Hey yo bromigoes and bromigas,
Shockingly, I am actually executing my vision for writing a
second column for the Macho Madness retrospective. From the little feedback I received
from some top wrestling newsletters/websites, I need to tighten up my reviewing
style. It is no secret I can be a bit bombastic (just a bit?) and will hope to
be lucid and concise in the following review.
First I would be remiss, not to mention that my boy, Bron Bron led his team to victory today over the Indiana Pacers and that a victory for the Heat is a victory for Love. For more on the Miami Heat, check out my blog: The First Letter of Martin to the Haters and the Hypocrites, which will be a concurrent series to this one. So I will not belabor their win and shall move right along to the Main Event.
My favorite wrestler of all time is Randy “Macho Man” Savage and has been since I can remember. In April of 1998, when I was just 8 years old I remember begging my parents to buy the Spring Stampede PPV because my hero, Savage would be challenging the Stinger for the World Heavyweight Championship. This may come as a shock to some people, who have met me in the past couple years, but I was a terribly shy child. I am forever indebted to wrestling because it helped me become very comfortable in my own skin and gain a ton of self-confidence. It was a such big deal to me at the time that I remember announcing it to the entire class during one of those stupid “share something important from your life” activities. I don’t really remember the reaction to be honest. However, the Macho Man inspired something in me that I would have never otherwise done. I talked in front of the entire class full of enthusiasm about something I loved and quite frankly I didn’t give a fuck what people thought. While I would refine my public speaking skills, it all began there because of the Macho Man.
My second favorite wrestler has closed the gap in the recent years and that is none other than the ridiculously over the top “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Whether it is Flair telling a fan that his “Shoes cost more than his house”, wrestling a 60 minute match or just his trademark “Woooooo”, Ric Flair is the personification of pro wrestling and is the single greatest pro wrestler of all time. I have not gave this much thought, but I can confidently state that the Savage-Flair saga in both WWF and WCW is one of my top 5 favorite feuds of all-time. Today we look at the second half of their feud in WCW (late 1995-1996) with matches from Starrcade, Nitro and Superbrawl.
Here we will see Savage change his strategy from wrestling the powerful Luger to the wily Flair. Flair matches are hallmarked by Flair’s strategy, the backstory and the consequent questions:
First I would be remiss, not to mention that my boy, Bron Bron led his team to victory today over the Indiana Pacers and that a victory for the Heat is a victory for Love. For more on the Miami Heat, check out my blog: The First Letter of Martin to the Haters and the Hypocrites, which will be a concurrent series to this one. So I will not belabor their win and shall move right along to the Main Event.
My favorite wrestler of all time is Randy “Macho Man” Savage and has been since I can remember. In April of 1998, when I was just 8 years old I remember begging my parents to buy the Spring Stampede PPV because my hero, Savage would be challenging the Stinger for the World Heavyweight Championship. This may come as a shock to some people, who have met me in the past couple years, but I was a terribly shy child. I am forever indebted to wrestling because it helped me become very comfortable in my own skin and gain a ton of self-confidence. It was a such big deal to me at the time that I remember announcing it to the entire class during one of those stupid “share something important from your life” activities. I don’t really remember the reaction to be honest. However, the Macho Man inspired something in me that I would have never otherwise done. I talked in front of the entire class full of enthusiasm about something I loved and quite frankly I didn’t give a fuck what people thought. While I would refine my public speaking skills, it all began there because of the Macho Man.
My second favorite wrestler has closed the gap in the recent years and that is none other than the ridiculously over the top “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Whether it is Flair telling a fan that his “Shoes cost more than his house”, wrestling a 60 minute match or just his trademark “Woooooo”, Ric Flair is the personification of pro wrestling and is the single greatest pro wrestler of all time. I have not gave this much thought, but I can confidently state that the Savage-Flair saga in both WWF and WCW is one of my top 5 favorite feuds of all-time. Today we look at the second half of their feud in WCW (late 1995-1996) with matches from Starrcade, Nitro and Superbrawl.
 |
| Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Brian Pillman 1995 Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit not shown) |
Here we will see Savage change his strategy from wrestling the powerful Luger to the wily Flair. Flair matches are hallmarked by Flair’s strategy, the backstory and the consequent questions:
- · He will cheat like a muthafucka. He is dubbed the Dirtiest Player In The Game for a reason. Flair has set himself up with a stable of allies called the Four Horsemen with sole purpose of gaining and maintaining Flair’s championship reigns.
