I think without Piper Hogan's fame is substantially less because of how he played the anti-Rock-n-Roll heel which allowed the WWF to get a key connection with MTV and thus get into the mainstream. Piper's interview style has been copied by countless wrestlers.

Stevens was also a big draw most everywhere he went from the AWA, San Francisco, Amarillo and the WWWF. He was arguably the greatest draw in pro wrestling from 1960-1965 until Bruno's rise in popularity. He was also considered the best in-ring worker of the 60's and his wrestling style was copied by wrestlers like Flair and Shawn Michaels.

Backlund isn't even close to Piper other than Backlund having been the heavyweight champion, but by the same token he almost drove the company out of business because outside of Madison Square Garden, he couldn't draw.

Cena and the Undertaker had a great marketing machine behind them, but UT gets too much credit because he was able to take a goofy gimmick and make it great and was able to swim with the sharks for over 20 years. But when the Attitude Era came along it was Foley, Rock and Austin that made it work as UT was really a secondary player. And I have my doubts if the UT could draw in other companies if he was forced to like Piper and Stevens were.

Cena was a pretty good draw, but his strength was that he split the crowd in half with the younger kids liking him and the older adults not liking him. So when you had a heel that was getting over as a face, they could have the heel face Cena and turn that heel to face and keep Cena at face. Problem is that you can only do that so much. And I don't see Cena being the draw that Piper was and even though Stevens was at a completely different time I don't see Cena on the same level with Stevens in terms of a draw.

Angle shouldn't even be anywhere near there other than he was a great athlete and a good worker. Although I always felt that Angle's work was overrated mainly because of his athleticism and he never worked much of anywhere than the WWE and used their style.

I always felt that Piper's in-ring work was very underrated. He wasn't going to work a hammerlock like The Destroyer (travesty he's not on the list, he was the biggest American draw in Japan, ever) and Piper wasn't going to carry stiffs like Flair could. But, he continually had good matches that the fans were always in to.

IIRC, Matysik has HHH at 27 which is another injustice. As Cornette said so perfectly, HHH is the guy that works with the guy that makes the money. I think HHH was a pretty good worker, but for a good worker I have never seen a guy never carry anybody to a good match like HHH did in his career.





YR

Outside the ring and I put Piper in the top-10.

Inside the ring... I just do not rate him as highly as you do.

Not a huge Dibiase fan myself so Piper and Stevens can jump him. LOL!

Yeah, draw is part of it, but I'd hesitate to degrade someone like Backland who was highly thought of by Sam Muchnick and Pat O'Connor to make him the Missouri State Champion and then recommend him to Vince Sr. for the WWF title. To me Backland was the "Billy Robinson" of the late 70's & early 80's– Great worker, could wrestle the crap out of anyone, but did not have an electric personality... The big difference for me is that Backland had a major title and Robinson didn't get that privilege.

I'm not a big fan of HHH, Cena the Undertaker or Angle so Piper & Stevens can jump them also.

So I guess we've got Piper & Stevens in the mid-30's.

I'm glad you didn't mention dropping Brody or we would have had to come to blows Rich!

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Guys like Watson, Stecher, Hodge, O'Conner I never really watched or studied that much.

Dibiase isn't in the same galaxy as Piper or Stevens. Dibiase was a great worker and had some solid drawing power in Mid-South and Japan. But, Piper was a huge draw in Portland, San Francisco, LA, Georgia, the Mid Atlantic and the WWF. He was also a key player in Hogan's rise to prominence and I think without Piper Hogan's fame is substantially less because of how he played the anti-Rock-n-Roll heel which allowed the WWF to get a key connection with MTV and thus get into the mainstream. Piper's interview style has been copied by countless wrestlers.

Stevens was also a big draw most everywhere he went from the AWA, San Francisco, Amarillo and the WWWF. He was arguably the greatest draw in pro wrestling from 1960-1965 until Bruno's rise in popularity. He was also considered the best in-ring worker of the 60's and his wrestling style was copied by wrestlers like Flair and Shawn Michaels.

Backlund isn't even close to Piper other than Backlund having been the heavyweight champion, but by the same token he almost drove the company out of business because outside of Madison Square Garden, he couldn't draw.

Cena and the Undertaker had a great marketing machine behind them, but UT gets too much credit because he was able to take a goofy gimmick and make it great and was able to swim with the sharks for over 20 years. But when the Attitude Era came along it was Foley, Rock and Austin that made it work as UT was really a secondary player. And I have my doubts if the UT could draw in other companies if he was forced to like Piper and Stevens were.

