Woman O Woman Wont You Marry Me Now: Ric Flair & WCW Nitro from April 1996-June 1996

“I stayed up all night throwing touchdown pass after touchdown pass and LOOK at my wide receivers [Woman & Miss Elizabeth]” – “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, WCW Nitro May 13, 1996

I Got The Whole World In My Hands

I got wicked sick about a month ago (bacterial sinus infection, not COVID-19) and I needed something mindless to watch as I spent an hour at a time transforming my bathroom into a steam room. I settled on watching old episodes of Nitro. I grew up on Nitro from 1997 on and there is something so nostalgic about the show, the announcers, its set and the wrestlers that I love going back to it whenever I just want to watch something that makes me feel good. Since I started watching in July of 1997, I like going back and checking out the older episodes because it gives me the same feel, but at the same time being new to me.

I decided to start with Nitro after Uncensored because it was the end of the silly The Alliance To End Hulkamania (read: Horsemen & Dungeon of Doom) storyline, but still before Scott Hall’s debut on May 27th. So I was intrigued what WCW’s landscape was like during this, what was the main story and who were the major players.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fun the Nitro was from Uncensored up to Bash at the Beach so this from March 26, 1996 to July 7, 1996. Nitro was a one hour show up until May 27th when it expanded to two hours. When it expanded to two hours is when they introduced Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko as the hour one announce team and Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan as the hour 2 announce team. When I was growing up, Tony was the consistent thread through an episode along with Mike Tenay, but they would rotate Larry Z and Bobby Heenan out. This would not be a bad idea for WWE to try especially with the 3 hour RAW. The other fun they did is that they shoot off pyro at the beginning of hour 2. It felt like a party on Nitro. I cant remember which guest on Austin’s podcast said it but he said what makes AEW’s Dynamite stand out is that it feels like a party. I think that’s one of things WCW did really well in the early days of Nitro. It was so fresh and exciting. You couldn’t wait to see what happens next and this had stood the test of time as the show still feels very fun to watch. Besides the atmosphere, the other thing that made Nitro so much fun to watch were the colorful characters and it also helped that Hulk Hogan was gone for the bulk of this period.

Uncensored was main evented by Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage beating eight grown men in an absurd cage match which I have not seen. I actually now want to watch the build for it because I think the Ric Flair and Kevin Sullivan promos leading up to it would be gold. Hulk Hogan would stick around for three more weeks with his last appearance on Nitro being April 15th where he would defeat Kevin Sullivan & Arn Anderson (remnants of Horsemen/Dungeon Alliance) in a handicap match, intimidated Woman & Miss Elizabeth, humiliated Jimmy Hart and owned The Giant. It all felt very disgusting, ego-driven and stale. It was easily the worst part of WCW during this time period. It was very forced and so transparent that it was desperately trying to overcome Hogan’s shortcomings as top babyface by putting him over every top heel besides Flair all at once on Nitro. Once, he left Nitro never felt like that again. The show was dynamic and interesting and it all ran through one man: Ric Flair.

“O, Mean Gene, how it is hard to be humble!” – “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, Spring 1996 pretty much every single Nitro

Ric Flair started this campaign as the WCW World Heavyweight Champion and ended this campaign winning the US Heavyweight Championship from Konnan. The month of April was built around his feud with The Giant which was a part of the overarching Horsemen vs Dungeon of Doom, heel vs heel feud. Slamboree was built around him and Randy Savage, mortal enemies teaming in the Lethal Lottery. Great American Bash was sold on Ric Flair teaming with Arn Anderson against the Football Players, Steve “Mongo” McMichael & Kevin Greene. It was not until Bash at the Beach that he took a backseat to the Outsiders. He did all this alongside his valets, Woman & Miss Elizabeth, who he affectionately called “The Girls”.

