Magnum TA vs. Ric Flair (9/24/85)

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Magnum TA vs. Ric Flair (9/24/85)

Disc 9

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First off, what's up with just a thirty-minute time limit here? I know this wasn't the last match on the card; were they anticipating another long match after this? (Jeannie mentions a tag match, but she doesn't specify which one. Turns out that it was the Road Warriors/Billy Jack-Sarge match.)

 

According to Don, Flair's held the belt for all but nineteen days (Kerry Von Erich's reign) over the last four years. I guess that means Harley's last reign was ignored, at least officially.

 

I had no idea that Magnum started in Portland; I was wondering why he was the one chosen to go against Flair. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the fans didn't care, at least not as much as they would have if Billy Jack had gotten the shot instead. They wasted him here, teaming him with Sarge against the Road Warriors. They got into the match by the end because of all the false finishes, but the first part of this was borderline dead despite Flair's best efforts.

 

Once again, we got way too much of Sandy Barr. It's not that he did anything much different than Tommy Young did in Flair matches at this time back home in JCP, but we've already seen this act far too often from him. It didn't help that Flair felt the need to draw attention to him in order to wake the crowd up a bit; he's bad enough on his own without the World champion egging him on.

 

Magnum spent a lot of his time working Flair's leg, which was something I don't remember seeing much from him. Flair did a great job selling for him, to the point that I'm sure people were wondering shy he was going for the figure-four himself after Magnum had injured him with it earlier. If Dusty hadn't already been using the hold, I'd have liked to see Magnum's use of it played up more by the JCP announcers; he looked like a natural applying it.

 

Jeannie was great again. Her only questionable moment came when she said that she'd never seen Magnum apply the belly-to-belly. Then again, if she didn't get WTBS and had only seen him in his rookie days before he used it regularly, I suppose it's possible. She was obviously enamored with Flair, but stopped just short of slobbering all over him and offered just as much praise for Magnum. It's a shame that this is probably the only time we'll see her on the set, because she conveys excitement better than Coss does and is just a half-step below him as far as calling ring action goes, and she'd make up that half-step with more experience. Flowers didn't have much to say for himself, and stuck to offering general praise for both men (slightly more for Flair), and getting on Sandy's case, which was understandable.

 

If I have a problem with the finish, it's that Magnum didn't go for the belly-to-belly at least one more time after Sandy came to. Once he started throwing punches and fighting Flair for backslides, it was obvious that we were going to a draw. Maybe that's part of why Billy Jack didn't get a rematch; he'd already fought Flair to a draw in May, and unless Don was going to run the Rose Garden a third time before the end of the year (which I don't believe he did), there would have been no way to bring Flair back for a final blowoff.

 

For the record, the LOD beat Billy Jack and Sarge by disqualification.