Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

WRESTLER OF THE DAY: RAY TRAYLOR

RIPPA

By RIPPA
in ...OF THE DAY

 Share

Recommended Posts

RIPPA

RIPPA

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Bossman showed up in so many other guys WOTD threads that I was convinced I had actually done him before - but I looked three times and nope.

 

Plus - when amongst birthday's yesterday I wasn't doing The Rock and I am saving Mr. Pogo

Link to comment
Share on other sites
piranesi

piranesi

Posted
Posted

I had a Bossman action figure installed on the dashboard of my first car.  It was the only wrestling figure I've ever purchased.

 

The car (1981 Datsun 210...I owned it c. 1990) was barely as big as Bossman himself and was roughly the same blue color as his uniform.  It was like riding inside Bossman ID with little Bossman Ego telling me where to go. I've never felt so well-guided in life.

 

I miss them both.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Matt D

Matt D

Posted
Posted
 

Big Boss Man vs. Jake Roberts, Tokyo 4/13/90 Hadn't seen this before. I really liked the opening stuff. Both guys were doing great little things to keep the advantage: Boss Man's gut punch, Jake's rushing Arm Hanger while Boss Man was jawing with the crowd. I like how he reacted to the early DDT attempt by going to town on Jake's hair, pissed off, and also the bump he took out of the ropes. I actually thought it was a fun character based way to do that sort of an opening segment without making it just chain wrestling or shtick. It ends on a big move and then Boss Man takes over with some really intense back work, ref and fan interaction, and a lot of gritty offense in general. Little things like how he'd grind the knee into the back after the backbreaker while whipping jake about like a ragdoll. Likewise with the bearhug. It's one of the only times I've ever seen a bearhug that was used mainly to damage the opponent and not wear him down or go for a submission. I'm not sure the chinlock was the right thing to do for this match, but it was relatively brief and both guys really worked it. I think it was mainly for calling spots anyway as Bossman came right back with the beautiful running sledge to the back, the slam, and then right into the huge transition bump. I like how for the first ten minutes of the match Jake's two big moves were ambush yanks upon the arm and how the second one sort of set up the short arm clothesline. It makes sense he didn't go right for the DDT after that like usual since it's basically the entirety of the offense he hit in the match. Pretty fun back and forth finishing sequence for the match. I would have liked to see the back work pay off a bit more, maybe as a final transition tease instead of the reversal on the knee lift. I think your initial feelings were more accurate though. This was very good. I also thought it was full of a lot of character work between Jake doing sneak attacks and slithering around the ring in his selling post-bearhug and Boss Man basically being Boss Man, even if there was no program.

 

 

Obviously, the matches from his prime are the ones to watch, but I did look at a lot of his second WWF/E run recently, if only to show Parv that he was probably better than Dibiase in the WWF, or at least that this shouldn't be immediately dismissed.

 

 
 

Big Boss Man vs Test SmackDown 1/4/00
Official WWEFanNation youtube site link: 



One problem with looking at matches from Boss Man's matches from his comeback is that the matches were so damn short back then. This went about four minutes. It was set up after two big encounters with Albert and Boss Man that Steph and Hunter put Test in and the main story was Boss Man working over Test's broken nose.

There's a lot you can see from this though. Boss Man had great nose-based offense. Lots of varied stuff including nasty knees and punches, dropping him on the barricade, a mugging sort of rear-noselock. He had smart cut-offs of hope spots, including a backelbow and boot in the corner to the nose. He ate Test's offense really well, especially his crappy strikes and died amazingly on a big boot. He was great jawing to the fans early on and was really good at giving his offense room to breathe. His timing on his cut offs/eating Test's hope spots were really good.

Obviously this isn't going to be a GREAT MATCH or anything (it's four minutes long) but everything Boss Man had to do here, I think he did well. I even think he did a very good job of getting stuff in those four minutes effectively.

I also saw a nothing two minute Metal Saturn vs Boss Man match from 02 and he was definitely not in as good shape. His punches were still great. His selling of Saturn's punches were great, but he was sluggish down to his gear which was his black swat shirt with khaki pants. After hitting a big boot he raises his hands and shouts "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" which was pretty awesome.
 

