Brian Damage
Although a babyface for much of his time as a wrestler, during the 1990s, Bob Backlund had a short, and relatively successful, stint in the WWE as a heel. Today, we look back on that heel run, a run which culminated in grabbing the WWE title.
For the first 11 years of Bob Backlund’s pro wrestling career, he was portrayed as the all American boy, the kid next door. A wrestler who was shy, but strong-willed and had moral values. Vince McMahon Sr loved that about Backlund and featured him as the WWWF champion for the next few years. By the end of Backlund’s title run, the landscape of the WWF was changing. Vince McMahon Jr was taking over the company and wanted his own version of what a world champion should be like. Fans were also slowly changing as people started to become bored of Backlund’s clean-cut image and chants of ‘Howdy Doody’ began echoing at various venues. Once the title was from Backlund, Vince Jr suggested that Bob Backlund dye his hair black and turn heel. He would become the top heel to fight against Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania.
Backlund turned down the offer, fearing that he would disappoint too many of his fans and wanted to set an example for his young daughter. Because Backlund relented, he was eventually phased out of the company and ultimately left in 1984. Once Backlund had left the WWF, the Rock N Wrestling era began and the company went from a regional territory to a national powerhouse. Almost a decade went by since Backlund had set foot in a WWF ring. In those eight years, so much changed in the business. Fans were not only becoming more fickle, but smarter as well. The lines between good and evil were just started to blur just a little bit. In 1992, the World Wrestling Federation was struggling in its own right. Steroid and sex scandals began plaguing the company and business was dropping off fast.
Vince McMahon was throwing anything and everything against the wall to see what would stick. He made a call to Backlund to see if he was interested in making a comeback. After meeting with Vince, Backlund decided to give the WWF one more run. He was still using the same old goody two shoes gimmick from the 70’s and 80’s, but in the 1990’s it just wasn’t clicking with fans. Backlund was feeling like time had passed him by and for the most part, it did. Fans never gave him a good reaction to his scientific matches. They also started chanting boring for some of them as well. Bob wasn’t going to give up on this comeback so easily. According to him, he was the one who approached McMahon this time about tweaking his character. Backlund suggested turning himself heel and trying that. Bob Backlund still wanted to preserve his character’s moral values.
He suggested to Vince that character would become disillusioned by all the fans not respecting his good, clean image. That it was the fans that turned on him and would just simply become a character who would push his morals on everyone else. That way, while acting as a heel, he could still in his mind be a babyface that was just being rejected by the people around him. Vince apparently loved the idea and a program was starting to be built up around him. Backlund would amass a long winning streak that would finally culminate with Backlund challenging then WWF champion Bret Hart to a face vs face title match. The match was dubbed “The Old Generation Vs The New Generation” and the match itself was simply a pure wrestling match. The culmination of it had Backlund pinning Bret for a 2 count and immediately Backlund started celebrating thinking the referee has counted three. As the referee was trying to explain to Backlund that he only counted two, Hart rolled him up for a three, retaining the title.
After the match, Bret Hart stuck out his hand to shake Backlund’s in a display of respect. Instead of Bob doing what the fans expected him to usually do and shake his hand and walk off into the sunset, he snapped and attacked Hart. He applied his cross face chicken wing submission and refused to let go of it. After releasing the move, Backlund just stared into his own hands wide-eyed as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done.
It was the beginning of a new chapter in Bob Backlund’s career, that of a heel. The fans were booing, screaming and going crazy as if this is what they had been waiting for for the last 20 years from him. The fans finally had an excuse to hate Bob Backlund. The heat for the heel turn was so impressive…it sparked an idea from McMahon. Inspired by the shocking comeback of a 45-year-old boxer named George Foreman winning the world title, McMahon wanted his own Foreman moment.
In the meantime, Bob would solidify his heel status by randomly attacking WWF personnel, announcer Jim Ross and even his own former manager Arnold Skaaland. Backlund blamed Skaaland for throwing in the towel in his match against the Iron Sheik back in 1983 and costing him his WWF title. Bob Backlund was easily becoming the hottest heel in the WWF at the ripe old age of 45.
At the Survivor Series ’94, Backlund defeated Bret Hart in a submission match when a heel Owen Hart convinced the Hart Matriarch Helen to throw a towel into the ring. Bob Backlund had his “Foreman Moment” and became the WWF champion once more. Behind the scenes, Backlund was loving all the heat he was getting from the crowds. After winning the title, Backlund and McMahon discussed his future as WWF champion. There was talk that Backlund was going to hold the belt for about a year. His heel run looked like it was about to get even bigger. Then, three days after winning the championship, Backlund lost it to ‘Big Daddy Cool’ Diesel in just about eight seconds at a house show in Madison Square Garden.
Vince simply didn’t believe that Backlund, although over as a heel, could fill seats and sell pay per views as a 45-year-old champion. McMahon always had plans for Diesel to be his next champion. So instead of the long Backlund title reign building Diesel as the heir apparent, McMahon decided to “shock” fans by the quick switch and do it in a fashion to make Diesel look like a monster.
The “Diesel Power” era had begun that night and Bob Backlund’s big heel run became just a blur. Backlund would remain a crazy heel but never did he reach the heights as he did for that brief period in 1994.
