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

by Bob Backlund

  Hansen had been in the territory before, back in April 1976, when he was best known for legitimately breaking then-champion Bruno Sammartino’s neck with a sloppy, botched bodyslam during their title match at Madison Square Garden. Amazingly enough, after suffering that broken neck in the ring, Bruno had the presence of mind to call for Hansen to hit him with his finisher—a devastating-looking “lariat” slingshot—leading to a finish by blood stoppage. Bruno’s quick thinking had allowed Vince Sr. to put Hansen’s lariat over with the people by claiming that it had been that move that had broken Bruno’s neck. Although a terrible in-ring accident that legitimately landed Bruno in the hospital and shelved him for several weeks, that situation actually helped to make Hansen’s career as a vicious, brash, and violent cowboy who could not be controlled in or out of the ring.

  When he returned to the WWF in 1980, Hansen was well over 300 pounds, and he had reprised his role as a wild Texas outlaw complete with leather chaps, a leather vest, a bullrope, and, in many of his television interviews, a drooling mouthful of nasty brown chaw that completed the picture. In his early television matches, Stan was bloodying and stretchering out opponent after opponent with the lariat. When he did it to fan favorite Dominic DeNucci, though, the fans really began to see this man as someone who couldn’t be stopped. Stan was getting over with the fans to a level that few heels before him had been able to achieve.

  In some cities around the territory, Bruno Sammartino took some main-event matches against his old nemesis in an effort to “avenge” Hansen injuring his friend DeNucci. Yet even in these initial matches, Stan was booked to go over Bruno by countout, which continued to build Hansen’s heat for his eventual title matches with me. In other cities, he was booked to annihilate WWF tag-team champion Tony Garea. Vince Sr. booked Stan as strongly as he had booked any other heel to set the stage for his title series.

  On February 16, 1981, Stan and I had our first match at the Garden. The match had garnered significant fan interest because it would pit a scientific wrestler with amateur skills (me) against a completely uncontrollable wild American street fighter who had steamrolled over everyone, including Bruno. Everywhere Stan went, the lariat was put over as a fearsome finishing move that was crippling people. There was even talk of trying to get the move “banned” by promoters because of how many people he was “injuring” with it. After all, if he had broken Sammartino’s neck with it, he could do it to anyone, and that’s the way it was sold and promoted on TV.

  Something had to give.

  Our first match at the Garden had sold through very well at the box office, so when Vince called Stan and me together for our pre-match discussion, we knew we’d be coming back. Vince called for the match to end in a wild, pull-apart brawl, stopped by the referee because both of us were too bloody to continue, and requiring the assistance of other wrestlers from the locker room to restore order. Early in that first match, Stan hit me stiff (i.e., legitimately hit me instead of pulling his punches just short of the mark) in the stomach a few times to try and knock the wind out of me. The word on Hansen has always been that he worked stiff because his eyesight was quite bad and he couldn’t execute moves with precision. But since that wasn’t always the case, I think Stan was actually testing me to see how far he could push me and whether I was prepared to do anything to stop him. He might have also worked me stiff because he was often gassed in our matches and needed to do something to slow me down. This was another virtue of my commitment to training. Stan Hansen could hit me in the stomach all day long, and it wasn’t going to slow me down enough to allow him to catch up.

  Hansen had been brought in for two matches at Madison Square Garden, but apparently, Stan was under the impression that he was getting a three-match series, including a steel cage blowoff, so he wouldn’t have to get pinned by me at the end. Hansen had not been pinned much anywhere in the world, and given his wild Texas outlaw character, he claimed that taking a pin would cause him to lose his heat, and that his handlers in Japan did not want him to get pinned during his stay in the WWF. Apparently Hansen raised quite a fuss with Vince Sr. in the office about taking a pinfall loss to me in the second Garden match because he claimed it would affect his standing and reputation in Japan, where he was slated to go for an extended stay after his run in the WWF was over. Arnold Skaaland told me that Hansen had insisted on getting a third match, pushed his connections and relationship with New Japan, and had gotten Vince Sr. to capitulate.

