[1992-10-12-WWF-Saskatoon, SAS] Ric Flair vs Bret Hart

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Bret wins the WWF title for the first time! Even though this was buried on Coliseum Video (according to Bret because Flair refused to put him over on TV), this is still a really good moment. And they're both crazy, they work really well together. Neither is in the top 5 or 10 best opponents for the other guy, but they had consistently good matches. This wasn't as good as the Ironman match, but it was better than all but a handful of WWF matches in '92.

[Frankensteiner]

Flair blowing a kiss to the crowd while Perfect turns around and smugly looks on cracks me up everytime.

[shoe]

I agree with you 100% Loss those 2 guys are crazy. I haven't seen this match in a while. I do remember liking it. Their is another handheld on the set I'm looking forward to. I have 3 more handhelds at home that I liked. One went around 35+ that was awesome. These guys did work well together.

[Cox]

I suppose there is a difference between working together and liking working together. Maybe Flair and Bret disliked working with each other so much, it adversely affected the way they looked at their own matches together.

[Frankensteiner]

Hey shoe, you got a date or town info for that 35+ minute match?

[shoe]

On 12/11/92 they go 32 minutes w/o intros in San Fransisco, on 1/8/93 they go 26 minutes in Philly, and 11/29/92 in Indy they go about 19 minutes. Again this is w/o intros.It looks like I exaggerated a bit on the 35+ front.

[flyonthewall2983]

Didn't they go 75 minutes in Boston?

[Loss]

60 minutes. Ironman rules.

[flyonthewall2983]

But they did have one go for 75, right? Or am I just making this up?

[Tim Evans]

I gotta disagree as I thought this wasn't very good at all. Most of that is due to the horrible commentary by Gorilla and Hayes. They blew so many calls and Gorilla basically shitting on Bret for not doing the sharpshooter earlier was awful. The finish was good though.

[shoe]

Now Tim you not liking it because of the announcers is fine and I can understand that hurting a match. Though I'm curious on what part of their work didn't you like. I remember liking this when I saw it last time. When I get to this I'll comment in more detail. I 'm just curious what you didn't like about the actual work since Flair or Hart really can't be blamed at all for bad commentating. Also it's interesting how both guys bag on each other for their matches not being good. While evidence points to them actually being good. So as someone who didn't care about the match like you said I would like to hear a little bit more about the work that you didn't care about.

[Tim Evans]

Now Tim you not liking it because of the announcers is fine and I can understand that hurting a match. Though I'm curious on what part of their work didn't you like. I remember liking this when I saw it last time. When I get to this I'll comment in more detail. I 'm just curious what you didn't like about the actual work since Flair or Hart really can't be blamed at all for bad commentating. Also it's interesting how both guys bag on each other for their matches not being good. While evidence points to them actually being good. So as someone who didn't care about the match like you said I would like to hear a little bit more about the work that you didn't care about.

I watched this again without the commentary on and It's better but I still don't think it's great. I don't want to say Flair was mailing it in but it seemed like he didn't want to be there and he wasn't really into the match. Like during the section where he was working on the leg or even when he was in the figure four. I also thought the crowd was pretty dead till the finish but I guess that was because it was a long tv taping or something. Overall, It wasn't awful but I think other flair singles matches on this set( Vs Savage at WM, Vs Bulldog in England and the Tenyru matches) were better. However this was better than the Savage title change match in September.

[shoe]

I really enjoyed this. This is a good meat and potatoes match. I think the Flair/Hart series is much better than the Hart/Michael's matches. The early portion Hart work's over Flair's shoulder/arm with some basic work. What makes it stand out is Flair selling like crazy. We get some back and forth, Flair goes after Hart's leg with some of his typical leg work which he does well. Here we see the difference in Hart sells in a more subtle way. Hart does some stuff to Flair's leg. Haet makes a comeback and Flair does some big bumps onto his back that leads to the finish of the sharpshooter. Nothing flashy, but just real good solid basic wrestling.