What a trio these three were! It was such a great old school heel act. It was just about being an asshole. Ric Flair was such a greedy, delusional, vain, and low-down cheat; it was awesome. He reveled in spending Miss Elizabeth’s alimony from Macho Man Randy Savage. He taunted the football players (Steve “Mongo” McMichael & Kevin Greene) for being half-man he was and that Debra was really lusting after him, not the other way around.  He loved flaunting to the world that he got to spend time in the company of such beauties. “O Woman O Woman wont you marry me now!”
A lot of people say post-WWF heel Ric Flair became a caricature of himself. He did become more over the top and more of a supervillain during his time in mid-90s WCW. He lost all volume control in the 1990s and became very loud all the time. One funny thing I really enjoyed about this Flair run he would sing a couple lyrics every promo out of tune and it always popped me. It was fun and wrestling is missing that fun. He cheated a lot more and relied a lot more on tricks and gimmicks. During every match, Woman would cheat nonstop to garner the victory from hot coffee (which was preposterous), to high heel shoes, to a well-timed kick to Konnan’s gonnads, Woman was always there to help the Nature Boy to victory and Flair always tied it off with having his foot on the ropes. It is easy to believe Flair had become a shell of himself, but I disagree with this notion as I still feel Flair was one of the more fleshed out characters in pro wrestling.

Well he was not wrong! WOO!

The one thing that really stood out about WCW during this time period is that they did not do much in terms of building storylines around their wrestlers. Instead they would book a match and let the fact these two characters were colliding sell itself. This only works of course if the characters sell themselves. I think in WCW’s landscape that was true. They were lucky in the fact they inherited 5 main event stars (Hogan, Savage, Flair, Sting & Luger) from the 1980s with well-defined and easily distinguishable characters. I think unlike the others Flair actually kept his character fresh in the 90s. He stopped hanging around the Horsemen so much and started hanging around “The Girls”. He cheated more than ever because he was older and more than ever was trying to hang onto past glory. He was leaning more into the playboy aspect of his character than ever before. It all centered around a very important idea in Ric Flair’s mind and that is what a man ought to be. That’s how he taunted Randy Savage & the Football players he would go after their manhood because his own manhood is so near & dear to him.

If there is one thing I recommend above all else from this time period is go watch all the Ric Flair promos with Mean Gene from this era with Woman’s fingers crawling up Mean Gene’s shoulder, Flair shouting incessantly and Miss Elizabeth wondering what the fuck she has gotten herself into, it all works together in one awesome heel package. It is easy to overlook Miss Elizabeth but she is essential in all this. Even when Randy Savage was a heel, Elizabeth was the reluctant babyface. She didn’t help him cheat. She was being pressured by her insane, jealous husband. For her to turn heel was absolutely shocking at the time. It was clearly dwarfed by Hogan turning at Bash At The Beach, but it was crazy that girl next door betrayed the Macho Man and hooked up with the loathsome Nature Boy. Unfortunately, her lack of acting chops did not afford them as strong of a follow through, but her mere presence with the Nature Boy made the heel act feel like a main event act.

The only major fumble during this run of Nitro (besides the aforementioned Hogan burial of the Dungeon of Doom) was that Ric Flair was not allowed to go in front of the live crowd in Charlotte, NC on June 24th. As was customary for Nitro, the announcers would run down the card at the outset of the show, spontaneously and organically a thunderous “We Want Flair” chant rung out. During the Horsemen (Anderson/Benoit) vs Rock N Roll Express match, the Rock N Rolls were BOOED and they chanted “We Want Flair” (the previous week, it was insane how over Arn Anderson was against the American Males, Horsemen Country was a very real thing). They chanted “We Want Flair” during Randy Savage’s match and during Carolina Panthers’ Kevin Greene’s promo. I know Ric Flair was a heel at the time, but fucking hell how did you rob these people of Ric Flair. The pop would have been huge. At the end of this episode, the Outsiders invade with baseball bats causing Sting & Lex Luger to lose the WCW World Tag Team Titles to Harlem Heat in a triangle match (also including the Steiner Brothers). If the Horsemen confronted them, they would have needed a new roof on the arena because that crowd would have blown it off. I really felt bad for those people even in 2020 because they so desperately wanted to see Ric Flair and they were robbed that. The kayfabe reason was that he was under guard in his locker room safely away from Savage & Greene. There are times to respect kayfabe and there are times to give the fans what they want and this was a time to give them what they wanted.



This is already going much longer than I expected, but hell there was a lot that happened in these three months. Lets keep the ball rolling with the Horsemen. In April when Ric Flair was either teaming with or facing The Giant, it felt like the Horsemen were not a thing. Anderson was hanging around the Dungeon, Benoit was on tour in Japan and Pillman had left the company. So it felt like Flair and The Girls was what was left and that was no Horsemen. After Flair dropped the title to The Giant, his focused was renewed on Savage and also Debra McMichael, wife of Steve Mongo McMichael. They reintroduced Ric Flair & Arn Anderson as a tag team and they would face McMichael & Greene at Great American Bash with Randy Savage in the corner of the football players and Bobby The Brain Heenan in the corner of the Horsemen. This was the last appearance of the classic Bobby The Brain character. He was always so great in his interactions with Flair and there is a great moment on the Nitro after Great American Bash where The Brain is being chased by the Macho Man and he does his classic over the top rope leap to floor. Wow! The Brain still had it then. With the New World Order looming, it was our last chance to see classic Brain.

