Ric Flair vs. David Von Erich (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time I have something I’ve been meaning to check out for a while- after all the Von Erich stuff based around The Iron Claw coming out, I was meaning to take a look at David Von Erich in particular, as I’d never seen any of his work… and now I find an NWA Title shot against Ric Flair from 1982! Come see just how good Ric was in his PRIME! You think he was good in the ’90s, watch him when he was younger and fitter!

Next up, it’s a classic lucha “WTF?” match as King Haku, Chris Benoit & Vampiro take on Norman Smiley, Pierroth Jr. & Mocha Cota! Then it’s a sequel to last week’s column with Boris Malenko avenging his injured son Dean at the hands of dastardly heels Rusty Brooks & Jumbo Baretta, with Boris teaming with son Joe against the rotund heels! Finally, it’s a true superstar match as Curt Hennig & Barry Windham team up on WCW Saturday Night to take on the legendary duo of Disorderly Conduct! Read on!

NWA WORLD TITLE:
RIC FLAIR vs. DAVID VON ERICH:
(WCCW Star Wars, 10/11/82)
* I asked around for matches of David Von Erich, a wrestler I’ve never seen perform, and “zbinks” was good enough to share! Flair is in a glistening red robe, and is coming out to… the Star Wars theme? Haha nice. That was a current batch of films back then! David… also comes out to the same theme. Okay then! The commentary says Flair paid some heels to injure Kerry, David’s little brother at the “Star Wars” show (oh, that explains the theme). David, a TALL, lanky Texas boy, comes out in a black cowboy hat. Wow I didn’t realize he was so thin. Flair’s in red trunks & David’s in black.

Flair of course annoys David to start, just standing there casually and puts his foot in the ropes so David can’t do anything. Another rope-break and then Flair grabs a headlock, David repeatedly forcing him into a pin with his “raw strength” while Flair shouts “Watch the tights, dammit!” to the ref to establish that he’s making shit up- no VON ERICH would cheat! David pops his hips to fight up, then gives Flair a high knee after a rope-run and grabs a headlock of his own! This lasts exactly one minute, Flair repeatedly going for pins, then ends up in a standing headlock after losing a test of strength, thus establishing early superiority for David. Flair has a band-aid peeling off of his arm- gross. Every time Flair gets out he ends up right back in it, and when he FINALLY gets a rope-break, he ends up shoulder-first into the corner and now he’s in an armlock! Flair howls in anger & pain as David mostly sits there, and makes sure to move every 20-30 seconds or so- thus making it look less “resthold”-y. Flair chops out but David won’t release and stuffs him with a hammerlock- Flair gets out with the tights & chops, but after some shoulderblocks charges right back into it! Flair finally hits the corner for a comeback, and David’s good at the “swing an arm to sell the impact then stumble” sell. But he fights back and reverses to another hammerlock, then half-nelsons Flair into a pin repeatedly, but when Flair fights out, they bash each other around but Ric fakes him out with a drop-down, then pops up and tosses him!

That bump weakens David enough that Flair goes to work, kicking his ass with precision strikes, punching him in the eye, etc. Snapmare/kneedrop and more set up the chinlock to wear David down, but Ric is a good heel and uses the hair & tights to keep HIS holds on- none of that “counter-wrestling” shit. David finally just beats Flair’s ass, going for the Iron Claw, but it’s too early and Flair knees him in the gut to drop him. Flair starts these super-precise punches, but David blocks the fourth and nails him in a big comeback as Flair loses the series and gets blasted down, then Flair Flipped in the corner! David reverses a suplex to his own for our first big two-count, but gets too cocky and misses a haymaker so Flair can sleeperhold him to the horror of the teen girls in the crowd (the camera of course zooms in on one panicking). But David runs Flair into the corner so he does this MASSIVE sell as if he’d gone throat-first into the post and is just doomed. The crowd senses blood and David goes for the kill, but OH MY GOD they only get a moment of joy before he misses a high knee into the post and now it’s all gone! Man Flair just has the crowd up and down with everything now, haha. And Flair can’t quite get the Figure-Four so improvises a leg tie-up instead, and now KERRY hits the ring on crutches to cheer on his brother and fuck me this is Wrestling 101 now, haha. David uses the POWER OF BROTHERLY LOVE to fight out and whup on Flair, then bails to talk strategy with Kerry. oh, a talk with legendary tactician Kerry Von Erich, how can this go wrong?