- · He makes them into track meets. They are long matches, where he will make his opponents expend a ton of energy.
- · Finally he will work over the knee mercilessly to set up his patented Figure 4-Leglock
- · Now Savage is a ball of fuckin energy, but that makes him prone to making mistakes and walking into Flair’s cheap traps. Flair will have to counter the fact that Savage hates his guts for trying to sleep with his wife and beating up his father. However, these are all a part of Flair’s psychological warfare against Savage to get Savage to be over-aggressive and make those mistakes.
- · Can Savage keep his emotions in check? Who has the best cardiovascular conditioning? Can Savage counteract the incessant cheating from Flair and his cronies? Who will make the fatal mistake?
Backstory: Starrcade is
traditionally considered WCW’s Wrestlemania (Starrcade actually pre-dated
Wreatlemania by 2 years). However, with Hogan out filming a movie, WCW went
with some interesting booking choices. They set up a best of seven series
against New Japan Pro Wrestling. In the main event, Randy Savage would defend
the World Championship against the winner of the triple threat between Ric
Flair vs Sting vs Lex Luger. We have established why Savage hates Flair and
Luger. He is suspicious of Sting because it is Savage and he is a paranoid
fucker. Sting is trusting of Luger even though Luger is a prick (we have all
been there). Sting hates Flair because he tricked him into being his partner
and then proceeded to beat the ever-loving shit out of him with Arn Anderson
and the Horseman. Flair and Luger have hated each other since 1988, so yeah,
nobody likes anybody.
 |
| Sting |
Bonus Review:
“Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs “The Franchise” Sting vs “Total Package” Lex
Luger
Starrcade 1995
Starrcade 1995
Ric Flair is a bleach blonde, millionaire playboy type character. When Flair is on during his promos, it is the most spellbinding experience in the world. Sting is a colorful, exuberant California bleach blonder surfing/bodybuilding. Sting represents all that is good and innocent about wrestling. Seriously, there is not a bad bone in his body. Lex Luger is built like a shithouse and is a shrewd, cowardly, arrogant bully. I have not seen this match in ages and should be tons of fun.
This is not conducted as a modern
triple threat match would be. Rather, two men in the ring with tags to the
third man, which does offer an interesting dynamic as opposed to the free-for-all
nature of the modern triple threat. Luger is without Jimmy Hart and Dusty
Rhodes is on commentary. YES! YES! YES! Flair is only an 11-time world champion
at this point, later bookkeeping would put him at about 20-time world champion.
Flair is pumped tonight and is jaw-jacking with everyone.
Flair and Sting to start and Flair immediately does the Best Hits of Flair showboating. Dusty does a good job describing that these three guys were the foundation of WCW and then immediately puts himself in that class. I love big Dust. Sting gets the advantage quickly and goes for his Scorpion Deathlock. You see, Sting and Luger have already wrestled in the WCW/NJPW series so they will want to get the match over early. Flair immediately powders out and shows his hand that will be willing to drag this out as he hits an early hammerlock. Dusty is bringing it on commentary pointing out that Flair is a 60-minute man so his strategy will be to make this a track meet. One of Flair’s wicked chops and a bit strutting wakes up the Stinger and now it is time for the over-confident Flair to beg off. Sting connects with a gorilla press slam and then 10 punches in the corner. Flair takes a walk again and this is Flair’s domain. Sting no-sells a whip into guardrail and Flair’s offense, but a missed dropkick gets Flair back in on offense and plenty of strutting follows. Dusty goes on a HILARIOUS rant about playing possum and the Brain declares “You have never heard of playing possum. Get him out of here.” Back outside and Flair is destroying the Stinger with a variety of strikes and throws. Flair is trying valiantly to gain a pinfall. Luger like a fuckin moron just stands on the outside. What a dumbass. This is the Flair show and I love it. Off the delayed suplex, Sting decides to no-sell and that ends with Flair taking a press slam and a superplex. The superplex takes a lot of Sting, but Luger NOW makes the move to break it up. Sting gets all sassy and Luger is all like Dude, chill, I just want to win. Flair high-knees Sting into Luger, which accidentally brings the fresh Luger into the match
Flair-Luger now follows their formula from 1988, which I love. Luger flexes; Flair begs off; crowd goes wild. Luger carries Flair like a sack of potato back into the ring, but as the ref tries to get a clean break in the corner, Flair stuns Luger. However, Luger no-sells Flair offense and hits a gorilla press slam for 4th press slam for Flair, which leads to our first Flair Flop. After Flair kicks out, we get out first Flair eye-poke, which leads to a chop block to Luger’s knee. NOW WE GO TO SCHOOL! Luger is under-rated seller when motivated. His vocal selling could use some work. The crowd comes alive with disdain as Flair hits Luger with a steel chair across the knee shades of Starrcade 1988. Nobody, but nobody works a knee or a crowd into a frenzy like Flair. When you can just pick up someone’s foot and the make a crowd go crazy, you know that you are a fuckin good at what you do. Figure-4 is on and Flair does some old-school cheating by grabbing the ropes for additional leverage. Luger powers up and reverses the pressure, which causes pain to Flair now, but to is easy to break the hold at that point. Luger suplexes Flair into the ring, but Luger hesitates on the crowd due to his bad knee. In a crowd-pleasing spot, Luger press slams Flair off the top and Luger no-sells Flair’s offense, which leads Flair to the desperate move of tagging in Sting.
