Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 05/23/83

Where: New York, NY

Competitors
Bob Backlund: Great technician, WWF Champion, Babyface
Sgt. Slaughter: Heel, Brawler, Dresses in Military Fatigues

Back story: Bob Backlund has been the WWF Champion for several years, and this feud was set up when Slaughter attacked Backlund with his riding whip. The WWF formula back then (there's always a formula) is that the heel attacks the baby face champion. They fight all over their territory for the title, and the blow off match is at Madison Square Garden.

In Ring Analysis:


Backlund shows the crowd the whip marks on his body to gain sympathy. Slaughter is attacked as he makes his ring intro, and Backlund is all offense as revenge matches usually are for the babyface in the beginning.

The crowd is into the match, and Slaughter's style of selling is all about the theatrics. It's very cartoonish and unrealistic, but that's wrestling in some territories. After Backlund rams Slaughter's head into the ring posts, Slaughter begs off and creates distance between them. He flees to the outside of the ring to stall and kill Backlund's momentum.

Slaughter comes back and takes some more light punches from Backlund. The camera shows that he wasn't making contact on some of them. The WWF stars worked very light back then which I'm sure some guys appreciated. Slaughter bails out of the ring again and stalls for time. These kind of tactics really stretch the match time out, and sometimes builds heat from the crowd.

Slaughter back in and Backlund does more brawling. I like that since this is a grudge feud, that Backlund isn't using mat wrestling or complex moves to deal out punishment. Backlund gets Slaughter to the ground and grinds his boot into his ear which looks really painful.

Backlund hits a series of clotheslines until Slaughter reverses and hit a soft clothesline to gain his first advantage of the match. Slaughter goes for a stun gun, and Backlund pulls up way before his neck would have hit the rope. The announcer, Gorilla Monsoon, sells it as Backlund partially blocked it, but you can tell it didn't connect at all. The WWF/E resolved these kind of problems in the future by quickly cutting away the second impact is supposed to hit. It's quite a brilliant move as the average person never notices that they never actually see impact get made by the move.

Slaughter is in control with some methodical heelish offense. He uses simple kicks and punches, then uses a dreaded rake of the eyes against the ring rope. I always hated moves that like, and Ted Dibiase's fist drop because they were never blocked, hence I felt the babyface was in a hopeless position when he was getting beaten with these maneuvers.

Slaughter loses advantage momentarily when he punches Backlund and he bounces off the turnbuckle to punch him back. Backlund then hits a neckbreaker, but runs into a Slaughter knee in the turnbuckle. Backlund and Slaughter then block vertical suplex attempts against each other until Backlund finally wins and hits it.

Backlund then hits a weak piledriver which Monsoon sells that Slaughter partially blocked. That line I kind of believed because a piledriver used to be a finishing move, but Slaughter is still moving around a little. Backlund gets a near 2 count after struggling to make a cover.

Both men as struggling back to their feet as Slaughter and Backlund botch an Irish whip, but Backlund keeps going as Sarge hits an impressive dropkick. I was a little surprised Slaughter had that one in him. Slaughter hits some shoulders to the stomach of Backlund in the corner. He then whips into the other corner and goes for a huge running shoulder, but Backlund dodges and Slaughter runs into the ringpost.

You can tell Backlund senses victory as he goes to work on the arm to set up his finisher, the crossface chickenwing. Backlund locks it on, but Slaughter grabs the rope. While Slaughter is holding the ropes, his manager, the Grand Wizard, hand Slaughter his riding whip and Slaughter whips Backlund in the head for the DQ finish.


Winner by DQ in 15:52: Bob Backlund **1/4

Slaughter then pushes the referee outside the ring and charges Backlund who backdrops him and grabs the whip. The crowd goes crazy as Backlund picks it up and whips Slaughter until he runs outside the ring.

This match had decent flow for its time, but the camera work was poor as wrestling was a little more accepting of this back then. It's kind of odd that they would claim it was real when some of the moves they were using obviously weren't making contact. Nevertheless, I liked Backlund's style, and thought that while unmemorable it was a good effort by both men.