by Bob Backlund
I could do this. I could be the people’s champion. I would find a way to earn their respect, and their admiration, and make them want to come out and cheer me on.
The day after the Garden show, we went to Pennsylvania for the television tapings. We’d get there at around eleven in the morning and the ring would already be set up there in the empty fieldhouse and the guys would have lunch and sit around playing cards or reading or goofing around with each other while we shot promos for the local house shows all afternoon. Since this was my first TV with the belt, I was now in all the main events, and for the first time since I had come to the territory, I was involved in most of the promos.
It was my first real exposure to talking a lot on camera, and it just wasn’t my strength. I was a pretty shy, and I certainly never professed to have the ability like Graham or Dusty to talk people into the seats. So figuring out what to say, and how to say it convincingly without seeming totally awkward, was a challenge. I decided to handle these promos as if I was talking about preparing for one of my amateur matches—and to just carry that straightforward, plain-talking style through. It was a choice made from a combination of fear and necessity, but I actually think it worked out okay and gave my matches an additional air of authenticity.
Vince Jr. ran these tapings for his father. He had a long list of all of the house shows we were taping promos for, and the matches on those cards for which we would be cutting promos. For each of those matches, to give us some context, Vince Jr. would tell us where the promo was for, who our opponent was going to be, and what had happened there last time. Once the interviews were done, they would incorporate these promos into the tape and then send the tape off to the television station(s) that covered the area where that particular house show was going to occur.
Some of the guys were very good at it and enjoyed cutting these promos. Others had managers like the Captain or Blassie or the Grand Wizard to do most of their talking for them. But that was the basic setup every three weeks—with everyone sitting out there waiting their turn, reading, hanging out, and talking or whatever. The office would bring in sandwiches to give everyone a little break.
There was a real fellowship at these tapings. Everyone on the roster was present. For new blood coming in, the tapings were usually the first place they appeared. The tapings were also the place where most of the hot new angles began, and the place where Vince Sr. handed out the booking assignments for the following three weeks. So taping days were a bit like a company staff meeting.
Initially, I was very uncomfortable at these tapings. I still felt very much like an outsider who was being judged on his every move. But with time and experience, and as I came to be accepted more by the boys as the champion, I actually grew to enjoy them.
After the tapings, we all set off in different directions. I headed down to Jacksonville, Florida, for a WWWF World Title versus NWA World Title match with my old friend Harley Race, and for promoter Eddie Graham in the Florida Championship Wrestling territory.
As I’ve mentioned before, Vince Sr. and Eddie were good friends and trusted colleagues in the wrestling business. Harley and Billy Graham had just wrestled a Broadway (sixty-minute time-limit draw) in Florida that had drawn a nice gate—and a rematch had already been scheduled. Of course, at the time the rematch was scheduled, both Vince Sr. and Eddie knew that the rematch with Race would be with me and not with Billy—but both Eddie and Harley were fine with that. The real draw for the match was the possibility, in the eyes of the fans, of a unification of the NWA and WWWF World Titles.
I was very enthusiastic to return to the Florida territory for Eddie as the newly crowned WWWF champion and also to have that match with Harley. Eddie and Vince booked us to do another Broadway—which made sense given that the fans had seen Harley go an hour with Billy, but not with me.
Harley was a master of the art of developing a match and telling a complete story in the ring. He understood, in the fullest sense of the word, that the entire purpose of a wrestling match was to entertain the people in the arenas, and Harley entertained them to the fullest. He never put himself, or his ego, or his reputation ahead of whatever would be best for the match, and he would give the people in any particular arena on any given night the very best bang for their buck. That willingness to entertain the people and to put the match above himself made Harley a very special performer.
Harley and I, of course, had been in some wars together feuding over the Missouri title in St. Louis. This match, however, was a special one to both of us because we had both ascended to the very pinnacle of our profession and were now representing our respective organizations as world champions. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was also our first meeting in the ring since Vince Sr. broke the deadlock in the NWA championship committee by voting for Harley to become the NWA kingpin and taking me to New York to become his champion. Since Eddie Graham had recommended me to Vince Sr. originally, getting this “Superbowl” match in his territory was also a little bit of a “thank-you” from Vince Sr. to Eddie—as it would virtually ensure a huge gate.
The Ultimate Babyface
Everyone in the NWA watched what happened up in New York because the New York area got ten times more nationwide press coverage than anywhere that we wrestled. So everybody knew that Backlund had gone over Graham at the Garden to become Vince’s new babyface WWWF Champion. I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but from what I heard, saw, and observed, everyone in the NWA locker rooms that I was in was happy for Bobby.