“Put down the popcorn, Grandma” – The Brain as we are about to see the most interesting pairing of the three. Sting vs Lex Luger, the best friends go at in the squared circle. Dusty decrees that respect has just left town, but the Brain declares that Sting is a softie drawing their ire of his colleagues. Collar and elbow tie-up leads to a clean break in the corner by both men. Now it is time for the test of strength but Luger being the prick he is kicks Sting in the gut. This is so weird. This is such a Luger dynamic. It is like he does a mid-match turn. He wrestled babyface against Flair, but is now calling for a timeout like a cowardly heel. Good power match between the two with great energy from the Stinger. Luger is still selling the knee, good for him and now stands on his friend’s throat and the announcers are incredulous. Sting gets a pinfall attempt off a flying cross-body, but gets caught with knees to gut off a Vaderbomb attempt by Sting. Sting is looking for the Scoprion Deathlock as Luger catches him with a blatant low-blow. Tony wonders how this will affect this friendship and Dusty thinks that friendship is garbage. This portion of the match is too discontinuous. No real flow, just disconnected power move spots. The only real story is Luger’s heelish antics. As Luger gets Sting in the rack, the ref is bumped giving Flair a chance to clip Luger’s knee and toss them both over the top. The count is on and just as Sting was about to make it back in Luger holds Sting back. Oooooooooooooooo drama!
Will I ever review a match with a clean finish? Flair by virtue of a countout will be facing the Macho Man later tonight for the World Title. Discontinuous match, which was really three separate matches. The Flair portions rocked, Luger-Sting was weird. I give it ***.
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs “Nature Boy” Ric Flair
Starrcade 1995
The Brain goes a brilliant rant to put over his man, The Man, Ric Flair and punctuates with a Flair-esque WOOOOO!!!! Savage is rockin the doo-rag rather than the Technicolor hat and takes the mic just to say OOOOOHHHH YYEAAAAHHHHH! Michael Buffer does the intro’s in a bid by WCW to gain credibility. Savage’s arm is taped up and Flair is now being managed by the “Snake in the Grass” as Dusty affectionately calls Jimmy Hart.
Lock up to start and Savage goes for a backslide quickly. This should be quick because both men have already wrestled. Savage peppers Flair by jabs. Mr. Wonderful in a neck brace is out to watch because the Horseman piledrove on the cement in an angle that went nowhere. Flair attempts the Figure-4 but Savage kicks him off. A Flair Flip leads to Savage attempting a double axe-handle to the floor. Flair takes over on the floor, which is his domain. He sends Savage into the post bad arm first showing his excellent psychology. Even Jimmy Hart gets his kicks in and the commentators are confused why Hart is managing Flair.
Back in the ring, Flair uses the ropes to assist his hammerlock, Flair is so smooth and so good. Savage’s selling builds sympathy so effectively. This is such good match chemistry that always leads to the viewer rooting for Flair to get his comeuppance. Apparently, Tenzan, Savage’s opponent earlier in the night, already worked on the arm. Flair halts a bit of Savage momentum with a short-lived sleeper. Savage almost gets a pinfall off a wicked right hook. Savage goes up top for the double axe-handle, but gets caught. Hart throws the mega-phone to Flair, but Savage snags it and busts Flair open. This leads to a Savage big elbow. HORSEMEN TIME!!!
