Skip to main content

Bockwinkel

Hey Scott,

A buddy of mine gave me "The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA" recently and I watched it today. The highlight for me was any time they talked to Nick Bockwinkel. In fact, there's a bunch of extras where he's talking about whatever, and they're the greatest. Nice guy, good storyteller, and from what I could tell, a hell of a wrestler.

What's your opinion of Bockwinkel? His legacy? Where he falls in terms of his place with relation to other all-time greats (e.g. Flair, Lawler, etc)?

​Well, I never really appreciated him growing up, because I was a HUGE Curt Hennig fan and Bockwinkel was this old guy clinging to the AWA World title who I wanted Curt to beat.  Plus by 86 he was way past his prime.  I think I appreciate him more for his stories on WWE DVDs now, because as Bobby Heenan famously said of him "If you ask Nick the time, he'll tell you how to build a watch."  But hey, he's in one of the matches I gave ***** to, so that's not bad.  Other than that, I can't really speak to his legacy, sorry.  ​

Comments

  1. Bockwinkel is, without hyperbole, the most grossly under-acknowledged superstar ever. Great ring psychologist, wrestled a really technical (but believable) style, and is one of the best talkers ever. Understated yet egotistical, like the bastard child of Arn Anderson and Ric Flair, only he came before either. He was the type of guy that was a clear World Champion when that phrase was actually meaningful.

    He was hurt by being born too early and being too loyal to the AWA. Put it this way, that ***** match with Hennig happened when the guy was 52 years old. I think Flair and Michaels are the two best ever, but Flair wasn't having ***** matches at 52 years old (2001) and I don't see HBK knocking out ***** classics when he reaches that age three years from now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I kinda feel bad for guys like Nick- guys whose entire legacy is built around a company that died in the early '90s, and was rendered irrelevant years before THAT. It took him something like 15 years to even be TALKED ABOUT on TV after a certain point, and I definitely never remember him being talked about in the Apter Mags, either. It was like he just vanished off the face of the Earth. At least most of the other AWA guys went elsewhere (Hennig, Martel, Zbyszko).

    ReplyDelete
  3. I dunno, seems to me there's one major aspect of Snuka that Benoit definitely copied.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Could you imagine if Bockwinkel jumped to the NWA earlier? Flair/Bockwinkel/Tully/Arn as 4 horsemen!?! Man.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Agreed. Simply put, you cannot miss something if it never goes away.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Barbara
    Anyone who needs more, I can highly recommend this. I started doing this for 2 yrs and it helped me when I was in depression. I've 2500 in 1 week. Now I have fullfilled my many expectations. I am doing this regularly and I can say it's a great source. You can check it out here just by click on*********************

    -> CLICK* HERE *for *more *informations* <-@3260

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not only was he an all time great wrestler and talker, he's also the best rapper that wrestling has ever had, definitely better than John Cena.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's definitely hardway. I went back and watched it (quality PPV btw) and after the match you can actually see red on the side of the chair.

    Not only did he bust himself on that, he must have done it real good.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Good point there about his burnout. I mean he admits it, that he left WWE because he was completely burned out, absolutely shot, running on fumes. Didn't that come across in his WCW interview? The guy admits he basically can't do this anymore, and they give him free reign to book them into oblivion! Crazy!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Eat a pallet of dicks

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sid was in there too.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Completely agree with all of this.

    Closest modern comparison I can think of is someone like Regal, but with a less idiosyncratic style

    ReplyDelete
  13. Welcome to the club. We have jackets

    ReplyDelete
  14. IN all seriousness I wonder why hockey and soccer players haven't been tested for CTE. You think there would be some instances occurring in both sports

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yeah, but so was Stone Cold and people seemed to get over that pretty quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Too bad Benoit wasn't more of a King Kong Bundy fan.

