Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 86: Jake Roberts vs. Ric Flair (11/24/85)

Reason number 457 to love this set – unique match-ups you would never have seen growing up in the Northeast. Perhaps these two crossed pathes during Flair’s WWF run, but I don’t remember it off the top of my head if they did. This is an excellent chance to see a well defined Flair heel champ character work with an early Jake babyface character, and both character’s are well defined. In fact, both haved the work and psychology down pat. Can’t wait.

Awesome beginning to the match story. Flair comes up to stare down and psych out Jake. He teases Jake for wearing a shirt, and it gets ugly fast. Pushing and shoving leads Jakes to grab and DDT the World Champ! Jake’s got him beat, the crowd goes crazy, but the belt hasn’t rung. The ref won’t ring the bell, and Jake realizes he can’t pin Flair, who is selling face down in the middle for a minute. Fans chant “DDT”. Jake is screaming “ring the bell”. Fans realize the problem and now they give heat. Jake plays this so perfectly. Cool start.

Flair rolls to the floor and grabs the belt. Took him a bit but he’s come to and he’s leaving. Ref has to order him back. Jake mic work gets crowd hot, but to maximize all this they have to do a count. Flair actually walks back in from the locker room. This whole story killed about 7 minutes in a very main event way.

Bell rings and it’s crazy atmosphere. People are hooked and so am I. Ya think they played this like Flair was over matched early? Shocking, I know. Very entertaining classic Flair stuff. Loses a lock up, stares in anger. Throws Jake to the outside, but Jake pops back in. Flair then begs off. He did the hammer lock with the hair pull when he’s losing to ground Jake. He even does a Flair flop.

Jake works a front face lock early, but unlike the other opponents who have on this Flair run in Mid South, it actually makes SENSE. See, Jake would work that because he keeps teasing the DDT, but Flair goes to his knees to block it. Hence, your already in the hold.

Flair gains an advantage 7-8 minutes in and works the mid section. His swagger and chops are on tonight. He really only hasn’t been 100% for maybe 1 or 2 matches on the set, andeven then it seems more like him being very good, but unable on that given night to carry Butch Reed (my Super Dome match opinion) or Von Erich.

Flair slows it down with a sleeper and some pin attempts. Very cool block of Flair signature knee drop by Roberts, who holds on and turns it into the Fig Four. Flair tasting his own medicine gets the crowd going again. Rope break by Jake completely takes it to him. Desperation pin with feet on the ropes is done well. Upsets fans. Jake uses open hand palm chops and Flair bumps around. Roberts connects well with the fans, which I don’t remember as much in terms of in ring babyface charisma.

Flair uses a sweet knee breaker to get an offensive streak 14 minutes in, but the great stuff is a minute later as Jake hulks up off being chopped, they do some reversals, and Jake grabs Flair in a sleeper. Flair sells for a time before he pulls off a suplex and they both get a count. Great stuff.
Jake with a good looking running knee connects after he sends Flair off the top rope (Flair’s top rope bump). He signals and fans yell for the DDT. Running knee again at Flair misses and he hits the turn buckles. Flair goes right for the figure four, gets rolled up, but moves into the top position on that pin. Flair wins.

Jake complains of tights being pulled and feet on the rope. Butch Reed is out to deal with Flair since he’s the one getting the run, so Jake is out and Flair bumps for Reed. Still not selling the neck even with a brace on, huh Butch?

This match may get lost in Flair burn out, especially with their being a Flair formula and everyone having been inundated with Flair as “the greatest” for years. There may be some mental backlash even if people love Flair for those reasons, or because he wasn’t permanent Mid South, or they have other M.S. workers they think better of. I understand the burn out, as I feel the same way about the great Rock N Roll Express team. Thing is, at 18 minutes officially and probably 25 with the pre-match stuff, this was a unique different spin on the Flair formula with a babyface I personally got into a lot more than Butch Reed or Kerry Von Erich. I’m not gonna over rate it, but I’d have loved to see this early in the set before the bigger Flair matches. Just another night at the office for the greatest of all time (I believe he is, for the record). 3 ¼ and 7/10.

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