[1988-07-10-NWA-Great American Bash '88] Ric Flair vs Lex Luger

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Lex Luger - NWA Great American Bash '88

 

One of my all-time favorite series of matches is the Flair/Luger contests and this match represents the only one I have never seen before. I think it has been marred by the bullshit blood stoppage finish and thus didn't seem as must watch as some of the other classics like Starrcade 88 and Wrestlewar 90. Before the lame blood stoppage finish, I thought this was great on par or even better than Capital Combat. Luger's shine was tremendous. He looked so agile and athletic. The leapfrog and the dropkick looked great. The Press Slams were fantastic just perfect form. You can see how hard those are to do and they looked so impressive. There was just an energy to Luger an exuberance really. Thought JR did a great job explaining the focus on the back with the press slams and lo and behold Luger goes to the bearhug smart, works a couple falls before executing a nice suplex. My one complaint in this otherwise fantastic shine was that Flair was a little big of ragdoll. One of my major points in Flair's favor is that he makes his opponent earn the shine by working through the chops, the short knees, the tricks and the rope running here not so much. The transition to the heat segment is a rake of the eyes on the floor and then a slam into steel railing. Not the most creative or impactful, but it gets the job done. I think this more about peppering in the hope spots. We see desperation clotheslines, crotching Flair on the top rope and missed dropkicks before Flair really takes command by cutting Luger down by attacking the knee. Figure-4! Great selling by Luger in all of this. Flair misses a seat drop on Luger's knee and this looks like Luger's big opening. Flair chops...NO EFFECT! I love this spot. No one is better at it than Luger. The way he revs up and flexes is just the best as Flair backpedals. Clothesline gets two. Flair Flip! Backslide gets two. They both go tumbling over the ropes and Flair starts HOLLERING about his leg. I thought this was great selling but really it was just a way to sucker Luger in to bash his head into the steel post and then JJ does it for goo measure. This is when he starts bleeding and yes I agree with everyone if you are going to do a blood stoppage finish he really should let it rip. Luger sees red and fires up massive powerslam and he signals for the rack and Baltimore is whipped into a frenzy. Torture Rack and Tommy Young calls for the bell. Baltimore EXPLODES~! Luger does his Clash I and actually does a really convincing acting job that he has won the World Championship. Big "Luger" chants. They make the announcement and Baltimore is pissed that Flair retains and a big "bullshit" chant breaks out.

 

Hate this type of finish. It is just a real dick thing to do to the fans. Thus Luger the choke artist is born and he never can shake that label. Thought the match was great up until the finish. It is pretty unheralded. Shine was great and definitely showed how athletic and energetic Luger was. Flair's heat segment featured great hope spots and some good legwork for the figure-4. They had a good transition to set up the big comeback with no selling chops spot which was molten hot. Basically my complaints start there I would have liked to see a really big run up to the finish but that kinda hard when the finish was going to suck hard. So first 3/4 was great and they would go on to have two classics, I think the novelty is really the showcase of Luger's agility and energy early on. ****

[El-P]

Great match, complete shit finish. And yes, historically, it's like it foreshadowed Luger's entire career, up to the Yoko shit finish. Dusty's booking of the Bash was pretty rotten.

 

Crazy year for Flair though, after making Sting a star at Clash 1, he makes Luger a star there. Although the difference of work between the two is striking, as Luger was way ahead of Sting at this point, and looked like the sure thing for years to come. Call me crazy, I probably have Luger as a top 3 Flair opponent, as more great matches are to come.

 

Odd visual with the yellow & white tights/kneepads combo on both guys, only inverted.

[PhilTLL]

This is absolutely on par with their other pay-per-view matches until the much lamented finish. I'm not sure how many times Luger had even bladed in his career before this. I could also see him being the type to absolutely refuse getting bladed by another guy, not that I could blame him for that.