if you go to the classic XWT torrent site, it's there

Pass. I did do some extra investigator work to find Hennig-Bockwinkel for my Hennig thread, and that was obviously worth it since that match turned out to be truly one of the best I've ever seen, but like I said in the OP...lazier approach on this thread.

Also who knows what those sites even have, if it's raw footage stuff then I still wouldn't bother.

Great American Bash '88: US Tag Team Titles - Fantastics (c) vs. Midnight Express (w/ Jim Cornette)

Date: July 10, 1988

Link: http://network.wwe.com/video/v31355167

Background: In between the classic match between these two teams at the inaugural Clash of the Champions in March and this one, the Fantastics had prevailed in winning the US Tag Team Titles from the Midnight Express. This was a return match, and it carried the "manager locked in a cage hanging from the ceiling" stipulation to stop Jim Cornette from interfering. Oh, and apparently Cornette had to spend the match in a straitjacket too. Man, respect for him for doing the straitjacket thing even for 20 minutes or whatever; that would truly suck.

The Match: They carry on putting the straitjacket on Cornette for far too long. Holy crap. I'll rate the match independently once it starts, but how annoying.



Bobby Eaton and Bobby Fulton start things out. Side headlock takeover by Eaton. Fulton stands him up, but a sucker-punch by Eaton fells him again. Headscissor takedown by Fulton though, then a hurracanrana and a right hand, and finally Fulton has the better of things. Eaton tags in Stan Lane. Lane and Fulton do the test of strength, Fulton turns it into a takedown after a stalemate. Lane quickly back up, and a series of kicks sends Fulton tumbling out of the ring. Lane follows outside, but gets posted for his efforts and then eats a baseball slide by Fulton directly after. As Lane literally licks his wounds, Tommy Rogers tags in.

Whip, leapfrog, dropkick in a sequence by Rogers. Lane has had enough and tags Eaton back in. Eaton does a bit better, setting Rogers up on the turnbuckle. He attempts a superplex, but Rogers backflips behind to escape. These Fantastics were awfully good. Rogers makes a blind tag to Fulton, the two perform a double dropkick on Eaton, Lane is in and we have all four in the ring. The Fantastics make quick work of the Express and own the ring to themselves in about ten seconds flat.

Stan Lane back in, we get a double-team leapfrog move onto Lane's hammerlocked arm. Blind tag by Lane causes Rogers to get blindsided, as he goes for a roll-up on Lane and Bobby Eaton plants him with a bulldog. Back to Lane, who hangs Rogers along the top rope going outside, then Lane follows with a vicious clothesline. Eaton is in, and Rogers has officially fallen into face-in-peril mode. Elbow drop by Eaton gets two. The quick tags continue; Lane keeps laying in the kicks, then Eaton is back in with a backbreaker. The Midnights were clear heels here, but the crowd does appreciate their offense.



Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker by Eaton gets two. Beautiful Bobby follows with the cross-armbreaker into the hammerlock. Rogers finally buys himself a chance with a desperation facebuster, but he doesn't get the tag as Lane picks him off. Abdominal stretch by Sweet Stan. Stan dumps Rogers outside so that Eaton can post him while the referee is distracted, by Rogers blocks and posts Eaton himself.

Rogers has some fight against Lane, managed a sunset flip but only got two. Tries for the tag but Eaton stops him. Top rope legdrop by Eaton. Lane goes for the pin after Eaton's legdrop, but Fulton saves. The heat segment continues with an abdominal stretch. Eaton tags and gets sent across the ring for the rocket launcher, but Rogers gets his knees up to block the move, and that gets an absolutely galactic pop. Rogers finally makes the hot tag to Fulton. Both Midnights try to take out Fulton, and one of them succeeds as Eaton bodyslams him on the concrete.



Things have broken down, as we get a ref bump in the ring as well. Eaton wraps a chain around his fist, clocks Bobby Fulton as Fulton returns, and scores the pin to win the US Tag Team Titles.

The Fantastics gripe about the use of the chain, but referee Tommy Young searches Eaton and comes up empty, after which it is discovered that Eaton planted the chain on Fulton as he pinned him. The result stands.

Result: Midnight Express via pinfall, new US Tag Team Champions (16:23)

Meltzer Rating: ****

My Review and Rating: Well…there's a natural inclination to want to compare this bout to the one the teams had back in March, and frankly this one doesn't hold up to that one at all. I'm appreciative of the offense of both teams, but whereas their Clash match was clearly special, this was mostly pretty ordinary and formulaic, with a boost for good offense. I was reasonably entertained, but also disappointed at how far short this one fell from the last one. ***

Alright, that will do it for this weekend. Maybe I'll get something more up during the week to come, but we'll see.