I wrestled Bobby down in Florida right after he won the belt from Graham. That match was initially booked as me against Graham, but when Bobby beat Graham for the belt in New York, they switched it so that we could keep it title versus title. And that worked out fine because Bobby had just recently worked down in Florida, was very over with the fans there and was well known, so it was kind of like a homecoming of sorts for him. Meanwhile, Bobby’s in-ring persona was food for a guy like me. I mean, who the hell wouldn’t want to see a guy that looks and acts like Bobby kick the shit out of a cocky asshole that looks and acts like me? So it was a perfect setup for us. I’ve known Bobby a long, long time now, and I’ve shared the card with him in an awful lot of places and let me tell you, Bobby Backlund was over with the people. He was a great athlete, a great wrestler, and a person that the people just loved to love. He was the ultimate fucking babyface.
—Harley Race
The match with Harley in Florida went beautifully and drew another very nice house for Eddie, and, of course, a nice payday for us. It was great to see Harley again, and to be in the dressing room with a bunch of the guys from Florida who I hadn’t seen in a while. Eddie Graham gave me a huge hug, wished me well in my new role, and assured me that I had the chops to be Vince Sr.’s champion for a long time. The boys on the card were also very nice and congratulated me heartily on becoming the WWWF champion. I felt more welcomed and comfortable in the dressing room in Jacksonville that night than had I had felt anywhere in the WWWF.
After returning from Florida, I settled into the routine of the WWWF house show schedule. Basically, everything was keyed off of the Garden show. With few exceptions, we were in New York at the Garden every fourth Monday night. Television in Allentown and Hamburg was every third Tuesday and Wednesday—with the days consumed with taping the promo interviews, and the nights filled with taping the three hours of squash matches that would comprise the episodes of Championship Wrestling and All-Star Wrestling that people would watch on the weekends. Allentown and Hamburg also each got one competitive “dark” match, not broadcast on television, which was used to draw the crowds.
Every third Tuesday and Wednesday, we would head up to Maine for shows in Portland and Bangor, with an occasional spot show in Waterville or Augusta. Every third Thursday was Poughkeepsie, New York, at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center, or in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the Memorial Auditorium, while Fridays were at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh (monthly), Jack Witschis (weekly), Harrisburg at
the Jaffa Mosque, or in Albany, New York, at the Washington Avenue Armory. Saturdays were at the Baltimore Civic Center, the Boston Garden, the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland, the Spectrum in Philadelphia, the Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island, or the Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Sundays were at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven, Connecticut, the Hartford Civic Center, the Nassau County Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, the JFK Coliseum in Manchester, New Hampshire, a spot show elsewhere, or an off day. There were other buildings we frequented also, and this schedule varied somewhat over the years depending on building availability and the schedules of the professional sports teams that were their primary tenants, but this was generally the way things went.
After I won the title, the first order of business was to have rematches with Billy in just about every building in the territory. In all those many rematches (and there were many of them), I never once got the sense that Billy was just going through the motions. Although I know that he was suffering inside from the loss of the limelight, Billy was always professional and gave his all to every match we had.
I now more fully understand, from watching his YouTube videos and seeing some of the interviews that he has given over the years, that Billy took the title change hard. I understand that completely, because I went through the very same range of emotions and the same enduring sadness after I was asked to drop the title. I actually enjoy watching Billy’s interviews and hearing him, more than thirty-five years later, still expressing outrage about me and how I handled myself with the championship. He’s gotten a lot of extra mileage for himself from that. I don’t know if that is Billy still working or if that is how he truly feels. I’m not even sure that Billy knows the answer to that given how many different ways he has expressed himself on that issue. Whatever the truth, I prefer to just thank and respect Billy for the professional work he did in the ring with me the night the title changed, and in the many times we wrestled after that.
In the first couple of weeks out on the road after I won the title—it was announced at the various venues where I would appear that I had won the championship from Graham at Madison Square Garden, and that my match on the card that night against whomever I was wresting would now be a world title match. People were initially very surprised to discover that I had won the title from Graham. Once they learned the news, though, fans were very supportive and enthusiastic when I would meet them and sign autographs outside the arenas after my matches. Doing that was always an honor for me—because I knew it was the people who had put me there. If the people weren’t buying tickets to come see me wrestle, I wouldn’t have been the champion for very long.
While we are on the subject of the “business end” of the business—payoffs worked differently in the WWWF than they did in the other territories. In the WWWF, in the smaller towns, you could either “bank” the payout and get a draw or get paid in cash that night just by signing for it. You’d get your payoff from the bigger arenas by check every three weeks at the TV tapings. At the Garden and in some of the other larger arenas, for example, we would be paid on a percentage of the gate, which had to be figured out after the fact. A certain percentage of the gate went to overhead like the arena rental fee, police and security, and the like, a certain percentage went to the talent, and the rest went to the owners. Where you wrestled on the card determined your percentage. The main event always made the biggest percentage, and as the world champion, I was always in the main event, and my challengers in the main events would share in that benefit.