  Stan and I had our second match at the Garden in March 1981. The match had again drawn well at the box office, so despite his dispute with the front office and the fact that I wasn’t wild about having to work with him again, we were told we’d be coming back a third time. Vince Sr. asked me to put the lariat over to create a hot box office push for the third match. Our second match was booked to end with me standing outside on the ring apron, and when the referee stepped between us to try to create some space for me to re-enter, Hansen would come from behind the referee and hit me in the neck with the lariat and knock me off the apron and out into the crowd where I would be counted out. It was a pretty big bump, and would certainly serve to create even more fear and mystique about that move.

  The match went off as advertised, the fans were into it, and more than in any other title match to date, they seemed genuinely concerned for my safety and well-being given what they had seen Stan do to so many wrestlers in the WWF up to that point. When we had the fans where we wanted them, I called for the finish and Stan hit me so stiff with the lariat across my neck that the impact rattled all the way through my body and it was all I could do to stay in control as I fell backward off the apron to take the bump onto the Garden floor. Stan was a terrific and a fearsome heel, but his in-ring work was definitely among the stiffest I have ever encountered.

  As March turned to April, I learned a little bit more about Hansen’s beef with the front office people, and in particular, that he had basically held up Vince Sr. for the third title match at the Garden by threatening to refuse to do the honors for me in the second match. Vince Sr. was second only to my father in terms of the standing that he held in my life, and the thought of anyone trying to hold Vince Sr. up was really getting to me.

  Stan must have really frustrated the WWF front office people, because even though we did great business at the Garden with the blowoff cage match, selling out the arena and nearly also filling the Felt Forum for the closed-circuit television broadcast, as we went down the Garden hallway and through the curtain to the ring that night, Arnold Skaaland leaned into my ear and told me to “eat him up.”

  As I have mentioned, it was very much against my style to destroy an opponent in a title match, because normally, I’d be trying to leave the heel with his heat so that he could go on to draw in later matches in the territory. In this case, however, if you watch that cage match, I basically no-sold nearly all of Stan’s offense. I was very angry at the way Stan had conducted himself in our territory, particularly after everyone, including me, had bent over backward to put him over as an unstoppable monster heel. I wasn’t about to do any more favors for a man who would put himself ahead of the business and defy Vince Sr.’s booking plan.

  It was the shortest cage match of my career—clocking in at just under nine minutes. That match was about one thing—teaching Stan Hansen that you don’t come into our territory and start dictating the terms of your engagement. I had been the world champion in the territory for three years, and I had never once tried to talk Vince Sr. off the planned finish for even one of my matches—so I didn’t appreciate the fact that Hansen, who had been in the territory less than three months and knew that he was just passing through, refused to honor Vince Sr.’s requested finish.

  To his credit, Stan took it like a professional. It might be that he was just happy to get the third Garden payday, which, as it turned out, was one of the bigger ones of my title reign—but Vince Sr. made sure I got something more than money out of that third match. Destroying Stan Hansen in a c
age match at the Garden in under nine minutes put me over as powerfully as any match could have. The fans at the Garden had watched Hansen break Bruno’s neck and give him a lot of trouble, and booking me to go over him this strongly in our blowoff match was probably the turning point of my career and the match that really proved my mettle to the fans. The people in Madison Square Garden had never seen me in three flat-out street fights like that before—and I think the booking of that series proved to them that even though I preferred to wrestle in the amateur style and beat people with wrestling—I could also take care of myself when things turned ugly.

  Hansen must have totally blown himself out with the office, because it wasn’t long after the cage match at the Garden that he was gone from the territory. Ordinarily, he would have stuck around and had some matches with Morales over the Intercontinental title, and maybe even reprised some of the epic matches he had with Andre in Japan for audiences in our territory. I had one or two other matches with Stan in the territory after the blowoff at the Garden, and then he was back in Japan, never to return.

