Backlund: From All-American Boy to Professional Wrestling's World Champion

by Bob Backlund

  The Japanese tour ended at Sumo Hall in Tokyo on December 6, 1979. The booked finish that night was for me to come off the top rope with a high spot and pin Inoki, who was going to be distracted by outside interference from Tiger Jeet Singh. That would allow Inoki to “lose with dignity” rather than taking a straight pinfall loss in the middle of the ring in his home arena. They also did an additional little swerve with “WWF President” Hisashi Shimna coming into the ring in Japan and “overruling” the referee’s decision, declaring the bout a no-contest, and declaring the title vacant. Antonio and I had done great business together over in Japan, and this was a continuing effort to try and set up a little something for later.

  Both Inoki and the New Japan promoters wanted Antonio to get a main event to wrestle me for the belt at Madison Square Garden, and this was their effort to set that up. But they hadn’t yet sold Vince Sr. on the idea, and Vince Sr. never mentioned to me that anything like that was in the works. They gave me the belt back because they knew I had dates to defend the belt back in the United States, and although they were angling for a match at the Garden, they weren’t about to anger Vince Sr. and jeopardize their new partnership by keeping the belt and trying to hijack the holiday card at the Garden.

  Inoki was a major star in Japan, but because very few people in the United States at the time had access to Japanese television, no one really knew of him over here. To get Inoki “over” for a main-event appearance at Madison Square Garden would have required Antonio to come over to the United States for a couple of television tapings so they could build him up on television as a challenger who could draw the interest of the fans in New York. That would have much been easier to do if Inoki had come in as a heel with Blassie or the Wizard as his manager, but Inoki didn’t want to do that, because he was a babyface and wanted to remain so. Vince Sr., though, wasn’t about to put someone that the fans didn’t know into the main event at the Garden, particularly on the holiday card. So that was the stalemate that prevented a Backlund-Inoki match from ever happening at the Garden.

  Even when NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race came up to wrestle me at the Garden, Vince Sr. had Harley come up to Allentown and Hamburg and do a couple of television tapings first so that the fans would know who he was, and Harley Race was much better known in the United States than Inoki was. If that was what was required to promote a unification match at the Garden with the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, you can understand that it would have been impossible to have just brought Antonio over here for a match at the Garden without first explaining that he had beaten me over in Japan. But as far as Vince Sr. was concerned, the title change in Japan had “never happened.” It was just business for the Japanese relationship, and he wasn’t going to allow it to be exploited beyond that.

  The holiday Garden card that year was on December 17, 1979, and the entire card was broadcast back to Japan. Because Antonio didn’t want to come to the United States for the necessary buildup on television, and because Antonio, who was the head of New Japan, didn’t want to get beat in Madison Square Garden, there was no way to settle the title “vacancy” in a way that satisfied anyone. I would love to know what the Japanese guys were saying on their television broadcast to try and explain this situation to their fans.

  During the pre-match preparations (and despite the fact that I had been defending the belt around the territory since I had returned from Tokyo ten days earlier), Vince Sr. told me that since the broadcast of the card was going back to Japan, I couldn’t go to the ring with the belt because in the eyes of the Japanese fans, the title was still vacant. So the “President” of the WWF, Hisashi Shinma, came out to the ring with the WWF World Title at the beginning of my Texas Death Match main-event rematch with Bobby Duncam. Antonio was on the card and was put into a match with the Great Hussein Arab (The Iron Sheik) in a match for Inoki’s New Japan Heavyweight championship, while I took care of Duncam in the Texas Death main event.

  Putting Inoki in the ring with the Sheik was the easiest way to ensure that Inoki would be given a hero’s welcome at the Garden. Remember that at the time, Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini were holding 212 American hostages. The Sheik was from Teheran, both legitimately and for purposes of the storyline, and was so hot at the time that a lot of promoters didn’t even want to book him for fear that he would spark riots and violence in the arenas. Anyone who opposed the Sheik would be a guaranteed fan favorite at the Garden, so that’s what Vince Sr. decided to do with Inoki.

