[1995-12-25-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair vs Randy Savage

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Purple and black? Come on, Ric, you being color coordinated is a staple of wrestling! We depend on it! Besides, it was Christmas, why not do red and green?

 

These two work their asses off here and have a much better match than I expected they would. I like Flair taking it to the mat and doing the hammerlock pinning combo. He's also pretty aggressive with the punches and chops and the Jimmy Hart interference spots work well, and the post-match stuff with Sting and Luger was really fun and set up Starrcade really well.

[Tim Evans]

Bischoff calls Savage WCW's "ironman". Was that a shot at Shawn Michaels? And wasn't this the last wrestling tv show to be live on Christmas Day?

[El-P]

Good solid match. These two really had a nice chemistry. Flair going for the arm at first was a nice touch, but sadly he reverted back to the figure-four later on. Savage's selling is always a pleasure, he looks in so much pain. Every time he attemps a pinfall looks so urgent too, which is somewhat of a lost art. Yeah, they did a really strong job building to the Starrcade main event between those four, which was needed since the entire PPV was basically WCW vs NJ which had no build on TV basically except a few terrible Sonny Oono's vignettes. And it's so refreshing not to have Hogan around to fuck things up.

[PeteF3]

Nitro's unopposed this week so Savage and Flair get to do more of a meat-and-potatoes match. This gets in danger of going all over the place at times, with Ric focusing on the knee like good Nature Boys do while also having to pay lip service to Savage's arm injury. Jimmy is *really* good at ringside--this heel turn has had him more energized than he has been in years. Eventually Savage goes after Hart, which brings out Luger. Then Sting comes in, but it's left ambiguous as to whether he was going to help Savage or Luger, because Flair cuts him off. We go off the air with Savage and Sting staring each other down. Really hot closing segment, and it's nice not to have Hogan involved or to have the babyfaces yelling at each other while Okerlund moderates.

[Loss]

I love that Hogan got suspended "for the rest of the year" on the December 18 Nitro, which is why he wasn't on this show. He was given the holidays off as punishment for something.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW World Heavyweight Champion Randy Savage vs Ric Flair - WCW Nitro 12/25/95

Couldn’t fall asleep due to work stress so I threw on this episode of Nitro. This was a very good match and worth watching. Luger beat Riggs in a match where Riggs got way more offense than I expected. Nice Rack finish. Sting beat Big Bubba in a condensed version of their two PPV matches from this year. Sting won with a cradle hardly a decisive victory. Malenko had a good showing against Jerry Lynn under a hood. Some promos pushing the Sting/Luger and the seeds of the Dungeon/Horsemen being planted. Jimmy Hart will be in Flair’s corner. These original one hour Nitro’s are so breezy a much better format than today’s TV wrestling.

I liked this more than their Starrcade match. They have exited the Summer of 95 blood feud matches and are now in Championship wrestling mode. I thought this was a really well-laid out and executed match. Savage’s babyface shine as is customary is short but sweet. Flair goes for teh Rolling Knee too early and Savage drags him out and posts him. Savage applies the Figure-4 for a feel-good spot. This is a very 80s Flair match with a lot of trappings from there. They tease Flair kicking up his leg to ballshot Savage but it doesn’t happen. Flair goes for his own Figure-4 but Macho Man reverses into a cradle. Savage is overzealous in clamping down on Flair leaves himself open to the short knee on the ref break. The Short Knee is 80s Flair at his finest as is dumping his opponent on the outside and consolidating his Advantage out there. Good arm work especially the hammerlock, half Nelson cover with the feet on the ropes. Savage was the master of peppering in those stiff jabs and creating hope spots not with high spots but just his Tasmanian Devil energy. The Flair work in response is really good from the leg work to Figure-4 to getting out the way of a double axe handle on the floor, to the trick knee ball shot on a Savage sleeper to an eye poke. Flair was varying his work some was offensive like the arm & knee work, some was using environment using the corner and the floor, some was dirty cheating the ballshot and the eye poke. This was one of the most classic Flair matches. This is an excellent example of why Flair is better when he can go 20-30 minutes because he has a great variety of transitions that can keep a match entertaining. Savage is a great opponent for him because Savage can sell extremely well, big charisma and Savage is scrappy and brings out that dog in him. Savage starts to get things going after a Flair attempted sleeper and a double axe handle from the top. Savage puts his hands on Jimmy Hart and this draws out Lex Luger. Sting is out but whose side is he on?!? If you watched WCW a lot around this time you know this was a standard call because they were threatening to turn everyone heel. The Heenan call at Bash 96 seems weird to us but it made sense in the context of 95-96 WCW. 
 

Flair attacks Sting before we can find out. Savage and Sting dump the heels and go back to back. Shoving and jawing match ensues.

This is a million times better than the million pull apart brawls we see each week. The tension of two babyfaces shoving and jawing is significantly more alluring than tepid brawling. The booking was trying to get you to believe it would be Savage/Sting at the PPV in two days because they end in the Ring together, they just did Savage/Flair on Nitro and there has been ~4 Savage/Luger matches in the last three months. So running the Flair/Savage match two nights before Starrcade was to throw you off the scent. Anyways I thought this was better than Starrcade match and if they got double time it could be been a classic. *** 1/2