In parallel, Kevin Sullivan was attempting to maintain his alliance with the Horsemen because he feared that when Hogan returned he would gunning for him and he wanted allies. However, Benoit thought he was a snake and wanted to end the alliance. Sullivan thought Benoit was like Pillman weak and undeserving of being a Horseman. Anderson was caught in the middle and made it seem like he was siding with Sullivan, but ended up turning on Sullivan at Great American Bash during the classic Benoit/Sullivan brawl that ended up in the men’s bathroom (“Tony there’s a lady in men’s bathroom”-Dusty). Finally, we get the Mongo heel turn when Debra comes out with a Haliburton full of money and bashes Kevin Greene’s head in with the briefcase. It felt like the Horsemen had all the momentum in the world. Of course, this would all be squandered in deference to the New World Order. The Horsemen of the 90s is something that would have kept Nitro hot and done well, but Hulk Hogan turning heel is on whole other world, brutha. Horsemen were correctly sacrificed, but still this was a great run for Ric Flair and proof positive that he could hold down the fort basically by himself while Hogan was away for three whole months.

I am going to do the rest of this in bullet format.

• Macho Man delivered some great unhinged promos during this time trying to get in the building. His best was after beating Hugh Morris and getting up in the Turner suit’s grill. Most of his matches were 90s Savage formula matches. Long heat segment and short comeback with the Elbow for the win. I thought the matches against Fit Finlay (Belfast Bruiser) and Greg Valentine were his best. He had a match with Flair after Great American Bash and he has had better, but it was fun. It was the blow off to the feud as they were transitioning Savage into his role as top babyface against the New World Order. The feud deserved a better, more climatic ending.
•  The Giant was the World Champion during the bulk of this time period. He slowly got better as a promo but was still trying too hard to be menacing and knowing what we know now about The Giant just wasn’t who he was as a person. They worked really hard to get the Chokeslam over. I liked how he would chant “Chokeslam” in the background of a Sullivan or Jimmy Hart promo to get it over. They did a great job playing up his size as the reason behind his confidence.
•  Kevin Sullivan & Jimmy Hart it is amazing how these two were such huge acts in the middle of the 1990s. They would fade into the background after the New World Order, but after Ric Flair these were your top two heels in 1995 and 1996 which is crazy to think about. Sullivan had not had a big time run on top since Florida and Jimmy Hart always played second fiddle to Heenan in WWF so it had been since Memphis that he was a top heel manager. Good for them, but crazy they got a second run on top. Sullivan, probably cause he was booking, cut the most story-driven promos and if you were smart you knew where a story was going based on a Sullivan promo.
•  Lex Luger & Sting – I think they could have done so much with the Lex Luger character. The whole he is a babyface with Sting and heel with everybody else is so good and it is so real life. There are so many people that have kinda scummy friends/family members, but we put with them because we love them and we try to help them change.  Also because nobody is all good or all bad. However, I just felt like they dropped the ball with Luger more often than not. I wanted them to play up the relationship with Jimmy Hart more. Slamboree and Great American Bash were main evented by Giant World Championship defenses even though both PPV was sold on Ric Flair angles and matches. They did so little to build these matches up. They put more effort into John Tenta leaves the Dungeon of Doom and takes on Big Bubba Rogers storyline than these. I liked The Giant chokeslamming Lex Luger through the table a week before his Slamboree defense against Sting. That was a hot, crazy angle especially for 1996 and really put the chokeslam and Giant over. They do the interesting finish where Luger/Hart are handcuffed together and they are tussling over the Megaphone and it ends up cracking Sting in the head. Did Luger mean to hit Sting or was it an accident? However, this all got erased by the New World Order when everyone had to go babfyace. Again, a big missed opportunity. The Great American Bash match between Giant vs Luger, had almost no build. It was just Chokeslam vs Torture Rack which is a solid story but they could have leaned into more. They had a much better match at Starrcade 1996 so check that out instead. Finally, there was a random mini-push of Steven Regal right before Great American Bash. Regal had the awesome series with Finlay including the very novel and cool Parking Lot Brawl. Then Regal slapped Sting in an interview segment and gets a match with Sting. Regal & is Bluebloods go over some midcard babyfaces but he loses to Sting at the Bash and is shunted back down the card. Very peculiar.