  Sheik made Antonio look really good for the Madison Square Garden crowd, but even with that and the whole hostage crisis fueling the fans’ hatred of the Sheik, Antonio got only a modest reaction from the sellout crowd at the Garden—reinforcing Vince Sr.’s initial instinct to refuse him a main event against me for the WWF title.

  19

  An Olympian, a Drill Sergeant, and a Young Hulkster (1980)

  “There will be other generations after ours…. We must all become bridge builders.”

  —Napoleon Hill, “Inspire Teamwork”

  As 1980 began, former WWF champion Bruno Sammartino had healed from the injuries stemming from his many years out on the road and had expressed interest in having one more go-round out on the WWF circuit. At the time, Bruno was announcing with Vince McMahon Jr. on the WWF Championship Wrestling and All-Star Wrestling television tapings and Bruno’s old protégé, Larry Zbyszko was back in the territory as a babyface—and Bruno wanted to do something with Larry. So Bruno came up with what was, perhaps, the greatest single angle in the history of professional wrestling. It was, of course, a tale as old as time—an angle with its roots in the Biblical story of Jesus and Judas—and summed up in a single word.

  Betrayal.

  As the story went, Bruno had taken Larry under his wing and trained him. But Larry was frustrated that he was unable to step out from under Bruno’s considerable shadow. So at the television tapings in January 1980, Larry challenged Bruno to an exhibition match, and when Bruno demurred, Larry threatened to retire if Bruno did not agree to meet him in the ring. Bruno relented, and the match that Larry “wanted” took place at the television taping on January 22, 1980, in Allentown.

  After Bruno dominated Larry with a series of amateur moves, each time choosing to release the holds and to allow Larry to escape, Zbyszko’s frustration began to boil over and he jumped out of the ring to collect himself. As Sammartino held the ropes open in a gesture of sportsmanship to allow Larry back into the ring, Larry hit Sammartino with a knee to the midsection, and then began punching and kicking Bruno. The crowd in the arena was stunned into silence as Larry then went outside the ring, brought a wooden ringside chair into the ring, threw referee Dick Woherlie out of the ring, and then waffled Sammartino over the head three times with the chair. Bruno went down, bladed, and Larry then left his mentor lying in the ring a pool of his own blood.

  That angle, of course, immediately turned Zbyszko into the hottest heel in the federation, and the Sammartino-Zbyszko feud was off and running. Those two went around the territory and main-evented or co-main-evented buildings with me from February until August. It was a wonderful way to give Bruno one more big run around the territory, and of course, doing business like that was also great for Larry, and for the entire troupe. That feud defined the year.

  Meanwhile, my old friend Ken Patera had returned to the territory, managed by the Grand Wizard, and was once again being built up on television as a monster heel. At the time, Kenny was legitimately still one of the strongest men in the world, and was one of those perfect heels who had a great look, excellent in-ring skills, and a cocky persona that could talk people into the seats. Patera had worked hard in the territory before main-eventing with Bruno when Bruno had the belt, and although he was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten his promised run with the heavyweight championship when it came time to take the title off of Bruno (that honor, of course, going to “Superstar” Billy Graham in large part due to the insistence of Eddie Graham), Patera had done m
e the great honor of making me look so good in our matches in 1977, and again by selling for me so convincingly in one of my first title defenses in the Garden in 1978. Vince Sr. also liked Patera a lot and admired his professionalism enough to reward him with another long run in the WWF. I was determined to return the favor for what Kenny had done for me, and to do everything in my power to make our series together in 1980 a huge box office success.

  We had our first match at the Garden on January 21, 1980. Patera had been injuring people on television with his swinging neckbreaker submission hold, and that, coupled with the great job he did in his interviews, led to the Garden selling out well in advance of the night of the match. We knew we would be coming back in February, so Vince Sr. booked our first bout to end inconclusively with the referee getting knocked out and the bout being declared a draw.

