JIP. Sounds like this started about 7 or 8 minutes in. Bock punching Martel in the gut off the ropes ruled. Love the early nearfall off the Martel crossbody as the crowd total bout into it. Martel works a sharp armbar, but Bock comes underneath and sinks in a toehold and builds into an STF variation. Martel powering out was really well done and I love how he pops up and Bock takes him right back down and locks on the figure-four. Bock is really great taunting Martel and raising his hand in victory as Martel flails around selling the hold. They sit in the hold for several minutes before Martel gets to the ropes but you don't really mind because they were working it so well, then right after Martel gets to the ropes Bock just stands up and punts him as hard as he can in the ribs. Bock goes for another figure-four but Martel just fires with punches from below and hits a piledriver for a nearfall. Martel goes for a dropkick but Bock holds onto the ropes and Martel crashes and burns. Bock goes into a series of nearfalls that ends with Bock hitting a knee and thinking he wins but Martel's foot is on the rope. He argues with the ref and gets hit with a back suplex with a bridge for the fall even though Bock's foot was on the bottom rope. This is a little over half the match, and I didn't care for Bock's nearfall segment at the end, but I thought the rest of this was really good.

We have this in full on AWA Winnipeg #4

Date of the match is 3/28/85, in Winnipeg.

AWA World Heavyweight Title: Rick Martel © vs. Nick Bockwinkel (3/28/85)

 

I don't think these two could have a bad match against each other and this was just another damn good match between these two. Both men working hard mixing up high impact moves with mat wrestling and I actually liked Bock's nearfall run at the end since he was the challenger. This is a solid nomination.