•  “Diamond” Dallas Page, the only man outside the Big Six (Hogan, Savage, Flair, Sting, Luger and Giant) to get a consistent push during this time period was Dallas. Page is such a try hard I love it. You tell him to be a heel. He is a fucking heel. He is such a scum bag. The king of the gimmicks. Don’t tell Page less is more because he will tell you less is just less, brutha! He won the Lord of the Ring Battlebowl ring which everyone wanted to call the Lord of the Rings and would trip over themselves not to say. He had the chains, the sunglasses, the cigar, the Self Hi-Five, the weird psychedelic thing he did with his hands. He oversold everything. He bumped like a cartoon. He made funny faces. He made a royal horse’s ass out of himself. It was all so fucking glorious! He wanted to be the biggest scummy, clown heel of all time and he just rocked it. Watch the Craig Pittman match for his most over the top performance but pretty much every DDP match from this time period is so entertaining because of how much effort he puts into the match. That’s why I love DDP and I will always rank him in my Top 100 wrestlers of all time because no one and I mean no one tries harder than Diamond Dallas Page.
•  In terms of great matches well there are the obvious ones:
• o Fit Finlay vs Steven Regal – Nitro April 29th Parking Lot Brawl
• o Dean Malenko vs Rey Mysterio – Great American Bash 1996, my pick for WCW Match of the Year 1996
• o Rey Mysterio vs Psychosis – Bash at the Beach 1996
• o Chris Benoit vs Kevin Sullivan – Great American Bash 1996 Fall Count Anywhere
•  The not so obvious ones include
• o Ric Flair vs The Giant -Nitro March 25th
• o Ric Flair vs Lex Luger – Nitro April 1st you feel like you transported back to 1988
• o Nasty Boys vs Public Enemy – Nitro April 15th Fucking insane brawl. Knobbs and Saggs still the hell out of Public Enemy, I wish that the Nasties got a run in ECW. They would have ruled that tag division
• o Eddie Guerrero vs Chris Benoit – Nitro April 22nd not as good as their 95 stuff but it is Eddie vs Benoit
• o Dean Malenko vs Jushin Liger – Nitro May 6th
• o Ric Flair vs Eddie Guerrero – Nitro May 20th
• o Faces of Fear vs Lex Luger & Sting- Nitro May 20th, watch this one! Barbarian was the best worker in 1996 that no one talked about. He should have been pushed to the moon.
• o Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs American Males – Nitro May 27th , the best of the “Flair & Anderson get ready to take on the Football players so we put them in a bunch of tag matches” matches. Perfect Horsemen psychology
• o DDP vs Craig Pittman – Nitro May 27th I love DDP and this was such a DDP match so over the top. So many fun spots. DDP rules!
• o Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs Rock N Roll Express – Nitro June 3rd It is Flair vs orton, you cant go wrong!
• o Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs Sting & Lex Luger – Nitro June 10th. In 1988, this would have been the biggest thing ever. Still good craic as the Irish would say.
• o Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit vs American Males – Nitro June 17th just watch this to see how fucking over Arn Anderson is.
• o Randy Savage vs Ric Flair – Nitro June 17th not their best match but it is the blowoff to their epic 1995-1995 feud so worth seeing.
• o Dean Malenko vs Rey Mysterio – Nitro June 17th not as famous as their July8th Nitro match but this one is still very good and Mysterio’s debut on the show.
• o The Giant vs Scott Steiner – Nitro June 17th The Giant’s best title defense of his reign. Great rib selling by Scotty and a focused attack by the Giant. They build the comeback well and Steiner’s suplexes are impressive and pop the crowd.
• o Eddie Guerrero vs Barbarian – Nitro June 24th The night where Barbarian got more over with crowd because of his workrate than Eddie. Push Barbarian!
• o Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit vs Rock N Roll Express – Nitro June 24th The Horsemen are so over in Charlotte that Rock N Rolls get booed! Arn vs Morton, you cant go wrong!

