[1984-03-17-MACW-Boogie Jam '84] Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat - NWA Boogie Jam 3/17/84

 

What is most impressive about this match is how Flair and Steamboat take every advantage allotted to them by virtue of going long by taking the time to make every single sequence count and drip with struggle. It is this attention to detail that makes the seemingly ordinary extraordinary. The test of strength spot which saw Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair flex every muscle, perspire profusely and clench their jaws as Steamboat worked to get Flair on the mat and Flair finally countered with a bodyscissors and see the battle waged there until we get a monkey flip. I am a total mark for amateur wrestling sequences in the middle of the match and these two were awesome here. Once Steamboat gets a takedown on Flair, he still has to work the extra mile to control his feet and apply the Boston Crab. The first 15 minutes of the match feel like the template for Flair vs Butch Reed with a great extended headlock sequence. Steamboat keeps going back to the headlock and they do every headlock spot you would expect. Another favorite of the early part of the match is Flair wants a suplex to break these headlocks and there is a great struggle over it only for Steamboat clamp on a front facelock. The next five minutes is spent working in and out of front facelock until Flair finally gets that suplex he wanted and Steamboat holds on to the facelock! Awesome!

One of my favorite aspects of this match in addition to the struggle is of course the progression of Flair's performance. It is what he does better than anyone else. In '84 in the Carolinas, he is a babyface feuding with Dicky Slater, but here of course he is the de facto heel. They start with a handshake and Flair is soundly routed at the beginning by the headlock. He goes for the aforementioned suplex and ends up still on the losing end. Now he is getting frustrated. He starts shooting for amateur takedowns and they have an engaging sequence with Steamboat coming out on top and getting that Boston Crab I spoke of. Flair shifts gears again, he tries to quicken the pace, but Steamboat is game for that and nails him with multiple dropkicks. Flair goes for a walk and cannot get anything going after trying three different strategies. This is when that test of strength happens. Flair tries to chuck him out and Steamboat comes right off the top with a flying karate chop. Flair now tries crowding in the corner and this lead to Steamboat roaring back with chops. Flair is now desperate and he is throwing knees and chops. Steamboat is too much and hits a press slam. Flair begs off and this feels like the climax of the shine with Flair progressing with more frustration and more desperation until that moment when he is terrified at the prospect of losing. Steamboat goes for the figure-4 yank of the trunks and Flair buries a knee into Steamboat when they are tied up in the ropes. The master of the corner and ropes, Ric Flair has finally gotten one up on Steamboat. Flair kicks ass on top and reminds me a lot of The Hammer with big forearms and nasty elbows to the top of the head. Flair is so smart with his timing because he does not rush anything and makes sure to give Steamboat plenty of time to sell and sell he did. There is a great pinning combination from Flair that exemplifies the struggle of this match where Flair hooks the leg and clasps Steamboat with that hand while also cradling Steamboat's neck and spreading his legs for extra, legal weight advantage. A very compelling spot.

The first Steamboat hope spot is a sleeper and when he goes for the big splash, he eats knees to the midsection (the same midsection Flair worked on) and he collapses to the outside. There is an amazing, moving moment when all the women rush ringside and try to tend him. It is moments like these just will never happen again and show the beauty of pro wrestling. It was after Flair's ab stretch that I thought the match kinda went off the rails.

The bridge/backslide is the sequence that seems out of place. Flair jumps on him with a sleeper and is sent into the turnbuckle. Steamboat is rocking it, but gets hotshotted. Flair really pours it on with great offense like the butterfly and delayed vertical suplex. Flair goes for the figure-4, but Steamboat blocks. Big Steamboat comeback: Flair Flip and Flair Flop. Barrage of Steamboat cradles. They have quickened the pace to increase excitement, but they have departed from what they were doing before. Flair's only equalizer is the headbutt to the midsection, but nothing can deny Steamboat except for the bell. Steamboat is able to hit a flying bodypress and the bell rings at two. Saved by the bell.

