[1985-08-16-Pro Wrestling USA] Ric Flair vs Sgt. Slaughter

[paul sosnowski]

From the Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford NJ, Ric Flair defends the NWA World Heavyweight title.   

Available on the Network, Vault, Hidden Gems.  1985 "Sarge's Hunt for Gold'.    Talk about it here

[shoe]

This is pretty much a dream match. In 85 Slaughter might been the 2nd or 3rd biggest babyface in the U.S at the time. I loved Slaughter mocking Flair early on.Slaughter gets a really fun shine early on.He starts with a headlock and works spots around it.  When he gets to the arm work it's really great. Slaughter isn't known as a working holds guy, but the arm work is nasty with a lot of fun touches to it. They do blow a cross body spot during the match. Flair misses a knee drop and Slaughter works the leg. The actual Figure 4 is pretty messy. These guys really did a great job keeping the crowd, and they got hotter as the match went. Flair does a poke in the eye and starts to take Slaughter to school. He bumps to the outside and dings his arm. Flair with some wicked arm rope spots combined with some KOTM spots was great here. Flair just wrecking the arm. Loved the payoff of the arm work that Slaughter couldn't capitalize on the Cannon. Meadowlands is hot. It has a rep for being a hard crowd to work in front of, but not here. Slaughter posts Flair. Slaughter is walking tall . The crowd biting on all the near falls. Flair all over Slaghter's leg. Slaughter's selling is top notch. The struggle in the Figure 4 was amazing. This has a big match feel for me. The finish works for me as well because it does 2 things. One the audience believes Slaughter was on the verge of winning. Secondly it advances the Slaughter/Zuchov feud. I thought this was excellent and felt big, and had the crowd the whole way. It felt like a really fresh match up. 4*

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs AWA American Heavyweight Champion Sgt. Slaughter - NWA/AWA 9/17/85

Here is a dream combination I have never thought of! We have Flair in full against pretty much everyone but forgot about Slaughter. Unfortunately this is only like 3 minutes of action and then a Boris Zuhkov run-in and then a Slaughter promo where he calls Hogan a chump for ducking him. Flair works the leg and gets a Figure-4. Slaughter gets the Cobra Clutch and thats when Boris interferes. Not surprisingly a fuck finish. The work was good. I think this match-up has potential to really be magic. It looks like they also worked St. Louis around this time, maybe without a shit finish...hope maybe one day we find a Flair vs Slaughter match complete. I thought I would at least make a thread here so people can salivate at the prospect of Flair sv Slaughter and maybe, just maybe someone knows where a full one is?!?