One of the more famous UWF matches, beyond just the delightful curiosity that it is.
Mostly, that has to do with the idea itself.
Bob Backlund comes out of semi-retirement to have his first wrestling match since the middle of 1985, yes, but this is far more about Bob as a symbol than Bob as a man. This is a man who was a dynastic WWF Champion, who in that time, wrestled in Japan a whole lot and beat (sometimes for real and other times by 80s terms) guys like Stan Hansen, Hulk Hogan, Tatsumi Fujinami, and had a famous series with Antonio Inoki. He also is a guy who — although I imagine this was less the text at the time, it does feel like something in retrospect — never rightly lost that title, and then got essentially shoved out of the business in America in favor of the pomp and circumstance that the UWF often feels like a reaction to, along with what the big two in Japan were.
The booking, and the match itself, feels like not only an endorsement of the whole thing on the surface — an accomplished big name former champion (and arguable real world champion) making his return to the UWF rather than anything else — but the exact sort of major opponent that means something for Nobuhiko Takada (at least before the finish of this match) on his way to stay at the top, a month after a big but still somewhat shaky win over Akira Maeda.
It helps that the match is also pretty great.
Not without flaw of course, this is a twenty-five minute Nobuhiko Takada match, so you have to deal with the usual — repetition of holds, occasionally just lying in stuff, and above all, simply not being someone who ever feels worth rooting for in the roles in which he’s cast (if he was a little better, either in presentation or performance, I might steal again and call him an apathetic God-king) — along with a strange finish in which Bob never really seems to give up in a double wristlock in a way that is compelling, but that doesn’t serve the match quite as well as almost any other (clean) finish would have.
With that being said, there’s a ton to like.
Each man, individually, brings something to this. Takada is still flawed and kind of a blank canvas, but when the match gets more serious, he again can amp up the intensity in his movements, and lands some real mean shots. Backlund is the better of the two by far though, and turns in SUCH a lovely performance. Part of it is him in these new surroundings and the joy of some of his anachronistic offense working through force of will and sheer talent, but he’s better than anyone in the UWF to date (Fujiwara hasn’t jumped yet, relax) at getting a lot out of the quieter moments. Every hold is treated like a struggle by Backlund, no matter which end of it he’s on, and he’s so great at selling effects of the match at large in a way that really only Yamazaki has ever tried to do up to this point. They’re small things, but they make every moment feel more vital, which is something a lot of matches have struggled with to this point.
The thing that does the most for this match though is simply the natural contrast between the ways in which they wrestle, which has a way of elevating everything they do that’s already good, and making it more interesting.
Backlund and Takada do not have a full on Different Style Fight here, but outside of that, it feels like the most different clash the reborn UWF has run so far. Backlund is a pure ass wrestler, not even trying to throw kicks to keep up like Norman Smiley has learned to, but simply interested in throws and holds, only occasionally throwing some very non-UWF style elbow smashes when things get rough. Without making it all that much of a deal for the majority of the match, there’s always a battle over the way the match is fought that makes it all feel like more of a struggle. Beyond the obvious, Bob Backlund also wrestles in a different way. He not only use different holds, leaning more pro-style in ways like getting a rope break off of a Camel Clutch, but also does things that are very American pro-style that create a tension that does a lot for this. Takada lets go of the short arm scissors before Bob can do his usual thing, yes, but it’s also way more about the rougher way things go, physically speaking in the last moments, with Takada not selling a lot of the old-style elbow attacks, or the way Backlund reacts to the kicks at the end of the match.
It’s never a match that felt phony, but in these moments in the final minutes, it steps up from feeling like a competition to feeling like a fight, and there is a significant difference.
Things unfortunately get a little strange in the end, as Takada reacts to Bob being less cooperative taking the kicks by going into a double wristlock (aka Kimura), and the referee calls it in what shows up on screen as a TKO, despite Backlund getting right up and arguing over the call.
In there, there’s a morsel of something I like.
Real violence escalating with Takada grabbing a legitimate hold and the referee arguably stopping it for his own good isn’t the worst idea, as a worked shoot to I guess keep Backlund strong in the loss, but it also sort of falls apart when you think about it. If this is suddenly now real, what was the rest of that? If this is suddenly real, what’s the rest of the UWF, presented in so many different ways as The Real Thing? Takada looks a little better for shooting with Backlund and the referee having to stop it for Backlund’s sake, I suppose, but that’s at least a little undercut by Bob actually being fine, and mostly (admittedly, I am biased as a hater), because the uncooperative moments weren’t THAT much different from everything else, it kind of just feels like Backlund got screwed out of a big match in December yet again, but now much more obviously. Nobuhiko Takada leaves the match, somehow, both feeling like he’s gained something, but also managing to also kind of feel like, at worst a fraud, and at best, someone given an unfairly favorable whistle by a referee employed by a promotion that benefits a whole lot from him winning this match.
Were the goal here to create a golden boy villain who gets favors from referees when nobody else does, it would be a work of genius and the greatest UWF move yet towards small things that feel like real sports, but I’m almost positive that wasn’t the case, and it all feels far more muddled than that.
Still, it’s a real fun match with tons of cool stuff before that.
Bob and Nobuhiko (Lil Nobu) have one of the more interesting matches of the time, with the fact that it also happens to be a great one just kind of being a fun little bonus on top.
HANDWERK 