Nick Bockwinkel

[Lee Casebolt]

The earliest Bock match I've found so far:

 

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[TRMD]

Can I get a date for the Bockwinkel/Wahoo match? You guys have me wanting to give it a watch.

[JazeUSA]

Can I get a date for the Bockwinkel/Wahoo match? You guys have me wanting to give it a watch.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Wahoo McDaniel (8/28/83)

pretty sure this is the one

[JazeUSA]

Ric Flair vs Nick Bockwinkel (01/16/86)

possibly the only time these two ever worked each other that we have on film??

[khawk20]

Correct. Only one on film, possibly their only meeting period.

[goc]

 

 

 

I'll also be happy to put together a sampler set if necessary that potential voters can circulate amongst themselves if some of what is listed is not readily available on the youtubes.

 

 

FWIW if there are any other AWA guys someone wants to make an argument for and video needs to be circulated, I can probably help out with that too. I have samplers of a guy like Leon White, for example, and Col. DeBeers (if Wiskoski gets any love in this thing). Vachon, of course, if he gets into the conversation. Adonis (both with Ventura and as a single), Blackwell 80-85, Slaughter as SD II, plenty more.

 

My preference would be to send out a block of stuff to one person and have them pass it around to whoever needs it (chain mail, similar to the review process for the 80's sets). I'll leave that up to you guys to figure it out if it comes to that.

 

For now, a Bock list is a good starting point.

 

If everyone is willing do things digitally, I have no problem letting everyone use my FTP server.

[El-P]

Considering how great he was at 50, we could assume he smoked Flair in his 30's.

[Childs]

No, that would be incredibly lazy.

[NintendoLogic]

Yeah, Tenryu was even better in his 50s, and he wasn't anywhere near as good as Flair in his 30s.

 

Also, I remain mystified by the love for the Wahoo match. I'll watch it again and see if it does anything for me.

[El-P]

I knew someone was gonna drop Tenryu on my ass. But hey, Tenryu is an odd cat.

 

That being said, at this point I'd rather watch Brock in his 50's than Flair in his 30's. He's just that much more compelling to me (and I'm a Flair fan).

[Matt D]

Yeah, Tenryu was even better in his 50s, and he wasn't anywhere near as good as Flair in his 30s.

 

Also, I remain mystified by the love for the Wahoo match. I'll watch it again and see if it does anything for me.

They hit each other really hard. That's all it takes for some people apparently. The only thing I really like about the match is how it feels like Bock came in with a gameplan, but he's like that in every match.

[El-P]

If you believe Rick Martel, the old mofo was also hitting very hard in every match. But yeah, coming in with a *real* gameplan is something that not a whole lot of workers actually project efficiently. Bock was one of them. As opposed to Flair, for instance, whose gameplan was to pop the crowd with cool shit. (Ok, enough with the Flair crowd trolling already, I love them both anyway)

[Shining Wiz]

Watched a Bockwinkle/Choshu match from 84 or 85......I knew Bock was good, but he may have just become a #1 contender for me. I think I need to do an intensive Bock review.

[Wade Garrett]

Bock is a Top 10 lock for me. It would be very hard to bump him outta a position in my 10. Just to complete of a package and a guy who I really wish woulda been the go to NWA Champion from 77-82. Had it been up to me he picks the title up from Terry Funk in early 77. Then again I mighta given him the win over Jack Brisco and cancelled/delayed a Funk run. No knock on Funk cause he's in my bakers dozen at the very least. But Bock was Bock.

[Matt D]

Just a taste of what we DON'T have:

 

2/20/64 Medford

Card held at the Armory

1. Tony Borne beat Pedro Lopez

2. Bobby Duranton defeated Don Duffy

3. Mad Mongol & Haru Sasaki defeated Paddy Barrett & Nick Kozak

MAIN EVENT

In a 2 out of 3 Falls match for the NWA World Heavyweight Title

4. Lou Thesz drew with Nick Bockwinkel when Bockwinkel tied Thesz one fall a piece and the 3rd fall ended at the 60:00 minute mark to make it a draw

 

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Bock was going for the NWA title as early as 64. Just think about that.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Flair was 32 when he won it in '81 and Bock was 30 in 64. Bock was a nine year pro at that time and and Flair was a nine year pro. If your point was we are missing a TON of Bock I agree, but if it was he was challenging early in his career, it is really no different for Flair.