2 Out of 3 Falls: Rey Mysterio, Dean Malenko, Ultimo Dragon

Hey yo,

What do you when all your friends have jobs and your brother has school? You, of course, call up your septuagenarian friend and have a grand ole time playing tennis and watching ’68 Tigers World Series Campaign (Mickey Lolich hit a homer in Game 2 and Holy Shit were Denny McLain and Bob Gibson absolute beasts!). Tigers Sweep! Lets Go Tigers! Yankees Suck!

So I am going to try to be most efficient in my analysis. This is because of three reasons:

• I don’t have time to write these 10-page long comparative analysis pieces
• You probably don’t have the time to read all that
• Match reviews already exist. There is no point in rehashing it. I want to focus more on analysis

From now, I will provide links to match reviews, which will also give the reader a general feel of the consensus on the match.

Seriously, where do all these girls play tennis??!?!??!!

This week’s 2 Out Of 3 Falls was inspired by a poster (named Loss, who watches a lot of friggin wrestling) at prowrestlingonly.com forums in the 1996 yearbook. In 1996, WCW made their big push against the WWF with the New World Order angle. In addition to a hot angle on top, WCW inject their mid-card with exciting, young international talent especially in their cruiserweight division. Up until 1996, American wrestling promotions featured most of their attention on heavyweights. In an effort to further differentiate their product, WCW made the call to develop and emphasize a cruiserweight division. This division comprised mostly of Mexican luchadores was totally fresh to American wrestling fans who grew to love their breath-taking dives and cool masks.   This week’s piece will look at the beginning of the cruiserweight division through the context of three major superstars of the formative period of the division: Dean Malenko,  Rey Mysterio, Ultimo Dragon (poor Psychosis, he always gets left out). The matches evaluated will  consist of Dean Malenko/Rey Mysterio GAB ’96, Rey Mysterio/Ultimo Dragon.

Iceman

Dean Malenko – “The Iceman” was a part of a dying breed of chain wrestlers with a very workmanlike approach to his wrestling. At his best, Malenko could deliver an interesting, grind-away counterpoint to the flashy style of his opponents such as Eddy Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. However, The “Man of 1000 Holds” often had a tendency to have self-indulgent, ego-masturbatory wankfests for matches. The best way to describe Malenko is that he is like a progressive rock band such as Rush. A very talented individual with lots of moves, but all these moves do not always tell a very interesting story. Originally, he was hailed by smart mark community as one of their darlings and a very underutilized talent. However, in recent years, it seems revisionist history has taken hold and labeled Dean Malenko as boring. By the end of this blog, we will be able to better evaluate if Malenko was a boring, self-indulgent arteest or a highly skilled artist.

Eddie vs Rey what a classic

Rey Mysterio – Between the years 1994-96, Mysterio has the case of being the greatest wrestler in North America. In 1994 and 1995, he was presenting incredible lucha classics against the likes of Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera in Mexico. Lucha is a style that I personally have found very inaccessible. However, even with my hardened heart towards lucha, I have found Rey’s work in Mexico to be interesting and entertaining. In late 1995, Rey and Psicosis took their show on the road to Japan and ECW, where they exposed foreign crowds to lucha libre for the first time to great success. One of my favorite matches of all time is the 2 Out of 3 Falls match between Mysterio/Psicosis in ECW. Thus it was just a matter of time before WCW gobbled up the King of Luchadores: Rey Mysterio to be a part of their new cruiserweight division. In June of 1996, Rey made his debut against the reigning cruiserweight champion Dean Malenko at Great American Bash. I think the comparative analysis of these three matches will allow people to see how well Rey adapted to American audiences and wrestle two very different opponents.

Ultimo Dragon – O Dragon! What a headache you can be, Mr. Asai. Personally, I am a fan of Ultimo Dragon and think when he is on that he is one of best junior heavyweights ever. However, Dragon is prone to fits of laziness or weird psychology. Dragon offers a great array of strikes and high-impact moves (suplexes, powerbombs etc), which are not the specialty of Malenko and Mysterio. Actually he is probably the most well-rounded wrestler offensively of the three as he can take it to the air or wrestle on the mat as well. However, Mysterio blows him away in selling and bumping, which makes hard for Dragon to make up that gap. That is where the Dragon can really hurt his matches. He will oft neglect to sell during latter part of the matches just so he can get all of his cool shit in. His matches can also have poor transitions due to his forgetfulness of earlier psychology and the employment of moves willy nilly. When the Dragon uses his arsenal in a logical fashion and is allowed to control the match, I believe that is when his matches are at their best.

