Backlund pre Heel Turn

[karl100589]

Around late 92 the WWE re-sign Bob Backlund after eight years out of the business, but for the first 14 months of his run seemed a pretty anonymous figure. He got a Wrestlemania match with Razor which was largely an afterthought, but was seen as this rather generic babyface who was treated as a joke. It wasn't until he turn heel and became the crazy old coot that he finally got over.

What was Bob's purpose for those first few months? Was his absence ever explained on television? If he was brought in to put the New Generation over why use him as a babyface.

[Mozenrath]

I don't think saying he was treated as a joke is fair, exactly, but I'd imagine the point would have been like Pedro Morales' late run, or some other other veterans. Which is to say, more or less put people over and hold things down in the lower card. Treating legends with all that much reverence wasn't really that much of a thing in those days. Ask Road Warriors in like '97-98, where as Foley put it, "They went from main eventers to a locker room punchline."

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

May 15, 2022 2:00:35 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

I don't think saying he was treated as a joke is fair, exactly, but I'd imagine the point would have been like Pedro Morales' late run, or some other other veterans. Which is to say, more or less put people over and hold things down in the lower card. Treating legends with all that much reverence wasn't really that much of a thing in those days. Ask Road Warriors in like '97-98, where as Foley put it, "They went from main eventers to a locker room punchline."

See, watching them in 1997, the Road Warriors still look fairly dominant and they pop the crowd, coming across as a big deal. However, comparing that to their 80s run, they were treated like an after though. Then LOD 2000 happens ...

[polarbearpete]

I thought he was treated fairly well. He had that long run in the 93 Rumble, where the announcers kept saying his age in amazement (I think 43 years old).

[hugegranite]

He was kind of brought in as an old-school throwback guy that wanted to be part of the New Generation, as a nod to fans of that era, I suppose.

The funniest thing about that time for me, though, was an article in the WWF Magazine that was showing off Backlund's nutrition and how he was using a juicer on the road to help eat right. And for some reason, Virgil was in the pictures on the 2nd or 3rd page and the text said something to the effect of, "Virgil came by to try some juice. He'd been moaning about how he never gets in the magazine, so here he is."

Which, looking back later, was made even funnier since Vince Russo was running the magazine at the time and now I only hear it in his voice.

[Celexa Bliss 54]

May 15, 2022 7:23:55 GMT -5 hugegranite said:

He was kind of brought in as an old-school throwback guy that wanted to be part of the New Generation, as a nod to fans of that era, I suppose.

The funniest thing about that time for me, though, was an article in the WWF Magazine that was showing off Backlund's nutrition and how he was using a juicer on the road to help eat right. And for some reason, Virgil was in the pictures on the 2nd or 3rd page and the text said something to the effect of, "Virgil came by to try some juice. He'd been moaning about how he never gets in the magazine, so here he is."

Which, looking back later, was made even funnier since Vince Russo was running the magazine at the time and now I only hear it in his voice.

I mean, right there, it's pretty obvious that Virgil was the one being treated like a joke at that point. He started off as DiBiase's human shield, but he was menacing enough that you could still believe he was a threat to whoever Ted was wrestling. Then the babyface turn got him mega-over in 1991, but by the time of Mania 8, he was clearly just a JTTS, he got squashed by Nailz and Yokozuna and began doing promos that were the equivalent of "woe is me, I'm a big star, why do I keep losing?" and then this bit in the magazine. Compared to Virgil, even Brooklyn Brawler and Barry Horowitz looked good!

As for Bob, I've only seen a bit of his stuff from before the heel turn, like his Rumble performance and the Mania 9 match. It seems a bit strange to me, that through-out 1993, when you had (I am going based off Survivor Series here): a Miami tough guy, a male model, an atomic experiment gone wrong, a tax auditor, a "boy toy", a clown, rappers, fun loving Aussies, savages, a hunchback, a new-age punk couple, a US patriot, a dead man, a sumo wrestler, a pair of (not) Mounties, a foreign environmentalist and a Hawaiian turncoat, not mention the guys who had less-descript gimmicks were still jazzed up to look different than the prototypical wrestlers people expected to see, it's quite jarring to see Bob Backlund, with his plain red trunks and gosh-mom haircut, out there honest-to-God chain wrestling these characters. I feel like it had to at least be a rib on Bob.

[sportatorium]

They built his return to the company with vignettes and gave him a pretty long winning streak to get him to Bret to set up the heel turn. Backlund himself saw that his babyface act was stale & was apparently the one who wanted to go heel. That heel run is one of my all time favorite WWF/E things.

[johnnyk9]

I always thought they had something planned for him for his iron man performance in the 1993 Royal Rumble maybe had Hogan not come back he would’ve maybe had more spotlight

[dangerousdanpotato]

As a 10 year old watching at the time, I can tell you this character was awful and an absolute laughing stock. All of my friends thought he was ridiculous and would mock him whenever he wrestled.

I think WWF wanted to do right by him, but the whole presentation was so lame. He returned with vignettes showing him as a kind of wholesome "working man" - I remember him talking about how he'd been running his carpentry business and there were interviews with his colleagues talking about what a great guy he was. They also played up teaching wrestling to school kids.

They tried to do what they could with him - on commentary the face announcers would talk him up, be respectful of his prior accomplishments and - of course - they gave him that fantastic iron man run in the Rumble.

But the way Backlund carried himself in the ring was awful. Weird facial mannerisms; weird infantile excited jumping/twisting movements. Just odd and goofy. His promos were terrible too. Aside from the Razor loss, I don't remember him really jobbing; he didn't really do anything much of any import. No angles. No feuds. He was just there.

[government mule]

Even now, those 8 years from 84-92 that Backlund was gone felt like a lifetime in the way the company had shifted. He was hideously out of place character wise, so the heel turn was the best thing to happen to him.

He should have had a longer run with the WWE title as a heel than what happened, but that's another story.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

I haven’t seen the match in years but I recall Razor getting cheered pretty heavily in that Mania match.