I really, really, REALLY want to see Thesz vs Bock now.

[Matt D]

Oh, I was just highlighting the years and years of main event level matches we don't have.

[El-P]

Bockwinkel is everything I would want from an old-school american pro-wrestler. He's been a joy to watch to me in the last few years. #10.

[Microstatistics]

Been watching a lot of his stuff recently and he is skyrocketing up my list. He is some kind of super worker to me: a fantastic heel champion, incredible on the mat, awesome brawler, can even high fly in his 50s, vicious when on offense and a really brilliant seller who makes all of his opponents look like a million bucks. I could see him finishing in my Top 5 in the final cut. It's either him or Terry Funk as my best US born pro wrestler.

[JerryvonKramer]

While we're talking about Flair's final placement, I thought this was a good moment to bump Bock here.

 

Here was his 2006 finish: Nick Bockwinkel 1,451 points - 24 votes - VHB SE Williams #11

 

I can't imagine the high vote on him will be an #11 here. He's in my top 10 for sure.

[Childs]

Yeah, he was 56, two spots ahead of Fujinami. Two guys who will likely rise bigtime because of the DVDVR project.

[InYourCase]

Watched a Bockwinkle/Choshu match from 84 or 85......I knew Bock was good, but he may have just become a #1 contender for me. I think I need to do an intensive Bock review.

Does anyone have a link to this match?

[GOTNW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9JhBUGaJTY

[Matt D]

A Case for Bockwinkel:

 

(I feel like it's a shame that people have already started voting. We just had a case for Michaels go up a couple of days ago and a case for Funk go up yesterday or the day before. We're in the final argument stage of things and parts of the jury are voting already. I'm going to try to rush this out then. I wish I could do try to match that great Satanico post, but no can do. It's a busy week, but here goes:)

 

There are so many things that Nick Bockwinkel did so well that it's hard to even know where to start. What I'd like to do, to begin, is list out his range, a number of roles that he was effective in playing, and that he was able to wrestle good to great matches (some all-timers) while achieving. This is in no order:

 

1. Bumping, stooging heel for aging legend (Vs Verne, Mad Dog, Crusher, Baron)

2. Bumping, stooging vulnerable champion for up and and coming Ace babyface (Vs Hogan)

3. Reluctantly cheered champion holding the line vs a foreign threat (Vs Al-Kassie)

4. Comedy kingpin with a bunch of goons vs Super-babyfaces (with Heenan family Vs. Andre and Hogan)

5. Heel champion Ace vs technical up and coming babyfaces (vs Rheingans)

6. Tag role of the same (With Stevens vs High Flyers)

7. Southern tag heel (w/Saito vs Gagnes or Hennigs, or High-flyers)

8. Confident heel champ vs established technical opponent (vs Martel)

9. Same as a heel challenger establishing said new babyface champ.

10. Vulnerable but dangerous heel champion against deadly brawler (vs Wahoo)

11. Travelling champ who underestimates local hero (vs Chavo)

12. Snobby outsider champ who DOESN'T underestimate local hero but has to have a number of varied matches with him without losing the title (vs Lawler)

13. Fiery babyface wanting revenge (crazy sprint vs Zbyszko)

14. John Wayne (vs Hansen)

15. Super technical in front of a Japanese audience (vs Funk and vs Robinson)

16. Aging, cagey veteran trying to survive against a young babyface slowly surpassing him (vs Hennig)

17. US Supermatch that has to end in a draw (vs. Flair)

18. Travelling heel champ stooging big for the local hero while staying credible (vs JYD)

19. Desperate heel up against monsters (the clips we have vs Andre or Ladd)

20. Very strong shorter match TV worker during the Showboat era (vs. Debeers)

 

And that's what we have from maybe 76-86, when he around 40 to just over 50. He spent decades of his career as a babyface. And there are more. I just picked twenty different in-ring functions that he had to do and had to do well, many of them calling upon different skills and talents, that involve someone actively wrestling differently. I could have given more examples of matches for almost every category too, with almost all of them being very good to great. That, to me is amazing. The only other people who would come close to this are #1 contenders, and almost all of those benefit from us having much more of their physical prime on tape or from working more broadly in multiple territories (though Bock, of course did. We just don't have a ton of that on tape; most of what we do is great).