Cena was a pretty good draw, but his strength was that he split the crowd in half with the younger kids liking him and the older adults not liking him. So when you had a heel that was getting over as a face, they could have the heel face Cena and turn that heel to face and keep Cena at face. Problem is that you can only do that so much. And I don't see Cena being the draw that Piper was and even though Stevens was at a completely different time I don't see Cena on the same level with Stevens in terms of a draw.

Angle shouldn't even be anywhere near there other than he was a great athlete and a good worker. Although I always felt that Angle's work was overrated mainly because of his athleticism and he never worked much of anywhere than the WWE and used their style.

I always felt that Piper's in-ring work was very underrated. He wasn't going to work a hammerlock like The Destroyer (travesty he's not on the list, he was the biggest American draw in Japan, ever) and Piper wasn't going to carry stiffs like Flair could. But, he continually had good matches that the fans were always in to.

IIRC, Matysik has HHH at 27 which is another injustice. As Cornette said so perfectly, HHH is the guy that works with the guy that makes the money. I think HHH was a pretty good worker, but for a good worker I have never seen a guy never carry anybody to a good match like HHH did in his career.





YR

You mention the Destroyer. I got to see him in Buffalo on occasion. Quite the character. Not quite a top-50 IMO. Two other masked wrestlers I'd put ahead of him who aren't on the list?

-Masked Superstar
-The Spoiler

I've thought if the Masked Superstar had not stayed under the mast for much of his NWA run he had the capability of being a world champ. Terrific worker.

And while I never got to see much of the Spoiler (also known as the Super Destroyer) I've become a fan of his past work via You-Tube.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

The Destroyer is one of the greatest in ring workers I've ever seen. The problem for him was that he felt if you couldn't go at least 20 minutes then he couldn't tell a story in the ring. That's part of the reason why he worked so well in Japan because he could have those 30+ minute matches night in and night out. And he did it without getting completely banged up which showed how good of a worker he was. Hell, he made Abdullah and Giant Baba matches watchable. The Destroyer was also a big draw in LA and a good draw in Indianapolis.

I love Stan Hansen, Brody and the Funks, but I laugh anytime somebody mentions them as the most popular gaijin wrestling in Japan. The Destroyer vs. Rikidozan drew a television rating of 67.0 in Japan. And The Destroyer was awarded The Order of the Rising Son.

As far as in-ring workers goes, I would put The Destroyer in my top-5.

The Spoiler was so good that the Masked Superstar was developed when he left the territory. And Bill Eadie is one of my favorite minds in the pro wrestling business. Everybody I had heard of had a massive amount of respect for Don Jardine and he was a guy you simply didn't want to mess with as he was one of the toughest ever in the business.




YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The Destroyer is one of the greatest in ring workers I've ever seen. The problem for him was that he felt if you couldn't go at least 20 minutes then he couldn't tell a story in the ring. That's part of the reason why he worked so well in Japan because he could have those 30+ minute matches night in and night out. And he did it without getting completely banged up which showed how good of a worker he was. Hell, he made Abdullah and Giant Baba matches watchable. The Destroyer was also a big draw in LA and a good draw in Indianapolis.

I love Stan Hansen, Brody and the Funks, but I laugh anytime somebody mentions them as the most popular gaijin wrestling in Japan. The Destroyer vs. Rikidozan drew a television rating of 67.0 in Japan. And The Destroyer was awarded The Order of the Rising Son.

As far as in-ring workers goes, I would put The Destroyer in my top-5.

The Spoiler was so good that the Masked Superstar was developed when he left the territory. And Bill Eadie is one of my favorite minds in the pro wrestling business. Everybody I had heard of had a massive amount of respect for Don Jardine and he was a guy you simply didn't want to mess with as he was one of the toughest ever in the business.




YR

Gotta say Dick Beyer, the Destroyer was quite the character.

Had a buddy who use to do a great impression "The Intelligent, Sensational Destroyer!"

He may not be top-50, but extend that list another 20 guys and he could certainly be on it.

Another guy whom I thought deserved a consideration for the top-50 was Ernie Ladd. There was only a small cadre of guys who traveled from territory to territory without any desire to have a world's title belt– Andre, Brody and Ladd being 3 of them.

His mike work was exemplary and prior to his knees going he was a pretty nimble big-man in the ring. And he sold well... Even against guys like Ricky Morton whom he could have beaten to a pulp if he had so wanted. He wrestled in just about every territory included all three majors: AWA, WWWF and the NWA. Also competed in the WWA and the NWF.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Right around 1990 the wrestling world was in shambles. The WWF, which I had not been high on since Hogan vs. Savage, was a very cartoonish promotion that in my mind was completely eclipsed by the Crockett promotion in the 80's in terms of quality. The Crockett promotion had been bought out by Ted Turner after they foolishly overspent their money, in particular on private jets, and had to be bailed out.

