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Valentine’s Day: The Moment Greg Valentine “Won” The WWF World Title

Posted: Mar 3rd 2022 By: BDamage - RingTheDamnBell.WordPress.com

Greg ‘The Hammer’ Valentine had a pretty successful career in the World Wrestling Federation. He is a former Intercontinental Champion and former co holder of the WWF tag team titles with Brutus Beefcake. Back in October of 1981, Valentine added the WWF World title to his resume, albeit very briefly. This is the story of how Valentine shocked the wrestling world (well in New York City) and became a world champion.

The date was October 19th, 1981 and the place was Madison Square Garden in New York City. Greg Valentine was challenging then WWF champion Bob Backlund for the world title. During the hard fought contest, Valentine placed Backlund on his shoulders and applied an “airplane spin.” While in mid spin, Backlund’s leg accidentally knocked down WWF official John Stanley. The two wrestlers collapsed to the mat with Backlund on top of Valentine and the dazed referee counted the 1…2…3.

Greg Valentine was the first man to get to his feet and in the confusion of the moment, referee John Stanley raised the arm of Valentine as the winner. In doing so, declared that Valentine won the WWF world title. Valentine was handed the title and he quickly left the ring and rushed to the back. Backlund got to his feet where he and his manager Arnold Skaaland were incensed. A hush came over the 18,120 fans in attendance, as it was believed they witnessed a title change. A few more referees entered the ring along with the head of the New York State Athletic Commission to discuss the situation. After a few minutes of back and forth discussion…ring announcer Howard Finkel made the announcement that the match was declared a no contest. In turn, the WWF World title was being held up and an immediate rematch between Valentine and Backlund would be booked next month to declare who was the WWF champion.

While all of this was transpiring in the ring, Valentine was backstage along with his manager the Grand Wizard Ernie Roth taking photographs with the WWF title. The title change was never mentioned on the WWF’s syndicated programs. It was more of a “New York” thing, that was pretty much kept quiet to the rest of WWF’s territory. The wrestling magazines would write about the incident with headlines like “WWF IN CHAOS, BACKLUND STRIPPED OF THE TITLE!” National sports reporter and avid wrestling fan George Michael reported on the title switch on his sports program which clouded the incident a bit more.

Despite the attention the match result received nationally, a rematch was booked the following month at MSG on November 23, 1981. This time, in front of a sold out crowd of 21,104 fans, Backlund pinned Valentine cleanly using a German Suplex and won back the vacant title. There have been a few urban legends surrounding their original match. The main one being that the referee accidentally screwed up the finish because he was confused seeing that Valentine and Backlund were both wearing black trunks. The WWF immediately went into panic mode and held up the title. That may explain why the WWF refused to mention the title switch on WWF television and had Bob Backlund defend the belt in other parts of the territory while the title was “vacant” in New York.

The second and more plausible explanation was this incident was only meant to drum up business for a return match the next month. It was never meant to be anything more than a small angle, which blew out of proportion. The company succeeded in that regard, because the rematch sold out the venue. Years later, in one interview with Greg Valentine, the interviewer asked if he ever regretted not winning a world title during his career? Valentine was quick to answer back that he was a world champion in the WWF. The brief title change was never acknowledged by the World Wrestling Federation.