9 hours ago, Cien Caras said:

With the exception of possibly Hennig and Martel, everyone on that list is better than Boring Ted.

Ted drops the fist on this slander. #Tedforpresident

Nice post, KB8.

I love a lot of the guys on my list, but I can't say that they were substantially better than Ted. Tully is probably the closest comparison since they played similar characters and worked similar styles. It's difficult to split Tully and Ted in my mind. 

Watching the Mid-South stuff again, I love how the matches are 10 minutes long. Ted was really great at working short brawls. I also love his offense. It's simple stuff, but he hits everything with precision. The crowds are rabid as well. You could argue that Ted's not as charismatic as Tully or Flair, but he doesn't waste time begging off. It's straight asskicking with plenty of subtle selling/stooging. 

Dibiase was near the very bottom of my list last time around, so he’s going to be in real danger of falling off with the new “incoming class.” He might have been a bigger victim of Bret’s aborted late 80’s singles push than Bret, since he almost certainly would have been on tap to build him up and they had fantastic chemistry in the ring.

Has any new footage from his early St. Louis days emerged online recently?

All right, so I don't like the DiBiase/Murdoch feud at all. Babyface Ted is boring. Why did they turn him? I do not need babyface Ted DiBiase in my life. Save it for the birds. #YourebetterthanthisTed

The full Houston 1985-12-29 match is really good.

Matt mentioned that new Race NWA title match in the Race thread, and man what a bag of shit that was. Ted was outside my list anyway, but Matt reminding me of that match puts a nail in his coffin.

I had DiBiase at number 73 in 2016 and I feel like I've written enough about him in this thread/on this page. I may vote for him again, I may not vote for him again. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, who can tell what the future holds?

 

TED DIBIASE YOU SHOULD WATCH:

w/Matt Borne v Junkyard Dog & Mr. Olympia (Mid-South, 10/27/82)

v Hacksaw Duggan (Houston, 3/22/85)

v Ric Flair (Mid-South, 11/6/85)

v Dick Murdoch (Houston, 12/27/85)

w/Stan Hansen v Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu (All Japan, 12/12/86)

I am so on the fence with him. I liked his Mid-South/Houston/UWF stuff when he came off as a legit main eventer, possibly future world champ. I loved when he brawled and showed fire. But the NWA top babyface/heel/champions material scene got so crowded in the 1980s that poor solid conservative Ted was left in the dust.

His St. Louis and Japan stuff was like watching paint dry, and his long WWF run was disappointing and paint-by-numbers in ring, it was all about his gimmick/angles/mic work.

I'd rather watch random matches of Jim Duggan or Steve Williams in 2021.

Ted puts Bob Sweetan to bed in the taped fist bout. Great match. #Tedin26. 

Ted took Brad Armstrong to the pay window. #Everybodysgotaprice

I feel like an underrated aspect of Ted when he was really on was his intensity. He has it in spades in the 79 WWF babyface run (see Patterson matches in particular), he has it in his GCW and Mid-South runs and he has it in 1988 WWF and in his best matches in AJPW. This is “input” more than “output” argument but it’s an intangible aspect of his work. 
 

I think it’s fair to say that Ted knew how to phone it in and in his WWF run he increasingly did that: but late Ted phoning it in, even in 1993, is still 10/10 fundamentals. Trouble is that it gets a bit samey. Every 10-minute Ted match starts with him bailing early, spot on the outside where he’s clotheslined from behind, back in and he’s still cut off, round for the atomic drop. Then he starts his heat sequence, typically hits a gut wrench and a vertical suplex as commentary put over his expertise and experience etc, goes to a choke, babyface comeback to finish. That’s pretty much every match. At some point he puts his head down for a backdrop, “that was a cardinal mistake for a pro” and that usually triggers the comeback sequence. If you’re lucky you’ll get both the scoop powerslam and the spot where he misses the ax handle from the second rope and flip over bump or the signature 360 bump — however by 93 he often cuts out these high spots. 
 

I feel like this isn’t remarked on enough, the extent to which Ted insisted on the same tv match over and over effectively means that it doesn’t matter if the opponent is Virgil, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Hogan, Bart Gunn, Beefcake, literally WHOEVER, it’s the same match. That means that the quality of the match is dictated almost solely by whoever he’s against since Ted is just going to do phone-in Ted. Probably tremendous from the point of view of a Booker since phone-in Ted is 10/10 fundamentals but from the point of view of a fan watching back 30 years later it can be a bit dull. The sole exception in WWF really is Savage who somehow made Ted bring his A-game rather than his phone-in game.

 

Ted vs. Jake Roberts is freaking awesome. 1985 was Ted's sweet spot. I'm convinced if they'd worked the same match, move for move, in 1988 WWF it wouldn't have been as good because of the molten Mid-South crowd. #Youwillbebought

There aren't a lot of guys that Savage didn't make bring their A games because you are going to look real dumb taking it easy while Savage is out there like a maniac.