Ric Flair vs. Sting, NWA Clash of the Champions (3/27/1988)

Commissions continue again, this one coming from Ko-fi contributor Guthrie. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or thing or $10 for anything over an hour, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi. 

This was for Flair’s NWA World Heavyweight Title

Being entirely honest, I’ve never loved this match.

I love Sting. Speaking of in the ring only, I also love Ric Flair. I even love Sting vs. Ric Flair. I think that they have a lot of better matches together. Primarily, I mean after this, such as the GAB 1990 title switch that I know I am the high man on, or especially the half hour plus classic that they had together on an episode of WCW Saturday Night in August 1993, but I also mean before this in early 1988, because this is not actually their first match, and the entire myth is half-true at best. Not getting into that, because like that is all myths more or less (this is why they’re myths), but I prefer the fifteen minute version of Flair and Sting in 1988 far more than I do the forty five minute version, because the former feels much closer to where Sting’s strengths lied.

That is not to say this is the worst, because there are a few less than great ones once Flair’s prime is over, but of all of them, it is the one that I have the least interest in talking about.

But this is the famous one, and so here we are.

It’s not as if this is a bad match, or anything close. It’s still a great enough one.

Ric Flair vs. Sting is never not interesting to me, and although this isn’t them meeting at the peaks of their powers like the would over much of the next six years, this is still a match with a lot to offer.

Common thinking is that this is Flair By Numbers, and while that’s not entirely untrue, it also feels a little bit unfair.

Flair By Numbers suggests that this is a kind of plug and play touring thing. Flair vs. Road Warrior Hawk or Nikita Koloff (as a babyface anyways), or to go less power and paint, Terry Taylor in the Mid-South. These guys who Flair plugs into the formula without too much variation, something that is almost always good, if never great, and where the other man rarely adds too much or sees much of a narrative change.

That’s not the case here.

What Sting has is, of course, unrefined (Barry Windham better a year plus prior in essentially the same set up in a TV time limit draw), but he brings SOMETHING to this that feels inarguable. People point to some kind of aura or charisma or it factor so often that it usually feels like bullshit, and it often is, but Sting has it in a way few other guys do. Sting here feels like watching a young MJ or LeBron or Mahomes or whoever you’d like, not only an athletic ability and presence and this ability to seemingly handle everything called up for him and then some, but a certain something extra. When he fires up against Flair, it is different than most other babyfaces — especially the body guy ones — firing up against Flair. It isn’t a prototype being written in real time exactly, nor does it feel like one perfected (partial to Flair vs. Butch Reed for this archetype), but it is special in a way that cannot entirely just be read about.

In their favor, this is also not a match that just leans on coward heel vs. strong guy, having those prior matches to draw from, but that in little things, does what it often gets credit for doing for Sting with big things.

Sting had been previously successful against Ric because of his explosiveness, succeeding through distance, while Flair only had a handle on him when he kept in close contact. This match, particularly the first third or so, with Sting inverting that and also succeeding against Flair with some basic holds, is the sort of thing that maybe feels routine, but is assisted by context and given a little more substance, the same with Sting powering through Flair’s traditional first line of defense, getting a chop for distance and throwing somebody outside. Likewise, Flair is remarkably good at the transition work here in ways that both benefit him as a character but also the larger match, selling the back off of the early power attack, before eating shit trying to give it back to Sting as if to prove a point before being forced to go to the knee and what he actually does well. It doesn’t quite feel like a full defeat for Flair, but in a match that he began trying to big league his way through, being gradually forced to go to his actual most urgent plan of attack by the end is something that really does help Sting out.

The thing is, it’s just a little too long.

For where Sting is at this point in terms of what he can handle (the selling is not the best), where it feels like he is relative to Flair even with the careful way this is put together, and also for the sort of stock adjacent Flair match that they have, even with slight changes and the things Sting’s already better at then most, and especially with the time limit mentioned like it is, working in conjunction with all of the above. Maybe that wasn’t the case for someone reading this who saw it as a kid at the time, lord knows there are matches that happen ten to fifteen years later I like more than a lot of people because I had that same experience, but it’s how it always felt to me. A match that went long because it was supposed to, trapped in between the objective best thing to do in a long term sense (establish Sting as strong as possible because he is special in a way that hasn’t been seen here in years) and what may have made for the best match at the time. Given how things worked out, it’s hard to say they chose wrong, but it’s always been the match I found the least interesting as a result.

Call it a victim of its own success or a victim of the format or anything else, but it’s still more than a little bit of a victim, especially given all that they were capable of when not boxed in like they were here.

All the same, it has the reputation it does for a reason, and it feels like watching one of those trope originator movies from decades and decades and maybe closer to a century back. Some have done it better, maybe even some of those involved, but the images are striking and powerful and wielded very well, so warts and repetition and reputation and all, there’s still just something here that holds up and doesn’t ever really go away.