I do, and yes it's usually the original and then they also have the updated version if WWE aired it. WW match is good but I'd put that BotB II match head and shoulders above it.

You're somehow quoting moorobot in that post.

Awesome idea.

In deciding whether a no sell is good or not I take into factors such as:

1) The character of the wrestler no selling
2) Whether and to what extent the crowd is into it
3) Whether the wrestler is intended to be a main event level wrestler or not
4) Whether it is harmful to his opponent (e.g. hurts his character or draw)

Sting is portraying a larger than life character rather than a completely realistic one, and they were trying to make him into a main event megastar. It was rare that the NWA used larger than life superhero characters in the 80s but when they did it often provided a nice contrast and helped them to draw (the other major example is the Road Warriors, who no sold their asses off). The crowd usually loved the Sting no selling Flair. Given Flair's character I don't think being no sold by Sting hurt him. Overall the no selling adds to the match and the story they were trying to tell rather than subtracts from it.

I think the crowd in the NWA/WCW up until 1993 loved everything about the main event scene and the Horsemen. I miss crowds like that. People hanging on every move in that CotC match.

Easy explanation on why the crowd liked the no-selling. Flair's character was, of course, not hurt by thing.

I mean, I don't feel hyperbolic saying this: That CotC match was a squash match. This was more of a squash match than Taker/HBK from HiaC. At some point in a 45 minute match, you need to sell. At least act fatigued. He sold nothing the entire match.

As long as I'm doing this project, I might as well give personal choices on Match of the Year as I finish each year. Just to retroactively catch '86 and '87 up...

1986: Battle of the Belts 2 - Flair vs. Windham
1987: WrestleMania III - Savage vs. Steamboat

I realize this started in late 1985, and if I had to pick one from this Melter project I would end up defaulting to that Savage-Steamboat match from Wrestling Classic, but that's a really weak selection. Strangely nothing points toward Meltzer giving star ratings to the first few Starrcades even though he was doing other NWA stuff. Blanchard vs. Magnum TA from Starrcade '85 immediately comes to mind, but none of my links indicate that he gave a star rating to that one. For that reason, I'll just start with 1986 for Match of the Year winners.

There are only two matches left in 1988. I'll probably get to at least one of them tonight.

I'd post the Wrestling Observer Match of the Year for those two years, but they are the exact same.

Clash of the Champions IV: Ric Flair & Barry Windham (w/ JJ Dillon) vs. The Midnight Express (w/ Jim Cornette)

Date: December 7, 1988

Link: http://network.wwe.com/video/v32289815

Background: Barry Windham had been a long-time foe of the Horsemen, and at the initial Clash of the Champions he and Lex Luger won the tag titles off of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. The next month, in a title defense against the former champions, Windham turned on Luger to turn heel and join the Horsemen. Windham won the US Title shortly after and had held it ever since. Flair was still World Champion. Not really sure why they were fighting the Midnight Express, as Beautiful Bobby and Sweet Stan were not World Tag Champs any longer by this point. This seemed to be a heel vs. heel encounter.



The Match: Jim Ross talks up what a dream team Ric Flair and Barry Windham are, calling them the best two singles wrestlers in the world. Though in the Horsemen together for roughly eight months at this point, they must not have individually teamed together until now.

Flair and Eaton start. Flair with some taunting and gamesmanship early, which Eaton answers with a huge slap that knocks Flair down to a big pop. Seems like the crowd might prefer Cornette's boys. The Nature Boy gets serious now and takes the fight to Eaton with a multitude of chops, but Eaton holds his own and actually wins the initial exchange before both men tag out.

Windham leapfrogs Stan Lane, but eats a dropkick on the way back. He still gets up and asserts his size advantage, beating Lane against the corner and slamming him before prematurely going up top and missing on a flying elbow drop. Windham goes outside but gets brought back in rudely when Lane slingshots him in.



The Horsemen attempt a double clothesline on Eaton, but Eaton ducks them and connects on a flying clothesline on the both of them on the way back. The Horsemen have to regroup, as JJ Dillon gives Windham some tough love and tells him to get it together. It doesn't get better upon return though, and actually both Midnights get Flair and Windham in respective figure-four leglocks.

