Dick Murdoch

[goodhelmet]

Dick Murdoch is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. The things I like out of my wrestling are the things that Dick Murdoch does best. I'll go over a few of these traits and try to use specific matches as examples.

 

A sick sadistic fuck – It is no secret that I like blood in my wrestling and old school bloodbaths are right up my alley. When Dick Murdoch is in a match that calls for blood, he delivers in spades or dishes out enough punishment where his opponent is covered in blood. When Murdoch bleeds, I don't think I can recall him covered in blood. However, he does have his moments where he wrestles with a bloody nose or a carved up arm. In the Barry Windham 7/11/87 match (the real classic Windham match, not the WWF match) and the 7/21/87 tag against the Lightning Express, Murdoch looks for plunder and uses random weapons including a pencil to attack his opponent. IN the Flair vs. Dibiase match, we recall Dibiase turning face and getting destroyed by Flair. It was Murdoch who made Flair a bloody mess and brainbustered him on the fucking floor. In the Abdullah the Butcher New Japan match, Murdoch shows no fear and gives Abdullah the sickest, most insane brain buster of all time. Murdoch, as a face or heel, is a sick fuck and I love sick fucks.

 

Tricky Dickie's Arm Work – I think the argument against Dick's armwork is that it does not directly payoff to the finish. That isn't always the case. The Doctor Death vs. Dick Murdoch 6/13/87 match led to Murdoch and Gilbert eventually breaking Doc's arm, the same arm that Dick worked on earlier. Sometimes, Dick doesn't win the matches where his opponent's arm is dangling by a string but the arm work was worth it. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with the stretch of the finish but it is the nastiest arm wringing work you will see. I loved the arm work in the Inoki matches that appeared on the NJ set and the Jumbo matches from the 1^st falls. It was also a great way to carry the early portion of the 7/11/87 Barry match and the long Butch Reed matches. Someone already mentioned that this was the way that big title territory matches were worked. Even if it was killing time, you can argue that every big time star from the period did it including Race, Flair, Lawler, etc. Dick just knew how to keep the arm work interesting and he always found new ways to destroy the limb. For me, the arm work was more about controlling the tempo of the match and keeping the opponent grounded, preventing him from getting the offense. Another match that I loved Dick's arm work is the 12/4/87 Murdoch & Inoki vs. Fujiwara & Saito match.

 

Selling and facial work – Dick is one of the best at selling ever. Sometimes, it is just the expression of pain when getting his arm twisted or it is limping on a bum leg after getting his leg torn to shreds. Dick is known for being a great brawler, and he is, but the great thing about brawling Dick is how he has a drunken bar room brawler gaze where he has drank so much whiskey that he won't feel any effects until the next day's hangover. In the Bruiser Brody 11/22/85 NJ match, he makes Brody bearable by selling his ass off but not letting himself get mauled by Brody. In the 12/10/85 Inoki match, Phil Schneider claims the match was mediocre saved single-handedly by Murdoch's awesome facial expression after getting nailed with a final enziguiri. I love that match but that ending facial expression stays burned in your mind years after watching the match. Loss once told me he thought selling was the most important component in wrestling and who is better at selling than Dick Murdoch? There are many that are comparable but few you can call undeniably better.

 

My Fist, Your Face – I love a great punch in wrestling. I think Murdoch is right there with Lawler as one of the best punchers in wrestling history. He has built entire matches around punching opponents in the face especially the two Dibiase Mid South brawls from 12/27 and 12/31/85. In the 9/22/85 Butch Reed match, Phil Schneider made this comment "Some of the best punch exchanges I have ever seen, seriously Lawler v. Dundee level awesome. Murdoch isn't afraid to kick someone right in the face." One of my favorite stories in all of wrestling history is the Dick Murdoch vs. Nightmare 7/14/85 match. The entire match is worked around Nightmare and Eddie Gilbert cheating and the referee preventing Murdoch from punching Nightmare in the face. Eventually Dick fakes a right and lands a left that had me falling out of my fucking chair. He constructed an entire match around a punch as the payoff. Maybe great punches aren't your thing. It's ok if you don't have a love of great punches, it just means you and I are looking for something different in our wrestling. Dick Murdoch just happens to be one of the greatest punchers in the game.