[Kevin Ridge]

Probably the best of Flair's matches from his WWF run. I'll have to look more closely at their Ironman match again. Great moment to see Bret win the title. Amazing to think this match was left for home video at the time. The commentary is pretty bad after repeated viewings of this I am able to somewhat tune them out. Part of me wonders why Perfect didn't interfere at the end since he was so close but him getting up on the apron and being pushed aside by the ref made for a good tease as Hart was able to get the submission.

[PeteF3]

More of a historic match than great, but there's nothing wrong with it either--no obvious spots where these two weren't on the same page. Just sort of WWF Flair by the numbers, though Bret's victory is refreshingly decisive and a pretty good chill scene thanks to the crowd reaction. I can't even describe the feeling of disbelief I had opening up PWI Weekly and seeing that Bret had won the Heavyweight title--this was SUCH an out-of-the-box move by WWF standards that I don't think younger fans can fully grasp it.

[Bix]

When I saw the result in the newspaper, I thought it was a DQ or count out win being misreported as a title change. Then Bret showed up on TV with the belt the following Saturday and I lost my mind.

[WingedEagle]

I thought this was great. We can only imagine what's going through Bret's head as he walks to the ring, but it has to be a hell of a feeling. Not much to add that hasn't been covered here, but as much as they may not have enjoyed working with each other I sure as hell liked the product. Flair didn't mail this one in at all, selling the hell out of his arm during Hart's early shine and continuing to do so after an early transition puts him on offense. If anything, it felt like he went out of his way to put Hart over strong throughout before going down for his finisher. The hope spots & comebacks were timed well to build heat towards the culmination and a massive pop. Best match of the year so far for both of them.

 

****1/4

[DR Ackermann]

I was really put off by the way Flair sells the leg work. He does it in the most superficial way possible, walking like he is in pain, but not changing his offense one bit in a way that reflects what happened. Then after a few minutes he's completely fine.

 

Anyway, there were some good moments. Decent match. I thought the end of the match where Bret drops the straps was great. It looks like Bret says, "Fucking A!" into the camera when he's putting the belt on.

[flyonthewall2983]

I remember clearly when they announced that Bret won the title, on All-American I believe. Was kind of out of nowhere as I thought he'd just go around with Davey Boy and get the IC title back.

[Robert S]

Pretty untypical Bret finish, instead of going for the five moves of doom he instead pulls down the straps and punches Flair as if he were Jerry Lawler.

[garretta]

This was a typical Flair title defense......for 1986. And that's certainly a compliment. It was as if Flair said, "Enough of this cartoon garbage. Now you're going to see how real World champions do it." It's a shame that he couldn't have had a match like this with Savage at least once, but Vince had so many storylines that he wanted to begin or continue at various points during that feud that it was impossible. Bret's a fresh opponent, and the title is the only issue at stake between them, so the way is clear for Flair to just go out there and wrestle the way he does best.

 

Of course, he has to have a willing opponent, and Bret's certainly that. He does all the spots you expect from Ric's opponents, but unlike some guys, he looks natural doing them all, even with moves that he doesn't necessarily use on other opponents, like the sleeper.

 

I don't understand why he didn't like working with Flair, because they honestly brought out the best in each other. Ric hasn't had a showcase match like this since he's been in the WWF, and while Bret's had better individual performances, it's hard to find an opponent that he's meshed quite so well with. Curt's close, but he hurt his back before they could really have the mutual classic that they deserved to have and we deserved to see. I particularly liked the limbwork, and kudos to Flair for allowing Bret to use the figure four before he did. I know he's done that with some other opponents too, but not in the WWF. He's finally starting to realize who he can really work with, even if it's a bit late in the game.

 

Faced with a different style of match, Gino and Lord Alfred went back to their earlier, better days and called the match the way it needed to be called, putting over both the big picture and the small details. As just one example, I loved His Lordship talking about how the figure four can make the leg of the applier numb by cutting off the blood supply to his own leg. That's Gordon Solie-level analysis, and it's a shock to hear it from a man who's been pretty much a comedy figure for about the past five years or so. I thought he also did a tremendous job selling the work Bret did on Flair's arm, keeping it up for almost the entire match. You never hear that from a WWF announcer anymore. Never. As for Gino, aside from a lame joke about Mean Gene and Heenan running up bar tabs (which came early in the bout, before the action had really begun) and one or two other asides, he was all business here, and this was his best call since Jesse left. This is the type of call I would cite when asked to explain why Gino was my favorite announcer growing up, and it's a shame that he didn't have too many more like this one in him.