Savage is able to throw Pillman into Benoit, but Double A whacks Savage with brass knucks. Anderson drapes Flair over Savage as Flair wins the title for the 12th time breaking his own record. Pillman is doing his brilliant Loose Canon gimmick. Good match, but too short to be a true classic. However, Savage vs Flair is like ice cream it is always damn good. ***
Now for the return match
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs Randy “Macho Man” Savage
January 22, 1996 Monday Nitro
WAHOO!!! Finally a match off the Macho Madness WWE DVD. Hooray! For crystal-clear audiovisual quality. This is from the beginning of the Monday Night War as Bischoff is trying to prove to the fans that Nitro is the superior show by giving them superior matches and must-see TV. What is more must-see than World Heavyweight Title Match between two of the biggest icons EVAH~! Well you will see.
Savage begins with the mind-games by bringing about a bunch of beautiful women and announces that he is steaming hot. Hogan, ever the hog of lime-light, does some brown-nosing before Hogan challenges for the title that Savage has not even won. Hogan, by the way, had a shot at the belt two weeks ago. Give me a break, Hogan. Woman, a former valet of Flair, is out with Savage.. OOOOOOOOOO DRAMA!!!! Yes they decided to name a character, Woman I may be a proud fan, but I still recognize how fuckin stupid wrestling can be.
Bischoff announces the return of Miss Elizabeth (Savage’s ex-wife and long-time valet) tomorrow night as Savage’s valet. Flair is out with Jimmy Hart. I am going with Savage’s entourage, BABY! Flair agrees with me and immediately goes out to flirt with Woman. Flair ends up like I do on most weekend nights with a sore, red left cheek. Savage jumps him, but Flair escapes to the ring. Savage does not give Flair a clean break in the corner because he is a badass. Flair takes over with a reverse elbow out of the corner and then peppers him with chops and punches. Hart gets some shots in on Savage out on the floor. Savage takes a great bump by doing a front-flip over the guard-rail. Savage escapes with a back-body drop only to take the Pillman bump onto the guardrail off a failed attempt at a double axe-handle. Back from commercial, Savage has recovered and gives Flair ten punches in the corner leading to a whip into a corner and a Flair Flip. We get a Flair Flop out of sheer exhaustion and Savage goes for one of his favorite spots the backslide. Flair hits the shinbreaker leading to uS GOING TO SCHOOL! The Dirtiest Payer In The Game gets caught using the ropes for additional leverage on the Figure-4, which leads to the hold being broken. Flair and the ref get into a shoving match in a spot that always pops the crowd.
Savage crawls towards Flair because he is INSANE! Flair hits a running knee-drop, but he goes to the top leading to Savage press slamming off the top. Savage connects with a series of double-axe-handles. Savage is distracted by Hart as Double A comes down to interfere on Savage’s behalf., Anderson mistakenly hammers Flair with knucks. Hogan is out to detain Anderson and Savage hits the big elbow. SAVAGE WINS HIS SECOND WCW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP!
What can be bigger than a title match on live, free TV, why a title change of course. That is how Nitro was winning the ratings war with must-see TV by having big, marquee matches on free TV. Better match than Starrcade because they were more well-rested and the match had way more spark to it for it. ***1/2
Because Flair lost the title, he was due a champion’s return match, which was set-up at the next PPV in February of 1996 at Superbrawl in a Steel Cage. This time Savage would have the Lovely Elizabeth in his corner and Flair having reunited with Woman after she turned on Savage probably by hitting him in the eye with her high-heel shoe.
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs “Nature Boy” Ric Flair in a Steel Cage Match
Superbrawl VI
WAHOO!!! Found a high-quality version of this on youtube instead of my shitty downloaded version. Flair is looking awfully confident as a challenger in his fabulous purple, sequined robe. This may be my favorite robe of Flair ever. Woman is of course in matching purple. Tony reasons that his confidence stems from the fact that the Steel Cage is Flair’s domain. Savage is rocking Michigan colors going Maize and Blue because he is FUCKIN MACHO~! Elizabeth is looking foxy in a matching blue dress with a high-slit up the left leg. (RIP)
“Being from Beverly Hills, I never took a woman to the chicken coop and I hired someone to fight for me” –Bobby The Brain retorting to Dusty about his high school days.
Flair does some stalling by offering Elizabeth the chance to “Kiss a real man” on the mic. Savage answers for Liz with “Ohhhhhhh Noooooo”, good exchange. Tony starts creepily fantasizing about the women of WCW leave it for the shower, Tony. Finally Savage lets Flair in the cage and it is a fight in the corner with jabs and chops. Early on, Flair already hits his knee out of the corner and Flair sends Savage in the corner. Flair decks the ref. Why? Because he is RIC MUTHAFUCKIN FLAIR!!!!
