To what extent does a guy need great matches to be considered an all-time great?

[goodhelmet]

That's the great thing about the Yearbook Project. We can revisit these things now instead of relying on our thoughts from the past.

[Matt D]

I really love the transition that they did in Flair/Arn (multiple matches actually in that feud) where after the Flair Flip, Arn would go for the "babyface clotheslines Flair on the apron" spot and Flair would duck it.

[Victator]

Sting fully expected to be betrayed by Flair. That's why Flair had to use little kids to get Sting to agree to team with him. Sting even warned Flair that if he betrayed him again he was going to hurt him.

[Matt D]

And he did.

[Victator]

Which lead to the awesome momernt of Sting trying to break Flair's back at World War 3 95.

[jdw]

Also, saying that the match suffered because Ric Flair should have taken it upon himself to violate company policy is a very, very unreasonable expectation.

Two points:

 

* Terry vs Flair on live TV didn't have juice, but folks seemed to think it got across a aura of violence and hate.

 

* A few months after Flair-Arn, Flair was on a PPV where there ended up being a ton of juice.

 

Company policy on juice wasn't terribly consistent. If they wanted to do it, they likely could have gone to the right person to get it cleared while also creating coverage when people higher up complained.

 

John

[jdw]

Savage cut him open without anyone's (including Flair's) permission.

Oh lord... is anyone really buying that one? It's up there with Bret's juice against Piper and Davey Boy being "accidents".

[jdw]

How is wanting this backyard BBQ fight between Flair and Arn something that applies exclusively to them? Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty teamed for a long time. Did you feel their matches were lacking for the same reason? If you do, fair enough, but I'm curious.

The one I saw live convey the hate: Marty wanted to kick the living shit out of Shawn.

 

That said, is anyone saying that Marty and Shawn at that time were collectively as "smart" of workers as people would pimp up Ric and Arn to be by 1995?

 

 

 

You also ignore that WCW had a no blood policy at this time, yet you criticize Flair and Arn for not doing a match with lots of blood.

As said, WCW's policy on juice was pretty inconsistent.

 

 

 

There's also the small detail of Funk piledriving Flair on a table, breaking his neck and sidelining him for two months. That's kind of important. That made Flair/Funk a blood feud. Flair and Arn had no incident anywhere near that heated that would necessitate that style of match.

My point would be that the whole feud blew, climaxed by a mediocre match.

 

John

[jdw]

I'm also a little surprised by the "match you wanted" stuff. We _all_ when being critical of matches have through the years talked about how matches could be better, what matches were missing, what matches lacked, where they were weak. We regularly talk about the choices workers make in matches, whether they're good or poor choices.

 

It's a little ironic when we can go over to the Sayama discussion and see Dave making equiv comments ("How dare you tell Sayama how to work") and folks here dropping him on his head.

 

John

[Loss]

Also, saying that the match suffered because Ric Flair should have taken it upon himself to violate company policy is a very, very unreasonable expectation.

Two points:

 

* Terry vs Flair on live TV didn't have juice, but folks seemed to think it got across a aura of violence and hate.

And TBS wasn't exactly happy with that.

 

* A few months after Flair-Arn, Flair was on a PPV where there ended up being a ton of juice.

 

Company policy on juice wasn't terribly consistent. If they wanted to do it, they likely could have gone to the right person to get it cleared while also creating coverage when people higher up complained.

 

John

I suppose that if they wanted to grill hamburgers in the ring, they could have found the right person to make sure they weren't violating fire code too. My point is that I wish you would just look at the match in practical terms and what they reasonably could have done to make the match better. If that means showing more piss and vinegar during the match, fair enough. If that means finding someone to lie for them so they could violate company policy, that's not a criticism I put much stock in.

[Loss]

Savage cut him open without anyone's (including Flair's) permission.

Oh lord... is anyone really buying that one? It's up there with Bret's juice against Piper and Davey Boy being "accidents".

 

Bret admitted a long time ago that he lied about that. No one has looked at that as an accident in years. I'm not sure what Flair's motive would be to lie about it.

[Loss]

How is wanting this backyard BBQ fight between Flair and Arn something that applies exclusively to them? Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty teamed for a long time. Did you feel their matches were lacking for the same reason? If you do, fair enough, but I'm curious.

The one I saw live convey the hate: Marty wanted to kick the living shit out of Shawn.

 

That said, is anyone saying that Marty and Shawn at that time were collectively as "smart" of workers as people would pimp up Ric and Arn to be by 1995?

I'm not sure about the "smart" argument, but I'm sure you would find plenty of people who felt Michaels surpassed Flair by the time of the Jannetty feud.

 

 

My point would be that the whole feud blew, climaxed by a mediocre match.

 

John

I'm not disputing that point. I disagree with it, but I have no issue with it. The part that I do disagree with is the idea the match should have been hate-filled when that really wasn't what they were aiming for at all.

[Loss]

I'm also a little surprised by the "match you wanted" stuff. We _all_ when being critical of matches have through the years talked about how matches could be better, what matches were missing, what matches lacked, where they were weak. We regularly talk about the choices workers make in matches, whether they're good or poor choices.

 

It's a little ironic when we can go over to the Sayama discussion and see Dave making equiv comments ("How dare you tell Sayama how to work") and folks here dropping him on his head.

 

John

Where in this thread have I implied that you have no right to tell Flair how to work? You said the match failed to deliver because you expected something far more intense and heated. I explained why I saw otherwise.

[smkelly]

"I'm not sure what Flair's motive would be to ______" could become a fun "fill in the blank" contest. I don't think a pro wrestler needs a reason to lie. It is in there job description, man.