This caused a lot of anger to be directed at Dusty Rhodes and at the same time his booking lost its luster. The Crockett Promotions was now a corporate atmosphere and big corporations usually have the attitude of being a copycat to those companies that are successful instead of building their own unique product. And that led to WCW trying to copy the WWF style which was a major problem because you can't beat Vince McMahon at his own game and his own game was terrible at the time.

That led to me to stop watching for roughly a year or so. It doesn't sound like much, but 1 year in real time is like 3 years in pro wrestling.

That was until this man burst onto the scene to become one of the greatest big men and most intimidating forces in the ring.

Big Van Vader was born Leon White and raised in his childhood in Compton, CA when it was a predominantly white neighborhood. His father later on invented the hydraulic car lift for car shops and made a small fortune and Vader moved out and got into football. Vader then played for the University of Colorado and then later for the Los Angeles Rams.

One of the main things about Vader was that he was super stiff. Everything looked extremely legitimate and really scary. In this video he breaks one of the jobbers' back:



There was good reason for this style from Vader...he was trained by Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen. To Vader's credit...he gave as good as he got as shown in this infamous match against Stan Hansen in New Japan where Hansen popped out Vader's eyeball out of its socket.



According to Vader, he knew that pro wrestling was a work...but when he started training with Brody and Hansen they beat him down so hard that he basically came away with that the only thing that was a work was the finish and some of the moves not wanting to permanently injure somebody. And that the only way to wrestle was to hit the person as hard as you could and execute moves like a body slam with as much force as possible.

And when Vader came onto the scene in WCW you had a wrestler that didn't wrestle like Hogan or the Ultimate Warrior or Randy Savage or even Ric Flair. Hell, he moved around differently than Bruiser Brody and I think he worked stiffer stateside that Brody did. And you just saw a different type of wrestler that was turning a wrestling promotion on its ear.



Looking back, I started to see one of the major components as to why pro wrestling is very different today than it was back then. Today the wrestling is more about gymnastics and tumbline in nature. The psychology is more video game Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat like. You see the one of the basics in pro wrestling schools they teach is the 'up and over' (one wrestler irish whips the other into the corner. That wrestler then does a reverse leapfrog as that wrestler charges the corner). There's also a lot of running the ropes, duck unders, sunset flips, etc.

The idea is to build up the trainee's stamina, but it also sends the message that the wrestling is going to feature constant movement, tons of bumping and a lot of back-and-forth psychology.

Vader was trained under the AWA. As Ric Flair explained in his 30 for 30, the stamina they would develop would be by running stairs, then carrying another wrestler up the stairs piggy back style and then going up the stairs with another wrestler wheelbarrow style.

But the wrestling...particularly in the south...resembled a bit more of football. It was about wrestlers colliding with each other and the psychology was often very much like watching football where one wrestler would sustain his offense like a football team sustaining an offensive drive before letting the other wrestler get back on offense. However, it was that collision style of wrestling that appealed to me and so many fans of southern pro wrestling. And when Vader came along he represented that style.



Today's wrestlers come off more like Baryshnikov, the wrestlers of southern style of wrestling came off like Butkus.

Vader came off like Larry Allen.

The only difference was that Vader wasn't a nice guy like Larry Allen. And you didn't need to do much to piss him off.

Eventually Vader had what I thought was his potentially best feud of his career against Cactus Jack. This was the first time I remember the concern for a wrestler's safety and healthy being very as real as ever.



As a kid when you grow up watching wrestling and a wrestler gets hurt in a work and you think it's real, there's a part of you that thinks of them as superhuman athletes that will recover. But against Cactus Jack it just didn't seem that way.

What was so great about this feud is that it started off somewhat innocently. Cactus Jack had gone from this psychotic madman heel who didn't have a lot of ability, but you couldn't keep him down into this tweener. And when he goes up against Vader in a seemingly nothing match...he starts to really take it to Vader like we hadn't seen Vader being taken to before by another wrestler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji01aBZwvks

The crowd really gets behind Cactus Jack, a wrestler they were indifferent to earlier on. Vader does return the favor and inflict a brutality to Cactus we hadn't seen before, but Cactus won't stay down and is now getting over as a major babyface.

But like everything...WCW screwed it up. There were too many people that didn't want Mick Foley wrestling in the promotion and the feud died an ugly death.