Flair and Sting to start and Flair immediately does the Best Hits of Flair showboating. Dusty does a good job describing that these three guys were the foundation of WCW and then immediately puts himself in that class. I love big Dust. Sting gets the advantage quickly and goes for his Scorpion Deathlock. You see, Sting and Luger have already wrestled in the WCW/NJPW series so they will want to get the match over early. Flair immediately powders out and shows his hand that will be willing to drag this out as he hits an early hammerlock. Dusty is bringing it on commentary pointing out that Flair is a 60-minute man so his strategy will be to make this a track meet. One of Flair’s wicked chops and a bit strutting wakes up the Stinger and now it is time for the over-confident Flair to beg off. Sting connects with a gorilla press slam and then 10 punches in the corner. Flair takes a walk again and this is Flair’s domain. Sting no-sells a whip into guardrail and Flair’s offense, but a missed dropkick gets Flair back in on offense and plenty of strutting follows. Dusty goes on a HILARIOUS rant about playing possum and the Brain declares “You have never heard of playing possum. Get him out of here.” Back outside and Flair is destroying the Stinger with a variety of strikes and throws. Flair is trying valiantly to gain a pinfall. Luger like a fuckin moron just stands on the outside. What a dumbass. This is the Flair show and I love it. Off the delayed suplex, Sting decides to no-sell and that ends with Flair taking a press slam and a superplex. The superplex takes a lot of Sting, but Luger NOW makes the move to break it up. Sting gets all sassy and Luger is all like Dude, chill, I just want to win. Flair high-knees Sting into Luger, which accidentally brings the fresh Luger into the match
Flair-Luger now follows their formula from 1988, which I love. Luger flexes; Flair begs off; crowd goes wild. Luger carries Flair like a sack of potato back into the ring, but as the ref tries to get a clean break in the corner, Flair stuns Luger. However, Luger no-sells Flair offense and hits a gorilla press slam for 4th press slam for Flair, which leads to our first Flair Flop. After Flair kicks out, we get out first Flair eye-poke, which leads to a chop block to Luger’s knee. NOW WE GO TO SCHOOL! Luger is under-rated seller when motivated. His vocal selling could use some work. The crowd comes alive with disdain as Flair hits Luger with a steel chair across the knee shades of Starrcade 1988. Nobody, but nobody works a knee or a crowd into a frenzy like Flair. When you can just pick up someone’s foot and the make a crowd go crazy, you know that you are a fuckin good at what you do. Figure-4 is on and Flair does some old-school cheating by grabbing the ropes for additional leverage. Luger powers up and reverses the pressure, which causes pain to Flair now, but to is easy to break the hold at that point. Luger suplexes Flair into the ring, but Luger hesitates on the crowd due to his bad knee. In a crowd-pleasing spot, Luger press slams Flair off the top and Luger no-sells Flair’s offense, which leads Flair to the desperate move of tagging in Sting.
“Put down the popcorn, Grandma” – The Brain as we are about to see the most interesting pairing of the three. Sting vs Lex Luger, the best friends go at in the squared circle. Dusty decrees that respect has just left town, but the Brain declares that Sting is a softie drawing their ire of his colleagues. Collar and elbow tie-up leads to a clean break in the corner by both men. Now it is time for the test of strength but Luger being the prick he is kicks Sting in the gut. This is so weird. This is such a Luger dynamic. It is like he does a mid-match turn. He wrestled babyface against Flair, but is now calling for a timeout like a cowardly heel. Good power match between the two with great energy from the Stinger. Luger is still selling the knee, good for him and now stands on his friend’s throat and the announcers are incredulous. Sting gets a pinfall attempt off a flying cross-body, but gets caught with knees to gut off a Vaderbomb attempt by Sting. Sting is looking for the Scoprion Deathlock as Luger catches him with a blatant low-blow. Tony wonders how this will affect this friendship and Dusty thinks that friendship is garbage. This portion of the match is too discontinuous. No real flow, just disconnected power move spots. The only real story is Luger’s heelish antics. As Luger gets Sting in the rack, the ref is bumped giving Flair a chance to clip Luger’s knee and toss them both over the top. The count is on and just as Sting was about to make it back in Luger holds Sting back. Oooooooooooooooo drama!
Will I ever review a match with a clean finish? Flair by virtue of a countout will be facing the Macho Man later tonight for the World Title. Discontinuous match, which was really three separate matches. The Flair portions rocked, Luger-Sting was weird. I give it ***.
