Nick Bockwinkel will be remembered as one of the all-time great heel champions, with his career in his home promotion of the AWA becoming legendary enough to grant him an induction into the WWE Hall Of Fame.

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Bockwinkel Was A Master Of The Microphone

Nick Bockwinkel was truly ahead of his time on the microphone. Back in those days promos were merely just big men with deep voices throwing out basic threats and insults. Bockwinkel was one of the few who would elevate his promos above that, treating the promos with every bit of artistry as he would his in-ring skills.

Back then, nobody was doing promos like Bockwinkel, he was a storyteller of the highest level, a smooth-talking narrator who would guide the audience through every insult he would throw at his opponent. Bockwinkel was the forefather of the modern cocky heels of this world.

Bockwinkel would wield the microphone like a sword, using a wide vocabulary to cleave into his opponents before he would do exactly the same thing in the ring. Even the fans weren’t safe from Bockwinkel’s ire.

In an industry with a fan base filled with working-class people, Bockwinkel was disgusted at low intelligence, infuriating the crowds by using big words that the audiences wouldn’t know. In the book, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels, Nick Bockwinkel explained how he did it, "I used to use the four, five or six-syllable words as best I could. If I ran across one I didn't know, I had a little dictionary. I would have this little dictionary, with 70 or 80 words, that I would always be perusing. I had it with me all the time. Automatically, some of these words just starting coming to me in my interviews because I was familiar with them."

Bockwinkel would talk to his opponents about "obdurate recalcitrance” which means a stubborn persistence to ignore his orders while refusing to reform or repent (Yes, we had to look it up in a dictionary to figure that out.) Bockwinkel would talk to his opponents calmly, like a sophisticated Bond villain rather than the ranting, raving, shouty style most other heels had at the time. He was a supervillain telling the hero exactly how he was going to win, as he knew they couldn’t beat him even if they did know his plan.

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Bockwinkel's Influence On Modern Day Heels

It was an act that can be seen in many heels in all wrestling history right through to this day, you can see Bockwinkel’s style in Jake Roberts, in Ric Flair, in Chris Jericho, in The Miz, in MJF, in basically any cocky heel character(and there are many) who steps into the ring.

Chris Jericho honored Nick Bockwinkel for influencing his own Honest Man character of 2008-2009. Jericho’s character started wearing suits, talking down his nose at the fans, using big words that the commoners surrounding the ring would have no idea what it meant. After Nick Bockwinkel’s passing in 2015, Jericho would write on Instagram, "One of the all-time greats and a HUGE influence on my 2008-2009 character. Thanks for everything Mr. Bockwinkel...we will be lugubrious over your passing."

“Lugubrious” means mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner. We had to look that one up too.

Nick Bockwinkel would have known what it meant…

That’s not to say he was just a promo guy, he was also a well-accomplished technical wrestler. In his autobiography, Bob Backlund would write, “Nick had a great head for the game, a wonderful sense of ring psychology, and an uncanny ability to use his intelligence and cockiness to get under the people's skin. He was a terrific representative for the AWA and was the key player in the success of the AWA for a long time. He was a very intelligent, well-spoken, and cocky heel, and his in-ring skills were right up there with the very best in the business.”

His best matches can be found online, some videos are grainier than others, but his matches with Curt Henning, Wahoo McDaniel, Rick Martel, Jumbo Tsuruta, Billy Robinson, Stan Hansen are all classics. Not forgetting his verbal takedowns of course, his promos against Verne Gagne, Mad Dog Vachon, Curt Hennig as well as any other "cretinous, numb individual" which are all well worth a look.

As much of his career was in the AWA, many fans may not have seen much of Nick Bockwinkel’s career, however, the WWE-produced DVD “The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA” gave fans a peak into how successful Bockwinkel was as well as how respected he was by his contemporaries.