You know how it all goes, of course.

Sting gets the move on and Flair survives, end credits on the first part of one of wrestling’s all time great rivalries.

It’s Sting vs. Flair, in the end. It has the reputation that it does for a reason, it’s famous for a reason beyond just “launching” Sting, but my hope now is less to bring anyone to this one and far more so that anyone who sees this and has probably seen the match branches out and looks at their better and more interesting work together.

***

 

Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley, TNA Impact (10/7/2010)

This was a Last Man Standing.

Listen, yeah.

I get it.

The ideal thing is for them to have met in 1993-4, at the best possible intersection when both were among the best wrestlers in the world. You wish they could have lined up then, or maybe even a few years later, or gotten to have a match as a side attraction on the way to Cactus vs. Orton in 2004. You wish that their 2006 WWE feud — only four years before this, but with guys this near the ends of their respective ropes (in Mick’s case, it is literally his last singles match), four years also sure isn’t nothing as the differences between their matches then and here shows — allowed them to (a) have more than one non-angle match, (b) let them get this insane but on actual pay-per-view without a commercial break, & (c) that the good match in the feud had a better ending than one revolving around Foley having a crush on a heel manager who then turned on him the next night in a failed attempt to get heat and again embarrass Foley. You maybe wish it also happened on pay-per-view so a chunk of it wasn’t cleaved off by a commercial break for probably such Spike TV standouts as BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE, 1000 WAYS TO DIE, or idk, like fuckin’ MILFSHINERS: BILOXI VICE.

You wish for a lot of things. You maybe wish any combination of these things happened, to help remove the, at the very least, slightly gross feeling behind it.

AT THE SAME TIME.

At the same time, this rules so much.

There is zero caution or time wasted at all. Two of the best ever, comfortably a solid decade past the point where even one of them could claim he was in his prime, make every single piece of this match stand out in some way. Gross bleeding from both, a few real cool big spots like Foley taking an especially nasty throw off the stage through a table or Flair having a barbed wire board run into him in the corner, tons of nasty punches, and a real energy to it all that more regular hardcore matches throughout TNA history rarely ever came close to.

Flair wins when he, stunningly, connects off the top with a splash to Foley through a table and then beats the count.

I love this match, and I’m always drawn back to it.

Mick Foley, more or less, ends his career in one of the most fitting ways possible, once again dragging a more traditional (yeah, mid 2000s Flair got into his bloodbaths if you want to bellyache about it, but in the grander scheme, you know what I mean) wrestler down into the blood and dirt with him. Flair also winds up with his last great match and even gets the win, but in the process, does this by once again giving in to these sorts of things  and this sort of wrestling after all of his public stands against them and after his tearjerker (emphasis on jerk) prestige wrestling farewell match, giving Foley the larger win in the process. 

One more for the good guys, really.

Now, again, I get finding it a little gross or exploitative or whatever and maybe getting sad about it. But at the same time, it is impossible for me to watch this and consider where it lands near the end of the careers of both men, and not also think to myself, “hell yeah, dude”, because for all of that, and maybe also because of the mixture between that feeling and, in comparison to every other post-WWE Flair match, how well done it is, it also just really really fucking rocks.

Gross and violent and a little beautiful, equally good and bad feeling at the same time, remarkably satisfying, but leaving you hating yourself just a little bit for enjoying it as much as you did given everything you know and can clearly see.

The complete pro wrestling viewing experience in ten minutes.

***+

Evolution vs. Chris Benoit/Shawn Michaels/Mick Foley/Shelton Benjamin, WWE Raw (4/12/2004)

Commissions continue, again from Shock, as the snake reverses. You too can be like them and pay me to write about anything you’d like. Most people tend to pay for reviews of wrestling matches, but I am happy to talk about real fights, movie fight scenes, movies in general, make a list, or whatever. You can head on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon to do that, just make sure I haven’t already written about it first. The going rate is $5/match, or with regards to other media, $5 for every started thirty minute chunk. If you have a more elaborate thing in mind, hit the DMs, and we can talk about that too. 

This is much more like it.

Something you should know is that, at least as it pertains to the upper section of the card, I love 2004-5 Raw.

Call it a guilty pleasure if you would like. You could also call it the tail end of childhood nostalgia, as 2004 was the last year I was really like a WWE Fan proper, before the combination of TNA on free television and starting to regularly download matches from ROH and other indies at the end of the year got rid of that pesky little habit. But all of the different combinations of Evolution tags and matches against a tremendously skilled upper to midcard babyface core (Benoit, Shelton, Jericho and Edge when they were capable of being in good matches, Tajiri) do a lot for me. They’re not always perfect, old man Flair is not the most physically gifted and not every babyface there is great on their own, Shawn Michaels and/or Triple H is often also involved, etc., but any combo of Orton, Batista, and Benoit in a tag in 2004 is a slam dunk, and the brand has an astonishing success rate when attacking the rim here, so to speak.