Flair keeps nailing David when he tries to get back in, but gets rolled up out of a Figure-Four and has to dump David, then posts him. In 1982 that was HUGE, and now David’s smashed into the padding over the steel cables in the corner and Flair drops the knee into some machine-gun punches, working a cut. And then Ric provokes Kerry into hitting the apron and then TAKES OUT HIS KNEE, beating his ass until David comes in, wipes out Flair’s leg with the NWA belt, then smashes him into a crutch despite the referee’s pleas, and that’s the DQ at (27:37). The fans are mortified, but David wins them back by smashing Flair’s knee into the post repeatedly. And then he punches the REFEREE in the face! The babyface locker room empties to see to Kerry while Flair writhes in agony on the mat so the fans get their pound of flesh. But now he still wants some and starts slugging away at Kerry & David again! The babyfaces are out to hold everyone back as it’s pandemonium! Flair cuddles his precious title, but now DAVID’S BACK and it’s another brawl, David finally mounting a bloody Flair for more forehead-punches and then the seconds get involved, Flair tries to toss a young one, and finally bails while lipping off the crowd.

Hot Take: Ric Flair was good. I mean hahah jesus, old-school Ric Flair was SO GOOD. Like I remember him as good in the 1990s but by then he was older, flabbier and not as sharp, and married to his template- here he was so damn precise and vicious. Cruel, conniving and lethal on offense, too- by the ’90s he’d gotten lazier and sleepwalked through “the usual” but here you actually see why people were calling him the GOAT. Instead of all “WOO!- Now we go to school!” when David’s hurt he just circles in like a predator out to do harm. That old-school NWA style is very apparent here, but with Flair making the kid look good immediately instead of dominating the first fall the way I’ve seen most prior NWA Champions do- instead of establishing dominance early and then letting the challengers slowly overwhelm them with spirit and skill, Flair immediately starts selling and ending up in David’s headlock. The whole “grab a hold and fight for it intensely” thing is obviously that style (as well as making the early part of the match less likely to blow you up), and it’s funny how obviously it’s Flair doing all the work in that- David’ll just kneel there with Flair’s arm in his pit, while Flair just HOWLS every time he’s dragged into a hold, then grouses, shakes his head and flails limbs around to sell pain and frustration as he looks for a way out. Even eight years later, fans probably wouldn’t sit around for 20 minutes of a head/hammer/chinlock battle, but you can see them jockeying for position and always shaking it up periodically so it’s not like they’re just resting, and then the exhaustion and selling later one feels “real” because they’ve earned it through this long fight.

And when Flair finally uses his smarts to take the lead, he’s stronger, meaner and nastier than his older self because he’s physically so much more intact, and as a travelling champion needs to show what a dickhead he is to the local boys. The whole ebb-and-flow of Flair going into the post and selling it like he’d killed himself and cost him for sure, only to break the fans’ hearts by dodging a knee and hurting David was perfect pro-wrestling, and then we go right into Kerry going out to cheer on his brother- just again and again getting the fans with this see-sawing and finally bringing the family component into it. And Flair kinda uses that to cheat his way out, probably knowing those brave-but-dumb Von Erich boys couldn’t help but get DQ’d if he started being an asshole to Kerry. And of course the whole thing pays off with that dastardly Flair keeping his title once more and doing tons of damage to the Von Erichs, but also eating a ton himself and looking like he barely escaped, while still sending the fans home happy because it’s this totally nuts brawl to end everything. So David looks like “next time for sure!” to the fans, which is the good way to do a finish like that. This was also an impressive carry-job by Flair, as he’s obviously calling it (he keeps pulling David in face-to-face during moves… plus he’s the Champion), he was the only one moving around in the holds for the most part, and David honestly doesn’t have a lot of babyface fire nor crowd interaction- he appears somewhat focused on Ric at least, but only once looks to the fans. So this really comes off as the “Ric Flair Broomstick Match” but with David slotted in- his “wobbling knees” selling was good, though.