 

He was able to accomplish this through deeply and thoroughly understanding pro wrestling and storytelling, through engaging the crowd, through knowing when to give and when to take, knowing how to maximize moments and momentum, to fully committing to his role at all times. He was incredible at portraying emotion in matches, jubilant when causing punishment and terrified when getting overwhelmed. He refused to let the crowd dictate what he was doing, but instead forced them into line with what was best for them and the match, adapting but never surrendering ("You're boring them Martel!" being my favorite single wrestling moment I've seen in the last five years, maybe?).

 

Everything had purpose. There are wrestlers, great wrestlers, who can string more-or-less unrelated chapters together so that their matches are better than the sum of their parts, so that they make a symbolic, thematic, more or less satisfying whole, but Bockwinkel was able to relate the chapters to one another so that he never had to do that. There wasn't that need for symbolism because the text stood on its own. It was finding the perfect moment to turn the babyface's offensive rush into a King of the Mountain heat segment, or how to start countering one bit of bodypart work with the opposite equivalent, and so on. There's no sixty minute match I've ever seen which tells so involved a story as Hennig vs Bockwinkel. I've never been satisfied with the idea that wrestling isn't a good medium for storytelling, because I've seen it. That match shows that it's possible, and not just over ten minutes but over sixty, and that it can be the most compelling thing in the world. He created stories that mattered to people, that resonated, that moved them, and he made it seem so flawless and so natural. There was so much variation, too. I can barely wrap my head around how he managed it.

 

And of course the fundamentals were there. He bumps around the ring like a pinball for Verne Gagne. His long-term limb selling is exceptional, and he had a way of selling fatigue from a long match in the finishing stretch like almost no one else. I believe that selling is the key to creating meaning in wrestling and it's hard not to watch his performances and think that he'd been through a war and that maybe, just maybe, he was going to lose that title (and if he did, the babyface would have EARNED it). His matwork was wonderful, holds and counters, perfect timing, great facial expressions and trash talk, and screaming in pain when he was on the wrong end of it. His strikes were snug. His offense was varied. He moved in and out of holds so well in the opening segment of a match; there was such flow to it. He cheated extremely well (and man was he a great southern tag heel), and as a babyface, he could both garner sympathy and swallow the heel alive with righteous fury. That's the thing. he's not just a smart worker. He's a total package. At age 45, he could still outFunk prime Funk, outFlair prime Flair and even, at times, outHansen prime Hansen. But, almost always, he only goes to that level when it makes sense to go there, when the value is there, when the needs of the match calls for it.

 

I don't think it's a big spoiler. He's my #1. There are amazing wrestlers on my list in the #2-9 spots, some of the most talented, skilled, brilliant, sound, varied people imaginable, with hundreds of great matches to prove their worth. I just can't imagine any of them in that #1 slot instead of Bockwinkel.

[Childs]

I basically agree with everything Matt says about Bock, and it's astonishing he wrestled the majority of the matches that make his case after he turned 45. With all due respect to Tenryu and a few of the great maestro luchadores, nobody had a greater post-45 career than Bock. Given his intelligence and base skills, I'd be shocked if he wasn't at least a very good worker for 15 years before that. But I can't give him full credit for footage that isn't there, and it keeps him from being a No. 1 contender for me. He and Satanico are the two most frustrating cases that way, maybe Billy Robinson too. I know they were just as skilled as the guys I have in the top few spots. I suspect their output was comparable as well. But there's too much unknown for me to nudge them above comparable talents.