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WWF Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen - WWF 4/6/81

 

Two sentence I did not think I would ever write: I saw Stan Hansen's ass & Stan Hansen needed more offense. Even with that complaint, I thought this was the best match these two have ever had together. I am a huge fan of both and it is disappointing that they never really hit out of the park, but this was great. It was an all out fight. Because they went for that fight there was not much selling, which I think makes sense, but then there were times when a pro wrestling sell became overselling because they were going for that fight feel. Backlund is rocking this whole match. His punches looked great. Hansen took a bunch of cage shots. Lots of energy. Stuff like Hansen ballshotting Backlund and Backlund being back on offense soon after or Backlund ballshotting Hansen and Hansen bodyslamming Backlund soon after was a bit off putting. What I liked was there was no downtime. I thought it was cool there was no shine, no heat, no finish. It was just a fight. You will not find a bigger defender of the shine->heat->comeback->finish formula, but I think deviations like this are necessary. It was just two big strong dudes just to beat the shit out of each other. Hansen gets color and Backlund works over the cut. Good drama getting out the door and over the cage. Hansen takes two big bumps off the top rope. Backlund emphatically exits through the door to a MASSIVE pop. Unique take on pro wrestling, good energy, Hansen getting some more offense and smarter selling would have improved this, but definitely a match worth seeing and you really don't have to watch the other ones. ****

It takes a while for Backlund to come out, Hansen is in the ring losing his mind, ready to go.  Backlund enters and we are on!  Brawl to start, Backlund hits a piledriver a few minutes in and tries to climb out.  He leaves his back to Hansen and suffers a huge low blow.  Hansen immediately misses an elbow and Backlund is right back in control.  He throws Hansen into the cage repeatedly, busting him open.  Hansen tries to climb out, Backlund pulls him down and Hansen's head bounces off the buckle.  Backlund is able to walk out of the cage and straight to the back.  The crowd goes wild and Hansen screaming bloody murder in the cage.  Hansen got surprisingly little offense in, he couldn't string more then four moves together without Backlund getting control again.  The way Hansen was still standing in the ring post match, I thought maybe they were leaving things open for a "Last Man Standing" type match but it looks like this was the blow off.

This was a good match, but also the definitive proof that these two have a low ceiling together as a pairing; each one of their matches has been decent, but they have always lacked "it" and this wasn't any different. I liked the fact that they kept this short and that there weren't slow moments, they relied on their aggression to fit their styles and make their punches the best part of the matches. Hansen took a couple of good bumps and Backlund used one of them to leave the cage and win, even though the challenger didn't seem that hurt and the finish felt quite flat due to that
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