Ric Flair vs. Carlos Colon (10/16/82)

[El Boricua]

Ric Flair vs. Carlos Colon (10/16/82)

[Grimmas]

Loved the early armwork by Colon, actually loved all of Colon in this one. However, this is your typical Flair match. Things get worked on and then they just move onto something else and it seems to be forgotten. Either way, Colon brought the goods here and I'm really loving his style. He's Tito! He's the firey comeback babyface who can also sell great. The cartwheels are stellar too. This comeback was freaking epic too. I really adored this finish. ****

[elliott]

This continues the traditon of fucking awesome Flair matches on 80s sets. Terrific match with Flair looking incredible and Colon looking every bit on his level. Colon controls the early portion of the match by working over Flair’s arm and its awesome. It is super basic stuff with a lot of punches and stomps mixed in but when Colon is firing these full on punches at Flair’s arm it is every bit as cool as the slickest arm centered work out there. This is really great when it turns into a slugfest as Colon as Choshu level fire on his offensive attacks and Flair always matches his opponents intensity on strike exchanges and Colon goes crazy. The crowd is bat shit insane popping for this hoping Colon is going to win. I’d love to see more Colon vs Flair matches because this really was terrific. Another great example of Ric “playing the bitch” at times but looking like The Man and Wrestling like The Man. The deuling figure 4’s spot is out of control great with both guys putting the other over like a million bucks and the crowd going wild. This is often a criticism of Flair matches; the other guy being better at the figure 4 than Ric. But Colon used it as his finisher too so it works here. Ric brings a ton of offense in this. Lots of suplexes, a not awful piledriver, the chops you love, lots of stiff shots etc. This is your classic world title match that starts clean and ends with both guys just trying to kill each other. This isn’t just a great Carlos Colon match, it’s a great Ric Flair match.

[Matt D]

Cross post from SC:

 

I have a bit of a hard time going back to longer Flair matches after watching Bockwinkel. Therefore, I may not be completely fair with this. There are a few things I want to talk about and they don't do the whole of the match justice, so let me try to get to focus on the big picture first.

 

This was incredibly heated. I think Colon looked excellent in it. His early armwork was varied and aggressive. The fans responded perfectly to him pumping the arm in various hammerlocks and holds. Ritualistic, repetitive, crowd interaction is so huge and doing that (or the repeated pumphandle you see more in Portland) is an easy way to engage them. Was some of his spots with Flair as smooth as you'd get from other opponents? No, but they always recovered well. Nothing seemed flubbed. Flair, especially would be quick to throw in an extra punch on something like the late Sleeper attempt when he didn't quite get around him. It made everything seem grittier and better for the setting. You could tell they made multiple audibles on the finish, but that just made everything more chaotic and emotional.

 

As always, it's frustrating to watch 82 Flair and see the things he dropped from his act later on. Here, the two snake eyes style hotshots were just great and helped to cement a long-in-coming transition into heat. It was also a hugely appropriate use of the King of the Mountain to destroy Colon's momentum. Obviously, in this setting, he wasn't going to take very much of the match, so it was important they came up with a way to definitively let him take over, at least for a little while, to build towards a comeback and finish.

 

Unsurprisingly, my biggest issue with the match was the arm work. It wasn't that Flair didn't sell it between holds as well as someone like Bockwinkel would have. It wasn't JUST that, at least. You can't criticize someone for something no one does. People do sell early matwork better, though, especially when going in and out of it. Once or twice Flair would give a little bit of lip service to it, and that was nice, but it wasn't hardly enough. In this match, it was a problem because it took up so much time, sure, but it was a bigger problem because it created a massive inconsistency. Flair spent ten minutes barely selling an arm as Colon went every which way on it. Then, after one elbow drop to the leg, he spent the rest of the match, more or less, selling his leg. Was that a more important part of the match? Sure, but the inconsistency between the two was frustrating. It took me out of the match because the leg selling didn't feel at all earned in comparison to the ten minutes of offense on the arm we'd just seen that Flair didn't really feel like selling.

 

Two working theories: The first is that Flair simply cares more about selling the leg because that builds into his own offense. He has every interest in making even a few seconds of a figure four reversal matter more because that's his move. It also allows him to do things more visually and take bumps, like the top rope one more believably. That'd interest him more as well. The second is simply that Flair cares far more about the back half of a match than the first. His selling (and by selling, I mean the broader sense of reacting to things) was perfect during the comeback, highlighted by the sunset flip attempt by Colon and his massive desperation in trying to reach the ropes to prevent it or even in Colon starting to punch back and Flair pressing his body against him in the corner to try to stop it. Both attempts were futile but they made the moment seem like so much more. That's valid, but it's not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's the difference between a match that has clear, unrelated act breaks, and one that builds from beginning to end. This was far more the former than the latter. This was still a very good match. I just think it could have been better.

