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JR's Blog: RIP Nick Bockwinkel..2007 WWE Hall of Famer..An All Time Great Passes Away at Age 80

Posted: Nov 17th 2015 By: Jim Ross - JRsBarBQ.com

It is another sad day to awaken but thank God that I did unlike my my friend Nick Bockwinkel who passed away Sunday at the age of 80. Nick had been ill for a few years now and is condition was getting progressively worse for the all time great who was living in Las Vegas.

Nick's father Warren Bockwinkel was a top pro wrestler and legend has it that Nick was trained by his Dad and Lou Thesz and that Nick had his first official pro match versus Thesz when Nick was only 16 years of age. Nice way to break in, huh, with a family friend, essentially a God Father who also just happened to be the best in the world in his profession.

Nick and his often times manager and close friend Bobby Heenan were an amazing duo. Any wannabe wrestler who doesn't study the crowd psychology of these two artisans really don't want to become great pros but only want talk a good game. For any one to think that what men like Bockwinkel and Heenan did is now obsolete is being absurdly foolish.

Bobby also called, with tongue in cheek, the articulate, meticulously dressed, classy Bockwinkel, "Jim Barnett on steroids." First of all Nick was not a steroid guy but a legit athlete and had been one his entire life including playing college football for my Sooners in the 50's for the legendary coach Bud Wilkinson who was building a Sooner dynasty that included 47 straight wins during the mid 1950's. After Nick injured his knee and had to withdraw from school and when he found himself healthy he turned to the family business and become a pro wrestler of which he had a 30+ year largely main event career and even when he retired in his early 50's he was still better than the vast majority of his younger peers.

Nick was a wrestling heel who would cheat to gain unfair advantages when his fan favorite opponent finally started out wrestling the native Californian who is known primarily for his amazing run in Verne Gagne's AWA based out of Minneapolis. It's even more confounding to think that the AWA fans have lost both Verne and Nick this year plus losing such stars as Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper.

I've said this before but now it's even more on my mind, when I get questions here on the site at the Q&A's or on Twitter @JRsBBQ asking me what wrestler's DVD'S they should watch to help them learn the craft. Let me make this clear, there's no one that I can think of that I would recommend higher for wannabe wrestlers to study than the matches of Nick Bockwinkel as a single heel or a tag team partner with the likes of Ray Stevens. Bockwinkel made every one that he was in the ring with, friend or foe, better. It's that simple. Plus he did it with an athletic physique and not an artificially enhanced one. Nick used logic and common sense with which to build his matches. I'd surmise that Nick Bockwinkel never executed a hurricanrana.

Plus, if you watch Nick's work with manager Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan you will see arguably the greatest ringside manager that ever lived. What those two did in their day is just as sound today and would still work today because, unlike so many in today's mat game, Nick and The Brain thoroughly understood crowd psychology and the cerebral aspect of their craft. Their timing together or separately was like a Swiss time piece.

Nick loved the Cauliflower Alley Club and worked tirelessly to help build the non profit organization that every wrestler and fan should know about and support. Take a moment and check out www.caulifloweralleyclub.org.

Rest in peace Nick...Boomer Sooner...and thanks for all the wisdom and class that you brought to our business. It was an honor going into the WWE HOF Fame class of 2007 with you which made my induction feel that much more memorable.

Your friends and fans will always love and miss you. RIP, Sir...