From their July Nitro Match

WCW Cruiserweight Champion Dean Malenko vs Rey Mysterio Jr.
Great American Bash June 16, 1996 ( Scott Keith GAB '96 )

This match simultaneously salvaged the fledging cruiserweight division and made it into a sensation over night. This match is the best exhibition of Malenko’s chain wrestling being entertaining and working well within the confines of the layout. Malenko knows he cannot let Rey create space between them or otherwise face the damage of Rey’s vaunted aerial attack. If he can ground Rey, he eliminates that threat. That is the crux of the match Rey trying to squirm away from Malenko and Malenko trying to wrangle Rey.

From the outset, Malenko is one who is able to strike first with a cool looking Greco-Roman knucklelock arm snapping-thingy. It looked sweet trust me. He works over that arm relentlessly and convincingly with a great variety of moves. It always feels like he is trying to gain a new advantage or add a different degree of pain to Rey’s arm to keep him off-balance. My favorite moment is a flying hammerlock into a kimura that just looks so fuckin sweet. The key in this control segment is that Rey still has hope spots. This was Rey’s debut and it was critical to have these hope spots especially when he did not get an opening shine or you run the risk of jobberizing him.

As the match progresses and Dean is still struggling to put Rey away, you come to see a recurring theme with Malenko he does show emotion. Dean is not more relatable wrestler or the best seller, but he is really good at selling frustration at the inability to put an opponent away. This combined with Rey’s resilience and sympathetic underdog selling creates a very powerful story for the audience that is rooting for the underdog in this debut match against the champion.

When Dean finally does lose control, Rey unleashes that arsenal of aerial maneuvers, which both wow the fans and does a good job displaying why Dean was working so hard to ground Rey. The finish is thrilling with Rey’s quick pinfall attempts and all his quick counters. However, he finally succumbs to a massive powerbomb by Dean, who puts his feet on the ropes for three. The finish is a satisfying climax to this cat and mouse game. Rey looks like a champ with hot finish and Dean is able to retain due to one big move.

Most of what I have read has been in favor of declaring this match a classic, but it feels that many feel the need to defend it against a vocal minority that believes Dean gobbled up Rey for too long. Now, if Dean just sat in an armbar for the entirety of his lengthy heat segment, I would agree. Dean was really active with a lot of gnarly submissions and high-impact blows into pinfalls. It truly felt like he was trying to win a match and I can appreciate that. I think where these critics have a point is that Dean should not have immediately entered into a heat segment. In their subsequent Nitro match in July, Rey has a really cool babyface shine to open it. In that match, it really sets up the idea of what Dean has to fear. If Dean can not ground him, Rey will have him going in circles and Dean really sells that frustration in that match well. In this match, you don’t really get the feeling that Dean has anything to worry about in the context of the match because Rey did not open with anything. The drama in the Great American Bash would have been greatly enhanced by allowing Rey to hit a couple big moves off the bat to demonstrate how he lethal he could be. Since I brought up the Nitro match, the big problem with that match is that Malenko’s heat segment really meanders and is not really as good as this one. The Great American Bash match is a better complete match.

In sum, I think if you tack the babyface shine segment from the Nitro match and splice it into the Great American Bash match you have a Match of the Year Candidate for 1996. As is, it is one of three best matches from 1996 in WCW (Mysterio/Psychosis, Benoit/Sullivan), but doesn’t rank that highly in the world. This heat segment definitively proves in my mind that Dean Malenko is not boring. Can he be boring? Yes and we will see that! But he definitely can be a fuckin fantastic offensive wrestler. I think Dean’s strong suit is as a heel. Malenko is one of the few American wrestlers to always be straddling the face/heel line. I think if the booking team just went full bore with Dean as a sadistic, ground-based heel he would have had more entertaining matches consistently. This match showed how effective he could be as a yin to Mysterio’s yang. Mysterio for his part continued his campaign to be best wrestler in North America. I agree that Mysterio should have worked the majority of the match from underneath. His selling endeared him to the fans, his hope spots were well-timed to keep the audience engaged, and the match was structured to give his aerial spots time to breathe and seem more important to the audience. In the Dragon match, he will not be so lucky. 

One thing I want to debunk is that at least initially the commentary team (sans the Brain) did a very good job trying to get over the cruiserweights. You could feel how excited Dusty was to watch them and how much he enjoyed their work. As time progressed, of course like with all things in the mid-card, the WCW commentary team would just ignore it and talk about the Hogan-related item of the night. 

