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Date: 11/25/2015
CHICOPEE – Area wrestling fans had a unique opportunity on Nov. 22 – watching the WWE Survivor Series special event with a wrestling living legend, Bob Backlund.
Backlund appeared at the Rumbleseat Bat and Grille to sign his new autobiography and to meet fans.
He was a NCAA wresting star while attending North Dakota State University, reaching All-American status in that sport.
He started wrestling professionally in 1973 and joined the World Wide Wresting Federation in 1977, winning the heavyweight title in 1978. He lost the title to the Iron Sheik in 1983.
Backlund has the distinction of being the second-longest reigning heavyweight champion in the history of the WWF/WWE.
Backlund’s new book, “Backlund: From All American Boy to Professional Wrestling’s World Champion,” has received good notices in the wrestling community.
Backlund explained to Reminder Publications that he had written a book on his career in 1985, but since books on wrestling were not common, “no publisher would print it.”
At age 60 – Backlund is 66 – Backlund felt it was time to try a book again and tell his story “the way I wanted to tell it not the way someone else wanted to tell it.”
He received a letter from writer Rob Miller about working on an autobiography. Miller told Backlund he was his childhood hero, and Backlund arranged a meeting with him at the Glastonbury, CT, library.
The wrestling champion was impressed that Miller had a thick notebook recounting every match in Backlund’s career, and the two men established a relationship.
"I told him my life story, and he put it together on paper. It was a lot of fun,” Backlund said. “Every meeting would get a little better and a little more exciting, but it took five years to do that.”
With the WWE broadcasts playing behind him, Backlund said professional wrestling is a lot different today.
“TV sort of has a negative effect of things sometimes,” Backlund explained. He said it has trained fans to expect a certain level of activity that a regular live show has difficulty maintaining. There are “down times” between matches at a live show, he added.
National television broadcasts also changed the way young wrestlers could get exposure and experience by competing in regional wrestling promotions, Backlund said. He said that before national broadcasts, an audience in Jacksonville, FL, for example, wouldn’t be aware of matches that were broadcast in Atlanta, GA.
A wrestler could be a good guy in one regional promotion and broadcast and a bad guy in another.
“Everyone found out what everyone was doing,” Backlund said of the national broadcast.
Having only one major promoter is also a concern. Backlund noted that when he started out there were 30 different promoters in the United States and Canada, and “you always had somewhere to go.”
Backlund’s new book is available from online retailers as well as from his own website, www.backlundenergy.com.