  It is interesting to contrast the way things went for Hansen with what was going on with Sergeant Slaughter—a guy who was just as over as Hansen was, but who, in sharp contrast to Hansen, was also a total company guy. Sarge was a front office darling because he had proved to be very reliable, always gave a great effort, and had gotten his finisher, the Cobra Clutch, over as well as any hold the company had ever seen. Vince was riding Slaughter as far as he could, and extended his stay in the territory well beyond what was originally planned for him. Sarge was getting main-event matches all over the territory, not just with me, but with Morales over the Intercontinental title, with Andre, with Mascaras, and even with Bruno in a few towns. Sarge was proving the old adage that the Funks, and Eddie Graham, and Sam Muchnick had always told me: if you work hard, are reliable, and get over with the people, eventually the promoters will have to take notice. That is certainly what happened with Sarge, who had come into the territory having really been nothing more than a mid-carder, and made himself into a main eventer who would be box office gold for years to come.

  While our series was finishing up around the territory, Slaughter and the Wizard had started holding $5,000 “Cobra Clutch Challenges” at the television tapings. These challenges called for someone to come out, sit down in a wooden folding chair in the ring, and “allow” Slaughter to apply the Cobra Clutch to them and then try to escape the hold. Several guys on television, most notably Rick McGraw, had given it a good show, but nobody had been able to break the hold. The series was so popular with the fans that we even took it out into some of the smaller venues out on the house show circuit, where various “challengers,” including Rick McGraw, Pedro Morales, and the tag-team champions Tony Garea and Rick Martel, would put the hold over for Sarge before their matches with him. There was even a card somewhere in Massachusetts where I was scheduled to wrestle Sarge, and I took the Cobra Clutch challenge and put the hold over for him before his title shot. After all, what better way was there to convince the fans that Sarge could win the title than to show them that his finishing hold, should he get it on me, would put me out?

  All this promotion reached its pinnacle on television in late February 1981 when Sarge and the Grand Wizard started taunting Pat Patterson, who at the time was doing the color commentary for the television tapings with Vince McMahon Jr. Slaughter would come out and challenge Patterson, and call him “yellow” or a “coward,” and Patterson would claim that he was “studying” the hold and wasn’t yet ready to step into the ring and challenge Slaughter. In the third hour of the taping, Slaughter and the Wizard raised the stakes to $10,000 just for Patterson and put the bad mouth on him a little bit. Patterson tore his suit jacket and blazer right off then and there and went into the ring and took the Cobra Clutch challenge. The people were really into this story, and that little fieldhouse in Allentown was rocking as Patterson faded at first, but then rallied, slammed Slaughter into the turnbuckles again and again, and eventually slipped inside and was pushing the hold off when Slaughter released it and then waffled Patterson with the folding chair.

  A new feud was on!

  The Slaughter-Patterson war was a wonderful boost to box offices around the territory during the spring and summer of 1981, as it provided Vince Sr. with a certifiable main event in some of the smaller venues where I wasn’t scheduled, and where the Intercontinental title match might have previously been relied on to carry the house. Sarge and Patterson, who were two of the best workers in the territory at the time, tore it up—taking that feud around the circuit once in matches that were ending in pull-apart brawls, blood stoppages, disqualifications, or double countouts, and then in a second revolution around the territory in no-holds-barred “Alley Fights” where both wrestlers could come into the ring dressed however they wanted.

  The Alley Fight that Sarge and Patterson had at the Garden was a classic, as Slaughter took one of his famous flying leaps over the turnbuckles and into the ring post, but then gigged himself too deeply as he flew backward onto the canvas, and ended up bleeding out all over everything. It was a gruesome battle that Patterson eventually won when the Wizard came running back down to ringside and threw a white towel into the ring signaling Slaughter’s surrender. The people roared their approval.

  Once again, Vince Sr. had box office gold.

