10 WWE Wrestlers Who Lived Their Gimmicks
9. Bob Backlund
Bob Backlund and his client Darren Young have seemingly been brushed under the rug on Raw, but Bob is a hugely important figure in WWE history. One of Vince McMahon Sr.’s old favourites, Backlund held the WWE Championship for over five years in the late 70s/early 80s, and his smiling, waving, babyface persona was based entirely on his real life traits.
Backlund was the most stereotypically “clean” good guy imaginable. He was white meat, pure and simple: the kind of guy to whom using a four-letter word was the cardinal sin, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Backlund was an earnest do-gooder without any negative character traits, and that was the problem. He was a little too squeaky clean, and his character felt outdated even forty years ago when he was at the height of his powers.
The fans turned on Backlund when he returned to WWE in the 1990s, and he went crazy. Backlund stayed true to his real-life values and was driven round the bend by modern society’s lack of morality, but his mania didn’t end when the cameras stopped rolling. Backlund played-up his craziness by refusing autographs to any fan who couldn’t recite each of the United States of America’s presidents in chronological order, and walking away from people mid-conversation.
Apparently Backlund has mellowed-out considerably in his old age, and that’s probably a good thing. If he’d have stayed on his old path, he’d likely be in a padded cell by now.