Bob Backlund

Robert Louis Backlund
Data
Ring name	Bob Backlund Mr. Bob Backlund
height	183 cm
Fighting weight	110.5 kg
birth	August 14, 1949 Princeton , Minnesota
Announced from	Princeton , Minnesota
Trained by	Eddie Sharkey
debut	1973

Robert (Bob) Louis Backlund (born August 14, 1949 in Princeton , Minnesota ) is a retired American wrestler . Backlund was at the end of the 1970s as (W) WWF Champion, the figurehead of the then Worldwide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) and later WWF . His first title reign from 1978 to 1983 is officially the second longest in the history of this title.

Career

AWA, NWA and WWWF

Bob Backlund was a wrestler at North Dakota State University and won the Division II NCAA Championship up to 80 kg in 1971 . After training by Eddie Sharkey, he switched to professional wrestling. Backlund began his career in 1973 in the Verne Gagnes organization , the AWA . A year later he moved to the NWA , where he was allowed to become Western States Heavyweight Champion in March 1974 by beating Terry Funk . After he had received titles in Georgia , Missouri and Florida in the following years , Vincent J. McMahon hired him in 1977 for the emerging World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, today known as World Wrestling Entertainment ). Here he was allowed to receive the WWF Champion title in February 1978 by defeating "Superstar" Billy Graham in Madison Square Garden .

On a tour of Japan in 1979, he briefly lost the title to Antonio Inoki , which, however, was neither announced in the USA nor recognized in the title histories. After holding the title until 1983 a. a. had successfully defended against Pat Patterson , Don Muraco , Greg Valentine , Harley Race and Ric Flair , his ring character should be converted into a villain and Backlund hand over the title to Hulk Hogan . Backlund refused and so he lost the title in a very controversial manner to the Iron Sheik on December 26, 1983 , when his manager Arnold Skaaland threw in the towel. Backlund was declared injured shortly thereafter to explain the missing rematch, and Hogan received that title shot.

UWA and WWF

In the following years he largely disappeared from the scene and appeared from time to time in smaller leagues like the UWF .

In 1992 he returned to the WWF. Since his style, known as mat wrestling , no longer caught on with the new generation of wrestling fans, he went to Japan for some time, where he won the WAR Wold 6 Men Tag Team title with Scott Putski and the Warlord was allowed to, and then returned again to the WWF. After losing the title match against reigning WWF champion Bret Hart, he attacked him. The following portrayal of the insanely screaming, sometimes confused, highly intelligent villain who uses many Latin foreign words (" plebeians ") was a complete reversal of his previous character as a fair and friendly university athlete. From now on he only wanted to be addressed as "Mr. (Bob) Backlund" and claimed according to the script that he was still champion, since he would never have lost the title regularly, and challenged Bret Hart again for the WWF championship Survivor Series out in 1994.

In this so-called submission match there was the special rule that it could only be decided by the throwing in the towel of the "seconds" ( British Bulldog on Harts, Owen Hart on Backlund's side). So the motive of his own irregular loss of title was taken up again. Backlund won the match and thus the title when Owen Hart pretended to change his mind during the match and got his mother to throw in the towel on behalf of the knocked-out Bulldog when Hart had already been in Backlund's grip for a few minutes.

Three days later, Backlund was to give the title back to Diesel (Kevin Nash) in record time in order to build him up as a new star. His last big match was at Wrestlemania XI against Bret Hart. In the following years he worked for the WWF briefly as manager of The Sultan and Kurt Angle , he also had occasional guest appearances, such as a participant in the Royal Rumble 2000 or the 15th Anniversary Battle Royal on Monday Night RAW in December 2007. He stayed he always in his role as a crazy villain, whose consistent portrayal brought him some popularity with the fans over the years.

On January 21, 2013, WWE announced Backlund's induction into the WWE Hall of Fame on the WWE Raw show the day before WrestleMania XXIX. The laudation was given by TV presenter Maria Menounos , who is a great WWE fan and good friend of Backlund's .

After the full-time career

For Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's Final Resolution 2007 PPV , Bob Backlund was part of the jury for the Paparazzi Championship Series final between Alex Shelley and Austin Starr . In the weeks that followed, a feud developed between Backlund and Starr. Since then, Backlund has made occasional guest appearances at various promotions on special occasions.

WWE today

Backlund returned to WWE in 2016 as a manager, taking on the role of Darren Young's "life coach" . In various vignettes he tried in his “Mr. Backlund ”-art to motivate him to top performance and to lead him to greater success again under the motto“ Make Darren Young great again! ”(Based on Donald Trump's campaign slogan Make America Great Again ). Backlund has not appeared publicly for the WWE since Young was released in 2017.

title

Date of title win	title	won against ...	Date of loss of title	lost at
March 1974	Western States Heavyweight Title	Terry Funk	May 1974	Karl von Steiger
October 1975	Georgia Tag Team Title (with Jerry Brisco)	Mr. Fuji & Toru Tanaka	December 1975	Les Thornton & Tony Charles
April 23, 1976	Missouri Heavyweight Title	Harley Race	November 26, 1976	Jack Brisco
May 1976	Florida Tag Team Title (with Steve Keirn )	"Cowboy" Bob Orton & Bob Roop	October 1976	Hollywood Blondes ( Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown)
February 20, 1978	WWWF World Heavyweight Championship	"Superstar" Billy Graham	November 30, 1979	Antonio Inoki
6th December 1979	WWF Heavyweight Title	Bobby Duncum Sr. (title was vacant)	December 26, 1983	The Iron Sheik
August 26, 1994	WAR 6-Men-Tag-Team-Title (with Scott Putski and the Warlord )	Jado, Gedo & Hiromichi Fuyuki	September 1, 1994	Jado, Gedo & Hiromichi Fuyuki
November 23, 1994	WWF World Heavyweight Title	Bret Hart	November 26, 1994	diesel

Private

Backlund has been married to a physics teacher named Corki since 1974. Their daughter Carrie was born a few years later.

In 2000, he ran in Connecticut as a Republican candidate for a seat in Congress without success .

Web links

• Bob Backlund on obsessedwithwrestling.com ( April 19, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Men Who Put Foes in Headlocks Now Try to Get a Grip on Politics query.nytimes.com on May 17, 1999