 

Gino and His Lordship mentioned Bret's reigns as IC champ, but not as tag team champ. I'd like to think they were just putting him over as a single, but I'll bet it was more about purging Neidhart from our memories.

 

His Lordship calls the referee Dave Hebner at one point. Did he just mix up his Hebners or did Dave fill in for another official who couldn't make the taping, for whatever reason?

 

It's a shame this one was buried on Coliseum Video, regardless of the reason. It's the WWF's singles match of the year by far, and deserves to be hailed as a true classic. Congratulations to everyone involved!

[SmartMark15]

I thought that this was really great! Just a real down to earth, basic limbwork focused technical wrestling from Flair and Hart that built naturally to that great finish. I liked Hart's early offense and how tenacious he was going after Flair's arm. Flair actually sold it fairly consistently until the match progressed to focus more on Flair's legs. And really, Flair sold the leg amazingly right where it mattered where as Hart was hit and miss with his own leg selling. I liked Hart stealing the Figure Four and I thought both Figure Four spots were worked well and milked the crowd. Great stuff and even Hart's inconsistent leg selling couldn't keep this from being awesome.

 

****1/4

[Superstar Sleeze]

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Bret Hart -WWF 10/12/92

Imagine being a random adult or kid attending this show Sasakatoon and seeing Bret Hart win the World Championship they must have been in total shock.  I am still unclear on why the WWF moved so suddenly to Bret as a champion. Flair does leave in January so I'm sure that is something to do with it. The Bret singles push had been in the works since 1988 and they went full bore with it in 1991. The fact he Main evented Summerslam is a clue that's the direction Vince wanted. What confuses me isn't the choice of Bret but rather the suddenness. How there was no formal build is what smacks me as strange.

Flair is a great opponent for Bret because it forces Bret out of his comfort zone. Bret has to fight through Flair offense to win his holds even small things like Flair applying an armwringer and Bret countering it into his own or Bret getting an armbar from a lockup in the corner matter because it is not just Bret ragdolling his opponent. Great arm work and Flair is at his hollering best. Flair adds a lot of energy with his motion and bumping. The heat segment transition is weird it is just a simple Flair kick to the midsection as Bret is drawn into the corner. False one I should have known. See that's I mean Bret had to overcome being thrown to the floor and some strikes to get a sunset flip and expose Flair's ass. Good pop. Bret hammers him with clotheslines. Flair Flop! Flair thumbs the eyes. A couple Bret Bumps later & Flair is in control. Kneecrusher...Bret sells this exceedingly well. Bret turns it around on Flair and attacks his knee and applies the Figure-4. Definitely a Flair match thus far. Bret goes for a sleeper after some struggle but Flair hits the back Suplex. Flair runs through his offense: butterfly Suplex and knee drop and chop. Flair gets another kneecrusher when Bret shows signs of life and applies the Figure-4. I like how much struggle and even this is. Flair definitely feels more like his 80s self less cheating and bump 'n' run. He is more in control of the match and he is more intense. He grinds down on the knee until Bret starts firing up with punches and then the press slam. Flair runs through his back body drop before we hit the Five Moves of Doom. Flair makes Bret Hart become the "Total Package" Bret Hart. Bret does the no sell and pulls the straps down. Bret is not as good at no selling as Luger or Hogan that's for sure. A good no sell is an art. Sharpshooter and Flair submits! Wow! I remembered a roll up for some reason. Flair went out and submitted to Hart thats a pretty big deal. 

Definitely a Flair match with how it was structured and worked. I am sure Flair was calling the majority of the match. This match harkened back to the Flair title defenses of the mid-80s thought build up to the Sharpshooter was a little too routine. The surprise submission popped me! ****

[dawho5]

I really loved this match.  Great meat-and-potatoes work with some great limb selling by Flair.  Easily one of my top 10 WWF matches I've ever seen.

Since when does a guy get a title win in his dad's hometown?  That's crazy talk.