 

The Ultimate Teammate – I love great tag wrestling and I think Murdoch is one of the best. I enjoy the North-South team more than about anyone and I am responsible for putting the large amount of their matches on the NJ set. I thought Dick and Adonis were great at cutting off the ring and systematically destroying their opponents. Phil and Chiklds disagreed but about half of the NJ voters agreed with me and the tag matches I selected did respectable. Still, while the Adonis team may be the 2^nd most famous team of Dick's career (The Dusty team has to be first), he still had awesome tag matches with enough other guys that Dick could demonstrate he was a great tag wrestler. In Mid South/UWF, he had great matches with Dick Slater, Hacksaw Duggan, Masked Superstar and Eddie Gilbert. In New Japan, he had a classic tag match with Inoki as his partner which I mentioned earlier. He was great in his role in the 6 man elimination tags. In the Inoki tag, Childs wrote the following and it is just one of the exhibits on how smart of a wrestler Dick Murdoch was…

 

CHILDS: "This featured one of those virtuoso Murdoch performances in which he brought enough stooging, bumping and violence for everyone in the match. He actually invented a move specifically to set up NJ double countouts. He kind of bounced his ass on the second rope and did a backflip over the top, pulling his opponent with him the whole time. Who else would create a move specifically to facilitate one type of ending in one promotion? Maybe Dundee?"

 

In the Kantaro Hoshino, Riki Choshu, Antonio Inoki vs. Scott Hall, Bob Orton, Dick Murdoch, NJ 11/17/88 tag, CHILDS wrote the following…

 

CHILDS: "Murdoch, as you might expect, excelled at crafting near-elimination scenarios. It's a shame we never got to see him in War Games, because he would've been every bit as masterful as Arn Anderson."

 

All of the above doesn't even touch upon his comedic timing, his interviews, his ability to carry lesser wrestlers (Nikita Koloff, a green Dr. Death) or the appeal of a guy with chicken legs and a beer gut beating the piss out of people. Most of my favorite wrestlers aren't guys that would look like your ideal wrestler (Murdoch, Rose, Lawler) but they are generally the smartest wrestler in the arena. I think Murdoch would fall in this category and I don't think it is hyperbole to say so.

[Dylan Waco]

Murdoch didn't invent that move, but man I do love that move and he was great in those elimination matches.

 

Have you seen the Blackwell v. Murdoch match from the Cornette tapes Will? It's by no means great, but it's a solid arena match built around a build to a body slam.

[Cox]

I wouldn't be surprised if Dave's review of the Oakland card the night before indicates it was a dog as well.

Good call!

 

2. The Mountie beat Bret Hart via count out in 13:28 so Bret kept the Intercontinental title. Nothing happened at all during this match. They were on the floor and Mountie held Bret for Jimmy Hart to hit him with the megaphone but Bret moved and Mountie got the shot. But Mountie got the zapper and zapped Bret and he was about to hit Jimmy Hart and got back in the ring to beat the count. 1/4*

[Cox]

Actually, apparently that was Sacramento the night before, but his review of the Oakland match clocked in at a solid *, so I guess Bret had his working shoes on for the show with the Hogan match.

[goodhelmet]

Murdoch didn't invent that move, but man I do love that move and he was great in those elimination matches.

 

Have you seen the Blackwell v. Murdoch match from the Cornette tapes Will? It's by no means great, but it's a solid arena match built around a build to a body slam.

I don't recall seeing it but it sounds right up my alley!

[Ditch]

Dick Murdoch was so cool that Coors paid him to go to bars and be seen drinking and putting over the beer.

[Jingus]

Name some.

I did.

 

We all agree that most people and most matches blow it off. That doesn't mean everyone does.

 

John

 

An example that comes to mind is any time that someone works Stan Hansen's lariat arm to the point where he can't make a cover after hitting his finish, instead just crumpling to the mat in agony. Doesn't happen very often, but it's exactly what ohtani's asking for here. Also: pretty much anyone who has an arm-based submission for a finisher, you can argue that they're softening their opponent up for the hold.

[khawk20]

Also: pretty much anyone who has an arm-based submission for a finisher, you can argue that they're softening their opponent up for the hold.

Did Backlund do this when he was WWF Champion and he used the cross-faced chicken wing as his finisher?

 

I've watched a lot of Backlund matches from that era but never really noticed.