  I met and talked with Kevin Von Erich in the Garden that night. Vince Sr. brought him in as a favor to his father Fritz and to give Kevin the exposure that came with having a match at Madison Square Garden and getting photographed by the national and international press that was always at ringside there. It was the goal of virtually every wrestler in the business to have a match at the Garden because it was the biggest stage in our industry. Fritz owned the World Class Championship Wrestling territory in the Dallas–Forth Worth area of Texas where his sons, David, Kerry, and Kevin were the resident and extremely popular babyfaces. Kevin was a very nice young man who was very personable and very respectful to everyone in the dressing room, and to the business as a whole. I welcomed him to New York and tried to make him feel comfortable since he didn’t know any of the guys in the dressing room. Kevin was good for the business—he looked great and could really move in the ring.

  On February 7, 1980, in Worcester, at the War Memorial Auditorium, I had my first match with the newest member of Freddie Blassie’s army—a man who had debuted on television a couple of months earlier, and who had been built up on television to be an insurmountable heel. He was put together, standing about six feet ten inches tall and weighing 320 pounds. He had massive quads, a huge chest, twenty-four-inch biceps, bleached blonde hair, and a deep California tan. And he was not only undefeated, he had been virtually untouched since his debut in the federation.

  This man, of course, was Hulk Hogan.

  Hogan had been the bassist in a band down in Florida in the early ’70s when he was discovered by Jack and Jerry Brisco. He had absolutely no wrestling experience then, but with his height and physique, he had the “look” that promoters longed for, so the Briscos arranged for Hiro Matsuda to train him. Contrary to what a lot of people have said about him, by the time he got to me in 1980, Hogan was actually decent in the ring—he was not clumsy or awkward, and, most importantly given his strength and size, he was mindful of taking care of his opponents in the ring. You could tell that he was still green, but knowing that Matsuda had trained him, I was comfortable working with him.

  Hogan followed instructions well, and we told a pretty good story together that night in Worcester. It was a good crowd to have him learn in front of because of the way the place was constructed, with a balcony that put people right over the ring, so we could easily tell what they liked and didn’t like. Hogan didn’t have a wide variety of moves in his repertoire, so there wasn’t that much that he could do—but he had a few go-to moves that he could use to draw people in.

  For the most part, our matches together were novelty acts for the promoters, pitting me, as the champion, against the seemingly insurmountable giant heel. Given Hogan’s relative lack of experience and his limited array of moves, our matches in 1980 followed the quintessential “big man” blueprint: him trying to beat me into oblivion, and me trying to avoid him and tire him out with whatever amateur moves I could get on him.

  Although I was happy to work with Hogan, Vince Sr. saw only one real commercial purpose for Hulk Hogan in the WWF in 1980—and that was to feed him to Andre. Consequently, because Vince Sr. wanted to leave the heat on Hogan so he could draw in his feud with Andre, I wrestled Hogan only sparingly, mainly to continue to train him and to teach him how to work longer main-event matches. Where I did wrestle him, we generally went to countout finishes to leave him strong for his upcoming series with Andre.

  One of those nights was on April 12, 1980, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. That night, I was teaching Hogan how to listen to the crowd and develop a match. I called most of the spots, but I took him twenty-nine minutes deep into the match, showed him how to set the pace, and how to trade the lead. The match was well developed and we actually did a lot of wrestling maneuvers. To Hogan’s credit, he was in shape and did not blow up, and per the booking, as he had done in Worcester, he went over me when I was counted out of the ring, permitting him to keep his heat, but allowing me to keep the title.

  Hulk looked good, the crowd was into it, and we actually had a lot of fun in there together. After the match, I found Hogan in the dressing room and checked in with him. He shook my hand and thanked me for a great match. I remember that night clearly because Hogan wrestled in a style that wasn’t his own—it was mine—and he followed my lead really well. It was a long match for him—a lot longer than he had ever been in the ring before—and he carried through it very well. The fans responded well enough to the match that Phil Zacko ordered up a rematch for the following month.