(does 2004 Raw follow the theme of the year and Go To Work? Some would say yes. There is a man called Big (first name), an undersized all-world talent running the point, part of the team is now a coach for one of the most loathsome outfits in the sport, someone constantly getting in foul trouble, etc. If a basketball cannot hold a grudge, it also probably does not lie.)

I would love to write a bunch of words about the better Evolution tags of 2004, and their many virtues. The way they feel like updated versions of old Horsemen TV tags, the old style structure wholly unique in a WWE environment, the emphasis on hard hitting and violence, the manic finishing runs, all of that. Outside of Bryan vs. The Shield, it’s the best continuous series of matches involving a singular faction in WWE history, and I have a whole lot of time for these matches, and for writing about these matches.

This, however, is not one of the better ones.

Part of that comes down to the line up, as the very best ones tended to have a Benoit/Edge/Jericho babyface core, or the one-off Benoit/Orton/Shelton combo that came after Orton’s turn at the end of the summer. Despite the all-star line up, this makes a few choices that separates it in a more negative way from the better Evolution tags and six-mans that mostly followed.

Specifically, because this is essentially the root of every choice made, there is too much focus here on wrestlers who either totally mail it in or are not very good, and sometimes the two overlap. Almost every other great Evolution tag does not involve Triple H, who is simply not an especially good wrestler on a week to week level. The best Evolution tag work sees Orton and Batista in there for long stretches against Benoit, as he basically spends the year molding them into great wrestlers in a way you may have seen a decade later in the Bryan/Shield series (these have basically the same idea, glue your golden boys to the best wrestler in the company for 6-12 months and force them to get great as quickly as possible). Likewise, there’s a lot too much here of Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley compared to the other two babyfaces, with one (Foley) who would have been out of his element in a match like this even as an active wrestler in his prime and who now is semi-retired and clearly saving himself for the weekend’s pay-per-view, and another (Michaels) who has none of those excuses, but simply turns in an uninspired house show ass performance.

The latter is the one that really hurts, as while Foley is minimized and Hunter only in for bursts, Shawn Michaels is the one who gets the majority of the match’s big moments like the dive into break, the hot tag, and the majority of the finishing run. It’s not surprising, of course it is all about Shawn even when he is like the sixth best wrestler out of eight in the match and the third best on his team, but it’s especially grating when he turns in a dull and passionless performance off the tag and two wildly energetic and/or psychotically intense wrestlers wilt on the apron.

Generally speaking, the match simply lacks the energy of the best Evolution tag work, especially down the stretch, where a lot of things do not go right, and the usually more intricately put together Benoit-led finishing run is instead taken over by a half-speed and quarter-assed Michaels style one instead.

It is not without its virtues though!

The first half in particular is especially good. This is mostly Flair playing the hits against Shawn and then trading leather and some heavy hands (again, Flair never quite gets credit for those great corner punches) with ex-Horseman Benoit. Shelton gets in on the act and the big fella Big Dave has a few really impressive moments. Up until the commercial break, it is a genuinely super fun match. The control work on Benoit and then Shelton is also very good, largely led by Batista and Orton against both guys. The weak spots are there sprinkled in, but most of this is really really good. It’s just that it falls apart in the key moments, and for all of these foundational strengths and great flourishes throughout, it lacks the quality moments in the most memorable parts of the match, and suffers for it in ways other Evolution tags simply do not.

Shawn pins Orton with the kick, whatever.

Real far from the best version of this thing, but a fun enough house show version that just so happened to make it onto television.

three boy

Ric Flair vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, AJPW Excite Series 1982 Day Twenty Three (6/8/1982)

Another piece of commission work, this time from my old pal Biggie. You can be like him too, although I’d prefer it if that meant commissioning reviews of things, be they matches, backyard matches, movie fight scenes, or what have you. You can head on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon and do that, ideally after doing your due diligence and finding out whether or not I’ve already covered it. The current going rate is $5 per match, and should your aim be more complex than simply adding up a number of matches and multiplying it by five, hit the DMs and we can work something out. 

This was for Flair’s NWA World Heavyweight Title.

In a purely mechanical sense, as with every Flair vs. Jumbo match (and particularly their run in 1981-1985), this is a delight. Jumbo is a hard enough hitter, great enough technician, and skilled enough natural babyface to fit in as a perfect Flair opponent in the way that few others ever have. Likewise, Flair is always extra motivated in these Jumbo matches in a way he isn’t always overseas, coming close to what I’d consider the best version of him at this point. Respectable at the start, getting nastier and more desperate, focused on the process of that transition above all else. You could conceivably call Jumbo a top five Flair opponent, and I wouldn’t even argue it.