 

Big Boss Man vs the Hurricane Metal 02/02/02 Now this is a fun sub 3-min match. These things do exist. It's worked very smartly. Tons of shtick from both guys. Hurricane starts out with the handshake and Boss Man takes his hand. They share a thumbs up and Boss Man pulls him in and intimidates him. Hurricane tries for a slam but gets clubbered for his trouble. Boss Man taunts Molly outside. Hurricane tries offense. Boss Man overpowers him. His strikes again look good. Hurricane goes for the chokeslam. Boss Man chokes him instead. Does the "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD" thing again. Ref breaks it. Molly hits a missile dropkick. Boss Man sells it exactly as much as he should, chases Molly around, runs back in. Hurricane briefly takes over, hits a big move or two, including the big body slam, and then Boss Man hits the Boss Man Slam out of nowhere with a huge hook of the leg and that's the match. They managed to set up things early in the match (the bodyslam attempt, Boss Man's taunting of Molly) that paid off later on. It was very believable with Boss Man giving just about as much as he should have for Helms. Again, it's not a great match in the time limitation, BUT if you can come up with a better sub-3 minute big man/little man match I'd love to see it.

 

 

And here's what OJ said about Bossman vs Dibiase Output in WWF:

 

 

I'm getting there. I will wrap up Boss Man tomorrow, watch a bit more Dibiase and formulate my opinions all before lunch.


I finished off my Boss Man viewing with matches against Duggan, Hercules, Patera and Razor Ramon. Only the 1990 Royal Rumble match against Duggan was anything of note, though the first Hercules match was pretty decent for its length. The Duggan match was shocking good for a Duggan match, though it had its weaknesses. Now onto the comparison:

When Matt first dropped the idea that Boss Man was better in the WWF than Dibiase my gut reaction was that Dibiase was the better pure worker and that the only way Boss Man could have been better was if he'd done more with less or put together generic match structures or some other backhanded compliment like that, but the more I watched the more I swayed in Boss Man's favour. I have quite a few caveats, however:

* Neither man had a tremendously high number of good matches. That's good matches by my definition, which others have said is stricter than most people, but personally I don't consider "good for what it was" or "smart work" to be enough when judging matches. The fact there weren't a tremendous amount of good matches from either men isn't a surprise since it was the same conclusion I came to with Tito Santana and is indicative of WWF wrestling more than anything else. Overall, I thought both men were equal when it came to high-end matches, memorable angles and feuds, as well as promo ability.

* Boss Man had the advantage of having strong heel and face runs. It's to his credit that he was an even better face than he was a heel, but Dibiase didn't have the opportunity to show off the same range of skills.

* From my point of view, a good big man is more interesting than a good hand. That's just a personal bias.

* Dibiase was always saddled with a body guard or manager. I got really sick of seeing the same spots with Virgil and Sherri. Boss Man had a bit of schtick with Slick during his initial heel run, but his original gimmick with the cuffs and nightstick was often so surprising in its brutality that Slick was quickly forgotten and of course as a face he went it alone.

* Dibiase vs. Savage is *probably* a higher high point than anything Boss Man did. I say "probably" because I didn't want to revisit those Boss Man/Hogan matches, which did very little for me when I watched every single one of them during my recent Hogan phase.

What swayed me in Boss Man's favour was the fact that despite the limitations of the WWF format, I thought he gave better performances than Dibiase. Early on in his run, I felt he tried harder to adapt to each match situation, whether it was against a jobber, a JTTS, a mid card worker, a tag match or his program against Hogan. You got the feeling that he tried to make each match unique or as memorable as possible given the various constraints. Dibiase was more about getting his gimmick over, which was okay but there was a lot of repeated pre-match mic work, stooging, bumping and selling and schtick. Boss Man tended to sell in a more realistic way than Dibiase, though again he had the advantage of working face, and there wasn't the same problems with the lack of a middle to his matches. Dibiase had the better execution and sometimes Boss Man looked a bit ungainly, but Boss Man wrestled "in character" better both as a heel and face. It helped that he was a big man with big man offence and the odd surprise move, but Dibiase didn't bust out his offence enough despite having a sweet moveset. On the other hand, slow Boss Man matches with too much selling tended to be worse than bad Dibiase matches with too much stooging, nevertheless I would still take Boss Man over Dibiase at this point for general output.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jingus

Jingus

Posted
Posted

What I remember about Bossman is him taking a goddamn superduperplex off the top of a cage when he was working with Hogan.  And according to house show lore, he was doing that bump EVERY NIGHT.  He was an astonishing bumper.  Cornette said he originally got hired because he got up so well for Tully Blanchard's slingshot suplex on a TV squash match.  

 

His offense wasn't quite as good, though.  He wasn't terrible, but he was one of those guys who never managed to get any real big moves that really looked devastating.  But I don't say that to badmouth him; fellas from Goldust to Sgt. Slaughter have occasionally struggled with the same problem, simply being better at taking a beating than giving one.  