[Dylan Waco]

Spin off question for Will. Where would you rate Murdoch all time? I assume you'd have him no worse than top forty, but does he make a top twenty?

[goodhelmet]

For what i want out of my wrestling, Murdoch easily makes my Top 20. What hurts him for Top Ten is the amount of available footage and the rapid decline after his NWA run.

[goc]

On WWE Classics they have current guys giving "gifts" of old matches by their favorite wrestler. John Cena's favorite wrestler is apparently Dick Murdoch.

[Childs]

On WWE Classics they have current guys giving "gifts" of old matches by their favorite wrestler. John Cena's favorite wrestler is apparently Dick Murdoch.

Now those are two guys I don't link in my mind, even though I like them both.

[Al]

I get the feeling that if you could book John Cena against anyone in history, Dick Murdoch and Stan Hansen seem like his ideal opponents.

[goodhelmet]

I would buy a ticket for both of those matches.

[rainmakerrtv]

Re Murdoch's punches

 

One thing to remember is not just that Murdoch had great punches but he had great worked punches. Funk would straight out pop people in the forehead. I remember JJ Dillon talking on a Bix podcast where he said something to the effect that he was always terrified watching those punches come in but they always had light contact. He knew just how to pull them and still make them look great.

[El-P]

Watching his match at Slamboree 1995 against Wahoo, the first thing that came to mind was that he looked better than anyone from the two previous matches on the PPV (granted, these were Harlem Heat vs Nasty Boys and Sullivan vs no-name-Beefcake). Then I thought : "Why the hell isn't he employed when they have a guy like Dick Slater on the roster ?". And then : "Why the fuck didn't HE feud with Dustin Rhodes in 1994 instead of that dullhead Jimmy Golden ???". I would have loved a year long Murdock vs Rhodes feud, and the story would have been that much compelling culminating with Murdoch vs Dusty during the WarGames.

[Matt D]

Dick Murdoch vs Pat O'Connor AJPW 12/15/75

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXdMjWuwhc

 

This is a very cool, very frustrating match. Here's the quick breakdown. Ten minutes of Murdoch putting on headscissors, O'Connor getting out, going for a headlock, getting put back in. Most of the work here is by O'Connor trying to get out and each time he makes it, there's an escalation of energy in him trying to get on top and Murdoch putting him back down. He finally takes over with a cheap knee to the face. This leads to some amazing looking arm stuff by O'Connor and then some back and forth legwork. THIS ends with a limping Murdoch being unable to hold onto the headscissors for long and punching O'Connor in the face.

 

Up until this point it's a really fun match. I might doubt the logic of O'Connor going back to the headock again and again but I can see it as old man's pride.

 

The problem is that the FACE PUNCHING leads into 6 or 7 minutes of comedy. And it's good comedy, first with Murdoch complaining about O'Connor's fists, sneaking his own, and then getting wildly out punched, and then with O'Connor escaping holds quickly as the crowd laughs and Murodch lumbering at him (including a great spot where he goes through the ropes). It's entertaining, but a minute or two before they were starting to punch each other in the face, while limping, after 20 minutes of holds. It's jarring and really, annoying. I like comedy a lot at the beginning of a match or throughout a match, but i don't think it belonged in the tail end of THIS match, even if it was all well done.

 

Then the time-limit is coming so they go into a pretty compelling series of pinfall attempts until the bell rings.

 

Well worth watching but highly frustrating.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I just started Will's Murdoch set. Murdoch even had a beer gut in the early 70s! It's like the rest of his body got bigger to catch up with his beer gut as he got older. Usually it's the other way around.

 

Goofy Murdoch is just as good as brawling Murdoch. I love how every now and then he'll stand up in the middle of a match, yank up his trunks because they're falling down, then cover his mouth, turn his head and let out a big smoker's cough.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I needed something to break the pace of non-stop Backlund and Hogan before I went to bed, but also was short. I settled on Windham/Murdoch (Philly 2/85), which seemed to do well in the DVDVR circles. I had seen the match before, but wasn't blown away by it.

