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