Buddy Rose in 1979

[Matt D]

As background, over at PWO I've been writing up all of the Buddy Rose matches that have been posted lately, chronologically, on youtube. Having made it through the 1979 offerings (of which there are around 25 I think), I wrote a couple thousand words about my thoughts on his year in general, from the Saturday Portland Sports Arena TV shows that we have. I'm crossposting it here.

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Now that I've finished the available matches for 1979, i wanted to double back and talk about Buddy's year before moving on. I've gone over this before, but, to me, to really judge and analyze and understand a wrestler, you have to look at an entire body of work. You learn something different in a five minute squash than you do in a sixty minute broadway. You learn something different in a tag match than a singles. You learn something different seeing the wrestler against a smaller opponent than a larger. You learn something different in a gimmicked blood match than a more straightforward title matches.

 

The range of output we have from Buddy Rose in 79 is amazing. He has all those things and more. He has 2/3 falls matches, tag matches with two main partners of wildly varying experience and style, six man tags, squashes vs JTTS, blood feuds, gimmick matches, hair matches, and a ton of promos to go along with them. It's staggering the variation in the twenty-five or so matches I saw and wrote about. Even more staggering is that these are just the Saturday shows. So many of his actual blow-off matches were in Portland on Tuesday and as far as I'm aware we don't have those.

 

Portland television is a lot like Memphis as went through the same loop every week as well as having frequent Tuesday night arena shows. They weren't every week but were often three times a month when things were hot, which they were in 79. Also, like Memphis, they had to utilize a lot of the same talent to fill the same buildings every week. The big difference is that the Portland Saturday show was also in the main (promoter-owned) arena, and they make the claim that the sponsors demanded high-level matches, which may be kayfabed and may be not, but it means that there were lengthy, high-end matches, quite often with real finishes every week. The other big difference, of course was one of style: Portland had a ton of 2/3 fall matches. I love Memphis TV but you didn't often get long meaningful matches on it. That was for the Monday night MSC shows. 

 

People judge wrestlers and matches differently. One thing that is very important to me is to try to figure out what a wrestler is trying to accomplish or achieve in a match and to see if they manage it or not, and how they do so. Buddy, in my opinion, had to accomplish two major things. 1) First and foremost he had to draw people to the Tuesday show and the weekly loop of shows. Whatever happened on Saturday had to incite the fans to spend their money on Tuesday (when applicable) and throughout the rest of the week. Since Owen owned the arena, being able to promote as many well-drawing Tuesday shows as possible was a huge deal moneywise. 2) It was also important people both attended and tuned into the Saturday night show, so while leaving the fans wanting more was important, giving them something substantial, their money and time's worth, was also essential. Moreover, he had to manage this while keeping things fresh and interesting despite the fact they were building to weekly live shows in front of the same audience and all of this had to be done with what I understand to be one of the least star-studded rosters in all the territories. Portland was considered a starting point and did not draw in most of the biggest names on a regular basis.

 

On top of that, the 2/3 falls matches were something of a duel-edged sword. they allowed for all sorts of different structural experimentation and storytelling possibilities and ensured that the matches would be meatier and longer than in other territories on a weekly basis, but they also forced Buddy and friends to come up with an extra two finishes a night, basically, maybe even more considering that they were running in front of the same crowd twice a week most weeks. It meant pulling out every trick in the book and inventing a number more on top of that. Combined with the fact they really wanted to draw people in for the Saturday night show, they couldn't run the constant-match ending brawling breakdowns that were such a staple of Memphis TV.

 

I'll admit that I'm judging what I've seen from concept and performance levels alone. I don't have attendance or rating figures before me. A lot of what I'm judging on is whether I thought something was well done or if it SHOULD have worked. I think there's every sign that it did work. The Portland show was absurdly highly rated and, dealing with one of its biggest challenges in years in 79, being forced to move to late night, still stayed highly rated. I think attendance was good. I'm going to focus on the in-ring though.

 

In short, I think Buddy Rose had an amazing 1979, that he wrestled in numerous different situations, almost all successfully, that he made himself look credible as a heel ace while still showing a ton of ass and making his opponents, big and small, star and undercard guy look exactly as good as they needed to look. He had incredible timing, not just in executing the moves or exchanges in his matches but in knowing when to stall and when to go and knowing when to sell and when to take, and most of all, he was able to give fans more than their money's worth while still making them want more. Very few wrestlers get put in a position where they have so difficult a role to play but also have the time and the means to prove themselves in it. Buddy was in the position and he succeeded magnificently. 

