[1986-07-05-JCP-Great American Bash Tour: Charlotte, NC] Ric Flair vs Ricky Morton (Cage)

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Ricky Morton - GAB 7/5/86

 

I watched the build for this match and WOW! Does it take this to the next level! Ric Flair came off as the most psychotic bully of all time. Having to wrestle bigger men for most of his career, Flair got a few chance to push someone else around and my God did he milk this chance for everything it is worth. Seeing Flair in this role is something you actually want to see more because it is when he is at his most heelish. There is nothing likeable about a man who goes out of his way to disfigure a man just because he can. It reminds me of Beiber first came out and there was just this violent reaction against him by the "macho" man community especially in the heavy metal community. I could not wrap around my head around this irrational hatred for a teen idol. There is an inherent dislike some men have for pretty boys that can command attention of women especially young women. In every promo, Flair channels that psychotic hatred for Ricky Morton. He went out of his way to disrespect Morton it seemed out of insecurity and because he felt like he could. You really get the sense that he think if he can show up Morton he can prove to all these young girls what a real man is and in turn make them real women, which Flair cites as loving him. Morton stands up for himself on Worldwide and slaps the Champion and the tries to tear his clothes off. They go on to have an absolute barnburner of a TV match on 4/12/86, which is nonstop action. The ref gets bumps and Gibson comes in to count three for Morton to end the show as Flair escapes with his title, but his pride has been significantly wounded. Then on an episode of Worldwide, he snaps when Morton actually pins him by ref's count in a tag match. You can see Flair's world crashing around him. How did this little punk that is not even a real man just beat me? He lashes out in a terrible fashion and executes what at the same time seemed like hot air in that promo a couple weeks ago that he would disfigure Morton's face rendering him ugly for his adoring fans. The Horsemen barge into RnR locker room and Flair rubs Morton face in the concrete floor and you see blood streaking across the floor. I think this is the greatest angle I have ever seen. Morton comes back for a promo wrapped in bandages explaining you can take my face, but that is not where the source of my power comes from, it comes from his heart and his fans and he is coming for the Nature Boy and he is going to take the title.

Ric Flair does lend some key insight into why this feud happened in a seemingly throw away line when he said "Ricky Morton is the most popular wrestler on Earth." If you listen to Ric Flair's podcast, he LOVED wrestling babyfaces that were over. Once he saw how over Morton got against the Russians, you know he pushed hard for this singles feud.

Without watching the build, this is a ***** classic and now having watched the build can you say GOAT match candidate because I sure can! Ricky Morton is wrestling in a protective mask as Flair enters the stadium via helicopter. He is psyching out his opponent right up until the bell. The entire beginning of the match is Morton working awesome payback spots against Ric Flair huge honker of a nose. Morton stalks Flair at the beginning measuring him for the immense pain he is about to administer to this bully. Morton punches, wrenches and rakes Flair's nose. This is Flair in his element screaming in pain as Morton unleashing sweet revenge on his banana nose. Morton rubs Flair's face in the mat, it may not be concrete, but it will have to do. Flair looks unsure of himself. He needs to find a way to slow down the pace because Morton is a runaway freight train of anger. So he goes to Flair 101, draw into the corner, knee to the midsection and chops stymie Morton. Morton goes back to the face and Flair is pissed! He is making mistakes because he is frustrated. Morton headbutt Flair with the mask! Flair rips the mask away in anger. Morton punches him in the face and gets his mask, which was a nice little tease for the heat segment. Flair finally throws him off of a headlock into the cage, which is enough rattle him. NOW WE GO TO SCHOOL! It is just a tease again as Morton gets a cross body. Flair and Morton start tearing in each other hitting each other whereever they can and Flair rips the mask off, hurls him into the cage and the pretty face of Morton is a crimson mask. Let beating begin!

