[1983-12-12-AJPW] Ric Flair vs Great Kabuki

[KB8]

This was okay for parts and then a bit ropey for others. Standard criticism of Flair and/or Flair Formula is that he/it can sort of stifle guys because they need to change some aspects how they work when they're opposite Ric. They're forced to do press slams or always apply the figure four or whatever. If I'm watching a guy opposite Flair for the first time I'm usually interested in seeing how he'll plug his own stuff into Flair's formula, how much he'll delegate to Flair, etc. The first fifteen minutes of this was really just Kabuki being Kabuki and it didn't feel much like your typical Flair match at all. Kabuki threw a bunch of superkicks and I liked how Flair sold them as if he had no idea how to defend against them. He'd just walk into a superkick and have to scramble to the corner for a reprieve. Kabuki can hit them from anywhere and Flair had no answer for it. Kabuki's nerve hold wasn't the most compelling way to fill time, but I get a kick out of him switching it up a bit from the traps to the stomach to the obliques. Flair was really vocal with his selling too, and if nothing else you could buy him being frustrated at having such a hard time figuring Kabuki out. Then the last ten minutes kind of teetered on being not very good. They tried a bunch of the Flair staples, but only about half of them came off. I didn't mind that the headlock into bridge into backslide spot never worked, because Kabuki isn't necessarily the most athletic guy and sometimes things like that add to the sense of struggle, but then they just got back up and went into the backslide after a few beats anyway. If something didn't work they'd just...do it again. There was no improvisation, it was all sort of "checking the boxes" and then Flair chucked the referee and that was that.