The first chunk of this is really excellent. There is no one wrestling spot that will take your breathe away or will make you mark out, but the attention to detail will completely ensnare you. The women tending to Steamboat is the one spot that moves you. I just feel like the finishing sequence is the standard, awesome Flair/Steamboat finish sequence, but departs too sharply from the great struggle from before. Yes you still have Steamboat doing all he can to win and Flair desperate, but ti feels different. Still it is Flair vs Steamboat for close to an hour, it is fucking excellent. ****1/2

[shoe]

Did you notice that Steamer didn't deliver one arm drag because his focus was on Flair's neck. Could you imagine not doing your token spots in today's enviroment because the move makes no sense in the context of the match.

[KB8]

Largely in agreement with Sleeze on this. 

 

tl;dr write-up:

 

This was probably the perfect litmus test for how much Flair I can handle these days. It's one thing watching him work a ten minute studio match with Sam Houston or twenty minutes with Magnum, but a full hour? Even if it's with Steamboat? in 2020? Who could possibly know?! Well he passed it pretty comfortably. I'm sure he definitely gives a shit, just as I'm sure you all do too. For about forty five minutes I thought this was excellent. I usually think of Flair as a broad strokes kind of guy, not really much of a details guy. He's more about the macro rather than the micro, but I thought this was one of his very best performances in terms of nailing the subtleties. When you take it as a whole it's still Flair doing what he often does when working long. He starts out sporting, begins to lose his composure, gets tetchy, gets nasty, gets desperate, and eventually sheds all the bullshit to be the man we all know he is deep down. He just went about that a little differently at points. We got the handshake at the start and then for about twenty minutes Steamboat controlled him utterly, first with a headlock and then with a front facelock. It was all nice and tight, especially the front facelock where you'd see Steamboat really grimacing, really looking like he was trying to unscrew Flair's head from his shoulders. Flair tried a few things, like driving Steamboat into the corner and then with some amateur wrestling of his own, but it got him nowhere and Steamboat was relentless. Even at a couple points where he could've thrown a chop he opted for the clean break, and one time he offered up another handshake in begrudging appreciation. The other subtlety in Flair's performance was how he sold and worked holds. I'd never call him a particularly special matworker and if we're comparing blond heel world champions then he's nowhere near as strong in that regard as Bockwinkel. This all had a real nice sense of struggle, though. Steamboat would crank on that facelock, take Flair down to the mat and try to pin his shoulders, Flair would try to use his own legs to hook Steamboat's in a cradle, they'd get back to a standing base and he'd try to grab Steamboat's head for a suplex, Steamboat would make a point of bobbing his head out of reach. They'd fight over a knucklelock, Steamboat would force Flair to the mat, Flair would have to bridge up on his neck to keep his shoulders up, he'd catch Steamboat in a body scissors, Steamboat would get back to a standing base with the body scissors still applied. None of the sequences were mind-blowing, but it was a really quick twenty minutes (as much down to Steamboat as Flair, obviously).

Flair then started getting irritated and almost threw a punch before checking himself. He went in for a knucklelock and pulled back to do a strut instead, just to remind everybody who he is. I also liked how he sold Steamboat's Boston crab after the fact, how he'd do some quick stretches and try to loosen out the lower back. By the halfway point he hasn't acted like a prick once. By the forty minute mark he's only thrown one chop and that was a miss. Then he cracks and shoves Steamboat, backs him into the ropes...and everybody knows what's coming. When he connects on that first chop and chucks Steamboat through the ropes the whole atmosphere just picks up. Flair going to the ribs not long after that was some good stuff. Steamboat sold all of it like he's Steamboat, but I liked how Flair barely threw any more chops and instead kneed and elbowed Steamboat in the side. Some of his forearms to the head looked really nasty as well and I sort of wish he did more of them. His abdominal stretch also ruled and I loved how it looked like he was trying to rip Steamboat in half. Last ten-fifteen minutes were my least favourite of the match, as they kind of moved past all that awesome build and struggle in the first three quarters to go into your big Flair stretch run. There was good stuff in there. Steamboat staggering around like he'd been shot in the stomach was that guy in a nutshell and you know the crowd was biting on just about everything, but for all the work Flair did on the midsection it felt like they probably could've dropped the headlock-into-bridge sequence just this once. Still, the Flair staple spots are a horse long dead and beating on it at this stage is something neither of us can be arsed with. At its best this was terrific, at its worst it was good, and as a whole it was a remarkably quick sixty minutes. That in and of itself is impressive.