  Meanwhile, after Patera and I had our second match at the Garden in February, which I won after special guest referee Pat Patterson counted Kenny out of the ring—Patera and I took a two-month hiatus from our series at the Garden. Bruno and Larry’s feud had developed from that angle on television into the hottest feud the WWF had ever seen. I was in those arenas on the nights when Bruno and Larry wrestled, so I know how white hot the crowd reaction was. Bruno was adored by the vast majority of the people, and Larry’s actions made Larry the most hated person in the building every night. It was a beautiful thing for Bruno to go out on, it was great for business, and it made everyone a lot of money.

  Bruno and Larry’s feud was a reliable enough draw to sell out any building in the territory, and they had been booked into the Garden for both March and April, so Vince saw no need for me to kill off Patera on a Garden card that was going to sell out anyway. Meanwhile, Vince had decided to put the tag-team belts on the Samoans later in the spring, so he decided to break up Afa and Sika into title matches with me in March and April 1980 in order to give each of them a nice payday on the March and April Garden cards (as well as in most of the main events around the horn) during the months when Bruno and Larry would be headlining.

  Despite their wild and frightening appearance, Afa and Sika were kind and warm-hearted people. No matter what was happening around them, they were always calm and relaxed, and would do anything for you. Legitimate Samoans, they still had a lot of the worry-free island mindset. They were most interested in enjoying today and would worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. They traveled in a converted van with a door on the back that gave them access to a sleeping area, and they also kept a pet python in the back of the van that they would bring out on occasion when they wanted to get a laugh.

  The Samoans were booked as monsters. Over 300 pounds each with huge, wild afros, they were both very powerful and very credible. The fans were scared to death of those guys. You could see the fans shrink away when Afa and Sika would walk into an arena, or especially when one of them ended up out of the ring and out in the ringside area near the fans—but when you tied up with them in the ring, they were among the gentlest guys in the business. Afa and Sika were a great and very convincing heel tag team, and were very “over” with the fans.

  On March 7, 1980, I had the privilege of traveling back out to St. Louis for Sam Muchnick to defend the WWF Championship at the Kiel Auditorium against my old mentor “Captain Redneck” Dick Murdoch. I was very happy to have this match, and to finally be able to return a favor to Dick after all that he had done for me back in Amarillo.

  It was great to return to St. Louis
to have a match with Murdoch in a place where he was well known and didn’t need any buildup or any introduction. It was booked as a title match for the WWF championship, which gave Dick a nice payday. I had gained a lot more experience and wisdom both inside and outside the ring since we had last been together, but getting back into the ring with my old mentor and teacher brought back a lot of good memories for me. We had a great match together that ended with Dick getting disqualified. Back in the dressing room after the match, Dick and I visited for a little while and reminisced about our days together in Amarillo. He still seemed sad to me, but try as I might, I could never get him to tell me why.

  The month of April 1980 saw a lot of changes in the WWF. First, at the April 12 Spectrum card that Hulk Hogan and I co-headlined with Bruno and Larry, the Samoans beat Tito Santana and Ivan Putski for the tag-team titles to begin their first run with those belts. Then, on April 21 at the Garden, Ken Patera beat Pat Patterson for the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship on the undercard of a bill that featured Bruno beating Larry by countout and me defending the world title against Afa—who was now a champion in his own right as the co-holder of the world tag-team championship.

  Jim Crockett’s prized new tag team of Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood came in for a shot on that same card. I knew Ricky Steamboat from my time in Florida. He was a very good performer in the ring and did a lot of terrific business for the Crockets down in the Carolinas. Steamboat was a big draw, and he and Ric Flair had some tremendous matches down there in the Mid-Atlantic region. Having these guys get some national and international exposure the Garden and go over a couple of our more aging heels (Kamata and Brower) was another one-time thing that Vince Sr. did as a favor to the Crocketts at a time when there was still a pretty open talent trade between the territories.

  I was likewise being sent to defend the title in St. Louis and Florida a lot, where the fans were familiar with me, and their talent was coming out to New York, both for one-off matches, and in the case of heels, in regular rotations to give me a continually fresh supply of guys to wrestle. Vince was still on the NWA Board at the time, and as I have mentioned before, he had a lot of friends in the wrestling world because he was so willing to trade talent, or send me down to help draw a house or lend prestige to a card by defending the WWF title.