Many people prefer the June 1983 match between these two as the best of the lot, but it may stun many of you to find out that my personal favorite is the one that is half as long. Partially because it forces them to get tighter with the match up than usual, but also because I think of all their matches, this has the best combination of all of the stuff that makes pro wrestling work, beyond the strictly mechanical. The best physicality, the best Flair performance of them all, and the best story told both within the match at large and in a larger kind of character journey for our man Jumbo.

As with any repeat pairing, context helps.

This is not their first meeting in recent memory. The previous October, Jumbo challenged Flair for the title for the first time, two ascendant future Aces but neither one hundred percent there just yet, Flair in the nascent days of his first major title run and Jumbo yet to get there. Jumbo’s aggression did him well in that match up until the point when it didn’t, missing his knee or dropkick near the ropes and crotching himself in that classical Jumbo Tsuruta tradition. It’s very much a match that Jumbo could have won and spent something like 75% of the match winning, only to make a large mistake. Every loss has a lesson, and one of his biggest losses naturally brings along one of life’s biggest lessons with it, about everything having a time and place, patience, the ultimate toll an overzealous attack can take, and things of that nature,

In this match, it is not simply about the avoidance of those mistakes, but also wrestling a much smarter match beyond that.

Flair not only finds himself controlled on the match, but in Jumbo sticking with more holds and chops even when the match finds itself to their feet, it becomes the best sort of a Ric Flair match, one where he simply cannot figure anything out against a perfect opponent and mentally collapses. Flair runs through three or four different plans of attack, and gets owned in pursuit of each one individually. He can’t pick up the pace, he can’t turn it into a slugfest against a bigger and stronger guy, and even when he does seem like he’s finally baited Jumbo in like he’s done before, his knee work goes so sideways that Flair comes out of it as the one with the more significantly damaged wheel.

What I love so much about this match is that, while Ric gets his stuff in and has these small periods of control, it is largely a match that he never figures out in the way that he does in almost every other title defense in his prime.

Jumbo lands the knee by the ropes this time in the most deliberate show of match-to-match progression, and Flair careens over and outside. Instead of the easy count out spot, they go out and tease a totally different one off of Jumbo being sent into the post, only for that to fall short too. It’s a beautiful set up to the end, clear signs of classic bullshit finishes not working, only for an entirely different bullshit finish to happen, as Jumbo lands the Bridging German Suplex, only for his shoulders to be down as well.

(It also helps this in my memory that, the first time I saw it, it was mislabeled as a three fall match as many were at the time, and so I bought in to every single nearfall incredibly hard in a way I did for few other matches of this era, before realizing at some point that this piece of information probably wasn’t accurate. Repeat viewings have obviously taken this part of the experience away, but with matches that stand up to repeat viewings, those sorts of experiences stick around.)

A stellar match, not only delivering the goods on a context-free purely mechanical level, but also showing Jumbo’s growth and progression from match to match. Beyond that, it’s a match that goes out of its way to avoid many of the common bits of the era, and while it does have your kind of classic 1980s fuck finish, it’s one that as a result of the work and set up throughout the match, lands with so much more force than it might otherwise. Less a cop-out and more the sort of avoidance of Our Hero getting his due yet again, that the Flair and NWA Champion mythos were built on. A real crushing story about how you can do everything right in a match and improve on every mistake, and not even actually lose, but still just come up short if that commitment wavers for even just exactly three seconds.

The sort of defeat (whether that is in the record books or not) that every future Ace needs to go through.

One of my favorites of the decade.

****

Ric Flair vs. Bobby Eaton, WCW Clash of the Champions XV ~ KNOCKSVILLE USA (6/12/1991)

It’s another of the Black Friday Sale commissions, this time from one of my oldest friends online Big E. Vil. You can commission reviews too, over at www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon at $5 per match. DMs are also open to negotiations for full shows or whatever.

This was a Best Two of Three Falls match for Flair’s WCW World Heavyweight Title.

Like many WWE three fall matches decades later, it’s just not long enough to support a three fall match in a way that feels natural, at fourteen and a half minutes. The result is that their highest profile singles match is not the best that they can do in the same way as their series of World Title matches in late 1989 and early 1990.

Still though, it’s Ric Flair vs. Bobby Eaton for fifteen minutes at some point still close to their respective physical and artistic primes and it is a great match.

Again, it’s pure formula and again, I don’t care at all. You could set your clock, once more, to the way this goes and the things that happen in it. Outside of perhaps the unpredictability of Eaton getting a fall by pinfall instead of any nonsense, but it’s the exact sort of match that anyone who’s watched enough Ric Flair could watch and mentally check boxes off in their head as they happen. Begging off, chop/strike exchange, back drop bump, knee work, all of it.