Thats the fuckin J-Crown. Pretty Badass

J-Crown Champion Ultimo Dragon vs Rey Mysterio Jr.

World War III November 24, 1996 ( Scott Keith WWIII '96 )

[The J-Crown was a set of 8 cruiserweight/junior heavyweight titles from around the world including incidentally enough the WWF Light Heavyweight Title. That’s at the height of the Monday Night Wars the WWF Light Heavyweight Title. The J-Crown always looked impressive as Dragon would walk out with his 8 titles on TV. I actually just watched the two most famous matches from the J-Crown tournament. I highly recommend the semi-final between Shinjiro Ohtani (my choice for best wrestler in the world in 1996) and Ultimo Dragon. The final between Great Sasuke and Ultimo Dragon is a fun high-flying exhibition, but the semi-final is one of the best junior heavyweight matches ever.]

Rey Mysterio had become the centerpiece of WCW’s cruiserweight division, but had dropped the title back to Malenko at Halloween Havoc, the previous month. In this match, it is Rey’s job to cement Ultimo Dragon as the top heel of the cruiserweight division. This is the match where people rightfully so complain of Rey getting gobbled up by Dragon’s offense. Whereas, the Malenko match felt like a struggle where two men were trying to win a match with natural strategies, this match felt like an exhibition of Dragon’s spots. Don’t get me wrong, Dragon has some pretty nifty spots (he busts out the Giant Swing!!!), but never feels like he is trying to win. Instead, he is just trying to show-off all his cool moves. Here is a list of the cool moves:

• Spinning Argentine Backbreaker
• Giant Swing
• Slingshot Powerbomb
• His Intricate Outside the ring sequence
• Spinning Tombstone Piledriver
• Running Ligerbomb
• Brainbuster
• Surprisingly did not do the Asai Moonsault (named after him)

This is the type of story that always falls flat with me. It is simply because there is no story. There is not a struggle. It is just an exhibition. It is fun visually, but not emotionally. In addition, Dragon did really use anything to set up his moves. Usually, he uses a ground game to weaken his opponents before he works his shit in. Instead, it just felt like pick up Rey and do his spots.

Rey be assertive. Where were your hope spots? The match was dying because of the babyface was getting totaled out there. It looked like match I had against my stuffed bear yesterday erm I mean 15 years ago. I totally mean 15 years ago.

Dusty was cracking me up throughout the match, but this quote not only makes me laugh, but is accurate portrayal of the match “This is pants-down momma spankin you whuppin!”  Of course at the finish, Rey does make his comeback and hits his visually impressive spots like his somersault plancha. The finish was hot, but the how fuck would the finish not be hot when you have Dragon with his ZILLION moves and Rey flying around at a mile a minute. They had a perfect ending: Dragon is able to catch Rey Rey off the springboard and hit a fuckin Slingshot Powerbomb (BITCHIN~!) for the win.

I have watched this match a lot because I happen to love watching Ultimo Dragon’s offense, but it is not a very dramatic match and thus loses a lot of points in my book.

Spoiler Alert: Dragon wont sell the leg

WCW Cruiserweight Champion Dean Malenko vs J-Crown Champion Ultimo Dragon

Starrcade December 29, 1996 ( Scott Keith Starrcade '96 )

These wrestlers sure did a great job reinforcing each other’s worst behavior. It was a like a vicious feedback loop where the problems just got compounded as the match progressed. Malenko gave one of his tone-deaf performances where he was committed to wrestling HIS match rather than the match the fans wanted. Dragon was in full one-up manship mode and totally focused on getting his offense over rather than getting the match over. Together these two presented an incredibly disjointed performance. It was not horrible, just really weird and not the classic that I was expecting.

During the entrances, Malenko was surprisingly over with fans especially given he was playing a heel in October against Rey. Though, I think was more due to Dragon playing the evil foreigner archetype than Malenko tweaking his character. The problem with Malenko’s performance was that he would do a big move to pop the crowd and then immediately grab a hold in such a way to kill the excitement of the fans, who just wanted to see him let loose. Malenko clearly wanted to work a mat-based style in order to set up the exciting finishing stretch. Dragon can go on the mat with best of them. His matches with Liger and Ohtani prove that. However, Dragon did not seem to get the memo in this match. I think Dragon was under the impression that American crowds were dumb and they just wanted highspots. So he set out to deliver highspots rather working with Malenko. Ergo the transitions were non-existent and each segment felt artificial and in vacuum.