And there were too many who didn't like Vader, especially after the Paul Orndorff incident happened. But they didn't like him because wrestling 250+ days a year against him was too brutal of a beating to take day in and day out. And Vader didn't have the guile from a political standpoint to keep himself on top

But for a short period, he was a wrestler that had me in awe.






YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Thought Leon was terrific!

Funny listening to him in shoot interviews because he seems so mild mannered...

But in the ring! Wow!

In some ways his career was either 10 years too early or 10 years too late.

I don't think he gets the respect he should have. On top of that he seems to have had a streak of bad luck in the business... Guys were either pissed at him for being so stiff in the ring or they refused to put him over (Hogan) or he had the misfortune of having feuds like with Cactus where Leon was short-changed due to no fault of his own.

A somewhat short, impactful career but very memorable.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Thought Leon was terrific!

Funny listening to him in shoot interviews because he seems so mild mannered...

But in the ring! Wow!

In some ways his career was either 10 years too early or 10 years too late.

I don't think he gets the respect he should have. On top of that he seems to have had a streak of bad luck in the business... Guys were either pissed at him for being so stiff in the ring or they refused to put him over (Hogan) or he had the misfortune of having feuds like with Cactus where Leon was short-changed due to no fault of his own.

A somewhat short, impactful career but very memorable.

I get what you're saying about the timing of Leon's career.

The problem for him was that WCW was always messed up and really screwed the pooch with him. His only other option was the WWF which was struggling badly and Vince has never been that good at getting over 'fat' wrestlers. And Leon's style didn't jive with the WWF either and Shawn Michaels basically killed any chance Leon had with the company.

He was probably better suited to be Stan Hansen where he would wrestle in Japan for 6 months a year, make roughly $500k. Although the Japanese crowd really loves those Texan personalities and Vader didn't have that so I doubt he could be the draw that Hansen was.

Had he been in the business 10 years earlier, he could have had a longer career as he would have fit in Japan, World Class, Florida, AWA, Mid Atlantic and Georgia very well. Had he been in the business 10 years later, he would have been that big monster wrestler that wrestling badly needed.





YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I get what you're saying about the timing of Leon's career.

The problem for him was that WCW was always messed up and really screwed the pooch with him. His only other option was the WWF which was struggling badly and Vince has never been that good at getting over 'fat' wrestlers. And Leon's style didn't jive with the WWF either and Shawn Michaels basically killed any chance Leon had with the company.

He was probably better suited to be Stan Hansen where he would wrestle in Japan for 6 months a year, make roughly $500k. Although the Japanese crowd really loves those Texan personalities and Vader didn't have that so I doubt he could be the draw that Hansen was.

Had he been in the business 10 years earlier, he could have had a longer career as he would have fit in Japan, World Class, Florida, AWA, Mid Atlantic and Georgia very well. Had he been in the business 10 years later, he would have been that big monster wrestler that wrestling badly needed.





YR

Could you imagine the feuds he could have had with folks like Brody... Abdullah... Crusher Blackwell and Andre?

Wow!

Then go to Japan and face guys like Anoki or Baba in their prime?

 

[MichaelWinicki]

NWA (traveling) Champion

Here's a list of the various NWA Champions from Orville Brown through the mid-80's...

Orville Brown
Lou Thesz
Dick Hutton
Pat O'Connor
Buddy Rogers
Gene Kiniski
Dory Funk Jr.
Harley Race
Jack Brisco
Terry Funk
Dusty Rhodes
Giant Baba
Tommy Rich
Ric Flair
Kerry Von Erich

Guys like Baba and Rich only held the title for a few days. For Von Erich it was only a few weeks and Rhodes it was only a few months. Virtually everyone else had the title for at least a years.

IMO these guys had the toughest job in wrestling. Their travel schedule was brutal. They wrestled virtually every day and some days they wrestled twice. And as opposed to a territory wrestler who stayed primarily in their territory, the world champion traveled throughout the NWA including othe promotions outside the United States.

On top of that they had to be "shooters" (at least through Harley Race) in that they had to actually be able to defend themselves in case of a double-cross and their opponent not following the script.

If I had to rate them it would be like this:

Lou Thesz
Buddy Rogers
Harley Race
Ric Flair
Dory Funk Jr.
Gene Kiniski
Jack Brisco
Pat O'Connor
Terry Funk
Dick Hutton
Orville Brown
Dusty Rhodes
Giant Baba
Kerry Von Erich
Tommy Rich

 

[Yakuza Rich]

And they had to draw. The territories badly needed it. However, since they were getting a % of the gate, it motivated them to perform well.





YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Jim Cornette likes to refer to a quote from former Louisville basketball coach, Denny Crum, who said ‘I don’t need players that know how to play basketball. I need 7 footers that I can teach to play basketball.’