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs “Nature Boy” Ric Flair
Starrcade 1995
The Brain goes a brilliant rant to put over his man, The Man, Ric Flair and punctuates with a Flair-esque WOOOOO!!!! Savage is rockin the doo-rag rather than the Technicolor hat and takes the mic just to say OOOOOHHHH YYEAAAAHHHHH! Michael Buffer does the intro’s in a bid by WCW to gain credibility. Savage’s arm is taped up and Flair is now being managed by the “Snake in the Grass” as Dusty affectionately calls Jimmy Hart.
Lock up to start and Savage goes for a backslide quickly. This should be quick because both men have already wrestled. Savage peppers Flair by jabs. Mr. Wonderful in a neck brace is out to watch because the Horseman piledrove on the cement in an angle that went nowhere. Flair attempts the Figure-4 but Savage kicks him off. A Flair Flip leads to Savage attempting a double axe-handle to the floor. Flair takes over on the floor, which is his domain. He sends Savage into the post bad arm first showing his excellent psychology. Even Jimmy Hart gets his kicks in and the commentators are confused why Hart is managing Flair.
Back in the ring, Flair uses the ropes to assist his hammerlock, Flair is so smooth and so good. Savage’s selling builds sympathy so effectively. This is such good match chemistry that always leads to the viewer rooting for Flair to get his comeuppance. Apparently, Tenzan, Savage’s opponent earlier in the night, already worked on the arm. Flair halts a bit of Savage momentum with a short-lived sleeper. Savage almost gets a pinfall off a wicked right hook. Savage goes up top for the double axe-handle, but gets caught. Hart throws the mega-phone to Flair, but Savage snags it and busts Flair open. This leads to a Savage big elbow. HORSEMEN TIME!!!
Savage is able to throw Pillman into Benoit, but Double A whacks Savage with brass knucks. Anderson drapes Flair over Savage as Flair wins the title for the 12th time breaking his own record. Pillman is doing his brilliant Loose Canon gimmick. Good match, but too short to be a true classic. However, Savage vs Flair is like ice cream it is always damn good. ***
Now for the return match
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs Randy “Macho Man” Savage
January 22, 1996 Monday Nitro
WAHOO!!! Finally a match off the Macho Madness WWE DVD. Hooray! For crystal-clear audiovisual quality. This is from the beginning of the Monday Night War as Bischoff is trying to prove to the fans that Nitro is the superior show by giving them superior matches and must-see TV. What is more must-see than World Heavyweight Title Match between two of the biggest icons EVAH~! Well you will see.
Savage begins with the mind-games by bringing about a bunch of beautiful women and announces that he is steaming hot. Hogan, ever the hog of lime-light, does some brown-nosing before Hogan challenges for the title that Savage has not even won. Hogan, by the way, had a shot at the belt two weeks ago. Give me a break, Hogan. Woman, a former valet of Flair, is out with Savage.. OOOOOOOOOO DRAMA!!!! Yes they decided to name a character, Woman I may be a proud fan, but I still recognize how fuckin stupid wrestling can be.
Bischoff announces the return of Miss Elizabeth (Savage’s ex-wife and long-time valet) tomorrow night as Savage’s valet. Flair is out with Jimmy Hart. I am going with Savage’s entourage, BABY! Flair agrees with me and immediately goes out to flirt with Woman. Flair ends up like I do on most weekend nights with a sore, red left cheek. Savage jumps him, but Flair escapes to the ring. Savage does not give Flair a clean break in the corner because he is a badass. Flair takes over with a reverse elbow out of the corner and then peppers him with chops and punches. Hart gets some shots in on Savage out on the floor. Savage takes a great bump by doing a front-flip over the guard-rail. Savage escapes with a back-body drop only to take the Pillman bump onto the guardrail off a failed attempt at a double axe-handle. Back from commercial, Savage has recovered and gives Flair ten punches in the corner leading to a whip into a corner and a Flair Flip. We get a Flair Flop out of sheer exhaustion and Savage goes for one of his favorite spots the backslide. Flair hits the shinbreaker leading to uS GOING TO SCHOOL! The Dirtiest Payer In The Game gets caught using the ropes for additional leverage on the Figure-4, which leads to the hold being broken. Flair and the ref get into a shoving match in a spot that always pops the crowd.