Dillon looks like he's going to interfere, but Cornette starts threatening him outside the ring. Jim Ross says, "You know, Jimmy Cornette has done a lot of growing up these last few weeks. He's changed his attitude on a lot of things." Okay, this isn't heel vs. heel after all; I didn't actually realize that Cornette and the Midnight Express had been babyface, but it sure sounds like they are. My mistake. That makes a lot more sense for why they would be headlining a Clash with this.

We get a PIP promo in the middle of the main event (WTF) from Paul E. Dangerously, about an upcoming match at Starrcade. Okay then. Back in the action, Flair is getting caught being too slow up to the top turnbuckle and gets thrown off by Sweet Stan. Tag to Eaton, who clobbers Flair from one corner to the other, then does a double-team press slam on the world champion along with Lane. Eaton with a roll-up that gets two; clear that Windham was supposed to break it up but was too slow to his spot. After Windham's interference we get a momentary all-in-the-ring chaos, and it settles down with the heels now in control of Beautiful Bobby.



Flair chops Eaton against the ropes, blind tag to Windham, whips Eaton into the ropes and Windham follows with a vicious clothesline for two. Gutwrench suplex. Kneedrop. Windham applies a sleeper that Eaton counters, but Windham simply tags in Ric Flair and the heat segment continues.

Flair and Eaton exchange blows in the corner. Eaton gets just enough separation from this to manage a hot tag to Lane. Lane takes it to both of Dillon's guys until Eaton is ready to step back in. Eaton in with the legdrop off the top rope on Windham. The Midnight Express seem to have the pin here, but referee Tommy Young is distracted by a scuffle on the outside between Dillon and Cornette that starts when Dillon took his shoe off and looked like he was going to go in and use it as a weapon. Amidst the distraction, Flair grabs Dillon's shoe, clobbers Eaton with it, and then pulls Windham over on top. Tommy Young turns around and counts to three to give the dirty win to the Horsemen.



Cornette cuts a nice face promo after the commercial break that follows the match. He really is one of the all-time greats on the stick.

Result: Flair & Windham via pinfall (17:41)

Meltzer Rating: ****

My Review and Rating: This was a fun match, and was aided quite a bit by my mid-match epiphany that the Midnight Express were faces now. It made for a better story that the long-time heels turned good were standing toe-to-toe with the best singles wrestlers in the world, and had a hot crowd behind them. Considering the story, I think the cheap ending here works. Not a four-star match, but easily worth watching. ***1/2

Next on the docket is Flair vs. Luger from Starrcade '88. I know I've seen Flair vs. Luger matches from this time frame (they were good), but honestly I couldn't place which events they were from, so I don't know if it will be a first-time viewing for me. Either way I'm optimistic.

Basically what had happened is when The Midnight Express feuded with Arn and Tully for the world titles, the Midnights got cheered and were turned face officially to feud with...the Midnight Express (original Midnight Express) managed by Paul Heyman. Naturally some amazing promos featuring Cornette, Heyman, Arn, JJ Dillon, Lane, Flair, and Tully occured during this time.

That's good to know, thanks.

My NWA watching has all been a la carte stuff where I've gone back and watched individual matches that have been recommended. I didn't have cable TV until '95, so I only started watching WCW during that period that fell squarely in between good eras. Thankfully the product picked back up for them once Nitro went on the air, aside from Dungeon of Doom nonsense.

But there will be a fair number of these matches that I won't have seen before, and definitely plenty of missing knowledge about the storylines.

LKJ for mod!

Beautiful Bobby Eaton as a wrestler has grown on me a lot throughout my chronological WCW watching

I had to get over the fact his body and look was terrible but now that Im past that I see the man was an amazing wrestler, his offense was top notch, love his leg drops off the top

Bobby Eaton is definitely underrated. He was great.

First time I saw this, I thought for sure Windham's porn stache would be the most hilariously mid 80s thing in the match. Then Flair's music hit.

It is pretty cool though that you never are sure what music a wrestler will have or whether or not they will have to navigate the crowd to get to the ring before matches in this era though.

Caudle wasn't usually seen as somebody in contention for best announcer at that time, but if he was announcing in his prime today he would be the consensus number 1 announcer. I am tempted to watch all of Smoky Mountain wrestling just because he was announcing (sometimes with Jim Ross).

A lot of guys that looked like crap but were great workers started in the late 70s-early 80s. You don't see as many today for whatever reason.

If you look at the Four Corners of Heaven from 90's AJPW you'll see that none of them had a great physique yet could pull out absolutely breathtaking matches. Kobashi looked the best and while muscular sure wasn't an Adonis. And the other great wrestlers like Dr. Death, Jumbo, Stan Hansen, among others were the exact same.

This was going to be high for me in the WOAT draft. So bad but so funny.

