I've also seen more in the last few years than I've ever seen, simply because of the amount of footage that is more and more available from the WWE network and even more from YouTube with lots of matches from places that I had only been able to read about when they actually happened, but one match I saw when it was televised and never again was a memorable match between Playboy Buddy Rose and Curt Hennig from 1983.
I remembered Rose somehow rolling Hennig up for the win and Rose barely able to crawl out of the ring as the show went off the air.
The pair entered the WWF (Hennig in 1981, Rose in 1982, per John McAdam) from two different perspectives, yet both were arriving from the same territory in Portland, where Rose was the top heel and Hennig arrived as a young babyface moving to his first territory after his debut in his hometown territory in the AWA.
Rose and Hennig wrestled often in the Portland area, including Rose and various partners against Curt and his father Larry "The Axe" Hennig.
In WWF action though, it was different as Rose wasn't going to be the top heel, but a heel to be fed to Bob Backlund in title matches around the circuit, managed by the Grand Wizard before being lowered down the card.
Hennig was brought in to gain experience as he would occasionally win matches on television and in the arenas against similar-level opponents, but would lose to the bigger names although he was given his share of moments to shine on offense before losing the fall.
Hennig, like S.D.Jones and Eddie Gilbert on the "good guy" side and Johnny Rodz and Charlie Fulton on the "bad guy" side, would have a few glimpses of glory, which was far more than the Steve King and Jeff Craney types that would never be given that much before the glorified tackling dummy was pounded into submission or pinfall.
That was how things were done in the WWF and with the very rare exception of an angle to be developed, things didn't vary from the gameplan.
Buddy Rose didn't care for that plan and when matched with Hennig, he had other ideas to make a competitive match from start to finish which would lead to this terrific battle that I remembered.
Watching this match after 37 years, I was struck by two different things that I didn't really recall properly.
The first was that I remembered Hennig dominating almost the entire match, which wasn't quite true although he clearly controlled more than Rose and the other was just how good Buddy Rose was and could have been in a later time.
Buddy Rose bumped around the ring, made Hennig look like a million bucks, had everyone thinking that this was the day a big star got knocked off, and after giving the fans such a memorable bout, what did Rose receive?
By doing something different, Rose was looked at as a lesser challenger to Bob Backlund because he didn't dominate the opponents that the other heels did and the fans didn't buy into Rose's challenge.
Rose also became notable for his challenges of Backlund for different reasons- to the best of my knowledge, it was Rose who was the first foe to showcase Backlund's new finisher- the chicken wing submission rather than his "atomic spine crusher" which saw Backlund pick up his opponent, run across the ring and drop the challenger onto Backlund's knee and led to a pin.
Considering the time in which a submission was shown as a sign of cowardice, Rose's submission again indicated that he was a lesser contender and not one to be taken as seriously as the usual challenger.
As a result, Rose's WWF stint was shorter than the usual heel and he returned to the Northwest as the big fish in the small pond.
Rose would return later and looked to be positioned to be at least somewhat highly thought of as he was given Bobby Heenan as a manager, but something must have happened out of the ring as Rose lasted only a month or so, before losing Heenan and moving to the dying AWA, where he would win their tag team championship with partner Doug Somers and having great matches with the Midnight Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels in their first national exposure).
Rose would finish his career badly overweight and used in the role that Hennig started in this match- a guy that would give enough of a battle to a star on television, but usually lost for the WWF.
Rose died in 2009 at the age of 56.
As for Hennig, you likely know more about the future Mr. Perfect.
After leaving the WWF to return home to the AWA, Hennig would be one of the company's better tag team wrestlers, winning the tag team titles with Scott Hall on ESPN when the AWA was televised on the network and still had some big names in the company.
Hennig would turn heel and win the AWA world title from Nick Bockwinkel before losing it to Jerry Lawler to end his reign of just over one year.
Hennig moved to the WWF after finishing up in the AWA and would earn his lasting fame as "Mr.Perfect", holding the Inter-Continental championship, managing Ric Flair, and commentating at various times and would work for both the WWF and WCW in various stints.
Now here it is, Playboy Buddy Rose vs Curt Hennig in a match as good as I remembered after 37 years.
The Rose-Hennig match starts at the 40 minutes, 30-second mark and lasts about five minutes.
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