#3 Bob Backlund wins the WWF title for the first time in over 10 years
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In today’s WWE, it is not at all out of the ordinary to see legends make a comeback, and in some cases hold the company’s main championships. In recent years we’ve seen The Rock and Goldberg hold the WWE and Universal Championships respectively. We’ve also seen guys like Batista and Sting appear in the main event of PPVs, taking on the top stars of the industry’s current era.
Back in 1994, this was far from common, especially considering a lot of the older generation stars were on their way out of the WWF due to ill health or career changes. This year was primarily about forwarding a brand new generation and having stars such as Bruno Sammartino or The Iron Sheik come back to win a championship would have felt very strange indeed.
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Yet for some reason, the return of former WWWF Champion Bob Backlund was actually a bit of a highlight of 1994. Backlund was a different sort of character to the one fans were accustomed to back in the late 70s when he was wrestling Superstar Billy Graham for the title. He was portrayed here as an eccentric heel that felt a duty to bring order and prestige back to the company. He berated Vince McMahon for allowing this generation of children to take over the show and promised to rise to the championship scene yet again.
In actual fact, this storyline was in some way related to real life events. It was clear that despite their best efforts, the new generation was struggling to hold the torch passed to them so suddenly and unceremoniously by the previous cohort of stars. The likes of Bret, Shawn and Diesel needed somebody like a Bob Backlund to come back and help them achieve that next level.
Backlund reached the peak of his return when he defeated Bret Hart for the WWF Championship in the main event of Survivor Series, in what is a very underrated match. The sight of Backlund holding up the prestigious title after all those years was a truly surreal sight, similar to the way Goldberg’s victory over Kevin Owens earlier this year felt strange but also quite extraordinary. Backlund would lose the title a few days later to Diesel, but his contribution to the WWF product back in 1994 cannot be under-stressed.