Given this setup, as champ, I was primarily relied on, along with my challenger, to “draw the house,” which made sense since we got the biggest percentage among the wrestlers. As the main eventers, we had the biggest incentive to do the promotional work necessary to put butts in the seats, and then to put on a great show so we could draw an even better crowd for the second or third match of our series (if we were going more than one month). Beyond that basic understanding of how things worked, though, I didn’t really get involved in the office part of the business. In all the years I was champ, I never checked the gate numbers, didn’t keep track of monthly attendance figures to see how we were doing, or how certain challengers were doing with me, or anything like that. Those were business concerns for the office to worry about, and I trusted that if there were issues or concerns to be addressed, someone would come to me to discuss them.
No one ever did.
The truth is, Vince Sr. and I didn’t have a lot of substantive conversations about the business, and I think he liked it that way. Whenever I saw him, he always asked after my family, and he often checked on my health or any injury I might have incurred in the ring, but other than that, our conversations were always light and brief. We had complete trust in one another. I trusted him with the bookings and the payoffs and everything on the business end, and he trusted me with the wrestling side. It sounds naïve, but it worked, because Vince Sr.’s word was his bond, and in all the years we worked together, he never gave me any reason to doubt him.
For his part, Vince Sr. could rely on the fact that, as his champion and the person being most heavily relied on in the main events every night, I would always be at the appointed building an hour before the card began—so he never needed to worry about having to reshuffle a card, or refund money in a big building because his main event failed to go off. Vince Sr. also knew that I would always worked my hardest to stay in top shape, gave the fans my all every night, and represented his company with dignity and honor behind the scenes. In return, his consistent promise to me was that he would supply me with the very best workers in the business, and that it would be up to him to worry about the angles, the promotion, and the crowds. Generally, I would check in with him once every three weeks at the TV tapings to make sure he was pleased with the way things were going. Without exception, he would tell me that “things were going well,” and that he was very happy with my work as his champion.
Vince Sr. never expressed any dissatisfaction to me about the gates we were drawing in any city. To the contrary, he paid me religiously, without fail, and with a smile at every TV taping. In fact, Vince Sr. never told me to do anything differently in the five years and ten months I carried the championship for him.
It was a much different feel coming into the Garden with the belt in March 1978. Just walking down 7th Avenue in New York on my way to the Garden with my gym bag slung over my shoulder, I suddenly had a throng of happy and supportive people walking with me, asking questions, and wondering how it felt for me to be coming into the Garden with the title. New Yorkers, at the time, took their wrestling very seriously and completely bought in to the business as authentic.
For me, it was just like being on top of the world.
In the promos for Billy’s rematch with me at the Garden in March 1978, Billy continued to argue that his foot had been on the bottom rope at the time of the pin, that he had been robbed, and that my title victory over him had been a fluke. On the strength of that storyline, we filled up both the Garden and the Felt Forum for the first rematch.
When Billy and I met in the bathroom at the Garden that night to get our instructions, Vince Sr. called for an enraged Billy to beat me within an inch of my life, for me to “get color” (gig myself with the tip of a razorblade to start the flow of blood from my forehead), but to stand there toe-to-toe and take all the punishment Billy could dish out until I was beat up so badly and bleeding so profusely that the doctor at ringside intervened to stop the match due to my blood loss. Although Billy would win the rematch, I would keep the title (because the title did not change on a blood stoppage), and the fans would get to see a new side of me—not the pure technical wrestling side—but the side of me that could survive and thrive in a straight-out, pier-six brawl.
It was a way to draw out the feud for another month.
The fans ate it up.
I appeared, for the first time ever, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on March 25, 1978, and went to a double
disqualification with the latest addition to Blassie’s Army, The Iron Greek, Spiros Arion. It was interesting that I had never been booked in Philly during my run-up to winning the title, so the fans there hadn’t really warmed up to me at all other than what they saw of me on television. Philadelphia, with its large ethnic Italian population, was very much a Bruno town, and was definitely one of the places, along with Pittsburgh and Boston, where I had a harder time getting over. When I was champion, those places weren’t really mom and dad and apple pie towns. They were the home of the hard-knocks, blue-collar fans that were very skeptical of the pure, clean-cut babyface. They would cheer their own ethnic babyfaces, but they also loved the more edgy American heels.
I found it ironic that I had the hardest time winning over those fans, because, in real life, I was one of them. I shared their hard-knocks, blue-collar upbringing, but the image that Vince was building for me was that of the do-right, amateur-trained, collegiate apple pie and Chevrolet All-American Boy babyface. That didn’t play as well in Philly and Boston as it did in some of the other cities and in the suburbs. It was harder for me to win over the Philly fans than it was in almost any other place—so when we had the Spectrum banged out and roaring, as we often did in my later years as champion, it made me feel especially good.
Graham and I came back to the Garden in April for the blowoff to our feud in what would be my first-ever steel cage match. Once again, Billy had played the promo interview game perfectly, reminding the fans that he had beaten me to a bloody pulp last time, and that this time, with a steel cage around us and no referee or doctor to save me, he’d be getting his title back. This time, though, I had some fire in my interviews also, and we set up the match as the culmination of a great feud that, by that point, had been roiling in the federation for four months.