He was certainly way better than anyone today is, though it's difficult to imagine transplanting him into the sports entertainment world. Along with Jim Ross, he struck the perfect tone of narrating wrestling as if it was an actual competition.

But obviously Ross made the transition and became legendary in WWF/WWE, so maybe I'm overstating the difficulty of the transition.

I would add that WWF/WWE took it at least somewhat seriously into the early 2000s, at least. But the transition today would be near-impossible (as it should be, because this is one area where Vince is a micromanaging moron).

Starrcade '88: NWA Title - Ric Flair (c) (w/ JJ Dillon) vs. Lex Luger

Date: December 26, 1988

Link: http://network.wwe.com/video/v31356059

Background: Lex Luger had basically been robbed of the title at Great American Bash earlier in the year, when he had Ric Flair up in the Torture Rack, seemingly beaten, but the match was stopped and Flair was declared the winner because Luger was bleeding excessively. If that doesn't sound like a terrible enough ending, it was made even worse by the fact that it was one of the weakest blade jobs you'll ever see, and calling it "excessive" bleeding was completely absurd. Anyway, Luger got another shot here.

The Match: One of the stipulations of this match is that if Ric Flair were to get disqualified, Lex Luger would win the NWA Title.



Jim Ross and Bob Caudle on the call. Luger whips Flair into the ropes to start, but Flair holds the ropes then walks around the ring taunting him. The two wrestle along the ropes in a tie-up, with Flair blatantly talking to Luger about the coming match. I can't imagine what the confusion would have been; the match isn't a minute old yet. Luger attempts another whip into the ropes, which Flair blocks by holding onto the rope again, but Luger follows this time with a hard clothesline that turns the champ inside out and sends him over the top.

The two continue a feeling-out process for several minutes. Luger offers a test of strength, but Flair gets a shot in and then follows with several hard chops. The advantage doesn't last though, as Lex leapfrogs a charging Nature Boy and then powerslams him on the way back off the ropes. Luger continues the offense, elevating Flair for a decent while before dropping him for a press slam. Arm-wringer by the strongman, who wrenches Flair's left arm repeatedly before flinging him into a corner shoulder-first.



Slick Ric attempts a comeback with a hard chop, which the challenger no-sells. Jim Ross: "Lex Luger…with that considerable pectoral development…" Gold star for attempting to rationalize a no-sell, JR. Luger follows Flair after the no-sell and Flair begs off, but Flair was laying a trap and gets a kick in on Luger after Luger hesitates. Chop by Flair and another no-sell, and Lex throws him into another shoulder-first corner bump. He continues attempting to deconstruct the champ's left shoulder, holding him in a hammerlock on the mat and wrenching it several times.

Ric works his way back up, still in the hold, breaks free with a back elbow, but an attempt at a follow-up just runs him into a shoulderblock. Another shoulder-block. And a hip toss. I've gotta say, I'm not the critic of Lex that many in the IWC are, but he's underwhelming me here; his offense is very narrow and not very interesting. Flair turns the tables with an eye gouge and goes to work…until a series of chops just gets no-sold again, and Flair has to bail.

Luger follows a shook Flair to the outside, applies a hammerlock, and then in mid-hold he slams him into the post. The challenger continues to control, continues to abuse the champ's left arm. Flair briefly escapes the hold and connects on a shoulderblock, but Lex is right back after him with another hard clothesline for a two-count. Ric tries to get outside, but Lex grabs onto him and delivers a delayed suplex back into the middle for another two. Running elbow-drop comes up empty, and now Lex is hurt as he grabs for his elbow. When he first started selling the pain I had a reaction of "oh come on, that miss would not hurt that much," but when he grabbed the elbow I could buy it as hitting his funny bone.



Both regroup slowly and get back to their feet. Nature Boy gets on offense, delivering a kick and then a running knee. Keeps the kicks coming, as he boots the Total Package in the guts again before flippantly throwing him through the middle rope. Follows him out and continue with the kicks and chops (finally Lex sells these) and throws him into the barricade. Ross and Caudle talk about how Flair is risking disqualification, but I'm not entirely sure how he's doing that. Still, after running Luger into the barricade, he returns to the ring and referee Tommy Young is reading him the riot act in there as Lex recovers.

Luger slowly back in, immediately takes a snapmare from Flair. And a running kneedrop. Another snapmare and then a double stomp. A series of chops ends predictably in Luger no-selling, and for a bonus he does a pec shuffle. Flair tries to chop his way through to the other side, but to no avail, and Lex slaps on a sleeper. The champ struggles for a bit before breaking the hold with a back suplex.



