September 20, 201411 yr comment_5626790 He'll be on my list for sure. One of the best big men ever. For as much praise as Bigelow got, Blackwell was better in basically every way. His match with Lawler in 1981 is one of my favorite Lawler matches ever and it's because of Blackwell's performance.
September 20, 201411 yr comment_5626811 I think if we had more Blackwell footage he'd have a reasonable shot of rating ahead of Vader for me on the big man category. As it stands it would be hard to do, but it's worth noting that even the few throwaway studio and arena matches of his we have from the 70's are either really good or really fun, with him doing a lot of different stuff than what we saw just a few years later. Probably the craziest bumper of all time if you adjust for weight/body type. Great brawler, very good highspots for a guy his size, really good selling, equally good as both a face and a heel, and really great about timing and building to big spots and moments over the course of a match. I would put his best stuff from the AWA set (plus the Mulligan match from MACW, the Lawler match from Memphis and the Butch Reed match from St. Louis t.v.) up against the best stuff from any second tier guy in the 80's. Hard to say where he will rate, but he'll rate.
September 20, 201411 yr comment_5627005 He basically dominated that Lawler match, so I think he knew when to dominate and when to feed.
September 21, 201411 yr comment_5627409 Lower half of the ballot but the AWA DVDVR set absolutely helped his cause.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627414 I have to admit the number of people whose opinion I respect from my short time here who are giving Blackwell so much love legitimately shocks me. By no means am I saying he was awful or even bad, I thought he was fine for a guy as big as he was, and surprisingly athletic, but ahead of Vader? I've seen plenty of Blackwell, and he never struck me as being at THAT level. I've got me some remedial watching to do.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627429 What have you seen? I can request matches to help fill in gaps
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627433 Specifics would be hard....I watched a fair bit of AWA a while ago, and haven't felt the need to search him out specifically since. I seem to remember some matches as Sheik Blackwell with Adnan as his manager, and some tags with Patera. Feel free to suggest anything.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627457 Just speaking for myself: King Tonga, Masked Superstar, and Sheik Adnan Kaissey vs. Crusher Blackwell and Sgt. Slaughter (Cage Match) (4/21/85) My rating: ****3/4 / A Da Crusher and Greg Gagne vs. Crusher Blackwell and Sheik Adnan Kaissey (Cage Match) (3/25/84) My rating: ****1/2 / A- Stan Hansen vs. Crusher Blackwell (6/28/86) My rating: ****1/2 / A- Crusher Blackwell & Ken Patera vs. High Flyers (11/24/83) My rating: **** / B+ Crusher Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Kaissey vs. Baron Von Raschke & Mad Dog Vachon (Taped Fist Match) (3/13/83) My rating: **** / B+ Crusher Blackwell vs. Mad Dog Vachon (Algerian Death Match) (5/22/83) My rating: **** / B+ Col. Debeers vs. Jerry Blackwell (Ladder Match) (11/27/86) My rating: **** / B+
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627471 What have you seen? I can request matches to help fill in gaps Not much here. How about 5 average/good and 1-2 greats to start with?
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627477 Parv hit many of the highpoints. If the Mulligan MACW match is on youtube, I'd encourage you to watch that. Also the aforementioned matches with Reed and Lawler should be on youtube. I would also encourage people to watch his bodyslam match with Bravo on Youtube and the random match he had with Kevin Kelly in 86 after he had nothing but schtick left which I think is a good example of carrying a total guy with bullshit.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627485 Sounds good. With the holidays this week I will essentially have the afternoons on Thursday & Friday to watch a lot of stuff. Hopefully get to these, a little more Billy Robinson and start on someone else then as well.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627638 Vader was fat and muscular. Blackwell looked like the girl who got turned into a blueberry in Willy Wonka as a hillbilly. And proceeded to be a fucking amazing wrestler, and better than Vader in my humble opinion.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627654 If you can find it, Blackwell's AWA debut in St. Paul at the arena from January of 1980 against Ron Ritchie is a wonderful example of Blackwell in Crush! Stomp! Destroy! mode. He had the crowd wanting him dead almost right away. It might have been his second Minneapolis arena match but this was the first one that made video.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627658 Basically, whenever you got Blackwell in a cage, great things happened.
September 22, 201411 yr comment_5627782 Is that Blackwell/Lawler match the 10 minute one that was on the Memphis set or something else?
November 13, 201410 yr comment_5639567 Kinda like the mix between a short One Man Gang and a proto-Mick Foley (those bumps as a heel). So yeah, really good worker. Although he had the very annoying habit as a babyface of doing no-sell hulk up/lawler up comebacks, which always suck no matter who you are. So I prefer him as a heel. Better than Bigelow, no doubt. Vader ? Nah. Col. Debeers vs. Jerry Blackwell (Ladder Match) (11/27/86) My rating: **** / B+ Decent match. Nothing special at all. It's Blackwell, a ladder and a tool. Granted, that tool took one nice bump at the end, but he really doesn't bring shit in term of anything else, really. DeBeers is like Jimmy Golden with an offensive gimmick.
November 13, 201410 yr comment_5639619 Col. Debeers vs. Jerry Blackwell (Ladder Match) (11/27/86) My rating: **** / B+ Decent match. Nothing special at all. It's Blackwell, a ladder and a tool. Granted, that tool took one nice bump at the end, but he really doesn't bring shit in term of anything else, really. DeBeers is like Jimmy Golden with an offensive gimmick. He's a really good worker then?
January 20, 201510 yr comment_5650172 I think if we had more Blackwell footage he'd have a reasonable shot of rating ahead of Vader for me on the big man category. Well man. He'd be ahead on my list. Of course it wouldn't be fair for me to make that statement and then not re-watch. Which I will do. I saw the guy though and he was great.
August 26, 201510 yr comment_5694924 Blackwell is so damn good. Been watching some of his stuff over the past month that has popped up...somewhere..and I would have a hard time NOT placing him in a top 3 of "big man" wrestlers of all time. Yokozuna was great at the whole "weeble wobble" selling before finally going down but I think Blackwell is the absolute master of it. He's able to look both totally dominant and vulnerable in a very short time span in a match. Pretty damn good as a promo too although that doesn't count for this.
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