MJF Says Nick Bockwinkle Doesn’t Get His Flowers, Recalls Story of Classic Bockwinkle Rib

MJF has always been a big student of wrestling’s history, and he says Nick Bockwinkel should be in the conversation with Ric Flair for the greatest overall wrestler ever. Bockwinkel has long been considered one of the great heels in wrestling and reigned over the AWA with an iron fist as champion in the 1970s, but he doesn’t get the attention that stars like Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan do.

MJF was asked about Bockwinkel during his interview with Late Night Grin and expressed his love of the legendary heel, noting that he had a type of heel heat that you don’t see much these days in the guys who were “hated because he was right.” He also named Bockwinkel the greatest rib guy in history, recalling a story he heard about how Bockwinkel ribbed Marty Jannetty until the day The Rockers left the AWA. You can see the highlights below:

On Bockwinkel:

“I f**king love Nick Bockwinkel. And Nick Bockwinkel, in my opinion — this is going to ruffle some feathers. If Nick Bockwinkel and the AWA had the same amount of television coverage as Crockett Promotions, I think that there would be arguments today about Nick Bockwinkel being the better overall package than Ric Flair. Which mind you, that is not me sitting here. I’m not gonna — Ric Flair’s Ric F**king Flair, right? But like, Nick Bockwinkel is — he would talk s**t, he would back it up, and then he’d do it again. And it drew money. Because you hated him, not because he had to cheat to win, which he did do every now and then. You hated him because he was right. And that’s a type of heat that for whatever reason has gone to the wayside. For a decade we were forcefed someone’s music gets hit, f**king schoolboy. You know what I mean

“Now granted there’s a time and a place for everything. And of course wrestling is happenstance. If a wrestler comes out in the middle of my match and my opponent gets distracted I’m gonna f**king take advantage of that, right? But I really think that Nick Bockwinkel deserves way more flowers.”

On Bockwinkel’s Ribs:

“I also think from a ribbing standpoint, he deserves more flowers. One of my favorite rib stories of all — people want to talk about Mr. Fuji. No, not the greatest ribber of all time. It’s Nick Bockwinkel. So Marty Jannetty thinks he’s being cute in AWA and he — and I can’t say who told me the story, but it’s a legendary wrestler because I get contacted by many of them. And that legendary wrestler was in the locker room and saw this all go down every week.

“So Marty took Nick’s bag and hid it. And Nick finally finds it and he walks up to a certain tag team partner of Marty Jannetty at the time and says, ‘Hey kid, if you tell me the truth, I’m not gonna ruin your life. Did your boy hide my bag?’ And his tag partner naturally throws him under the bus. Right? You don’t want to f**k with the top guy unless you’re a f**king idiot. And so Bockwinkel finds out where Marty lives, and he took a tire off of his car. So Marty literally — it’s show day and the night before show day at like 1:00 AM in the morning, Nick Bockwinkel takes a tire off of Marty’s car.

“Marty figures out a way to get to the building. Marty walks up to Nick and he goes, ‘Dude, I’m sorry. I thought it was funny. I was just ribbing you.’ And Nick goes, ‘Hey, we’re even. Don’t worry about it.’ Next taping, the night before the show, Nick Bockwinkel pays Marty Jannetty’s car a visit. Marty Jannetty leaves his room. Two tires are missing. And you can imagine what continued to proceed. So basically Nick Bockwinkel proceeded to rib Marty Jannetty until they basically left… and kept f**king babyfacing him too. Like, ‘Dude, it’s over. It’s like, ‘We’re even, we’re good. Why are you even talking to me about this? We’re fine. We’re good.’ Like the entire time. What a guy.”

On the Ability Bockwinkel Had At 50:

“And he still can f**king move, man. He’s sprinting around faster than most of the so-called f**king high-flyers nowaday. Yeah. Absolute freak, and it kills me that I don’t get to see him when he was in his 30s, you know? Because there’s barely any footage of it. And the footage that there is is so grainy.

“Same thing goes with Buddy Rogers. Like what a f**king great professional wrestler. There’s only two matches that I can find in full and they’re on like f**king Vimeo.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Late Night Grin with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.