Flair dons the mask to mock Morton as he tortures him. He throws Morton into the cage and twists the nose. He then throws the mask over the cage. There will be no refuge for Morton. Big WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Morton is selling his nose and face so well. He is in pain, but the sympathetic kind and you really want to leap out there and help him against this maniac. "You want some of this!" He throws Morton hard into the cage. "Tell em your name" as he rakes Morton's face in the cage. I wish he added "Because they wont be able to recognize you." Pelvis thrust for the ladies. That is what this feud is all about. Flair's deeply-rooted notion in what a real man is and what a real woman should want out of a man. Ricky Morton stands as an defiant affront to the ideology, which defines who the Nature Boy is. Flair starts going for pinfalls, but the teeny bopper idol wont stay down. Flair freaks out and calls Tommy Young, a son of a bitch. Figure-4 and now Tommy Young is pleading with Morton to just quit and fight another day. Morton inside cradle! He is firing back and he sends Flair into the cage. There is a terrific squeal of joy from all the girls in attendance.

Flair begs off as any bully does when you punch him in the mouth. Morton rakes Flair's head into the cage and Flair is bleeding. Morton is punching and clawing at his face. Morton sleeper! Flair makes it to the ropes. Top rope crossbody for two! Rock N Roll! Rock N Roll! Rock N Roll! Go Ricky Go! Flair tries to escape the cage, this ain't the WWF, pal! Morton missile dropkick, he pinned Flair with this on TV albeit Gibson counted the pinfall. Flair presses Morton on the kick out on Tommy Young. Flair is able to drive Morton's manhood into the ropes to win with his feet on the ropes.

In a feud that was centered around what a real man is and how that relates to what women find attractive, I cant think of a better ending then a fucking ballshot by the man posturing as a tough, macho man, but is really a vindictive, arrogant and small man. They both focused on the face with laser precision. There was only one way to end this and that was an attack on the anatomical representation of manhood. It worked on two levels it exposed Flair as the total opposite of what a real man is by stooping so low to win the match and also to psychically assault Morton's manhood after disfiguring his face. I think I just convinced myself this is the greatest pro wrestling match of all time. *****


 

[Microstatistics]

I think this clearly Flair's best match ever. Just a wonderfully violent, heated clash with a terrific story and an excellent finish. Superstar Sleeze's review is brilliant and covers the narrative portion perfectly so I won't even bother talking about that. **** 5/8

 

 

[paul sosnowski]

Yea, there are actually two Flair vs Morton cage matches on tape. This is the more famous one from the Flair and 4 Horsemen DVD, 7/5/86 and is from Charlotte Memorial Stadium.

 

There is a second one, exclusively filmed for Japanese TV, never aired in the US, on World Pro Wrestling, 7/11/86 and is from Roanoke VA, indoors at the Civic Center.

[Loss]

Yea, there are actually two Flair vs Morton cage matches on tape. This is the more famous one from the Flair and 4 Horsemen DVD, 7/5/86 and is from Charlotte Memorial Stadium.

 

There is a second one, exclusively filmed for Japanese TV, never aired in the US, on World Pro Wrestling, 7/11/86 and is from Roanoke VA, indoors at the Civic Center.

 

I just edited the topic title. This is correct. Thanks for the info!

[Phil Schneider]

This match starts with possibly the coolest entrance in wrestling history as Flair lands on the field of a baseball stadium in a helicopter and steps out to Also Sprach Zarathustra. Morton has a face mask and is looking for revenge as Flair and the Horseman mangled his face and broke his nose. The whole match is based around working the face, Morton goes after Flair's face, landing these awesome downward punches to the giant nose, and lots of eye rakes and cage face rakes. When Flair gets the advantage he rips off Morton's mask and bloodies him up. Super nasty way for a pair of hearthrobs to work, only one will be pretty at the end of this match. The whole feud was based around Flair being pissed that Morton was draining off the teen rats, so a match where both guys were trying disfigure each other works perfectly. Morton has awesome looking punches, and this was some of the best Flair punching I can remember, there was some Lawler level exchanges in this match, including one with both guys standing on the top rope which ends with Flair doing a top rope Flair flop, which is an awesome 80's high spot. Violent brawler Flair is the best and this was maybe the most vicious he has ever been. Finish was a bit cheap shotish, although you know Flair was going to sneak his way to a win. Loved this, so crazy it sat in a box for so many years.

