Ric Flair v Lex Luger

[Loss]

Ric Flair v Lex Luger - 09/13/90 (WCW)

 

These two typically worked the same very good match every time out between 1988 and 1990. The problem was that if you'd seen one, you'd seen them all, at least if you were watching to see what Flair does. He had a clear formula that he created with Nikita Koloff and perfected with Luger, and it was a formula he used to carry the growing number of limited muscleheads to good matches in the late 1980s. This match is more abridged because it's on a live Clash and it's not the main event, which one might think would hurt it, but it doesn't at all. In fact, if anything, it helps it. That's not to say this is the best Flair/Luger match, because it isn't, but the reasons for that have nothing to do with the time.

 

Flair is especially animated in this match, even more so than normal. He's laughing, smiling, yelling at fans, trash talking Luger, screaming at the ref and jumping toward the camera. I think he had a little bit too much champagne backstage, but it plays well, because the crowd is rabid all the way through and Flair is so vibrant. He doesn't just chop Luger; before he does it, he has to look directly into the camera and say, "Turner! Herd! This is for you! Whoooo!" It's a side of Ric Flair I actually wish we could have seen more often. He brawls a little more than he wrestles, which is a nice change of pace from their usual work, even if he's not quite as sound when he tries to do it. He keeps dragging Luger outside to torture him there; he Irish whips Luger into the guardrail at least three times.

 

The part of the match that hurt it the most was all the early no-selling from Lex. Sure, it gets over Luger's determination, but so do a lot of other things they could have done without making Flair look weak. His chops are shrugged off; a nice vertical suplex is meaningless; the last Irish whip to the guardrail has no effect at all. Luger, however, can sell when he wants to sell, or when the match calls for it, because when he does it, he's surprisingly great at it. At times, he just seems to be waiting for a reason to be perilous, and that's actually when he's at his best, not when he's on offense. Flair comes up with different ways to set them up at least, but Luger does three press slams in the first five minutes of the match, and besides that, it's mostly clotheslines. Later in the match, he does spice things up with a superplex, but it would have meant more in the early stages. Sometimes, his clotheslines barely make contact, but Flair bumps big for them anyway to put them over.

 

My favorite part of the match is when Flair gets clotheslined by Luger, and starts screaming like he dislocated his shoulder. The ref goes in to check on him, as does Luger, and he suckerpunches him, which transitions to him controlling the middle part of the match. I also like the way Flair attacks Luger's knee, he does all of his usual stuff, but at one point, he has Lex in the corner, so he can chop him, kick the knee, chop him, kick the knee, chop him, kick the knee. The key to what I said earlier is that Luger can sell *when he wants to sell* because after making his comeback, he essentially shrugs off everything Flair did to him.

 

The DQ finish didn't really hurt the match so much, as pretty much everyone knew by this point that if Flair and Luger were facing each other, there would be no clear cut winner. Stan Hansen interferes and sets up their program for Halloween Havoc, and that post-match beatdown is as inspired as anything in the match. There's better Flair/Luger, there's more sound Flair/Luger, there's Flair/Luger given the right amount of time. The one reason I'd still recommend seeing this, however, would be to see Flair's outstanding theatrics.

[goodhelmet]

See, looking at Flair and Luger, Luger should no-sell and dominate. At least intially. I am going purely on your match description but I think the size difference was enough back then between the two, that the only way Flair should be able to get any kind of advantage is to cheat or for Luger to somehow mess up his leg so Flair can build toward the figure-four. Until these two things happen, Luger should give Flair nothing.

[Loss]

See, looking at Flair and Luger, Luger should no-sell and dominate. At least intially. I am going purely on your match description but I think the size difference was enough back then between the two, that the only way Flair should be able to get any kind of advantage is to cheat or for Luger to somehow mess up his leg so Flair can build toward the figure-four. Until these two things happen, Luger should give Flair nothing.

I have no problem with Luger dominating early because of the size difference. My problem is that if he's going to dominate early, he should be blocking Flair's moves before they connect instead of laying them in and having Luger shrug them off. They do a better job of this at Wrestle War '90, with Luger countering some of Flair's stuff in the early stages. He still does some no-selling, but not nearly as much. No-selling a chop is one thing, but no-selling a vertical suplex and an Irish whip into the guardrail, the latter of which wasn't even building to a comeback, is a problem.

[goodhelmet]

OK, I agree with that. I thought the no-selling was coming off basic offense at a stage when Flair had no business being control.

[Resident Evil]

Just watched the Wrestlewar match. I must say I absolutely loved the guardrail spot and I thought it fit well into what they were doing. Luger was Superman back than. He looked like it, he wrestled like it in thie match and kayfabe wise I think we have to have Luger as the favourite here. The match was going to end in skullduggery. If you're going that route than Luger has to make everyone think Flair was on the run and it's only a matter of time before Luger topples Flair. They wanted people to think this. A rematch has to come.

 

An injured Sting comes down and slaps Luger to motivate him. Luger goes on an adrenaline rush. If he sells to a guardrail than than the match kinds of get wrecked. It also even hurts Sting. The storyline and the seriousness of the situation for Sting and Luger gets hurt because selling at that point in time would do that. They'd look stupid. Different match and a different scenario I might not like the guardrail spot but here it works.

 

Pretty good match. Loved the story. Luger was motivated back than. Moreso than a lot of people.

[ohtani's jacket]

I really enjoyed all of the Flair/Luger matches from Starrcade '88 through to the Clash that Loss wrote about, with the exception of Starrcade '89. They're tremendously entertaining. Flair did a great job of working the matches around the way Luger was being pushed, even if he had no intention of dropping the belt to him, and Luger looked great, even if people say he was difficult to work with. The Clash match is really good, and Loss is right about the post-match beatdown, which was so good that the Hansen/Luger matches were incredibly disappointing to witness. After this, Flair kinda got exposed in the Doom/Horsemen tag at Halloween Havoc, but the next Clash against Butch Reed was interesting. The match falls apart when Flair resorts to formula stuff, but he could be a semi-decent brawler at times. The grudge match against Pillman in '91 is a good example.

[Resident Evil]

So how many Flair Luger matches were there in Luger's first run in WCW?

 

Great American Bash 1988 -- Watch part of this last night and this has got to be one of my favourites match endings of all time. So much energy in this.

Starcade 88

Starcade 89

Clash of the Champions

Capitol Combat 90 in the cage

[JHawk]

Wrestle War 90 as well

[jdw]

From CM's list, the TV ones appear to be:

 

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger Bash 88 7/10/1988 23:45

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger Starcade 12/26/1988 30:59

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger Starrcade 89 12/13/1989 15:00

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger Wrestle War 90 2/25/1990 38:21

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger NWA Pro 4/28/1990 8:48

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger (cage match) Capitol Combat 5/19/1990 17:21

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger Clash 12 9/5/1990 15:29

 

There also was this house show:

 

Ric Flair vs Lex Luger NWA House 9/10/1988 17:24

 

John

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

So is Starrcade '89 the only face Ric-heel Lex match on record?

[Loss]

The only one that was taped, yes.

 

I actually thought the PPV version of that match was pretty good (it's clipped to hell on the comm release), although a step below their other matches.