[1985-08-10-Mid South-New Orleans, LA] Ric Flair vs Butch Reed

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Butch Reed - Mid-South 8/10/85

 

Long match, you know the drill.

 

First twenty minutes: This is all Butch Reed! Ric Flair try as he might cant overcome the power & might of the awesome Hacksaw Butch Reed. Flair tries everything short of outright cheating in the first twenty minutes. There was crowding the in the corner. Vertical suplex. There was turning it into a track meet with rope running. Side headlock. The first 15 minutes was dominated by the cranking of the headlock by Reed and Flair's inability to counter it. Lots of escapes, movement and back into the headlock. It kept things fresh. Flair tried to turn into a battle of fisticuffs and that did not turn out well for him with the big meaty rights of Butch Reed led to the Flair Flop. Flair tried to break rhythm by going to the outside and having Reed chase and ended up in a backslide. Flair even is willing to try a test of strength. The holler he lets out is awesome. Flair actually does well after a kick until Reed fires back. We end this segment with a Flair Flop and back into the side headlock that defines this match. The big negatives of the first twenty is the headlock stuff was a little long. I know certain people like this and it was well-worked, just 15 minutes was a bit much and we are going to back to it. The other was the overreliance on begging off. I like the begging off, but he did like 5 times inside of twenty minutes. Way too much! Solid babyface shine, it looks like Reed is too much man for Flair to handle, but we shall see.

 

Middle Thirty Minutes: Yeah lets clip out Flair's offense. This has reached extended squash territory. To the point where the match just is no longer credible. Flair got destroyed for 45 minutes and you want me to believe he has not lost yet. In fact, you wanted to make Reed long strong well now you have made him looks like a choke. Reed has done everything work the leg (figure-4), fists, choking in frustration and bombs (suplexes and piledriver). Flair keeps squirming out, but this is getting ridiculous. Flair is not even presenting that much of a mountain to climb like he would with the Von Erichs which would turn into fire fights. In the last two minutes, Flair drops Reed balls first on the top rope and surprisingly, Reed does not have balls of steel and Flair actually takes over in the corner. It would have been a great transition twenty minutes earlier. Butterfly suplex and as we hear the 50 minute time call Flair has begun work on the leg. Now, I am just going to finish out the match because there is only ten minutes left.

 

Final Ten Minutes: The finish stretch is fine. It is about as good as the most Flair sixty minute draws. Flair figure-4->reverse the pressure. Slam Flair's head into the post to draw blood. HEY, FLAIR ACTUALLY WAKES UP! Flair shows some fire, but that is extinguished by a sleeper with three minutes to go. The Reed shoulder tackle from the top that should have been the finish as time expired. Press slams finish the match as it goes to a draw.

 

Overhyped. Underdelivers. The match layout sucked, but even more surprising I thought Flair sucked in this match. His verbal selling was off the charts great, but that's about it. This was a Harley Race level performance in terms of just letting himself be ragdolled. Butch Reed was great on offense, but that's not enough. Give me Reed/Murdoch or Flair/Taylor over this any day. ***

[KB8]

This was what it was. I could count on one hand the amount of people I'd put ahead of Reed on a favourite wrestlers list and still have fingers left to spare, but I've seen these Flair matches before and I wasn't all that excited about revisiting any. Especially not the longest of them, and this one goes an hour. You know what you're getting with Flair. He'll either start out sporting and progressively unravel, or he'll be unravelled in the first place and just get worse. By this point him and Reed already had beef, so we got the latter and he was throwing cheapshots and begging off inside a minute.

I liked the first third and final ten minutes well enough. That first twenty minutes is largely Reed working a headlock and...look, it was fine. Sometimes it was even really good because Reed has an awesome grinding headlock and it always looks like he's trying to wring a guy's head off. Flair will go for the shinbreaker and Reed will just grind the hell out of that headlock until Flair's equilibrium is shot to bits. They milk Flair grabbing the tights to try and roll him up, Reed gets annoyed and throws mounted punches, back to the headlock they go. Flair isn't all that interesting working holds from below but I can get by. They then transition into working a font facelock and I'll always like the spot where Flair tries to suplex his way out of it only for Reed to hold on, roll over and squeeze even harder. They lose me a bit in the middle though, and part of that isn't really their fault as there's a jump in the film and we miss about ten minutes. It's just that before long I'm kind of waiting for the bell to ring and that's never a good sign. Last twenty minutes are your Flair on the Ropes extended finishing run. Objectively it worked because the heat built and built, and they did some stuff I liked a lot. Reed has awesome punches and he threw many of them, great combos that were capped off with his big winding uppercut. Obviously he works the leg and applies the figure-four, but I liked the twist here with him refusing to let go even when Flair got to the ropes and the ref' being powerless to do anything about it. That no DQ stip came into play best of all when they started hucking each other over the top rope and we got a couple great splats to the concrete, including one of Flair's best off an uppercut. Flair just picking Reed up and crotching him on the ropes was another great spot, basically kicking off his only semi-extended run of offence the entire match. Reed's shoulder tackle off the top was absolutely top banana as well and maybe if he wasn't so fatigued he'd have hit the gorilla press slam in time.

I guess I'd have liked Flair to work a bit more from above. I get the rationale behind him not doing that and I did think he looked like a hardy bastard for toughing it out, but like Sleaze I thought Reed needed to overcome a little more. Tommy Gilbert was also kind of annoying at points. I eventually got used to him going through the set the first time, but he has a touch of the Kiniskis about him where he wants to be super involved, and it stifled some of the stooging Flair would do in the corner. A few times you wished Reed would actually pull the trigger and put him on his arse.