 

It's me writing this, so we're going to lead with structure. He didn't wrestle the same match twice in the ones we have. More than that, he barely, if at all, wrestled the same segment of a match twice. The two-three falls are all broken up by fall on youtube. and the times for the falls in various matches are wildly different. More importantly, just about everything is really logical and well-set up. He often uses the 2/3 falls medium to set up something in fall #1 that gets paid off in fall #3 either in a transition or in a finish, which makes a lot of his matches almost poetic in their storytelling. Most of his offensive flurries are body-part related and it's not always the same body part either, even if most often he works over the back, logically, to set up his finisher.

 

I think the most impressive thing Buddy does, past the sheer amount of logical variation, is his ability to be a chickenshit heel that gives a huge amount while still being completely and utterly credible as an ace. At the beginning of the year and really throughout, he was still able to live off of his crippler gimmick. He could hone in on a body part and within three or four minutes believably take a pin in a fall. It was believable no matter who he was facing, jobber Jim Gagne or former WWF champion, Stan Stasiak. At the same time, he could spend a whole fall running from the Heart Punch or trying to avoid being in the ring at the same time as Roddy Piper in a tag match. He could take a powder after getting punched in the face or do one of his elaborate matwork/holds openings where he kept getting shown up by the babyface no matter what level of escalation he tried. He could do any of this stuff and he did, but at a moment's notice he'd be able to underhandedly or even legitimately take over and the fans would buy it completely. There aren't many guys in the history of wrestling that could manage that so believably and so well, and they're the guys who often come up when discussing the GOAT.

 

There's such a community feel to Portland whether it's plugging referee Sandy Barr's flea market or pointing out a local newscaster's brother in the crowd. When the time change happened, these people went home and watched the show again so that they could see themselves on TV. It was that sort of community. They knew Buddy and Buddy knew them. He was great at knowing when to stop the action to acknowledge them, when to jaw with Barr for a while or let Barr get one over on him by reversing a hair pull or to use Dutch Savage or Down Owen in their role as management as a prop, even in the middle of a match.. He knew when to argue with the ever-present granny in the front row. He knew when to swarm an opponent from the outside in a tag match. He knew when to beg off. He knew when to take a powder and he knew when to hide in the ropes. He knew when to bring in humor and to make himself look bufoonish and when to bring the intensity and make the crowd yell for his blood. He just had a great sense of what the people would react to and when to pull it out of his arsenal and he varied it. You wouldn't often see him stall in the same way for the same reason two matches in a row. 

 

All that stalling and jawing and what not didn't mean he couldn't go. He has great opening stretches in his matches, able to keep up with anyone they brought in. He has that really entertaining shtick where he gets outwrestled which shined brightest against guys who could really work holds like Johnny Eagles, but that he was able to utilize to make greener guys look a lot more interesting too. He has not just varied and believable offense but a lot of innovative offense too. I know that's not a high selling point in most situations but I think when you're in front of the same crowd so much it is important. He and Wiskowski had a crippling second rope kneedrop/backbreaker combo that was years before its time. I asked Dave Meltzer about it in an e-mail and he said he couldn't remember anyone doing that sort of thing before then. The Billy Robinson backbreaker is a great finisher for not just the time but any time. More than that, he has these finishing segments, especially in big matches where there are not just finisher teases that are again ahead of their time, but where he even occasionally tries to steal his opponents finisher as a FU, almost always leading to his comeuppance. 

 

Most of all, he was able to deliver on what he had to do. He would work elements into his matches that foreshadowed or forced the upcoming gimmick blowoff, but he would use these elements in logical ways that were absolutely organic parts of the action. Yes, it was him keeping away from the person he'd be wrestling in a tag match and teasing the crowd with it or getting over an opponent's finisher in a tag match as something that could finally be the thing to vanquish him in a singles match. It was more than that, though. He would give the fans just as much as they needed to get riled, would give the babyface just as much as he needed to really seem believable as an opponent, would attack in the right sort of underhanded manner to inflame the passions of both for the match to come. Some of it was absolutely the booking, but that Buddy was able to work these forward-looking stories into his matches through his work itself was really the sign of being a master of his craft.

 

So just how good was Buddy in 1979? He was good enough that, based on what we have from TV, I can't think of a wrestler that had a more complete year in the role of a television ace. Some of that is the selection of what we have and the opportunities he was given, but when you take a look at what we DON'T have: the big blowoff matches where he would be given even more of an opportunity to shine, it makes it all the more astounding the sheer talent, expertise and pro wrestling quality we can see in him in what we do.