[1984-11-22-JCP-Starrcade '84] Tully Blanchard vs Ricky Steamboat

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World TV Champion Tully Blanchard vs Ricky Steamboat - NWA Starrcade 1984

 

I watched a good chunk of the excellent 1984: Year of Transition series. By watching it, you understand that Tully and Steamboat were the biggest stars on the show week to week. Flair and Dusty would show up, but they had busy schedules. It was Tully and Steamboat that were the workhorses. The year began with Dick Slater as the top heel, but by the spring it was clear that Blanchard was the most hated man in Mid-Atlantic with his fingers in many different angles against top babyfaces including Mid-Atlantic legend Johnny Weaver. Steamboat took the US Championship off from Dicky Slater, but only to lose to newly turned heel Wahoo McDaniel, who doubled as Tully's best friend. It all came to a head in this classic at Starrcade as Steamboat goes into the match with injured ribs.

 

I loved, loved the first half of this match. The struggle over those injured ribs was incredible. Tully was sneaking in shots every chance he could get and Steamboat was firing back with all he had to try to save the ribs. Steamboat was expertly using the chinlock to control Tully and to stave off any attack to the ribs, a perfect use of the chinlock. Upon making the ropes, Tully just dives as soon as he can with his weight on the ribs as Steamboat defends himself. It is just electric. I loved Steamboat's selling as a wounded man, but fighting through the pain. He uses the ropes to stand up and roar back. They were on pace to have the best match of the 80s in my opinion. After Steamboat roared back, Tully slowed the down the match pace and the match was still excellent, but lost that really unique feel. Steamboat went on absolute tear in one of his best offensive performances ever. He kicked Tully's ass, busted him open, spit at him and stole his move! It was very badass. Tully had to resort to a foreign object and as Steamboat brought him with a back suplex, he let him have it. They did two nice false finishes: Tully hitting a cross body after the foreign object spot and Steamboat recovering enough to hit a top rope crossbody. Tully was thinking slingshot suplex, but blocked and in a sunset flip attempt nailed him with the foreign object for the win.

 

The beginning of the match feels very special. The last half is a very quality, but standard finish run. The match feels way too short and kinda incomplete. Regardless, this match rocked and was a ton of fun! ****

[DMJ]

Just watched this for the first time and totally echo the above sentiments. I'm admittedly more of a "modern viewer," so watching old matches and enjoying them is sometimes difficult for me because I don't know the context and, this being 2016, am much more used to the workrate and high spots of today's wrestling than I am with, say, the kind of match Manny Fernandez and Black Bart had earlier in this show.

 

That being said, I really, really enjoyed this one and feel like it is the type of contest that holds up strongly compared to today's sort of matches. From the get-go we see a big vertical suplex out of Steamboat followed by straightforward attacks on his injured ribs by Tully. Later, with both men fatigued, we get a great suspense-building sequence that really defines the characters involved as Tully refuses to lock up and not only slaps Steamboat on the head, but spits in his face, a show of disrespect that never goes out of style. The suspense is brought to a boiling point and leads to two impressive leapfrogs followed by a high-velocity powerslam. Blanchard ends up busted open in the corner, but survives various nearfalls, proving his arrogance is only matches by his toughness (which is sold really well by Solie on PBP). The final third is what Michael Cole might call "vintage" - the ol' "roll of quarters" in the trunks during a back suplex spot that most fans have seen a dozen times before. Here, though, they follow it up with two nifty nearfalls before bringing it back at the tail end to give the match its real finish.

 

To be honest, I feel like they could've stretched this one a bit in the middle and, me being a more modern viewer, maybe brawled on the outside. How that would mesh with the "No Run/Title Changes Hands on a DQ" stipulation I don't know, but I'm willing to wager Steamboat and Blanchard would've made it work (also, no JJ Dillon?).

 

I dug it. 4/5

[Johnny Sorrow]

JJ didn't manage Tully then.

[KB8]

Man do I love this match. On an individual level it's some of the best stuff both guys have ever done, or at the very least it's some of my favourite. It's different from your typical awesome Steamboat performance (awesome being typical for yer man Ricky). When you talk about the best of Ricky Steamboat you usually think of the theatrics and the emoting and the selling all the way to the back row. In contrast, this was more subtle and probably came off better to those of us watching through the screen. I actually haven't seen any of the build up to this, which could easily be rectified given how much of the surrounding TV footage is on the Network, but Steamboat comes in with a hip/rib injury on his left side. That injury is the crux of the match, but rather than being on the back foot because of it, where he's selling a beatdown with the ribs as Tully's target, it's more about him trying to put Tully away before the injury completely debilitates him. It's Steamboat as offensive dynamo, which isn't really a role you associate with him. He was hitting all sorts of big offence though; a swinging neckbreaker, huge powerslam, his strikes were crisp (including this awesome ax kick out the corner), a big back suplex, even Tully's own slingshot suplex. You still get the selling, it's just a bit more understated, more from the front foot. He looks great during the early flurry where he just swarms Tully, but then he needs to catch his wind and the adrenaline wears off a bit. You can see right there that he isn't 100% by the way he grabs the hip. Love how he'd circle Tully by keeping his left side turned away from him, always trying to shield it where possible, how he'd stop and catch a pained breath, which plausibly gave Tully a chance to recover a little each time. Tully's first dig to the ribs is perfection. Steamboat tries to hide how much it stung, but Tully isn't stupid and sees exactly where his opening is, doing his little strut after his route to victory's been presented to him. At one point Steamboat stopped, clutched his side and looked at Tully like "you are such a little prick." And we were all with him because Tully truly is the ultimate prick. He was amazing in this. The rules are that he can't run away or be disqualified to keep the belt through bullshittery and early on his first instinct is always to bolt. There are three instances in the first thirty seconds where he wants to roll out the ring to break Steamboat's momentum, but then it dawns on him that he can't and has to head back into the eye of the storm. His offence comes in spurts, mostly opportunistic, but when they do come it's relentless. Even off a rope break he'll just lunge at Steamboat and elbow or knee or drive a shoulder into Steamboat's side. If Steamboat leaves himself open too long you know Tully's throwing a jab in there, which led to Steamboat having to go for a chinlock a couple times to contain him. Then when Tully can't string together any offence he opts for the shithousing. He spits at Steamboat's face and does this goofy Ali shuffle, strutting away as Steamboat looks at him with pure venom. That obviously led to the perfect revenge spot with Steamboat spitting point blank in Tully's bloody face before chopping him to bits. Tully being desperate and going to the foreign object isn't surprising and I like how Steamboat kicked out of the first shot, so you think he's survived it, only for Tully to be Tully and find himself a second chance. You make your own luck after all and there's a reason Tully so often had a title around his waist. I do wish they played up Steamboat's injury a bit more in the back half, but it's a small gripe overall and both guys were incredible. Maybe my favourite Starrcade match ever.