Cornette likes to use this philosophy with pro wrestling as well because often times it’s not so much about knowledge and feel for pro wrestling as it is about presence in and out of the ring. But, there may have been no better wrestler that had the wrestling knowledge and feel for wrestling than Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts.


Jake was born Aurelien Smith Jr. His father was former pro wrestler, Grizzly Smith. Grizzly was a pedophile who somehow was allowed to stay in the pro wrestling business despite being an awful worker, booker, father, husband and pedophile. The only attribute that Grizzly Smith had was his size and he passed that down to his sons Jake and Michael (better known as Sam Houston). Jake spent most of his life growing up in Texas and Louisiana as that was mostly where his father wrestled or booked. Roberts himself started wrestling in Mid-South wrestling under Bill Watts and then moved to World Class in Texas before getting to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling.


Unlike most wrestlers that came into the WWF around 1985, Jake wasn’t a main eventer that Vince McMahon had brought in. But under the WWF guidance he flourished from the get-go. Whereas most promoters would be gun shy about a wrestler bringing a snake to the ring, this was right up McMahon’s ally. And with Jake’s ability to work in the ring and his classic promos, he was going to be pushed heavily by McMahon.


However, I think people greatly underestimate how great of a work in the ring Jake was. Here’s a tidy little match that Jake worked in Mid-Atlantic against Sgt. Slaugher which feature more ‘shoot like’ sequences and was very heavy on the psychology.





The psychology is beautiful as the babyface Roberts has a lot of fire against the heel, but lacks a strong finishing move as his finisher was the knee lift (he had not developed the DDT as of yet). Whereas Slaughter had the lethal Cobra Club at his disposal.


But one of the things I loved about Jake is that despite wrestling for Vince where they don’t focus on the in-ring product, Jake was great at focusing on his deadly finisher…the DDT. And making that DDT sound like not only a deadly maneuver, but a maneuver he could hit at any time on an opponent.





What was great about Jake is that he could cut these promos on 1 take. In fact, that was Jake’s nickname with the boys ‘1 Take Jake.’ He could cut these beautiful promos all in 1 take and never remotely come close to slipping up or boring the viewer.





However, what is often overlooked with cutting a promo is that it’s one thing to cut a heel promo, but it’s another to cut effective heel and babyface promos and still sustain that character. As you can see here, that wasn’t a problem for Jake at all.





But the true mark of a great wrestler is to be able to get involved with great, memorable feuds with different wrestlers and in different territories. For all of Jake’s in-ring skills and prowess on the mic, he was able to execute these incredible feuds, time after time, with different opponents.


Whether it was Dick Slater, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, the Honkey Tonk Man, Ted Dibiase or Sting…Jake took their feuds to a different level.


Unfortunately, he doesn’t get enough credit because the time he was making lemonade out of lemons and was RED HOT as a heel was in WCW:





Jake was turning around WCW as now his feud with Sting…while following a familiar format…was drawing a ton of interest from wrestling fans. Unfortunately, this was WCW and they were bound to screw it up…sooner or later.


There is a lot more than meets the eye with Jake Roberts. He was a better worker than given credit for. As cartoonish as the WWF style could be, Jake kept it very real and very scary while still making it seem like a shoot. The DDT was, for roughly 5 years (which is like 15 years in pro wrestling time) the hottest move on the planet. And his ability to cut beautiful promos was shadowing his ability to work different styles and to cleverly move along the story of the feud between Jake and his opponent.







YR

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Heard Bill Watts mention Grizzly Smith many a time, had no clue he was Jakes father. Thanks!

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Jim Cornette likes to refer to a quote from former Louisville basketball coach, Denny Crum, who said ‘I don’t need players that know how to play basketball. I need 7 footers that I can teach to play basketball.’


Cornette likes to use this philosophy with pro wrestling as well because often times it’s not so much about knowledge and feel for pro wrestling as it is about presence in and out of the ring. But, there may have been no better wrestler that had the wrestling knowledge and feel for wrestling than Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts.


Jake was born Aurelien Smith Jr. His father was former pro wrestler, Grizzly Smith. Grizzly was a pedophile who somehow was allowed to stay in the pro wrestling business despite being an awful worker, booker, father, husband and pedophile. The only attribute that Grizzly Smith had was his size and he passed that down to his sons Jake and Michael (better known as Sam Houston). Jake spent most of his life growing up in Texas and Louisiana as that was mostly where his father wrestled or booked. Roberts himself started wrestling in Mid-South wrestling under Bill Watts and then moved to World Class in Texas before getting to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling.


