[1980-05-30-NJPW] Bob Backlund vs Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-05-30
NJPW
Hulk Hogan vs. Bob Backlund
Civic Culture Center, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan
Card
★

Wow, this had some terrible moments. At the beginning Hogan enticed Backlund into a test of strength spot and it came across like two children performing at a school play in front of an audience of disapproving parents. They pulled things together a bit during the middle portion and had an admittedly nice sequence where they quickly transitioned between 3 moves resulting in Backlund getting the upper hand and emerging with Hogan in a headlock. This might have been the high spot of the match and got the biggest pop from the crowd by far. And when a headlock is the high spot you know you’ve gone awry somewhere. 
Back to the bad spots though: at one point Backlund went for a reverse neckbreaker and they got their wires crossed something fierce, and Backlund visibly had to reposition Hogan a couple times just to make sure he was even facing the right way to take the move. Later, Backlund hit a backdrop suplex as a counter and Hogan immediately went for a pin out of it. By the time they did a rope run collision spot ¾ in, I think the crowd knew that this was unsalvageable. Mercifully after 20 minutes, while in another headlock, Hansen emerged from the back and chased Backlund away. Hogan attacked the referee for “reasons” and got DQ’d. It all felt like a monumental waste of time to be honest.