    ReplyDelete
  17. That's one of the best Chappelle skits of all time.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I must admit I hadn't seen anything from him at all until Jericho stated that he molded his 2008 suited up persona being inspired by Bockwinkel.

    that's when I started to watch promos of him on youtube etc. - and yes, they are great (it's especially interesting for someone like me who didn't start watch wrestling until the beginning of the nineties and always thought of every "80's promo" being in that "hyped up"/exaggerated style).

    ReplyDelete
  19. Jericho's 08-09 run had a lot of Bockwinkle in it

    ReplyDelete
  20. As an old AWA mark from childhood, Bockwinkle is one of my all time favorites and a hell of a wrestler to boot. I don't know if it's on Youtube, but he wrestled a 45-minute draw with Flair in Winnipeg in about 1981 that's awesome. And he always got one of the loudest pops of the night at the monthly AWA shows I attended in Denver in my childhood.

    And his tag team with Ray Stevens was awesome too.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I didn't love that spot.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I was lucky enough to see him earlier than that (late 70s-early 80s, when the AWA was really good), and he was incredible. One of my bigger shocks in my wrestling fandom was watching that AWA set and finding out that Bockwinkel, who I absolutely LOATHED as a mark kid, was apparently a total gentleman, gracious and classy.
    A mentioned above, Bockwinkel has been grossly underappreciated by history. I'd put him up against any of those great NWA champions of the 70s and early 80s (yes, that includes Flair). Any time someone poses a variation of the "What old time wrestler should newer wresters watch to learn from?", he's the first guy who comes to mind.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I'm not saying the dude was a saint I'm just saying I'm at a point where I can respect his work as an athlete. Doesn't mean I think he was humanitarian of the year or anything.

    ReplyDelete
  24. What is the Shiek doing with Reggie Watts at 0:40?

    ReplyDelete
  25. He had acting chops, too: http://youtu.be/GhKV-nigmf4?t=33m50s

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hogan /Bockwinkle from Hogan' first DVD was fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Haha, he and Larry were about the only guys able to stay in rhythm in that video.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anyone in Canada, Fight Network is currently showing Apollo 55 vs. MCMG for the NJPW Junior tag titles. If you're curious about Prince Devitt, Apollo 55 was his face tag team from a couple years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Could you imagine how awesome it would have been if he'd teamed up with a young Dwayne Johnson? I don't think any team could have beaten the combined forces of Rocky & Bockwinkle!

    ReplyDelete
  30. I don't get what's wrong with Disqus..it won't let me upvote 20 times (?)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Hell, he could have teamed up with Dwayne's daddy for the same effect.

    ReplyDelete
  32. And they should have been the ones to interrupt Boris and Natasha (Rusev and Lana)!

    ReplyDelete
  33. He also was the best vocalist on the WrestleRock Rumble by a fair margin.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I would watch...but the remote is ALL the way over there!

    ReplyDelete
  35. Shawn Michaels could. That guy is the greatest ever.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Make that "dicks infected with ebola"

    ReplyDelete
  37. The hour draw with hennig was awesome. Haven't seen that in over 20 years. Looked for it online a while back and couldn't find it. I remember calling right before wm11 that Bret/hbk would steal that same finish which they did. Made perfect sense too since it was awesome. Look forward to watching it on the network in ten years

    ReplyDelete
  38. I only know Bockwinkel from his time as WCW commissioner. Actually, I've never seen any of his matches. Like others have stated, he just lost out to time.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Hold that 10 for Johnny B. BadOctober 19, 2014 at 9:19 AM

    I had never really seen Nick Bockwinkel in his heyday until that AWA dvd, but that doc made me wish they'd put out a Nick Bockwinkel doc so badly. It made it look like he had such a fascinating, entertaining body of work. By far, the strongest impression left on me by the dvd was Bockwinkel. (As an aside, to anyone who hasn't seen it, it's one of their best docs to date. It's up there with the ECW one.)

    ReplyDelete
  40. "Yep Mode" ABeyAnce1©October 19, 2014 at 11:01 AM

    Having been there many times, it is appropriate.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment