Bob Backlund - The Forgotten Face of the WWE?

And even then, it wasn't so much his doing as it was Owen Hart's doing. The gimmick was that the manager had to throw in their wrestler's towel when they thought they couldn't go on anymore, and Bret Hart had Bob Backlund tapping out, but Owen refused to throw in the towel, and then tricked

As someone who got into professional wrestling long after Bob Backlund's glory days were over, I think it's safe to say yes. The only reason I have heard about Backlund is because of his most recent Title Reign that lasted all of 3 days and ended in an 8 second match. In fact, the only reason I know about THAT is because I just happened to be watching Survivor Series 94, and that's the night he beat Bret Hart for it.

And even then, it wasn't so much his doing as it was Owen Hart's doing. The gimmick was that the manager had to throw in their wrestler's towel when they thought they couldn't go on anymore, and Bret Hart had Bob Backlund tapping out, but Owen refused to throw in the towel, and then tricked his parents into throwing in Bret's towel. Backlund won the championship to further the feud between Owen and Bret, and he would drop the belts 3 days later to Diesel who won the match in 8 seconds.

And as a general wrestling fan, one that tries to learn as much as he can about the industry, I'm sad to say he sort of falls through the cracks of time. When you hear and learn about the old WWWF days you talk about Bruno Sammartino, Billy Graham, Pedro Morales, and Andre the Giant. For whatever reason Backlund slips through the cracks.

Now I am no student of old school wrestling, so guys like KB, X, and Lariat would probably be able to give a more accurate reason for why Backlund is a forgotten face or not, but I figured it would be interesting to get insight from a guy in my position, who was not alive for the days of Bob Backlund but has done research about him, has seen some of his matches, and has a halfway decent grasp on the days of the WWWF.

ncG1vNJzZmien6fCrr%2BNsKmeq6Shsru7zZ5lnKedZMGpvsSam6xnkqSvbq7AnKKlrZ6ZerW0xGadqKqXpMG1sc1mnZqblWK8p3nToZxmr6eae3KAmG9ucGc%3D

 Share!