It also still totally works. When the formula is still this good and the match as relatively fresh as this is, I don’t especially care all that much.

This match is the exact sort of easily and casually great match that one imagines when thinking about the Ric Flair formula. Bobby’s not some helpless muscle guy like a Luger or babyface Nikita (I will not impugn 85-86 Nikita on this blog) or whomever who needs the formula to succeed, but it’s a perfect example of that sort of a match.

While this isn’t as great as their work a year and a half earlier, it is easier in some respects. Not that they ever struggled with the match exactly, being two of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, but it’s an easier sell with Eaton as the underdog face. It’s not to say Flair can’t work face by any means, but as a guy who can do anything, it’s his job to fit the other guy. Bobby Eaton’s going to be an underdog challenger against Flair no matter what, so they may as well not bother to swim against the current here, and just go with the more natural story.

Eaton pinballing Flair around with the all-time great right hand uppercuts and simple work on the neck is real great and even more satisfying as it pays off more and more. Flair pays for his arrogance at the start when Our Guy Bobby goes on a big run and takes the first fall with the Alabama Jam. Eaton never gives up the lead until the very end of the second fall, when Flair dives into the ropes to send Eaton tripping off the top and outside, hurting his leg. Eaton gets counted out and is hindered for the rest of the match. Eaton can still do a lot of damage as Flair never gives up selling the effects of neck and back work, but his own leg is too hurt to make the most of anything. He escapes the Figure Four once, benefits from Flair sloppily cheating the second time when he’s caught on the ropes, but the third time is the charm. Flair gets the Figure Four on again, disguises a hold on the middle rope effectively this time, and Eaton winds up getting pinned as a result.

It’s that classic Ric Flair definitionally great heel booking and storytelling, where you’re never 100% sure what the mix is on the lucky vs. good spectrum. He got lucky that Bobby landed bad after getting owned for the entire first fall, but is then good enough to follow up. Not good enough not to have to cheat at all, but exactly good enough to still be as infuriating as possible.

They can do better and have in the past, but still just an overwhelmingly good television defense, and Flair’s last great title match in the original NWA/WCW tenure.

Pure force of talent here from two of the all-time best.

***

Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton, NWA Great American Bash ‘86 Tour Day Four (7/5/1986)

It’s more from that Black Friday Sale. This one comes from Darren. You too can pay me to watch any wrestling matches that I haven’t already covered on this space, over at www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. That’s $5 per match, and if you want a full show or something weird, shoot me a DM and we can talk. 

This was a steel cage match for Flair’s NWA World Heavyweight Title.

It’s the end of a wonderful few month long feud, as Flair targeted the Rock and Roll Express to try and humiliate them since they were the most popular act in the territory, constantly insulting their manhood and claiming only little girls liked the Express while all the grown women loved Flair, only for both of them to stand up to him and for the crowd response to obviously disprove the champion’s boast. Flair wound up as the one sulking away in embarrassment, prompting a wonderful series against both, but targeting Morton in particular as the more popular and better wrestler. Famously, the Four Horsemen attacked Morton backstage and rubbed his face on the floor to break his nose and face.

More than any other Flair feud in the mid to late 1980s JCP heyday, it’s the best ever Ric Flair feud as a heel. Against Rhodes or Nikita or Luger or any people like that, Flair always wound up having a little bit of a point as they’d do something bad to him either first or in revenge, and you could buy the feud as an escalation of hostilities. Against Ricky Morton though, he’s a pure villain. Ricky Morton wasn’t a contender. The Rock and Roll Express just wanted to try and win back the World Tag Team Titles, but it’s a fight that Ric Flair went out of his way to pick. He’s not only a bully, but an extremely petty and jealous one, because it was barely ever about wrestling.

The match itself is incredible, and one of my personal favorites ever.

A gold standard for matches like this.

This match is the simplest thing in the world. You can set your clock to it. That’s not an insult either, because this is exactly what it should be and exactly how a match like this should unfurl itself. Clear role, a pure sort of violence, and two wrestlers who not only bounce off of each other perfectly as characters, but have a world of chemistry in the ring as well.

In a story sense, it’s perfect.

Ric Flair begins the match once again trying to intimidate Morton, first with his usual stalling and shit talking, and then feigning at the face. It never once works. Morton is once again ready for everything and his response to the plays at his damaged and bandaged face are to do the same thing to Ric Flair. As soon as Flair can though, he rips the protective mask off and maims Morton using the cage. Blood and guts, classic pro wrestling stuff. Morton gets his revenge and repays Flair in his own coin, before they’re both beat up and throwing fists wildly and trying to just escape. The specifics with the face injury and the revenge for it are unique, but in a larger sense, it’s classic title match in a cage stuff, and it’s done exceedingly well.