[Jingus]

Flair doesn't usually tend to be a casual, compulsive liar though. Like, along the lines of Hulk Hogan just making up random bullshit for no reason. When Flair tells a fib, there's usually some kind of obvious bias or something he stands to gain from such a statement. In this case, neither of those applies; telling Bischoff and the TBS execs to go fuck themselves, in the form of a big ol' unsanctioned crimson mask, sounds like the sort of thing he'd brag about rather than covering up. And since Macho has always eschewed doing any kind of shoot interviews, there's no other side of the story to compare to Ric's version here.

[Loss]

"I'm not sure what Flair's motive would be to ______" could become a fun "fill in the blank" contest. I don't think a pro wrestler needs a reason to lie. It is in there job description, man.

 

Flair doesn't usually tend to be a casual, compulsive liar though. Like, along the lines of Hulk Hogan just making up random bullshit for no reason. When Flair tells a fib, there's usually some kind of obvious bias or something he stands to gain from such a statement. In this case, neither of those applies; telling Bischoff and the TBS execs to go fuck themselves, in the form of a big ol' unsanctioned crimson mask, sounds like the sort of thing he'd brag about rather than covering up. And since Macho has always eschewed doing any kind of shoot interviews, there's no other side of the story to compare to Ric's version here.

This.

[kjh]

It came one week after Bret bladed on a WWF PPV, Loss, at a time when WCW didn't want to be outdone by their competitors. Connect the dots.

[Loss]

If Bischoff had gone to Flair and said, "Hey, Bret got color last week on their PPV. Do you mind getting some now? Just keep it on the down low, we'll figure out a cover story later", I do believe Flair would have shared that story. He has no loyalty to Bischoff and definitely didn't at the time he wrote his book.

 

I also don't think Flair felt any sense of competition with the WWF by this point, so I can't see him blading in response. He was too out of touch with wrestling that didn't involve him to notice.

 

Connect the dots? Sorry if I don't think there's a Lowell Weicker Jr.-style conspiracy theory here to espouse.

[jdw]

If Bischoff had gone to Flair and said, "Hey, Bret got color last week on their PPV. Do you mind getting some now? Just keep it on the down low, we'll figure out a cover story later", I do believe Flair would have shared that story. He has no loyalty to Bischoff and definitely didn't at the time he wrote his book.

 

I also don't think Flair felt any sense of competition with the WWF by this point, so I can't see him blading in response. He was too out of touch with wrestling that didn't involve him to notice.

 

"Because WCW and Flair didn't want to be outdone by the WWF and Bret Hart, out came the blade. When Flair rose from the mat after getting hit with the megaphone, his blond hair was already red as he bled heavily from the forehead."

-Wade Keller, PWT #367

 

"The Jan. 14 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News weekly pro wrestling column by Alex Marvez focused on the return of blading to the big two promotions. Wrote Marvez: "Why would anyone be dumb enough to mutilate themselves, especially considering the AIDS epidemic? Unfortunately, blood sells... There's a segment of the public that doesn't care about the health risks and simply wants gore." While the WWF didn't return the paper's calls, Bischoff said WCW doesn't have a "blood policy," but did say blood will not appear on TBS or TNT. "If someone is cut or decides to creatively get exciting inside the ring, it doesn't matter," Bischoff said. "The director knows he can't shoot it for TBS and TNT. On pay-per-view, everybody turns up the intensity a notch or two. From time to time, stuff happens""

-Torch #370: WCW Newswire

 

I'd be interested to see if the WON had anything different. I don't think Wade was the only one reporting/talking about the IYH connection at a time when the promotions were cranking up their competative war.

 

If something else came out of Flair's shoot, it's just another example of Ric talking out of his ass. Ric actually is a casual, compulsive liar in addition to one who lies when it benefits him.

 

Anyway, Eric openly admitted there was no policy by the time December came around. We know there was a policy back in March, though that was a very selective one: Hogan juiced for Vader at house shows if I recall. Fall Brawl was the first PPV after Nitro debuted. If Ric and Arn went to Eric and sold it to him as a match that needed something (juice or epic Terry-Flair brawling) to seel the match, they could have had a shot of it happening. If not the juice, then perhaps a good brawling war around the building.

 

John

[Dooley]

If Ric and Arn went to Eric and sold it to him as a match that needed something (juice or epic Terry-Flair brawling) to seel the match, they could have had a shot of it happening. If not the juice, then perhaps a good brawling war around the building.

But again John, that's not the story they were telling. That's not the way the angle was set up. It wasn't a "I'm gonna kill you, you SOB!" grudge match. It was Arn making a point to Ric that Ric still needed him, the point was made and they reformed the Horsemen a month later.

[kjh]

If something else came out of Flair's shoot, it's just another example of Ric talking out of his ass. Ric actually is a casual, compulsive liar in addition to one who lies when it benefits him.

I'd normally agree, but actually looking at a YouTube video of the match, it looks like Flair is telling the truth, as Savage was the one fishing into his tights after the megaphone shot, went over to Flair and looked like he forcibly gigged him.

[jdw]

Randy gigged him. No way in hell did he gig Ric without Ric knowing he was going to do it.

 

John

[jdw]

But again John, that's not the story they were telling. That's not the way the angle was set up. It wasn't a "I'm gonna kill you, you SOB!" grudge match. It was Arn making a point to Ric that Ric still needed him, the point was made and they reformed the Horsemen a month later.

 

Any my points:

 

The feud was shit.

 

The match was wildly disappointing.

 

 

John

[goodhelmet]

When I put the 95 yearbook together it will be interesting to revisit the feud.

[Matt D]

Storyline-wise, the trickiest part of that feud is figuring out if they were all in on it together from the get go or if not when they decided to reunite and screw Sting, because there was some pretty heated stuff at the beginning.