Rating: **** (a real testament to how great Ric Flair was- the slow, steady hold-exchanges early lead to Flair’s vicious offense, then repeatedly momentum shifts into Kerry coming out to cheer on his brother to peak the whole thing, then a massive brawl to end it)

KING HAKU, CHRIS BENOIT & EL VAMPIRO CANADIENSE vs. PIERROTH JR., MOCHA COTA & BLACK MAGIC:
* Oh, now THIS is the kind of cracked-up shit that made me start this column in the first place! Looking up older Norman Smiley stuff I see him as “Black Magic” in lucha, and he’s teaming with Pierroth Jr. (most known to me for his failed WWF tag team run) and whoever Mocha Cota is against HAKU, BENOIT & VAMPIRO, which is one of those “Hitting Random in FirePro” teams I just love. Vampiro was a huge star in Mexico but never made much of a dent above there, despite being Canadian- he’s best known here for his “dying days of WCW” stuff where he tried really hard despite sucking, thus earning some respect from what few fans WCW had left. Haku’s in baggy black pants, Benoit’s in white tiger-striped tights and has MASSIVE hockey hair, Vampiro’s in black, Pierroth is in black & yellow with a mask, Mocha’s a generic-looking dude with a curly mop of hair and a black singlet (he has a logo of a hand with missing fingers on it- he legit lost fingers in a factory accident), and Black Magic’s in red trunks and is RIPPED.

PRIMERA CAIDA: We’re JIP to Vampiro being double-teamed by Pierroth & Mocha, with Black Magic being annoyed and getting into it with Pierroth, but when Vampiro fights them all, they triple-team him. Benoit gets the tag but the rudos just ignore all his offense (lol what is that?) until he finally tosses Mocha and everyone fights in the ring. Pierroth just kind of doesn’t sell to ANYONE, standing there like nothing’s going on, which feels unwise when it’s Haku doing stuff. Haku “convinces” him to sell with some overhand chest-slaps, but Mocha runs Haku into Vampiro- Haku nonetheless dramatically wins a chop-war with Black Magic and sends him scurrying. The rudos control for a bit, but Mocha climbs onto Haku’s back and is hilariously ineffective, Haku just holding him there harmlessly until Benoit comes off the top with an axehandle and Haku cuts Mocha down into a flat-back bump. Mocha tries to fire up, but Haku casually hits a repeater-backbreaker, and then Black Magic runs into Vampiro’s snap powerslam, screaming in his Norman-like way as he’s pinned. Pierroth talks shit on Benoit and gets his head lariated off for it, and the technicos win the first fall at (5:24 shown).

SEGUNDA CAIDA: Black Magic starts with Haku, and fails to hurt him with strikes and gets splattered in the corner, then is stomped. Embarrassed, he tags out to Mocha who just injures himself headbutting Haku, and a backbreaker, elbow & headbutt leave him rolling dead out of the ring, sliding backwards through the ropes. Vampiro builds his SmackDown! meter like a dumbass and gets beat up for it, Pierroth tossing him off the top. They do the lucha “flip him back” thing but Pierroth seems to just interrupt whatever Vampiro was gonna do and nails him awkwardly, posing like a goof until Vampiro hits a facecrusher. Black Magic hits the ring to beat on Vampiro, but Pierroth takes exception and they fight, even shoving poor Mocha. Benoit/Magic go and immediately do the hottest sequence of the match, firing off an International into Benoit being suplexed on the top rope but popping up for a flying sunset flip. Eventually Haku disappears and we see him being thrown into the post by another guy on the floor while the technicos eat offense in the ring (Pierroth again ignoring Benoit’s stuff). Black Magic kicks Haku in the nuts, and this seems to cause a Disqualification (5:58). The rudos continue the assault until Kalisto Jr. (a guy in a black mask) shows up to fight them off! They get separated, then fight again, then the technicos come to Kalisto’s assistance and we’re out! The good guys win two straight.

Just kind of a scramble of a match with short bits from each guy, mostly punctuated by Pierroth giving and Mocha taking, and Black Magic arguing with his partners. Man, Pierroth is a DICK, lol- dude won’t sell anything Benoit or Vampiro throw and keeps interrupting them to get his own shit in. Mocha has great “squirrelly crackhead” energy, though, being these undersized guy who keeps taking a beating and doing funny sell-jobs. Haku has some pretty good babyface energy here, being that kind of “Energetic Powerhouse” you never saw from him in the US. Benoit & Smiley do one good sequence but that’s pretty much all you get from them, then it’s a DQ finish anyways, meant to set up a Kalisto thing.