Unlike most wrestlers that came into the WWF around 1985, Jake wasn’t a main eventer that Vince McMahon had brought in. But under the WWF guidance he flourished from the get-go. Whereas most promoters would be gun shy about a wrestler bringing a snake to the ring, this was right up McMahon’s ally. And with Jake’s ability to work in the ring and his classic promos, he was going to be pushed heavily by McMahon.


However, I think people greatly underestimate how great of a work in the ring Jake was. Here’s a tidy little match that Jake worked in Mid-Atlantic against Sgt. Slaugher which feature more ‘shoot like’ sequences and was very heavy on the psychology.





The psychology is beautiful as the babyface Roberts has a lot of fire against the heel, but lacks a strong finishing move as his finisher was the knee lift (he had not developed the DDT as of yet). Whereas Slaughter had the lethal Cobra Club at his disposal.


But one of the things I loved about Jake is that despite wrestling for Vince where they don’t focus on the in-ring product, Jake was great at focusing on his deadly finisher…the DDT. And making that DDT sound like not only a deadly maneuver, but a maneuver he could hit at any time on an opponent.





What was great about Jake is that he could cut these promos on 1 take. In fact, that was Jake’s nickname with the boys ‘1 Take Jake.’ He could cut these beautiful promos all in 1 take and never remotely come close to slipping up or boring the viewer.





However, what is often overlooked with cutting a promo is that it’s one thing to cut a heel promo, but it’s another to cut effective heel and babyface promos and still sustain that character. As you can see here, that wasn’t a problem for Jake at all.





But the true mark of a great wrestler is to be able to get involved with great, memorable feuds with different wrestlers and in different territories. For all of Jake’s in-ring skills and prowess on the mic, he was able to execute these incredible feuds, time after time, with different opponents.


Whether it was Dick Slater, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, the Honkey Tonk Man, Ted Dibiase or Sting…Jake took their feuds to a different level.


Unfortunately, he doesn’t get enough credit because the time he was making lemonade out of lemons and was RED HOT as a heel was in WCW:





Jake was turning around WCW as now his feud with Sting…while following a familiar format…was drawing a ton of interest from wrestling fans. Unfortunately, this was WCW and they were bound to screw it up…sooner or later.


There is a lot more than meets the eye with Jake Roberts. He was a better worker than given credit for. As cartoonish as the WWF style could be, Jake kept it very real and very scary while still making it seem like a shoot. The DDT was, for roughly 5 years (which is like 15 years in pro wrestling time) the hottest move on the planet. And his ability to cut beautiful promos was shadowing his ability to work different styles and to cleverly move along the story of the feud between Jake and his opponent.







YR

I thought Jake was a decent worker.

He had good energy in the ring.

Unfortunately he never seemed to reach the level of success his overall ability offered.

He also got stuck with some god-awful angles like the Andre "heart-attack" incident.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Heard Bill Watts mention Grizzly Smith many a time, had no clue he was Jakes father. Thanks!

I remember Grizzly Smith being one of the background "suits" on Mid-Atlantic Championship wrestling.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling Results

Courtesy of David Baker

From the old Charlotte (NC) Coliseum 11-29-1981

1) Don Kernodle beat Mike Miller

2) Paul Jones beat the Angel

3) Buddy Landell & Ron Bass beat Ricky Harris & Carl Fergie

4) Ole Anderson & Roddy Piper beat Ricky Steamboat & Jake Roberts

5) Blackjack Mulligan Jr. beat U.S. champ Sgt. Slaughter by disqualification

6) Blackjack Mulligan Sr. beat John Studd

7) NWA World champ Ric Flair beat Ray Stevens via pinfall

Black Mulligan Jr. was Barry Windham.

Really that's a heck of a card.

MACW had in my opinion just as much talent as the WWWF did at the time– And more talent than any other territory in the NWA.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

One thing I’ve noticed over my time as a pro wrestling fan is how great angles tend to be forgotten quite easily.


One of the best angles I had ever seen was done by Paul Heyman in ECW with The Public Enemy vs. Sabu/Taz vs. Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit. Each team was contending for the title while the Public Enemy were clearly the heels and Sabu/Taz were clearly the faces. However, Malenko/Benoit had no clear characterization and this led to a 3 way match that Taz/Sabu won. Only for Benoit to attack Sabu after the match and powerbomb Sabu thru a table that Rocco Rock was laying on.


That turned The Public Enemy, who were starting to turn into fan favorites into mega-faces and it turned Benoit/Malenko into mega-heels while keep Taz/Sabu as faces. But nobody ever really mentions it because in the end, people remember the wrestlers and the promotion more than the details.


