[1992-09-15-WWF-Primetime Wrestling] Ric Flair vs Randy Savage

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I can only suspect the idea behind putting the belt on Flair was for him to drop it to Warrior before everything changed. Not a good match, and Savage definitely outworked Flair. Savage's leg selling is pretty much always great. Considering how disappointing this was, I can only imagine what the first version of this match looked like where Vince made them start all over.

[Frankensteiner]

Considering how disappointing this was, I can only imagine what the first version of this match looked like where Vince made them start all over.

I can. It was probably your regular Ric Flair match. I'd bet it wasn't the quality that pissed off Vince, but Flair working his typical match instead of going along with the match Vince wanted here.

[Tim Evans]

Seemed like Savage was in the figure four for like 10 minutes. I agree that this wasn't too good.

[shoe]

Savage's leg selling was great. I dug Perfect on the outside so they seemed like they were attacking Savage from all sides. Flair worked the leg over, but he has done much better before. Savage was pretty damn impressive carrying this. Heck Flair was the 3rd best person in this match. I thought Perfect out worked Flair here.

[Kevin Ridge]

Clinical as far as the storyline but not so the execution in the ring. Savage is still selling the knee from Summerslam and Flair and Perfect are all over it. Perfect was completely in Savage's head here just repeatedly reaching in and grabbing the leg. Good point about Savage and Perfect probably being the best two workers in the ring. Savage heads up to the top rope and does further dame to knee. Flair slaps on the figure four for a long time and Savage ends up getting his shoulders counted down. Hebner's three count was really slow.

[WingedEagle]

I may be extending this extra credit from Summerslam because of the incredible job Savage did selling the knee injury, but I enjoyed this as a follow up. Savage starts limping to the ring just like the HBK match that followed Mania, and that's where the focus is as Vince strongly pushes Flair's attack on the knee. Savage exacerbates it taking a bump to the floor before Razor gets in his shots at it as well. I could've done with a whole lot less from Perfect here as his interference didn't add anything. Title changes hands after an incredibly long figure four. This should've been a hot finish but it felt like something was missing. I liked the post-match with Ramon again attacking Savage's and Warrior to help him to the back. Savage's selling absolutely made this.

 

***1/4

[PeteF3]

Not really a great match, but a decent one thanks to Savage and Perfect. Their match-up was in some ways more compelling than Savage vs. Flair--it's a standout performance by Savage but also probably Perfect's best work as a second. Razor Ramon instantly comes off as big-time in this setting, more than he ever did in WCW. You can chalk some of that up to the WWF Machine but I think a lot has to go to Hall, too.

[garretta]

I'm not sure what some of you were watching, because I thought that this was very good, considering what had to be accomplished. It was kind of one-sided, with Savage not getting much offense, but the story here was the lengths Flair and Curt would go to in order to get the title back. Most muggings are one-sided, and this was a mugging by Flair, Curt, and Hall. Savage's only jobs here were to take his beating, lose the belt, and be carried back to the locker room at the end by Warrior. It was never supposed to be an actual competitive match. Maybe that's what Flair didn't get, and why the match had to be redone; he always likes to give his opponents a ton of offense and constantly be on the run, and that wasn't supposed to be the idea this time.

 

The figure four is once again a killer, although it's really too late for that to help Flair much going forward. I've never seen Flair apply it for that long, even with reversals and all the other schtick he does with it. This is also one of the few times I've seen a big-name opponent pass out in the hold and be pinned. The last one (I think) was Jimmy Garvin at the '87 Great American Bash.

 

There was far, far too much Curt here, and that may be another thing Flair didn't like. How the hell is he supposed to be taken seriously, even seriously enough to be beaten by Warrior, when Curt's interfering every second and a half? Their partnership worked better when Curt's back was still too bad for him to get involved much. Of course, Curt hasn't really gotten the hang of being a manager on the stick until recently, so it's really a matter of which element of being a heel manager each individual viewer finds most important, since Curt never really got the mix down right. I like talking better than physical interference, so I prefer him more recently.

 

Hall attacking Savage after the match might be the most evil thing I've seen in the WWF since Jake's cobra attack on Randy last November. He didn't too much besides stomp on Savage, but the fact that he utterly ignored the officials as if they weren't there and just kept at Randy got him all the heat he'll ever need. Not even DiBiase in his prime was this dastardly; if you skip over Jake's '91 run, you'd have to go back to Savage, Steamboat, and the bell back in '86.