The performances themselves are off the charts as well.

Ric Flair is the definitive heel champion, and this match shows why it’s not just about the hair or chops or the obvious bumping/stooging performance. It’s about everything else, the way he reacts to everything and the way he carries himself at all times. Everyone else to follow in his footsteps feels phony to some degree or another, but this match is a textbook example of how at his best, Flair never does. He’s able to convey that he’s suddenly in over his head better than most, by being subtle about it, but without giving away the farm and going entirely into a pinball routine, so they preserve the underdog approach of Morton. He’s surprised more than he is in a real panic, someone who doesn’t want to have to give a 100% effort being forced into it, and being so so so so mad about it at all times. The gift of this existing in unedited form and with no commentary track is that you can hear Flair shouting “MOTHERFUCKER” after one of Ricky’s early big shots, or cursing at the audience or Morton whenever possible. It’s not a significant thing that the match needs to work, but it’s the sort of minor bit of realism that shows how pissed he is and in ways that feel realer than just making goofy faces all the time.

Morton’s work isn’t QUITE as important here, but there’s a reason “playing Ricky Morton” is a thing people say. They say it about tag team matches, of course, but Ricky Morton does a stellar job of playing himself in this match as well. The bleeding, the selling, the evocation of sympathy while also kicking a ton of ass one the comeback, all of it.

There have been a hundred or a thousand great Ric Flair performances against faces, and where the difference between a great match and one of the best ever comes in is the performance on the other end of that. Flair’s assault on the face is gruesome and heinous and absurdly mean-spirited in the application of its violence, but it falls flat if Morton doesn’t bring as much pure babyface fire and righteous energy back to Flair on the other side. Garnering sympathy is one thing, but who wants to root for someone who can’t win a fight?

In the end, Flair is spent as Morton beats the shit out of him. He couldn’t bully him, he couldn’t outwrestle him, and he couldn’t get dirty enough and just plain beat Morton up to prove dominance. It’s a lost fight ideologically, and it’s then that Flair decides to just drop him on purpose groin first on the top rope before then cheating on the cover too, barely holding onto the title. The specific finish itself is a beautiful thing, a feud entirely about masculinity coming down to a nut shot. Flair couldn’t prove anything in the end, and takes both the cheapest and most thematically perfect win possible.

It’s all bullshit anyways, so Flair might as well do everything possible to keep the only thing that really matters.

Pro wrestling, baby.

An all-time classic, and the best match of a very very very good year, both for Jim Crockett Promotions and wrestling at large.

****1/4

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson, WCW Fall Brawl 1995 (9/17/1995)

This gets a bad reputation as something that was a bad idea, something that never should have happened, which feels like every single person who’s said that looking the point straight in the eyes and missing it, entirely and revealing themselves as easily worked rubes. The match is explicitly treated as a match that people are both excited and a little stunned to see, the point is that Flair has degenerated so far down that nobody else can set him straight but his best friend. The story is that it never should have happened, you dopes. Chiding aside, I will say that this probably doesn’t work half as well if you have no attachment to these characters. It’s a match ten years in the making, and honestly, if you don’t care a lot about one or more of these guys, you shouldn’t be watching this. This is not a match for a casual fan who looks for highly acclaimed older matches on cagematch. I’m not trying to denigrate that sort of behavior (although cherry picking is sinful), but I think it has to be said that this match is about history and the context of the last year or two before this. This is a rare love letter to old NWA or JCP fans from a company that’s mostly moved on, or as much of a love letter as 1995 WCW is capable of giving to anyone or anything.

But, in case that love letter might not be for you, I’ll do my best to explain the context. For years, they were best friends. The nucleus of professional wrestling’s great stable, all of that. Aside from Arn’s year in the WWF and Ric’s year and a half in the WWF (in which they both had the same manager, which isn’t nothing), they were together steadily from the time Arn came into JCP in March 1985 until the spring and early summer of 1994. Nothing really happened then, but Arn Anderson joined the Stud Stable to turn on Dustin Rhodes, while Ric Flair ran across Hulk Hogan. Losing to Hogan repeatedly broke Ric Flair’s brain, and not just in kayfabe. Over the year going into this, Flair’s gone insane on camera, dressing up in drag for one sneak attack, losing constantly, and lashing out at everything. Arn Anderson came back to help him earlier in 1995, to no avail, and after driving every other ally away, Flair tried to now turn Arn Anderson into a scapegoat. In turn, Arn’s finally called Flair out about his deteriorating mental state and after refusing to help Ric cheat to try and force him to rediscover who he is, to dig out the old Nature Boy, Ric Flair responded with the challenge.