Flair with a snapmare into a figure-four attempt, but he gets picked off with a surprise small package for a near-fall. JJ Dillon's man keeps the advantage, but not for long, as he goes to the top rope too slowly. Lex stops him in his tracks and delivers a nice superplex. This gets a near-fall that Flair uncharacteristically spoils by keeping his eyes too wide as he waited for the spot to kick out.

Luger with his own figure-four on Flair. I find that too many wrestlers attempted this, and it stopped being novel pretty quickly. Flair grabs for a rope, and Tommy Young kicks his hand off the rope? WTF Tommy, that was supposed to be a rope break. That really had to be Young forgetting that this was Luger's hold. In any case Flair finds his way to a real rope break a moment later.

Lex now fully on offense, he pounds Flair against the corner, but as he rares back for one of his punches he inadvertently elbows Tommy Young for a ref bump. Flair immediately capitalizes by tossing Luger over the top, but Luger no-sells and pretty much bounces back up to the apron for a flying bodypress off the top rope…a hurting Tommy Young is slow to arrive and only gets to two once he does. Backslide by the challenger for another two-count. Luger wails on Flair in the corner as the crowd counts to 10. Whip into the other corner sends Flair flipping. He ends up on the apron, and Lex suplexes him back in for another two-count.



Flair attempts to get some chops in, but Luger no-sells and roars at him. If it seems like I'm just writing on a loop now, it's because this damn match seems to be looping through the same sequences over and over also. Speaking of which, we get another press slam. And a powerslam. Luger signals for the Torture Rack, but JJ Dillon gets up on the apron and causes a distraction that allows Flair to slip outside.

From the outside, Flair trips Luger, then grabs a chair while Tommy Young is occupied with JJ Dillon and clobbers Luger's leg really squarely with the chair. Luger agonizes as Flair sets his hurt leg up on the rope and jumps on it. To his credit, Lex really sells the hell out of this knee pain right now; you would think that he befell the same fate as Joe Theismann. A ruthless Ric Flair keeps after the leg, setting Lex up and then throwing a chop block at the leg. The ring announcer informs us that we're 25 minutes in.

Flair with a few more blows to the bad knee, and then it's figure-four time. Honestly this would have set up fine for a submission at this point, though I suspect that isn't what's coming. Sure enough, Luger powers up, flexes, and turns the figure-four over to force Flair to release. Snapmare by Flair. Kneedrop on the bad leg. And another overly slow climb to the top that the challenger catches. Lex throws Flair off the top, but does crumple quickly as he can't really walk.



Lex on the apron, Flair inside, Flair hangs him across the top rope, but Lex no-sells, just shakes his head and strolls back into the ring. Luger with a press slam that his leg shouldn't possibly have held up for, though he does fall to a knee after the move is over. Flair flings him back through the middle rope, and Lex pops back up again to re-enter. Gross. Luger sunset flips back into the ring for two.

Running forearm by Flair…hurts Flair. Doesn't affect Luger. Luger has officially forgotten his leg injury, as he flexes and then struts over to Flair in the corner. Pounds him in the corner, whips him into the other and follows him in with a clothesline. Luger powerslams Flair and then does sort of remember his injury and slightly limps around the ring signaling for the Torture Rack. He gets him up in it, but collapses underneath the leg injury, and Flair falls on him and gets his own legs up on the ropes for extra leverage (in a spot where Tommy Young couldn't have possibly actually missed it) and scores the three-count.



Luger, seconds after collapsing, instantly pops back up - healthy as a horse, mind you - to bitch about the ending.

Result: Ric Flair via pinfall (30:59)

Meltzer Rating: ****1/2

My Review and Rating: I don't even…that match was significantly worse than whatever I imagined to be its worst-case scenario. The last five minutes were fairly interesting overall, and if that's all you saw then you might think that it was probably a good match, but holy ****ing **** it was painful getting there, and even those last five minutes were pretty damn flawed. Luger mostly repeated the same three moves all match, which is saying something for a match that went north of a half hour, and his psychology was DREADFUL here. I'm so confused as to how this could be the same match that so many others, not just Meltzer, seem to love so much. Frankly I think that my rating here is super generous, and I will not subject myself to this match again. **1/4

Busy for most of today but I'll get to it tonight.

And that will wrap up that year, which calls for a match of the year selection.

1988: Clash of the Champions I - Flair vs. Sting

(Runner-up to the awesome Fantastics vs. Midnight Express match from earlier in that same Clash of the Champions show.)