 

Vince and Bobby were actually pretty good here. Bobby cheered for Flair, but he also got over the desperation of both guys: Flair's desperation to get the belt even if he had to use Curt's interference, and Savage's desperation to beat Flair even if he was crippled in the attempt. His defense of Curt's interference was classic: Yes, it's two-on-one against Savage, but who even bothers to fight fair in this day and age? Unfairness is part of life, so get over it. What a great heel attitude, and the reason he gets away with it is that no one's going to touch him anymore, because he's protected as a "broadcast journalist". He knows that, too.

 

As for Vince, Savage's knee and Flair's destruction of it (which was masterful, by the way) gave him a meaty storyline to focus on for once, and he rose to the occasion. This isn't a vintage early eighties MSG performance; that Vince has gone the way of eight-track tapes, unfortunately. But it's on par with his stuff from the late eighties, which wasn't too horrible at times. He sold Savage's courage very well, and didn't completely lose his mind when Hall attacked Savage or Warrior saved him. He showed appropriate emotion for each occasion and didn't sound like he was using the mic as a barf bucket. For him, that's progress. He gets minus points, though, for spoiling Hall's interference before the match even began with the stuff about "lessons in machismo".

 

The roundtable stuff was almost unintelligible with everyone talking over everyone else. Duggan got off a good line comparing Flair, Curt, and Bobby to the Three Stooges. I forget what exactly he called machismo, but whatever it was, it was something you'd expect from a plain speaker like Hacksaw. Hillbilly Jim was next to useless, and five is too many people for a roundtable anyway. Vince, a heel (probably Heenan), and a face (not quite sure who; maybe they could have rotated) would have been more than enough.

 

Fonzie has apparently jumped ship, as he was one of the refs trying to stop Hall from murdering Savage. Good work by Rene Goulet as Savage's main in-ring protector; he never looked quite that good as a wrestler based on the footage I saw.

[Strummer]

I can only suspect the idea behind putting the belt on Flair was for him to drop it to Warrior before everything changed. Not a good match, and Savage definitely outworked Flair. Savage's leg selling is pretty much always great. Considering how disappointing this was, I can only imagine what the first version of this match looked like where Vince made them start all over.

I was just watching a random Wrestling Challenge from late Sept. 92 and there was a Savage/Warrior promo where they hint that Warrior is going after Flair's title. I don't recall them teasing that direction at all but clearly the plan was for Warrior to be champion. Dave basically confirmed that on the Lapsed Fan. Imagine if we ended up with Yokozuna/Warrior at WM had everything not gone to pieces.

[PeteF3]

Clearly plans were being thrown out all over the place, because another tidbit that Dave dropped on Lapsed Fan was a plan to get Bret over by having him get a submission win over Warrior at the Royal Rumble--presumably for the title. This after winning a planned feud with Jake Roberts and then starting the build for the big SummerSlam '93 showdown with Hogan.

 

Of course, as Steve Austin said in that famous ECW promo, WELL ALL THAT SHIT NEVER HAPPENED.

[Strummer]

I think Dave had his time frames mixed up with Jake because he was in WCW in fall of 92. The only thing I can think of was he meant it was on the books for Summerslam 92 before Jake left and it was for the IC title. It would have been great for Bret if all that happened but no way Warrior would have lost much less submit clean in the middle of the ring. And we know the story of Hogan and Summerslam 93

[garretta]

Bret over both Warrior and Hogan? Not in this universe. We already know that Hogan quit the WWF for good rather than lose clean to Bret at SummerSlam '93, and I'd bet anything that Warrior would have done the same. Getting Jake to put him over would have been hard enough if Jake had stayed, since there wouldn't have been anywhere else for him to go but to the midcard, otherwise known as Half and Half Hell (where you lose as often as you win and go nowhere in particular).

[PeteF3]

I think Dave had his time frames mixed up with Jake because he was in WCW in fall of 92. The only thing I can think of was he meant it was on the books for Summerslam 92 before Jake left and it was for the IC title. It would have been great for Bret if all that happened but no way Warrior would have lost much less submit clean in the middle of the ring. And we know the story of Hogan and Summerslam 93

 

But Jake didn't quit until the morning of WM8 when he found out or realized that he wasn't getting Patterson's job. (Which, by the way, would have mitigated being in mid-card hell even if it was strictly a pipe dream.) External chaos aside, the WWF was still in the business of having a plan for the next several months to a year's worth of booking.

 

Who knows if Warrior goes along with said plan, but even Bret has said he was penciled in to feud with Jake post-WM.

[Strummer]

Well I always thought Bret winnng the world title was a last minute decision so they didn't have everything planned out for his reign. If they knew he was going to be world champion back in April 92 then yeah they could have planned the Jake match for Survivor Series

[dawho5]

I liked the match, mostly for Savage.  Flair is certainly more focused on the knee than normal, but something still seems off with what he is doing.  I'd agree that Hall makes a good showing for himself here.  Razor really comes off big.