 

Barry Windham vs Dick Murdoch Philly 2/85

 

Windham is one-half of the tag champs with Rotundo. The US Express beat North-South to win the titles and this is a singles grudge match that stems from that. Rotundo/Adonis would interest me. The storyline seems to be gritty veteran guile vs youthful athletic prowress, with a side of Southwestern Saucy Sass. I love the build up to the first punch, which Murdoch sells marvelously. Murdoch has to work a bit more, but he gets his first punch in. The difference is Murdoch follows his right up with nasty elbow and claws Windham's face, which establishes the theme of the match. Windham with a high sunset flip, but nothing doing. Windham punches out of a armbar and grabs his own. Murdoch with some forearms and displays how pleased he is with himself by readjusting his trunks. Windham grabs an abdominal stretch, but gets tossed over the ring. Murdoch won't let him re-enter as he is just pounding him with rights and Windham is selling like a champ by hanging like deadweight on the top rope. Windham makes his rousing comeback on the outside and Murdoch goes full-on Three Stooges with the facial contortions and the weak windmill punches in the ring while Barry slugs away.

 

Windham crashes and burns on a flying splash attempt. Murdoch mounts a counterattack with some pretty lefts and rights, which leads to Windham doing a nice bump to the outside and into the railing. Murdoch attacks with a crutch, but when he tries to bring Windham in with a powerslam; Windham rolls through it and picks up the pin. Murdoch, infuriated, attacks Windham with a mic.

 

I think this is a good match, but is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi to really put it over the top. The middle is just kind of there. Windham's selling is superb and Murdoch's is awesome in his own way, but maybe it is due to time compression this doesn't come off as special to me. It is a fun popcorn match, but I wouldn't say it is one of the all-time classics. Their '87 UWF is a much better outing in my opinion.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I think this is a good match, but is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi to really put it over the top.

 

Don't do that, please. My blood pressure is already high. Thanks, dude.

[rvd356]

kind of random but watched him in the Rumble '95 and damn if he didn't look great. His punches looked good course. He really looked better than everyone in the bout but shawn.

 

would like to have seen Dick & shawn do 15 in '95.

[DR Ackermann]

Dick Murdoch vs Carlos Colon - Barbed Wire Match -1991

 

There is an awful lot of comedy in this for what is a very dangerous stipulation. This starts out with Murdoch working comedy spots with the barbed wire. He gets backed into the corner and the referee (is that Victor Quinones?) has to get his tights untangled. Murdoch looks like he desperately wants out and Colon looks like he wants to kick ass. They do some basic brawling but Murdoch takes everything thrown at him in a comedic direction. It works early on, with Murdoch doing chickenshit heel spots to get over the stip, but you want the drama in a match like this to be about violence and/or revenge.

 

Murdoch looks vicious when he first takes over, but he gets more comedic as the match goes on. His manager is in a cage suspended above the ring and he writes instructions on a little chalkboard that he lowers down to Murdoch with instructions. They keep repeating this throughout the match and it gets sillier and sillier. Colon just becomes a passenger on the Murdoch goof express. Meanwhile Murdoch is bleeding because it is a barbed wire match after all. Talk about thematic dissonance. I like Murdoch's work but it wasn't right in this context. Too much Murdoch (who I love), not enough Colon.

[thebrainfollower]

Dick Murdoch is going to be the fourth wrestler profile in my podcast series. I need about 2.5 hours of the best of Captain Redneck, matches and promos, showing him at his most versatile? Any suggestions?

[KB8]

The Afa match from MSG is about the best broomstick match I've ever seen. It's pretty much 90% Murdoch working shtick around a guy who brings mostly nothing, but it's my favourite shtick reel ever.

 

The 9/22 and 10/14/85 matches against Reed, where he gets to work extended holds, the DiBiase feud has him working more brawls, the 7/11/87 Windham match is your old school title match similar to the Reed defences, then there's the 6/13/87 Dr. Death match (all of those are from Mid-South). The DiBiase double turn angle on Mid-South TV is great.

 

It's been ages since I watched most of the New Japan 80s set, but there's lots of good Murdoch on that. Not everyone was so hot on the Murdoch/Adonis team, but his appearances later in the decade during the six-man tournament and his singles with Inoki were great fun. The Fujiwara match from dying days PWFG isn't exactly shoot style, but it's two old guys working their magic with the crowd on strings.

[DR Ackermann]

His 2/23/80 match against Jumbo Tsuruta has him working a serious 2/3 falls old school AJPW title match and it's pretty good.