Savage crawls towards Flair because he is INSANE! Flair hits a running knee-drop, but he goes to the top leading to Savage press slamming off the top. Savage connects with a series of double-axe-handles. Savage is distracted by Hart as Double A comes down to interfere on Savage’s behalf., Anderson mistakenly hammers Flair with knucks. Hogan is out to detain Anderson and Savage hits the big elbow. SAVAGE WINS HIS SECOND WCW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP!
What can be bigger than a title match on live, free TV, why a title change of course. That is how Nitro was winning the ratings war with must-see TV by having big, marquee matches on free TV. Better match than Starrcade because they were more well-rested and the match had way more spark to it for it. ***1/2
Because Flair lost the title, he was due a champion’s return match, which was set-up at the next PPV in February of 1996 at Superbrawl in a Steel Cage. This time Savage would have the Lovely Elizabeth in his corner and Flair having reunited with Woman after she turned on Savage probably by hitting him in the eye with her high-heel shoe.
WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs “Nature Boy” Ric Flair in a Steel Cage Match
Superbrawl VI
WAHOO!!! Found a high-quality version of this on youtube instead of my shitty downloaded version. Flair is looking awfully confident as a challenger in his fabulous purple, sequined robe. This may be my favorite robe of Flair ever. Woman is of course in matching purple. Tony reasons that his confidence stems from the fact that the Steel Cage is Flair’s domain. Savage is rocking Michigan colors going Maize and Blue because he is FUCKIN MACHO~! Elizabeth is looking foxy in a matching blue dress with a high-slit up the left leg. (RIP)
“Being from Beverly Hills, I never took a woman to the chicken coop and I hired someone to fight for me” –Bobby The Brain retorting to Dusty about his high school days.
Flair does some stalling by offering Elizabeth the chance to “Kiss a real man” on the mic. Savage answers for Liz with “Ohhhhhhh Noooooo”, good exchange. Tony starts creepily fantasizing about the women of WCW leave it for the shower, Tony. Finally Savage lets Flair in the cage and it is a fight in the corner with jabs and chops. Early on, Flair already hits his knee out of the corner and Flair sends Savage in the corner. Flair decks the ref. Why? Because he is RIC MUTHAFUCKIN FLAIR!!!!
Savage goes for his backslide, but
no ref. Savage with a back-body drop and a couple clotheslines to take control
of this match leading to some excellent verbal selling by the master, Ric Flair.
Savage tries to send Flair into the
cage, but Flair desperately pushes Savage into the cage. This takes he steam out
of the Savage Crazy Train. Savage sells fatigue better than anyone else. Savage
has a burst of energy and Flair clobbers him with a reverse elbow. Flair rams
the back of Savage’s head into cage in a show of brutality. Savage catches
Flair off the top with a press slam, what a shocker. Savage slaps the Figure 4
on Flair to embarrass him as much as to hurt him. Great evidence of the cerebral strategy that
Savage employs. Flair gets to the rope, but it is a cage match, so it doesn’t fuckin
matter., boo hoo, Flair. Savage lets go only pummel Flair with strikes as he
goes for the first fall of the match.
HOLY SHIT! Savage goes to the top
of the cage only to get a punch into the gut as he jumped off the 10-foot high
cage for a double axe-handle. A vertical suplex gets Flair two as Brain smugly
mocks Savage and thinks it is academic that Flair will his 13th
world title. Flair sends Savage head first into the cage and Savage looks
well-done. Dusty attempts to say Modus Operandi, but he is from West Texas, use
your imagination to figure out how well that turned out.
Flair slaps on the Figure 4 and now Savage gets the ropes, but the ref decides he will break the hold. Has there ever been a case of worse biased officiating? BE FAIR TO FLAIR!!! Woman is shrieking at ringside to encourage Flair. This leads Brain to say “I have never let a woman yell at me” I found that humorous. Flair tries another Figure 4, but Savage reveres with an inside cradle, but Flair has the presence of mind to kick out. Savage finally sends Flair into cage to firmaly take command.
Now Savage rakes Flair’s face into the cage to the delight of the blood-thirsty fans. I don’t know what is more annoying. Woman shrieking or Tony saying ewwy as Savage is raking Flair’s face. Flair is busted open and is taking some serious punishment from the cage. Flair reverses with an atomic drop, but cant take advantage as he is exhausted as does a Flair Flop. As Flair attempts to escape over the cage, Savage pulls down Flair’s draw exposing his bare ass drawing laughs from the crowd and the Brain to say, “This maybe Tamps, but it is a Moon over Miami, right now” O Brain! As Flair breaks free, he “accidentally” crotches himself on the top rope with his ass hanging out. Brain announces “We still have a lot more Flair to see”. I have actually seen that exact spot done in 2005 on a WWE house show and bare Flair ass is not a pretty sight, but always gets a reaction.