[KB8]

I think I may have said a word or two about Flair in the recent past, right here on this very blog (note: I'm dragging this over from my blog, obviously). I've perhaps mentioned that the most interesting Flair matches - especially if they're lengthy - to me personally at this point will be against guys I've never seen him match up with before. Well I've never seen him match up with Colon and I was interested in seeing what Colon would bring to a title match (especially after seeing what he brought to an Abdullah the Butcher match), so I was looking forward to this. You have a pretty good idea how the match is going to be laid out and what Flair will do on his end, but how opponents fill in their part of the script can be pretty intriguing if it's an unfamiliar opponent. Colon basically controls the first ten or so minutes by working the arm, and it's not spectacular but it is spirited and looks fairly nasty. The arm work gets dropped soon after Flair takes over, but then I assume we all saw that coming. Flair actually does some pretty nifty stuff working on top, like hitting a couple snake eyes (don't remember seeing him do that before) and another big delayed vertical suplex. Around midway through we get some legwork and Colon reverses the figure four, then applies it himself, and the last stretch is your big Flair run to the finish. There was some pretty great stuff down the stretch, the best being Colon absolutely fucking Kurt Angling Flair head first into the ring post about six times in a row, with Flair taking every shot like a nutter. Colon's cartwheel as his "drop the strap" moment is incredible, btw. The crowd goes utterly BALLISTIC and it's so infectious watching him get fired up like that. I'm gonna enjoy him a ton on this set, I can already tell. Flair grabbing a headlock as a way to transition into the finish is very Flair, but man I didn't expect the actual finish to be what it was. Goosebumps-inducing. Probably doesn't sound like I'm overly enthusiastic about this as a match, but I thought it was really good. Of the three matches so far it probably has the least re-watch value to me for reasons that are likely obvious by now, but it might still be the best of the three (like, I guess).

[WingedEagle]

Not sure how often it happened, but it stood out to me that Flair was announced hailing from Minnesota here. Some really great, focused work on Flair's arm that sees him selling it very well along the way. Even where Colon's attacks or holds on it weren't necessarily the strongest, Flair still put it over very well. The single minded focus on the arm and Flair's dedication to selling it along the way really made this match, although curiously it didn't get particularly heated until very late in the process. It was really fun and neat to see Flair sell a limb in this fashion for so long. We've all seen him work a leg and this was most definitely not that standard outing. Flair's heat was pretty formulaic, but some nice highlights including great punches from Flair. Colon's comeback finally brought the crowd in to it, including an awesome sunset flip spot that they teased the hell out of and made as big a moment as almost any high spot for a great near fall. I legit popped for the finish as I had completely forgotten about this so that was great to see.

 

Really dug this match as a different take from Flair and more than solid showing from Colon. If the arm work were paid off or sold a bit more down the stretch, or Colon's offense was a bit more intense I could go even higher here, but this was still a very good match and my #1 on disc 1.

 

***3/4

[Migs]

I loved this too, but I'm with those who found some of the selling a little off, and that kept the match from hitting big heights for me. Still, the atmosphere was amazing and the energy was terrific. This was my favorite match on Disc 1, and only a couple of things were even in range of it. ****1/4

[fishbaugh]

Big stadium show, looks to be a good house. Love the announcer talking about Flair and the limousines and mujeres! Colon on top to start and the crowd is up for this one, and Colon is out classing Ric at every turn until he's able to get some leverage and short cut his way on top. Colon's fiery comebacks really get the crowd going, and Flair is great cutting him off. Flair starts busting out suplexes, getting more annoyed that Colon won't go down, leading to a great figure 4 reversal spot with the crowd going nuts. Colon puts on one of his own, but Ric gets out and starts throwing bombs. All the standard hope spots are here, but the crowd is so bought in that they seem fresh and new -- the pop on the cross body near fall is great. Things kick into the next gear after Ric is posted over and over, and the crowd has now completely lost it. The pop for the finish is great, with Colon getting a hero's reception. Needed a few more minutes to become a classic though.

 

Rating: 8