Ric Flair vs. Brett Sawyer (2/3 falls) (10/2/82)

[goodhelmet]

Ric Flair vs. Brett Sawyer (2/3 falls) (10/2/82)

Disc 5

[garretta]

First fall: ​This has to be one of the most aggressive bouts we've seen yet out of Flair. He centers his attack on Hack's nose, trying to break it, which I've seldom seen from him. He also takes the bout outside several times to do further damage, including a backbreaker on the floor. As someone who's used to Flair being beaten from pillar to post until someone can come down to save his hide, matches like this are a revelation.

 

Hack keeps up with Flair at times, including in a nice little amateur sequence not too long after the start, but he's clearly shown to not quite be in Flair's class. Dutch and Coss put over his guts and pain tolerance more than his wrestling ability, which is never a good sign for a wrestler's prospects in a given match. He's the Northwest champion at this time, so he's not exactly a slouch, but there's a definite feeling that a Sawyer victory, especially on TV, would be an upset of monumental proportions.

 

Dutch mentions that if Hack wins the title, he'll have to make all of Flair's previous dates. On the list of cities he mentions is New York, but Flair never came near WWF territory during this reign, He wrestled Backlund a couple of times in unification bouts, but never at MSG. (I know there was one at the Omni on July 4 of '82, and I could have sworn that there was at least one other in Toronto, although that match may have been while Flair was US champion for Crockett. I know Bobby wrestled Nick Bockwinkel in a WWF/AWA unification match at Maple Leaf Gardens as well.)

 

Another flat-out wrong claim Dutch made was that Hack was the only wrestler ever to hold Flair to a draw up until this time. He might have gotten away with that ten years ago, but unless the Seattle area didn't have cable yet, the fans there would have known if Flair had been held to a draw at the Omni, and if they read arena reports in the Apter mags they would have seen quite a few draws for Flair, I'd imagine. Lies like that are one part of kayfabe that I certainly don't miss.

 

Line of the Fall goes to Dutch after Hack elevates Flair for a high backdrop: "He went up so high he had icicles on him!"

 

Flair gets the fall when he reverses a small package from Hack. He's up one-zip with about thirteen minutes of disc time remaining.

 

Second fall: ​Hack gets most of this fall, and he takes it by submission with the figure-four (of all things) to even the bout at a fall apiece with about seven minutes of disc time remaining.

 

I've seen Flair submit in multi-fall matches before, but how humiliating is it to be made to submit to your own finisher? I was expecting to see the reversal sequence we see so often in JCP, but no such luck. For whatever reason, Dutch and Coss don't mention that the figure-four is Flair's go-to submission hold. Maybe it's not made out to be that big a deal until JCP hits TBS in '85.

 

They're pimping the upcoming Piper-Rose match in Seattle heavily, so I'm guessing that this match comes from the Seattle feed. Interestingly enough, Dutch and Coss create the impression that the matches are coming from someplace in Seattle generically named "the arena". I guess they got away with it, since I wouldn't think Portland stations and Seattle stations were available together in too many places.

 

​I'd almost think that Flair would have to go over clean here, since there's no hint of a house show program with Hack on the horizon the next time Flair comes to town. Besides, there's most likely bigger money to be made in a rematch with Buddy and/or a one-shot against Piper.

 

​Third fall: ​Hack tries to go after Flair's leg again, but Ric foils that strategy early on. The turning point in the match comes when Hack misses consecutive dropkicks. From there on, it's almost all Flair, as he gets a close nearfall on a back suplex, then finishes Hack once and for all with a picture-perfect Stun Gun.

 

I love the excitement level of Dutch and Coss. Even though I knew that Hack wasn't getting the title, they had me believing that it was possible at various points in the match, and Dutch in particular seemed to be pulling hard for Hack, though not in an obnoxious way. I loved the request he made to Coss at the start of the third fall: "If I get too excited, punch me in the ear!" No wonder Portland missed him when he left. He reminds me a bit of Gorilla Monsoon without all the long words and (sometimes) tiresome clichés.

 

I think I've said this before, but I'm sorry we don't seem to have Buddy-Flair or a Portland version of Piper-Flair on tape. I think we only have one more Flair match, against Billy Jack, and I'm really looking forward to it.

[Lee Benaka]

I thought this was a pretty entertaining match. Garretta as usual does a fine job summarizing the high points. The at-times almost delirious enthusiasm of the announcers for Hack added to the match. I thought it was a nice touch for Flair to submit to the figure four, giving Hack a pretty powerful fall if he was only going to get one fall during the match. I thought the match was kind of starting to run on fumes a bit when we got to the point when Hack missed the two dropkicks, but it wrapped up quickly after that. A very solid effort by both participants.