At the beginning of the match Malenko hit a back drop driver to a big pop only to slap on a chinlock and then have Dragon take over is a perfect example of bringing the crowd up only to let them down. This was another problem with the match it felt too back and forth with not real strong stretch to build heat. Dragon runs through his offense until another Malenko back drop driver wakes up the crowd. Surprisingly, Malenko is selling better than Dragon. In a weird moment, Mike Tenay, resident cruiserweight expert analyst says that Dragon should really be pronounced Dragone for some stupid reason. Dusty thinks this is hilarious and proceeds to call him Dragone the rest of the match. I love Dusty Rhodes and I don’t care who knows it.

The finish is definitely the best part of this match as they just say “Fuck the rest of the match, LETS FUCKIN GO!” Dragon busts out a powerbomb to kick things off and the reverse tombstone spot with Malenko executing is always a crowd-pleaser and a great false finish. Malenko hits a Tiger Driver for 2, which was a killer false finish with Dragon timing his kick-out for maximum effect. Dragon adds the Asai Moonsault and Malenko busts out the Texas Cloverleaf before Dragon is able to garner the victory with a Tiger Suplex.

The finish was fun in the same way a Michael Bay action movie is fun because it is just a bunch of big moves strung together. The body of the match was basically non-existent and did not factor into the finish at all. This match is a perfect case for the detractors of both men as Malenko delivered a rather tepid performance until the end and Dragon focused more getting himself over at the expense of the match.

I have NEVER seen such beautiful and ugly form at the same time!

 I do not if somebody got in Dragon’s ear in WCW or if it was his own perception how to work in America because it seems that he believed in a high-spot laden exhibition was the best way to excel in America. Ultimately, Dragon was phased out of WCW by late 1997, whereas an exciting performer like Rey, who worked hard to get the match over and himself became a two-time World Heavyweight Champion and one of the biggest stars in the WWE. For Dragon, I would check out the two J-Crown matches I mentioned early and his match against Jushin Liger in December of 1995 to illustrate how good Dragon can be.

Deano Machino would keep on plugging away in the WCW mid-card until early 2000 when he jumped to WWF and was totally lost in shuffle. However, Malenko now works successfully as a road agent for WWE. Malenko was a great chain wrestler, who sometimes worked matches that were more self-indulgent than anything else. His match against Rey Mysterio proves how his style can mesh incredibly well by building an anticipation to highspots of his opponents. I recommend his matches with Eddie Guerrero in ECW. I cant recommend his match against Benoit at Hog Wild ’96 in full conscience because I have only seen it once and I don’t remember it clearly.

Rey Mysterio became the breakout star of the cruiserweight division because of his ability to adapt his lucha style to the American style. Almost immediately, he understood the idea of playing a sympathetic babyface and timed his hope spots so well. I think sometimes he does let himself get dominated too much like against Dragon, but usually just the credible threat of his highspots is enough to keep the crowd invested. Rey Mysterio before his first knee injury in January 1998 is one of my favorite wrestlers in the world. If you want a good exposure to lucha, I recommend his 9/22/95 match against Psicosis and any of his matches against Juventud Guerrera in AAA. In addition, I would add his ECW matches against Psicosis and his Bash At The Beach ’96 match against Psicosis, which is my pick for match of the year from WCW and his match against Jushin "Thunder" Liger at Starrcade '96. Rounding Rey’s killer first run, everybody needs to see his match against Eddie Guerrero at Halloween Havoc ’97 as it is the pinnacle of the cruiserweight division and one of the top matches in the history of the WCW.

I have not done any tag team matches or matches from WWF/E so I definitely plan on doing something related to that. Until next time,

Yankees Suck! LETS GO TIGERS!!! WORLD SERIES, MUTHAFUCKAS~!       

Macho Madness: Icon Vs Icon

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.

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

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 4^th 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 12^th 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 13^th 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 13^th 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

The match was one of the best of their series with each other. It was a well-structured cage match that plays to both men’s strengths and had a little color (both blood and comedy). With these two well-conditioned performers, you know they will cut a tremendous pace. The story was clear Flair was going to attack with precision on the knee and cheat if he had to. Savage wanted to overwhelm Flair with high-risk moves when that backfired he was fighting on guts and using the cage as his ally. Overall, I am giving it ****. Killer match, DIG IT!



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~!