It’s a match about a lot of things, as matches with this much history tend to be. It’s explicitly about what they discuss on commentary, but it’s also about ten years where Arn sacrificed what he could have done to serve a greater good, about him always starting War Games, about every time the Horsemen ran interference and saved Flair’s ass, and about that Dusty Rhodes promo from a little over a year ago, because the view’s finally changed. It isn’t that Arn got tired of being a “walk behinder”, it’s that he’s wondering if Ric Flair is worth walking behind any longer, and if Ric ever really appreciated the sacrifice that walking behind him was. Arn Anderson wants the old Ric Flair back, but maybe more importantly, he wants the respect from Flair that everyone else gives him. On the other end, Flair’s in the best situation he can be in artistically, which is having something to prove against an opponent who won’t let him just coast by, in and out of kayfabe.

 I don’t think they totally land it the way they might have been able to a few years before, as the booking of Ric Flair has done enough damage to his reputation to negate some of what this attempted, but it’s still Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson finally. Whatever WCW may have done with this match to set it up and to follow up on it later, that is what it is, but Arn especially puts everything into making this feel big early on. Initially, he’s psyching himself up the first time they lock eyes, very much an “alright, this is real” type of feeling to it, like he’s looked at Ric one more time before deciding that yeah, this actually does need to happen for every reason listed above.

Flair tries to psyche him out, but Arn has none of it. None of Flair’s usual stalls or routines works, and Arn again does so much work with a little facial expression. This time, it’s about Flair and not himself, tilting his head like he’s telling Ric to cut all of that crap out because he knows him too well. Arn’s perfect here. He’s the greatest, man. I said this match works the best if you have a fondness for these guys as characters and not just as wrestlers, but this match absolutely KILLS if you’re someone who has a fondness for Arn Anderson.

Arn is able to get going way more effectively than Ric Flair is. Flair tries to go to the knee but gets thrown off at the first sign of trouble. Flair once again gets way too frustrated at the first sign of someone being good enough that he can’t just drift his way ahead of them. This isn’t Flair/Steamboat exactly, but it’s the same concept at play, and now made much more overt by the way the match has been built, with Flair losing confidence and going off the deep end. Arn is able to work the arm easily once he gets a window, because he’s never lost self confidence. Flair’s trickery fails every time, and he has to adjust and actually think and do something new to get Arn off of him, both in using the usual Flair corner bump and walk on the apron to set Arn up, and then to break out an incredible rare sledge off the top.

The transition selling from Flair away from the arm isn’t incredible, but it’s there. It’s functional, and that’s all I’m ever really asking for. Show me that the thing I just watched for five or ten minutes mattered. Flair doesn’t go to the leg immediately here, and it’s a more subtle touch than what he showed earlier. Flair works with more anger than usual, and he’s clearly more interested in punishing Arn for all of this. He goes to the leg when he’s pushed later on, as Arn’s finally done what he set out to do and gotten something resembling the old Ric Flair back. Arn’s leg selling blows Flair’s arm selling entirely out of the water. He’s crumbling, unable to walk more than a few steps, the whole deal. You don’t usualy think of Arn as one of the great sellers because he’s so often on the other end of stuff like this, but he’s as good as anyone ever at it here. Of course, this never gets to reach its natural conclusion, because WCW. When the ref checks on Arn, Brian Pillman comes down and he gets on the apron to shout at Flair to finish him for some reason. Flair tells him to fuck off, so Brian hits Ric. He’s hit back but Pillman hits a kick to the back of the head from the apron AND ARN WRAPS IT UP WITH THE DDT HOLY SHIT HE DID IT.

As much as Arn pushed Ric back into being Ric Flair properly, he learned from Ric for all these years too, and that’s exactly the thing Ric would do there, either in taking advantage of that, or of setting the whole thing up. After the match, nobody’s exactly sure which it was.

Look, this isn’t a perfect match. I loved this mostly, but I wanted to love it entirely. I have a buddy who, if I remember right, would call this one of his favorite matches ever. I wish I felt that way, because these are two of my favorite wrestlers of all time. But it’s not quite there for me. Some glaring stuff that’s a little too much to get past. There’s some filler in the middle, Flair not being what he was both physically and as a character means it’s a little less sensational when Arn can get him in big moments than it would have been a year or so ago, and while the ending does go somewhere, this was a big enough feeling match that it deserved more than that. This match might not be for you, but it was absolutely for me, and it hit as well as any match coming out of WCW in 1995 could ever hit. A love letter is always welcome, especially one that’s put together with as much thought and heart as this one was.

***1/2

Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk, NWA Clash of the Champions IX ~ New York Knockout (11/15/1989)

This was an “I Quit” match.

