[1993-07-18-WCW-Beach Blast] Ric Flair vs Barry Windham

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes. Disappointing match, and the last time we'd ever see Windham remotely resembling the Windham of old. I'm sure WCW wanted a great match here, and maybe we would have gotten one if Windham wasn't working hurt. Even in the spots we do see, he's very obviously favoring his knee when running the ropes. Plus, the finish is botched pretty badly. Flair wins his "10th" world title, although he was probably ahead of that at this point.

[El-P]

The match is actually pretty damn good, but Windham blows away Flair here, blown out knee or not. Flair is on autopilot, gets sloppy on occasion, and just doesn't look like anything special, rather an old guy going through his signature spots. Windham is the one who keeps the match moving, and it's a shame they fucked the finish, it could have been a very good match in the end. Flair's post match promo is good, but I'm not impressed with his comeback so far.

[Kevin Ridge]

Too bad about the match. There stuff is the previous six man tag looked good. Really bad finish here with Windham getting pinned in the figure four but looked like he got his shoulders up.

[PeteF3]

No heat here for anything, until Flair gets the figure four locked in. The action we see is actually pretty good, considering Windham was working on one leg, and I liked his desperate attempts to fight off the figure four. Flair eventually puts it on, and then the finish that I still have no clue what to make of.

 

Very Flair-by-numbers victory promo. Flair by numbers is still good, but man oh man does he need something to focus on at this point.

[soup23]

Sad to see what Barry has become here as on their best days in 1993, this could have been a MOTYC. Oh well, Flair is the champ once again.

[garretta]

This felt rushed and unremarkable, even if Barry was working with a bad knee. I'm not sure if Barry getting pinned in the figure four was the planned finish or not, but regardless, it felt like "That's it? That's all there is?" They'd have been better off stripping Barry of the belt and running a tournament with Flair as the winner.

 

Jesse gets points for still looking good in tie-dye at his age. He sounded for a minute like he was going to do some age jokes on Flair, but wisely thought better of it.

 

I've been getting further and further down on Flair as a promo the further I go with him into the nineties, and this one sounded pretty bad. He's not the cool, cocky cat that we'd like to think he is anymore, if he ever was. He's just another blowhard who mistakes volume for substance and bug-eyes for intensity. Arn's a hell of a lot better than he is, and has been for five or six years now. He wasn't godawful here, just predictable and overemotional. Considering the reputation he has, though, that's a mighty steep comedown. The only good thing about this interview was that it planted the first real seed of the Flair-Vader program.

 

I noticed that even though Tony was careful not to overhype the idea of Flair as a ten-time World champion in order to protect Vader and the WCW World title, Gary Cappetta gave him the full "THE World Heavyweight Champion" treatment. Granted, his announcement would have been lacking something if he'd just said "NWA Heavyweight Champion", but I'm surprised he got away with making Flair and Vader equals, if only for a brief moment.

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Barry Windham vs Ric Flair - WCW Beach Blast 1993

Windham had been on a tear in 1993. Great matches with Scorpio, Regal and Dustin. Even the 6-man where he tagged with the Blonds against the Horsemen was really good. This was the end of the line for classic Windham he would be sidelined by a knee injury. He comes back a year later against Flair at Slamboree 94 and then doesn’t wrestler again until the WWF in 1996. This is Flair’s big comeback match. 1993 is a real blind spot for me with Flair. I have seen the Loser Leaves Town match against Hennig and the Vader Starrcade 93 match but very little on between. I have never seen a match from this PPV. All I got say is YOWZA looking at Missy Hyatt. WOW
 

What a strange match. I don’t think it was bad. It was good. It was oddly heatless for Flair’s big singles return. How much do people care about the NWA World title and the whole two world titles? Maybe that plays a role. Maybe it being in Biloxi as opposed to the Carolinas or Georgi plays a role. It is Flair vs Windham it should sell itself. I do think it is the structure of the match.

The match had all the typical action of an 80s Crockett match but with the structure of an early 2000s ROH match. There was no shine, no heat. It was just action. There is a difference about my complaint about today’s wrestling and the structure of this. Today there is too much cooperation, too many inorganic movements, and a lack of consequences. This did NOT have any of these problems. It was just totally amorphous. They fought hard and urgently. It was just a fury of action. It reminded me of some of AJ/Danielson matches from ROH.

The other thing was odd was not how injured Windham looked but how uncooperative he looked. From the very first chop, he never looked interesting in selling for Flair. It was like he was The Undertaker. Flair as a baby face is a very offensive wrestler and Flair was throwing shit out there and Windham was walking right through it. It gave a really weird but competitive vibe. Like I can understand why the crowd was not responding to the match because this was a very anti-formula match. As someone who watches a lot of pro wrestling, I found it to be very experimental and intriguing. I am not sure how well it would work on a regular basis. Part of the charm is that Flair seems off in his own little world just wrestling his match and Windham is off in his deadset on not selling for Flair.

Even the finish feels like a Fuck You to Flair. He gets caught with his shoulders down for 3 during a Figure-4 and kicks out right after three. 
 

I actually liked the match as a really unique structure or lack thereof. The action is good and hard-hitting. I think ultimately that lack of progression and the anti-climatic finish hold this back from being good. There’s a blueprint here for something very unique. ***