Backlund v Slaughter

Bob Backlund v Sgt Slaughter (WWF, 1/10/81)

Mother a god what a phenomenal Slaughter's performance. His early nonsense playing to the crowd and getting more and more riled up was a hoot, then he was feeding into armdrags and bumps and stooge spots with a seamlessness that's sort of astonishing for a guy his size. The early Backlund arm work is fine as Backlund arm work usually will be, but I was most interested in how Slaughter would sell it or bump back into it when they came up for air. I don't remember how he took over now but after he does he controls a lot of what's left of the match; a decent bit more than I remember being the norm for Backlund matches. Most of it was fairly basic but his stuff looked nasty, like the knees to the lower back and especially his headbutts, a couple that landed right in Backlund's face. There's a bit of back and forth after that with Slaughter taking a huge bump off the top and Backlund hitting a piledriver (that RUINED Slaughter according to Rudman), and the crowd were into it so you know, that's cool. It felt like they were building towards a finish, then they took it in a different direction. It get really great after that, when Backlund spills to the floor and Slaughter won't let him back in. This was one of the best King of the Mountain segments ever and Slaughter was so good at turning the heat up bit by bit. The backbreaker across the barricade fucking ruled and I love that he did it right in front of the person with the sign calling him a goober. Backlund taps an artery and Slaughter jumping for joy when he notices the blood was AMAZING. Then he clonks him with the ring bell! The ref' was trying so hard not to toss the match but was clearly at the end of his tether with Slaughter, and eventually he started counting as fast as possible whenever Slaughter tried to go out after Backlund. I really wish we got a few more minutes at the end for some Backlund revenge because that would've pushed this up another level. I mean, what we got was fucking great. Slaughter's post bump was ridiculous and then he goes face-first into the barricade and you KNOW he went wild with the blade at that point. I'm glad I got around to re-watching this because if nothing else it reminded me how good peak Slaughter was. I thought their cage match was tremendous the last time I watched it as well so I'll re-watch that thing soon.