  April and May 1981 also saw me wrestling out of the territory quite a bit in some notable matches. On April 5, 1981, I was back in the Florida territory for Eddie Graham where I put the WWF title on the line against old friend Hiro Matsuda. If professional wrestling matches had been legitimate athletic contests without predetermined endings, this match would likely have been one of the two or three toughest of my career. Matsuda was a hooker and a trainer for Eddie Graham, and had trained some of the best workers in the business in the mid-’80s. At the time, Hiro wasn’t wrestling a full schedule anymore, so it was an honor for me to get to work in the ring with him. Matsuda had a sterling reputation for his wrestling skills, and I was grateful to Eddie Graham for once again giving me one of the best guys in his territory to work with.

  I left for Japan right after the cage match blowoff with Hansen at the Garden and spent about a week over there wrestling for New Japan. One of the matches I enjoyed the most on that tour happened on April 16, 1981, in a town called Usa where I teamed up with “Quickdraw” Rick McGraw in a babyface tag-team match against Antonio Inoki and one of his new young talents, Ricky Choshu. McGraw and Slaughter also had a couple of great matches around the territory at the time, one of which happened in Philadelphia at the Spectrum, where the promoter Phil Zacko, who loved McGraw, asked Sarge to give McGraw a lot of their match before finally beating him. The Philadelphia crowd loved it.

  McGraw was only about five foot seven, but he looked really good. He was a great athlete and he was a very clean-cut kid when he first got into the business. The people loved him, and he was very talented, and even though he was small, he would have had a really bright future if he hadn’t allowed himself to be overtaken by the peer pressure. When we worked together in Japan, I spent some time with Rick, and he explained to me that it was his dream to get bigger. He really thought that having a more muscular body would help him make it in the business. I tried to encourage him to just train hard, eat right, and stay clean, because he was a fast and exciting worker and the people liked him just the way he was.

  About a year later, Rick went on to become part of a popular and successful tag team in the WWF known as “The Carolina Connection” with another great young worker named Steve Travis. McGraw and Travis both wore Carolina blue, and did some really great dropkicks, speedwork, and high-flying moves. They were also very popular and very over with the ladies.

  Unfortunately, Rick McGraw became one of the first guys in our business to die from the abuse of steroids and other drugs. He just couldn’t shake the idea that he wanted to be big, and I guess he just wasn’t satisfied with the great body t
hat he already had. He ended up dying of a heart attack in 1985 at age thirty in a hotel room in East Haven, Connecticut. I had already left the WWF at that point—but I remember hearing about it and feeling a great sadness about it. Rick was a wonderful young athlete and a terrific guy with a very bright future in the business—but like so many other guys did after him, he succumbed to the Siren’s song of steroids and other drugs in the quest to make it further in the business.

  On May 1, 1981, I made my first trip down to Mexico City to a venue called El Toreo de Quatro Caminos, where once again, I found myself in the ring with my old friend Antonio Inoki. This was another match for New Japan, which had some cross-promotional deal with this Mexican wrestling organization that was looking to gain some international statute by booking a high-profile main event with two champions. They packed a lot of people into the stadium that night, and they were very fiery, but they were speaking Spanish, so we couldn’t really tell what they were yelling and chanting at us. Sometimes it was hard to tell who there were behind, and what they liked and didn’t like, so in the end, we decided to just have more of a clean babyface match and just trade on the fact that we were both champions defending our belts. We both took a pin—I got the first one and he got the second one, and in the third fall, we were both counted out of the ring. Unlike most of my international trips, on that trip to Mexico, I went on my own—neither Arnold nor any other representative of the WWF came with me. I was happy to get to see my old friend Billy Robinson while I was down there. Billy was from England, had come up the hard way, and had learned how to hook people. I watched him a lot in Minneapolis when I was growing up. I talked with Billy at length in the dressing room that night and both of us expressed the hope that one day, we might be able to get in the ring with each other somewhere and show the people an exciting scientific wrestling match.