Rating: ** (your everyday lucha match- more about squabbling and the angles than “trying to have a good match”, especially with Pierroth in there just being an unprofessional dick)

FLORIDA TAG TEAM TITLES:
RUSTY BROOKS & JUMBO BARETTA (w/ Ox Baker) vs. THE PROFESSOR BORIS & JOE MALENKO.
(Global Wrestling Alliance, 1986)
* So “The Professor” Boris Malenko was retired, but came out of it to team with his son Joe after these dastardly heels injured his other son Dean’s eye following an earlier match. Brooks is wearing a blue singlet, while Barretta, who has a similar physique, but no ass and a deep tan, with a baby blue singlet on. Boris looks is middle-aged, ultra-pale and baby blue trunks, while Joe, very skinny but tan, is in red. The heel champs are MUCH taller and larger than their short, skinny opponents.

Boris easily handles Baretta, smashing him into the corner and bopping him around despite the vast size difference (oh he’s the booker alright), and Rusty similarly takes a fall off a weak overhand forearm. He continues the beating from the apron while Joe does an ass slam to Baretta, then spins around awkwardly and hits him with a “kick” (also his ass), but Baretta soon absorbs his attack and beats on him, Joe quickly spinning over to Boris, who gleefully beats Baretta’s ass, biting and stomping him. Rusty nails him with a cheap shot and Ox Baker adds a “Heart Punch” from the floor in full view of the referee. Ox lights a victory cigar and nearly puts it out on Boris, but Dean hits the ring with a chain and wipes out the heels. The ref is just standing there uselessly while Joe looks half-asleep, and a bleeding Rusty is knocked to the floor. The match is finally thrown out at (3:10). Pretty much a non-match, here- Boris just gobbled everyone up, easily beating on two huge men while Joe just looked like Mr. Generic in there. Then there’s some cheating and Boris finally starts selling, right into a schmozz fuck finish.

Rating: *1/2 (forgettable nothing match, probably to get you to watch the live show)

CURT HENNIG & BARRY WINDHAM vs. DISORDERLY CONDUCT (Mean Mike & Tough Tom):
(WCW Saturday Night, Feb. 6th 1999)
* Oh yeah- main event anywhere in the country up on Saturday Night! Hennig & Windham are said to be a brand-new team entering the WCW World Tag Team Title Tournament, an infamous booking disaster that had a never-ending, bracketless tournament running in perpetuity for eons and had multiple teams appearing repeatedly. And this is a non-tourney match against the infamous jobber duo. DC are wearing their funny bodysuits, Hennig’s in a black singlet with blue on the back, and Windham is OH MY GOD totally in his “given-up dad mode”, just not getting into shape and coming down in denim. Hennig has apparently been booted out of the nWo by Hall & Nash, who announced they were going to “trim the fat” from the stable- a booking kiss of death.

They literally waste a full minute so Scott Hudson can discuss the angle of the day- the “nWo B-Team” (actually called that) having dissension with the named leader, Vince, getting into it with Horace, Stevie Ray & Brian Adams. Yes, CURT HENNIG was kicked out of the stable as trimmed fat so those guys could stay. Hennig laughs off Mean Mike’s elbow out of a waistlock and they trade shots in the corner, then Tough Tom hits the single worst flying axehandle I’ve ever seen in my life, just holding his arms out limply and apart as he falls. DC double-teams Curt, but he easily escapes and Barry works over Tom. They keep on the beating (actually using cheating, even though Curt’s now anti-nWo and DC are also heels) until Tom eyerakes Barry to escape. Windham easily handles Mike, Curt gets his kneelift, and there’s a funny bit as they appear to disagree on what to do (Curt holds Mike but Barry just lifts him up for a whip to the ropes), then Tom comes in. DC get whipped into each other and Barry clotheslines him over the top, and the Hennigplex finishes Tom at (6:27).

My god, this was SO BORING and took forever. All of Barry’s moves were clotheslines, just to show you how little HE cared, and the damn thing lasted forever. I’m more forgiving of the guys involved, though, because not only is this a low-rent show, but the commentary obviously had a ton of things to talk about so they were probably told to milk their time. Neither DC guy can sell well (they just kinda jitter and don’t really bump much), Barry was lazy, and Hennig was in D-show mode too.

Rating: 3/4* (just a really boring TV tag match)