Flair stalks the Macho Man with a crazed look as crimson blood soaks his hair and drips down his face. Flair is so pissed that he does what all pissed people do, choke his enemy. Flair looking to leave again, leads to some more Flair ribald humor with his ass hanging out. Both men are exhausted and collapse from the incredible pace they have cut. Savage sends Flair back into the cage, head-first and works over that open-wound. WCW, being a bunch of chumps, goes for the WIDE-ANGLE LENS OF DISCOMFORT because of the amount of blood on Flair’s face. Woman looks to throw a unknown white powder into Macho Man’s eyes. If that shit was cocaine, she better watch out that shit is like spinach for the Macho Man.
O FUCK NO! Elizabeth has handed her high-heeled shoe to Flair and he spikes him in the face for his 13th World Title. This was truly a shocking turn of events because this was before all the late 90’s non-sensical turns just for the sake of having a turn for shock value. Elizabeth was a quiet, almost meek woman that did not have a bad bone in her body. Nobody, but nobody expected a heel turn. The motivation behind this was apparently Elizabeth had divorced Elizabeth and she was taking Savage’s fortune to be with a REAL MAN, Ric Flair. Hogan comes out to “tend” to Savage and gets a nice “Hogan Sucks!” chant. Ladies and gentlemen, you're number one babyface! He was controversial before Cena made controversial, "cool".
Flair slaps on the Figure 4 and now Savage gets the ropes, but the ref decides he will break the hold. Has there ever been a case of worse biased officiating? BE FAIR TO FLAIR!!! Woman is shrieking at ringside to encourage Flair. This leads Brain to say “I have never let a woman yell at me” I found that humorous. Flair tries another Figure 4, but Savage reveres with an inside cradle, but Flair has the presence of mind to kick out. Savage finally sends Flair into cage to firmaly take command.
Now Savage rakes Flair’s face into the cage to the delight of the blood-thirsty fans. I don’t know what is more annoying. Woman shrieking or Tony saying ewwy as Savage is raking Flair’s face. Flair is busted open and is taking some serious punishment from the cage. Flair reverses with an atomic drop, but cant take advantage as he is exhausted as does a Flair Flop. As Flair attempts to escape over the cage, Savage pulls down Flair’s draw exposing his bare ass drawing laughs from the crowd and the Brain to say, “This maybe Tamps, but it is a Moon over Miami, right now” O Brain! As Flair breaks free, he “accidentally” crotches himself on the top rope with his ass hanging out. Brain announces “We still have a lot more Flair to see”. I have actually seen that exact spot done in 2005 on a WWE house show and bare Flair ass is not a pretty sight, but always gets a reaction.
Flair stalks the Macho Man with a crazed look as crimson blood soaks his hair and drips down his face. Flair is so pissed that he does what all pissed people do, choke his enemy. Flair looking to leave again, leads to some more Flair ribald humor with his ass hanging out. Both men are exhausted and collapse from the incredible pace they have cut. Savage sends Flair back into the cage, head-first and works over that open-wound. WCW, being a bunch of chumps, goes for the WIDE-ANGLE LENS OF DISCOMFORT because of the amount of blood on Flair’s face. Woman looks to throw a unknown white powder into Macho Man’s eyes. If that shit was cocaine, she better watch out that shit is like spinach for the Macho Man.
O FUCK NO! Elizabeth has handed her high-heeled shoe to Flair and he spikes him in the face for his 13th World Title. This was truly a shocking turn of events because this was before all the late 90’s non-sensical turns just for the sake of having a turn for shock value. Elizabeth was a quiet, almost meek woman that did not have a bad bone in her body. Nobody, but nobody expected a heel turn. The motivation behind this was apparently Elizabeth had divorced Elizabeth and she was taking Savage’s fortune to be with a REAL MAN, Ric Flair. Hogan comes out to “tend” to Savage and gets a nice “Hogan Sucks!” chant. Ladies and gentlemen, you're number one babyface! He was controversial before Cena made controversial, "cool".
 |
| To the victor goes the spoils: Woman, Ric Flair, Miss Elizabeth |
These two would feud for the rest of the summer with no big blow-off because the entire company was basically re-set with the nWo storyling beginning.
I have not decided on tomorrow’s offering,
but it will assuredly be MACHO~!
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