Mailbag 11 Question

Keelan -
In the early days of the WWF they allowed Hulk Hogan and Sammartino to keep their championship belts for years at a time contiguously. I don't think keeping a belt on a wrestler that long has ever occured since, now most wrestlers are doing good to keep a belt for 6 months (about 3 PPVs)

Was this because
1) Lack of worthy competitors WWF thought could prevail against Hogan/Sammartino (in the minds of the fans - since these were the days when wrestling was "real")
2) Popularity of Hogan as wrestler and all the merchandising that went along with it
3) Relative normalcy of the wrestling fans then that were satisfied with 1 long term champ back then compared to today's ADD/ADHD crowd who needs a new champ every other PPV?

Or some other reason or combination of the above?

I think it's a combination of 2 and 3. Didn't Cena have a lengthy title run a while ago? Like, a year long? If you're able to carry a belt that long - making the promoters a ton of money with merchandise sales, pulling in good ratings and PPV buyrates - they'll run with you. That being said, there's no way we will ever see anyone holding a main title for more than a year, year and a half. Fans nowadays get antsy if someone is champion for too long, no matter how popular they are.

Thanks for the question. I'll definitely answer it.

Episode 11 might be the last one before Mania as I'm working on doing a semi live, semi taped episode leading everyone in to the PPV.

If anyone has a microphone (I'll announce all this better later) I'd be very happy if you could record an MP3 of what Wrestlemania means to you and any of your favorite mania moments. Only a short sound byte to play between segments. I have one guy already willing to do it. So if anyone here would like to do it, that would awesome.

Yeah - he held it for almost a year and was the longest reigning champion since Diesel in '95.

I accidentally deleted it from his quote but SS is on the money re: length of title reigns. If they tried to pull that 8 year Bruno stuff (or even 4 year Hogan stuff) nowadays, the Internet would run pink with the combination of breast milk and vaginal blood from the whining and crying.

When Hogan held on for 4 years, it stayed interesting (for me, at least) because you were constantly watching/hoping for someone, ANYONE, to beat him. He still cared about making his opponent look good back then, so the matches always felt like he was on the brink of FINALLY losing his title - whether he was facing Randy Savage or "The Genius" Lanny Poffo. For young marks like me, the absurdity of Howard Finkel announcing, "And NEWWWWWW World Wrestling Federation Champion, 'The Genius' Lanny Poffo!!!!" never crossed my mind. There was still that chance, damn it!

I can't even imagine what kept Backlund interesting for roughly the same amount of time back in the late 70's/early 80's. Is there anyone here older than me (no, that's NOT a joke! ) that can explain it? Sure, he was an amateur champion, a great technical wrestler, etc. but New York wasn't known for putting over those kinds of guys. Just look at the list of who came before Backlund. With the possible exceptions of Morales and Rogers, that list would have forced Bret Hart - had he been active at the time - into early-onset Menopause.

Maybe Backlund got over just because he was something different?

Having only seen later years Backlund, he is one of the guys I can't bring myself to get a compilation of. I mean I'm probably ignorant, but I don't see it.

Taken from To Be The Man

(ellipses are present 'cause I edited some extraneous words from the quote)

I was flipping back through Flair's book today and found that quote.

It makes sense. Look what Stan Hansen did to Verne Gagne a couple years later. But DAMN, there must have been a hell of a lot of "political turmoil" and Vince Sr. must have been, like, clinically paranoid to put that strap on Backlund for so long.

I've enjoyed some vintage Backlund matches (vs. Sgt. Slaughter in particular) but the guy had/has ZERO charisma. I guess you had to be there or something.

I actually just watched a bunch of Backlund and now I do see it lol - his wrestling alone had me interested. Wrestling doesn't look like a struggle like it did back then.

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Anyways, mailbag 11 will be recorded tomorrow. I have a good email question to add to this, so I think I'll go a bit longer this time. That's if you can stand my limey accent.