It’s nearly impossible thirty years later, but in the 1980s and 1990s especially, there was a period where you could actually see a new greatest match of all time semi regularly. I don’t think there’s a specific reason for it as far as talent or promotions, but just the artform not having peaked just yet, and that it wouldn’t for another seven years or so (12/6/96). I’m not so silly as to believe that the wrestlers in the 1960s and 1970s didn’t also push the envelope and achieve things like this, as matches like Baba/Destroyer, Tsuruta/Funk, and Lawler/Dundee (to just throw three out there) also felt like the best stuff wrestling could do at the time. In the 1980s though, there’s a few times where you can see a match and semi reliably say that it’s the best match in the history of wrestling to that point. The Boot Camp Match, very possibly. Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA, even more possibly. Some of the better mid-decade Japanese tag matches. I first had this thought when I was watching a lot of 1989 NWA and 1989 All Japan around the same time. I watched Flair/Steamboat from the Clash and then Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu from 6/5/1989, and I had the thought that these were probably the two best matches in wrestling history to that point.

This is definitely the best match in wrestling history, to this point. Hell, it’s the thirty year anniversary and if we talked and you said this was the best match of all time, I’m not disagreeing at all. It’s a top five match of all time for me. It’s about perfect. Neither man ever had a match or performance better than this.

Context certainly helps this. I’m the sort of psycho that watches and reviews entire years of wrestling, so I’ve seen it all. It helps knowing how their feud began, or how Funk tried to outdo Flair at the Great American Bash before it broke down, and then he went that much more over the line. The angles, promos, and everything in between all help, but this is not a match that’s hard to get into. You can jump in, I think, and still get a lot out of this. To that point, the match may as well take place in a vacuum, in the best way. It doesn’t take long for it to break down into the fight and the brawl they teased at the Great American Bash. It’s full of great little sells from Terry Funk, to my absolute SHOCK. Selling his hand after a punch, his usual punch drunk wobbly stuff, and then killer knee selling when Flair goes there near the end. It’s a virtuoso performance, and it’s arguably the second best performance in the match. Flair throws the most brutal chops of his career by far.

In the best possible way, it feels like and comes across as a real life fight between two guys who happen to be trained pro wrestlers, with the way they throw each other into anything near by, and how Flair jumps at Funk repeatedly when he tries to walk away for distance. Flair can’t really hang with Funk in a pure slugfest, and Funk takes control once again. He lands the Piledriver inside AND ON THE FLOOR JESUS CHRIST. There’s something really magnetic about the idea that Funk is at a place mentally now where he could have Flair beaten easily in a real match, and could have won the title, but because of everything he’s done, they’re here now in this environment, not for the title, and it means nothing. Terry Funk isn’t whi I think about at all when I talk about loving tragic figures in wrestling, but there’s something here.

Flair’s comeback rules and again, it’s just pure violence and punishment. After trying to just fight Funk and getting his ass beat again, Flair goes to the leg now. Terry Funk’s selling is just about perfect. He fights the Figure Four off once, but when he tries a suplex back in, FLAIR REVERSE INTO A SUPLEX ON THE APRON AND FUNK LANDS RIGHT ON HIS LEGS JESUS CHRIST.

There’s a million ways that spot could have gone and we’ve seen most everybody’s take on it in the thirty years since. Very few, if any, have made that choice. It’s an insane choice, but for where they’re at in the match and the feud and as characters, it’s the perfect choice. Following that, there’s this amazing little chunk of ten seconds, right as they head back in, where Funk is swinging desperately at Flair, and Flair ducks all of this blows and throws increasingly nasty chops at him, before kicking his leg out and taking him down. Fans hoot and holler and pump their fists. Ric Flair is always talked up as this legendary heel, but his best performance is in this match, and his best run is here in 1989, as one of the greatest babyfaces of all time.

If I was a fan at this point, let alone alive, it feels like that’s the moment I would decide Ric Flair is the greatest of all time. It all feels like his dominant face victory in the way that WrestleMania 30 is for Bryan, Tana/MiSu is for Tanahashi, etc. Flair gets the Figure Four on from there. Funk yells “NEVER” and throws the ref down in desperation and can’t land any punches and screams about his leg AND FINALLY SHOUTS “YES, I QUIT”. In a really great year, at least for two companies, this is the best match of the year. It’s the crown jewel of Ric Flair’s legendary run in 1989. It’s the best match of an entire decade. It’s the best match in company history, and expanding back to the JCP days, the best match in the history of the territory and more than likely in the entire country. This match is everything. It’s a purely reactive and violent mess. It’s mean, it’s nasty, relative good overcomes relative evil, and the best wrestler in the world overcomes the mean old psycho. Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki for the territorial set, if I can try to upset as many people as possible.

Do yourself the honor, if you haven’t.

****3/4