Nick Bockwinkel passed away at the age of 80 and the long-time champion of the Midwest-based AWA was remembered by many as one of the best wrestlers in the game during his day.
Bockwinkel was very smooth yet not overly rough in the ring.
You couldn't see through his style, so it wasn't an expose of the business, but he wasn't known as one of the rougher wrestlers either.
The sharp dresser with the huge vocabulary was a constant annoyance to the wrestling fan because of his high opinion and arrogance-all of which made him an excellent heel.
Bockwinkel was known for years as being the leader of the AWA, but not for the reasons that you would think.
You see, the AWA was owned by the aging Verne Gagne and the majority of their stars were on the older side as well as being lesser "workers" in many cases, such as Mad Dog Vachon, the Crusher, etc,
Bockwinkel was a top-level wrestler up until his last match, but the others were limited in the ring and only could be top contenders in the AWA, which used nostalgia heavily because of the pre-cable television.
The AWA did have some young talent come through, but were usually steered to the tag team division and away from Bockwinkel in favor of the veteran contenders.
Bockwinkel was able to make the older wrestlers look like reasonable contenders due to his ability in the ring.
Bockwinkel had an incredible money-making run with the first incarnation of the "Incredible" Hulk Hogan as a "good guy: in the AWA with Hogan chasing Bockwinkel for the title.
Hogan never a classic star in the ring, nonetheless had good matches with the classy veteran doing whatever it took to retain his title with a few times that Hogan had seemingly dethroned the champion only to have results overturned by a referee or AWA commissioner Stanley Blackburn.
Bockwinkel also defended the AWA title as the world champion in places that had issues with the NWA and therefore didn't use their champion such as Houston (Promoter Paul Boesch had problems with Harley Race), Memphis (Promoter Jerry Jarrett didn't like that Jerry Lawler wouldn't be given a title reign), Southwest/San Antonio (Not an NWA member) and Continental/Alabama (Not sure why, but I bet using Bockwinkel was cheaper than using Ric Flair or Race for a territory often down in dollars).
We didn't see prime Bockwinkel, but we did see him in the mid-'80s when ESPN added the AWA to their "slams and jams" lineup with roller derby.
Bockwinkel was the champion for years but was surrounded by controversy twice over the belt.
Both of these were from becoming the titlist without winning the title in the ring, but only one of them was done outside of the storyline.
The first was in 1981 after Bockwinkel had dropped the title after five years to the owner of the territory-Verne Gagne, who wanted one final run before a planned retirement.
Gagne won his retirement match and vacated the championship, but AWA commissioner Stanley Blackburn ruled that a title tournament would have taken too long to play out and gave the title to the top contender-Bockwinkel, who was such despite being beaten all over the territory for the ten-month Gagne reign.
This is another of the gaping holes in wrestling credibility to anyone who watched real sports. Anyone who lost to the champion as many times as Bockwinkel did certainly would not be the top contender, but that's wrestling...
The other and more fun to the insider wrestling fan was in 1986 when Gagne scheduled then-champion Stan Hansen to lose the title to Bockwinkel in Denver.
Hansen as the major American star in All Japan Pro Wrestling wasn't going to lose by pin to almost anyone, refused to lose the title, and left the arena with the actual belt.
The AWA created a new belt for Bockwinkel but threatened to sue Hansen for the old belt as he was "Defending" it in Japan.
Hansen sent the belt back by UPS with massive tire track marks over where he had run over it with a truck,
Bockwinkel did an interview where he concluded with "I'm happy as hell"!
That statement with inflection has been quoted by the author more times than I can count over the last 30 years.
Bockwinkel would feud with Larry Zbysko and enter a rare babyface turn during the years as the AWA died on the vine.
Bockwinkel would then drop the belt for the final time to Curt Hennig in his first time as a heel before his Mr.Perfect years in the WWF.
Bockwinkel went to an hour draw on ESPN with Hennig at the age of 52 on a New Year's Eve show, which was amazing considering his age.
Bockwinkel left the AWA to go to the WWF as a road agent, as they weren't interested in him as a wrestling talent, despite still having ability.
Between his age and a physical appearance that wasn't what they wanted at the beginning of the steroid age, Bockwinkel wouldn't have been a star even if he had wrestled for them.
Other than that and a short run as WCW commissioner, Bockwinkel was finished in the wrestling game...
Nick Bockwinkel was the type of wrestler that you don't see anymore and he will be missed.
Look for our other feature on a recent passing-Bob Foster in a few days...
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