[1995-09-04-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair vs Sting

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Notable for the pretty earth-shattering appearance of Lex Luger at ringside right before the match gets started.

 

Typical Flair/Sting match on fast forward, but I like their match. The match ends with Arn coming in and he and Flair end up getting into it.

 

Post-match, Scott Norton shows up at ringside and starts screaming that he signed a contract. He's in Mongo's face until Randy Savage comes out and they start jacking jaws at each other. Great heat for all of this, and they did a good job creating excitement with this whole segment.

[Tim Evans]

The Luger thing would have been better if he entered through the crowd. This was pretty chaotic though. Especially Norton with Mongo wagging his finger at him. That was funny.

[El-P]

Funny, I had no recollection of this match at all. Hey, Flair moves pretty quickly compared to 2001, and he does a lot more stuff ! That being said, it's basically the same match. And it's also the same match they had in 1990. Sting is probably one of my least favourite Flair opponent, and they always work in auto-pilot it seems. Luger showed up from nowhere is just amazing. His fashion sense is just so mid-90's it's hurting my eyes.

 

Norton and Savage had a pretty fun match the following week.

[PeteF3]

We're treated to a Thunder in Paradise ad (with Knight Boat: The CRIME SOLVING Boat!) and the ART THOU BORED? Randy Savage Slim Jim spot. And then a live-on-tape spot for Hulk Hogan's Pastamania. Hogan rambles without saying anything of substance.

 

God, I forgot Sting was still the US Champ at this point. Ric busts out the ultra-rare beige robe for this special occasion. Of course, the story here is LEX LUGER at ringside. In one instant, Nitro went from being Bischoff's Folly--a Dixie Carter move to Monday nights 8 years early--to being must-see TV. At a time when I thought I knew everything because I had Prodigy/RSPW access, this blindsided virtually everyone. Pretty empty match, but really fun nevertheless--I daresay I enjoyed this more than any other Flair/Sting match. Clearly everyone wants to go balls-to-the-wall on opening night. Breakneck pace, and this is actually done better than Pillman/Liger. Flair is disqualified for grabbing the ropes in the figure four, and Arn comes in to break the hold. They brawl to the back, and then Scott Norton is here in a segment that I have no memory of. Good crash-TV stuff that certainly firmly established another point of difference between Nitro and Raw.

[Dooley]

With this one segment, Nitro made Raw look and feel antiquated. The shocking Luger debut, a fun Flair-Sting by numbers match, Arn looking like a tough guy, even Norton seemed like a big deal because Savage came out to confront him. Huge difference in pace and tone to what Raw was offering.

[flyonthewall2983]

Found it interesting that the camera caught Flair patting Sting's thigh so he could muscle out of the Figure-Four and do the yell. JJ Dillon I think said that all the Horseman had to prompt him to get his pop from the crowd.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW United States Champion Sting vs Ric Flair - WCW Nitro 9/4/95

I really enjoyed this match. They pushed the tempo but they still stayed true to their characters. Yes, it is the hyper-compressed version of Sting vs Flair, but still really good. I think they blew Pillman/Liger out of water in terms of workrate both in highspots and tempo. Sting was a No-Selling machine in this match. I will make my case again why I love No-Selling, which is a form of selling. He is taking the best Flair can dish out: chops, punches and suplexes and he is hulking up through them. He is letting you know they hurt, but he is muscling through it. To steal a page from the Matt D paradigm of 2025, the No-Sell builds the anticipation for the payoff. For the babyface, the valiant hero, to whoop some fucking chickenshit ass. If Sting does not no-sell, the excitement level for the payoff (his move) goes way down. This is a classic Flair match. It is a lot of press slams and getting his ass kicked, but what makes Flair so good is how he makes the babyface earn it and how he sells it. He worked all the tried and true Flair shit in: crowding in the corner, short knee, work on the outside, eye poke, the chop block. The babyface has to fight through that to earn his offense. The way Flair sells all of Sting's offense invites the crowd to egg it on. This is not someone seeking sympathy, it is someone you point and jeer. It is brilliant. Heel selling is much harder than babyface selling. There is a lot of fun 80s spots to in this like the crossbody that sends both men over the top rope to the floor and the bridge out into the backslide. It is cliff notes version of Flair and Sting.

Luger's appearance is deservedly the most famous part of the first Nitro and I think it was executed to perfection. Arn Anderson coming out was something I forgot. It was good shades of gray booking how he distracted Sting but ultimately got into a brawl with Flair. The chop block into the figure-4 was a great spot. The DQ finish was classic WCW as you werent quite sure what happened, but the upshot was AA and Flair were brawling to add heat to the Fall Brawl match. One thing that is surprising is how little they were hyping Fall Brawl on this show. It felt like a giant reset button was pressed on the promotion. It just feels so cool and so hot. The Scott Norton surprise appearance and the Macho Man coming out to get his face was booked so much more organically than how they present this type of stuff today. Impromptu matches nowadays are such foregone conclusions here they treat it as far more chaotic and thus it feels like a bigger deal. I enjoyed this match a lot, but ultimately it is not as good as an 80s Flair match because it is so damn compressed but it is entertaining and breezy. *** 1/2