Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 20: Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage (Nitro 2/19/96)

Flair is out with Liz & Woman. I feel like I’ve seen this match one too many times in the short history of Nitro. It never quite gets near the level of their Wrestlemania 8 match, but I love the dynamic of the two together. Flair is the champ at this point. Macho is simply pissed off.

Macho kills Flair at the bell, and there’s an awesome atomic drop onto the Madness for the reversal. Macho takes a beating from Flair so well as a babyface. It’s different from any other babyface I’ve seen matched with Flair. Macho also gets caught being distracted by Woman.

The Nature Boy does a “Flair flop” (face first bump) after fighting off a Savage hope spot, and you can hear the distain in Bischoff’s voice having to describe what happened to Flair. You can tell he wasn’t really into the guys work.

One thing that should be noted about early Nitros is they gave no time for, or workers cut out, all rest holds. Only the figure four spot is kept in all the Flair matches I’ve seen. Macho gets the aforementioned Fig. Four and takes control. I should mention that the sleeper gets used for under ten seconds in a few matches, and there’s one here too. Flair reverses out with a suplex. They are really running now. Good movement. Macho runs the ropes several times hard and takes the bump at the end. Great mid match spot.

They have a good progression leading to a Flair Figure Four. Crowd is totally behind Savage as he reveres it and sells the knee huge. Flair’s chops are deadly strikes on this night. Macho keeps coming back. A delayed back body drop looked scary, but he got Flair over. Macho hits his big double ax handle. Liz distracts the ref while Woman throws in her high heel. Macho catches it and nails Flair.
Kevin Sullivan comes out. Hogan is out to chase. All types of distraction. Macho gets a two count and the bell rings. That’s a screw up. Arn Anderson in to DDT Macho. That looked great. A dead beat Flair pins Macho at the 11:30 mark.

Good flowing match that had a lot going on at the end, obviously furthering their angles for TV and putting heat on the heels. Nothing legendary, but they used their eleven plus minutes well. 3 ½ and 6.8/10.