This brings me to one of my favorite programs…Austin Idol and Tommy Rich versus Jerry Lawler.





I’m not the biggest fan of Memphis wrestling, but when they put together programs like this and the fact it had been so popular in Memphis for decades I start to see the merits of Memphis. Memphis was primarily booked by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler and they would split the year booking to keep their ideas fresh.


As far as a worker goes, Lawler has always been heavily debated. Some people like Scott Levy (aka Raven) claim he’s the greatest worker that ever lived. Others like Harley Race think he was 2nd rate and could only wrestle in Memphis. Whatever the take was, Lawler was a perfect fit in Memphis.


While a lot of people rave about Lawler’s heel work, I found his face work in Memphis to be superior. The standard operating procedure was for a heel to come in and shoot down the Memphis fans as dumb hillbillies and Lawler represented the every day Memphis man. Then Lawler would find a way to out-smart the heel and not only beat the heel, but to show to the world that he, and by proxy, Memphis was smarter than people give ‘em credit for.


And that’s what makes this booking so great. It took the typical booking that fans saw from Memphis for years and lured them into thinking they were going to see the same thing. Instead, the booking was one step ahead of the fans, outsmarted the fans and provided a swerve that still had continuity.


This is one of the things the modern wrestling writer/booker doesn’t understand. They either cannot out-smart the fans and stay 1-step ahead of them or they do something so preposterous that it doesn’t make any sense.


And while Lawler is the perfect babyface for this angle and it was so smartly booked, it really was helped by Tommy Rich’s performance throughout the program.


Rich was probably the 3rd most over babyface with female fans I had ever seen (RnR Express and Kerry Von Erich were the most over I’ve ever seen with the females).


Rich had come back to Memphis in the babyface role and told that he was guaranteed, presumably, a title shot against the world’s champion in Ric Flair.


The world’s title was something that eluded Lawler despite having several chances to win it. Lawler does inform that Rich will get a title shot, but it’s for a different title.


When the entire thing falls apart and Rich turns heel, it’s wonderfully executed because it’s difficult at first to see if Rich accidentally interfered with Lawler’s match or not. So much so that Lance Russell claims that he cannot see for sure if that was the case and Lawler shows replay that makes it clear that Rich did interfere. The devil is in the details in pro wrestling and little things like that where it’s not so obvious tend to help develop a storyline.


Eventually, that leads to Rich vs. Lawler in a wild brawl. If there’s one thing I didn’t like about the program was the matches were very punchy. Lawler thru a great punch, but I’d rather see actual wrestling than a fist fight.


Rich then cuts perhaps his greatest promo of all time and one of the things he has stressed is how Lawler had his shot and now Rich deserves his. While it’s not exactly a heel thing to say because Rich had a point, it is just enough to keep the fans honest and not think that Rich is playing heel. He’s saying these things because he hates Lawler.


This leads back to Lawler vs. Idol and gets to the point where Lawler hits Idol with a fireball and this leads to this great promo by Idol:





Rich gets taken out by Lawler as well and they let enough time go by to where Rich is forgotten about by the fans. But now Lawler has driven Idol to the edge and Idol now wants Lawler in a steel cage. If Idol wins, he gets to cut Lawler’s hair. If Lawler wins, the fans get refunds on their tickets as Idol put up $50k of his own money in case he loses.


To further emphasize the point, Lawler cuts a great promo of why these matches with the hair on the line are so stressful. And how Idol came across the money from a lawsuit he won years ago from a plane crash (which was totally legit).


But the main point is stressed…even for the smarter fans….how are they going to book their way out of this one? You would think there’s no way Lawler would lose a steel cage match and lose his hair. But on the other hand you cannot believe that they would actually refund every fan their ticket. The likely out was a big schmozz that somehow ended in a draw with a steel cage.


That’s where the greatness of the angle settled is as Rich…who had been forgotten about since he was out of this program for a while, sneaks out from the bottom of the ring, piledrives Lawler and Idol gets the victory.


It’s insane to see because the fans are watching Rich do this right in front of their eyes and you can sense that they cannot comprehend what they are seeing. And Lawler gets pinned, loses his hair and the fans riot.


And to top it off, Lance Russell has to go in and interview the winners and they give a classic promo:





Y’know, it’s going to be a good set of promos when Heyman is clearly the worst promo (at the time) of him, Rich, Lawler and Idol.


The in-ring work wasn’t jaw dropping, but it was consistent with the characters and in context with the feud. Combine that with 4 great promos on the mic, a willingness to outsmart the fans and the ability to throw a swerve while keeping continuity and you have one of the all time great programs. And you have booked a beautiful re-match between Lawler and Rich.








YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Wasn't a big Memphis fan or a Lawler fan in particular.

But I can tell you that the whole Kaufman/Lawler thing was huge at the time. I was in college and it received coverage in daily newspapers. Many thought it was a shoot.

You've talked about Idol before. Always thought his mike work was better than his in-ring abilities but he was OK.

Never a fan of Rich... Thinking of him as a heel strikes me as funny!

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Wasn't a big Memphis fan or a Lawler fan in particular.

But I can tell you that the whole Kaufman/Lawler thing was huge at the time. I was in college and it received coverage in daily newspapers. Many thought it was a shoot.

You've talked about Idol before. Always thought his mike work was better than his in-ring abilities but he was OK.

Never a fan of Rich... Thinking of him as a heel strikes me as funny!

There's a good podcast episode where Lawler goes into the entire Letterman incident with Steve Austin. It wasn't a shoot, but the improvisational skills and chemistry that Lawler and Kaufman had was incredible. They basically did the entire thing on the fly. And man...did Lawler smack the holy crap out of him.




YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

There's a good podcast episode where Lawler goes into the entire Letterman incident with Steve Austin. It wasn't a shoot, but the improvisational skills and chemistry that Lawler and Kaufman had was incredible. They basically did the entire thing on the fly. And man...did Lawler smack the holy crap out of him.




YR

IMO it along with the Phil Donahue wrestling show in '81, kicked off the wrestling boom of the 80's. From the mid 60's until the early 80's, pro wrestling didn't have much national recognition. Yeah it was hot in certain areas like St. Louis, Florida and the Mid Atlantic area but nationally there wasn't much going on. The WWWF TV show was Saturday nights at midnight.

But the Donahue show, with the introduction of the "new" Hulk Hogan (as a baby face) to the AWA and the Kaufman/Lawyer heat brought national attention to the business.

And from there it just took off.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Arn Anderson is the classic example of an athlete that has been considered to be so underrated for so long that he can no longer be considered 'underrated.' However, unlike most athletes you cannot make the argument that he might be 'overrated' because he was so darn good and was the consummate professional in terms of doing his job to near perfection.

Arn was born Marty Lunde and grew up in Georgia as a fan of the Georgia territory. He had a legitimate high school amateur wrestling background and then started working as a pro wrestler mostly in independents in Georgia and Alabama. After wrestling in Mid-South and Continental Wrestling (east Tennessee and Alabama territory), Lunde was brought into the Crockett Promotions as the younger brother of Ole Anderson given his resemblance. Ric Flair recommended him based off seeing him work and talk on the mic and Ole Anderson was already a worked 'cousin' of Flair's.

This turned into Arn being known as 'The Enforcer', the right hand man to Ric Flair. And when Tully Blanchard joined the Andersons and Flair, they formed the greatest stable in pro wrestling history (that was named by Arn)....The Four Horsemen.



What makes Arn so great is that he was the total package as a wrestler. He could work in the ring, he could work the mic, he was a helluva singles wrestler, a great tag wrestler and could work face and still keep continuity in his character.

One of my favorite parts of Arn is that he was very good at comedy in his wrestling. Most 'comedy' wrestlers make their character look like a joke and expose the business. Arn was great at doing things like pointing to his head when he things he outsmarts the face and then when the face is about to start his comeback, calling for a timeout. It's a way to bring some levity to the match while still keeping it serious and not exposing the match.

Here's one of Arn's great carry jobs against incredibly green, but athletic, Tom Magee:



But Arn's interviewing style is what set him apart. He could interview as well as anybody ever has in the business. And I found it interesting that he said that he usually tried to create an interview where he would talk about something that everybody could relate to before making his point.



It's too bad to see that so few wrestlers have been inspired by Arn while they are more inspired by the Sabu's, Jeff Hardy's and Rob Van Dam's of the world. While I can appreciate those wrestlers, a wrestler like Arn could draw money for a promotion for more over the long term and move along storylines and get young wrestlers far better than those wrestlers could.

There was no overly participatory moves in Arn's work.

I mean, who throws a beauty of a spinebuster like AA could?



That's why it was so sad for me when AA had to retire. Sad to see a guy that was so good at what he did and worked so diligently to perfect his craft to have to give it up. Sad to see a guy that was now a shell of his former self. Sad to see a man that willingly taught younger wrestlers and put over countless wrestlers like Tom Magee, Alex Wright, Erik Watts, Johnny B. Badd, Van Hammer, etc. that couldn't lace his shoes. In many ways, Arn personified everything that was great about pro wrestling. And it's too bad that so few have tried to follow the path he blazed for them.











YR