[Makai Club #1]

I have never watched this before except maybe once when I was six and my Dad was watching a Ric Flair documentary that had this match. But it’s time to have some actual critical eyes on this. The entrance from Flair is legendary and pretty spectacular. The very definition of styling and profiling. This was terrific as it seemed to be on paper. Flair was a nasty, vicious heel working over the nose of one of the best, sympathetic baby faces in wrestling history. The brawling was very rough and heavy. You could feel the punches and the slams into the cage. It’s even cringe-worthy when Flair grates Morton’s injured face into the fence. Morton’s hope spots are really good and it’s always entertaining to see Flair get his ass kicked. The only downside is that even without clear hindsight and wrestling knowledge, Flair was always going over in this match. Excellent title defence for Flair. ****1/4

[cactus]

Morton is coming into this with a face mask. Flair removes the mask halfway through the match and does a cocky strut wearing the mask before tossing the mask over the cage, leaving Morton defenseless. Because of Morton's god-tier selling, every bit of damage done to Morton's face made you believe that Morton is going to get disfigured if Flair keeps his brutal assault going. If someone somehow had never seen a Ric Flair or Ricky Morton match before, this would be the match that I'd use to sell them on two of the best ever. We get the big entrance from Flair, we get Flair doing some comedy spots as Morton pants him trying to escape the cage and we also get Flair as the smug ass-kicker as he jabs away on Morton's damaged face.★★★★¾ 

[fxnj]

This is one I've seen cited regularly by Flair superfans as an example of him deviating from his formula, but I never got around to watching the whole thing until today as the shine always for some reason turned me off. It's really only after having yesterday watched Jumbo/Kikuchi from 1992 (epic match, BTW) that I think I can articulate why I find the way this starts to be off putting. Basically, contrary to how this match has been hyped up, I feel it actually is a really strong example of Flair sticking to a shine-heat-figure four-comeback formula to the match's detriment. In Jumbo/Kikuchi, it's a massacre from the start and every piece of offense Kikuchi can mount feels like a herculean effort. Here, there's no real suspense found when we get about 9 minutes of Morton effortlessly dominating and Flair doing his lame overacting. If, as Flair's fan's claim, he's portraying a multilayered psychopath character obsessed with keeping his gold, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to go right for the giant target that Morton has over his face right from the start? Even from a purely visual perspective, I don't get why Flair wouldn't have targeted Morton's nose from the start with how flimsy that covering looks. Also, wouldn't Morton's comeback feel far more impactful if we hadn't just witnessed him dominate the match's first half? When Morton's comeback does happen here, it feels flat to me since it's just him trying to get revenge by punching out Flair's nose, like I just saw him already do a few minutes ago. The standard awful 80's finish didn't do anything to help my impression of the match.

The best part of the match is definitely Flair's heat segment working over Morton's nose, and I did find it pretty good despite my issues with what came before/after it. I found Morton's selling here a bit overrated compared to Kikuchi in the Jumbo match, but I still thought it was pretty good and especially liked the way he made Flair's chops look brutal. There were still some issues stopping me from getting as into things as I'd like. I've been spoiled by watching a lot of MMA and some puro matches where guys' noses get legit busted open, so it felt weird coming to this and seeing a forehead bladejob right after Flair starts attacking Morton's nose. If they weren't gonna go for legit nose blood, I feel like waiting a bit longer for the forehead blood or even no blood at all would have made things feel less hokey. Also, Flair doing the figure four towards the end of his beatdown hurt the flow of things and felt out of place with the rest of his strategy. No set-up or follow-up on the leg, just a figure four spot because a Flair match needs to have one. The transition back into Morton taking over was not that good. Morton just kind of gets angry and starts no-selling while Flair is chopping away at him, and that apparently means it's time for Flair to start doing his begging off and overselling things.