 

The booking of his career, though... man, poor Ray was right up there with Kane in terms of the ridiculous bullshit they just KEPT forcing upon him year after year.  Some people might have thought that Pepper or Big Show's dad were funny, but I just found it distasteful and tacky.  What works on South Park doesn't necessarily work in wrestling.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Goodear

Goodear

Posted
Posted

Oh man that superplex was still to this day the most bonkers thing I have ever seen.  This was Ray at his fattest, widest load and the impact on the thing was amazing.  They then followed that up with Ray eating Big Blue from one side of the ring to the other while blood seemed to be pouring out of his head.  While it seems most people prefer the fencing in cages, the blue bars looked like hell to get thrown into... like red hot death.  I also don't think there is anything prettier in this world than Bossman getting powerslammed by John Tenta and the resulting spasms.

 

I have to admit I found Bossman changing from regular wrestling heel to outright comic book super jerk somewhat compelling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tystates

tystates

Posted
Posted

After seeing this thread I made this comp:

 

BIG BUBBA ROGERS in ALL JAPAN

 

Volume 1
Running Time: 2:04

 

3/26/88 Bubba Rogers, Bruiser Brody vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, John Tenta
3/27/88 Bubba Rogers vs. Shunji Takano
4/4/88 Bubba Rogers, Tom Magee vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Tiger Mask
4/15/88 Bubba Rogers, Jimmy Snuka vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Yoshiaki Yatsu
4/19/88 Bubba Rogers, Jimmy Snuka vs. Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara
4/22/88 Bubba Rogers vs. Jumbo Tsuruta
7/2/93 Bubba Rogers vs. Mighty Inoue
7/9/93 Bubba Rogers, Stan Hansen vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi
7/12/93 Bubba Rogers, Kendall Windham vs. Stan Hansen, Johnny Ace
7/29/93 Bubba Rogers vs. Akira Taue
7/28/93 Bubba Rogers, Stan Hansen, Johnny Ace vs. Steve Williams, Terry Gordy, Richard Slinger
10/2/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams, Richard Slinger vs. Stan Hansen, Ted Dibiase, Dan Spivey

 

Volume 2
Running Time: 2:06

 

9/29/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams, Richard Slinger vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Jun Akiyama
10/14/93 Bubba Rogers vs. Kenta Kobashi
10/17/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams, Richard Slinger vs. Stan Hansen, Ted Dibiase, Kendall Windham
11/13/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams vs. The Patriot, The Eagle (Real World Tag League)
11/17/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams, Richard Slinger vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Jun Akiyama
11/24/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi (Real World Tag League)
11/30/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams vs. Dan Spivey, Johnny Ace (Real World Tag League)
12/1/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue (Real World Tag League)
12/3/93 Bubba Rogers, Steve Williams vs. Shoehi Baba, Stan Hansen (Real World Tag League)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Biz Smarkie

Biz Smarkie

Posted
Posted

A little off topic, but who the heck is Richard Slinger and why does he have the best pro wres name I had never heard before?

 

Back on topic, Bossman was always one of my favorite dudes to watch growing up. I loved most of spots, especially the slide to the outside/punch to the face combo thing. He was one of my favorite babyfaces as a kid, and one of my absolute favorites as a heel during the attitude era. He easily was the best midcard act they had going for a while, even in 99 when he did all that stuff with Big Show/Al Snow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jingus

Jingus

Posted
Posted

Another fond memory: during Kurt Angle's first feud with Big Show, I remember a backstage bit where he went up to Bossman and Buchanan.  

Angle: "Hey, I need someone to help me and run in on my match with the Big Show.  You guys don't like the Big Show, do you?"

Bossman: (goes into an unbelievable rant I won't even try to paraphrase, describing the events of stealing the daddy's coffin)

Angle: (stoneface, glazed eyes) "...riiiiiiight."

 

 

 

4/4/88 Bubba Rogers, Tom Magee vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Tiger Mask

...I must see this.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
J.T.

J.T.

Posted
Posted

Dear Jesus, but I remember the first time when Traylor started murdering the shit out of a jobber with that side slam finisher.

 

We were all like WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED????

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Brian Fowler

Brian Fowler

Posted
Posted

Man, the Vader matches from WCW are some of the most fucking amazing things you can see.  Just two huge, shockingly athletic guys beating the hell out of each other for 15 minutes a clip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...