[1993-08-13-WCW-Worldwide] Special Report: Sting & Flair to team up at the Clash

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Ric Flair and Sting are teaming up at the Clash! They show a clip from WCW Saturday Night with Flair coming out after being trolled by Harley Race. He ends up throwing a punch at Race. Later in the show, Flair asks Sting if he can team with him and says if he'll come through, Flair will give him a title shot anytime he wants it, which happens to be next week on Saturday Night.

 

I know it's WCW in 1993, but it still seems like they could have done more to hype up Flair and Sting teaming after everything that happened between them in the past than just a last-minute angle.

[Kevin Ridge]

Now maybe if they had added a fourth Horsemen to the group, Flair wouldn't have had to put his title up to get Sting to team with him. Teaming Flair and Sting up together against the Kongs feels even more throwaway.

[PeteF3]

Harley Race is incensed that Flair has broken his World title record, and that he isn't defending the title at the Clash. RIC FLAIR IS A GUTLESS HUMAN BEING. Flair comes out to respond and that ends with him popping Race one. Later, he addresses Sting by CCTV and asks to make the Sting/Kong singles match into a tag. The Colossal Kongs come back out to corner Flair before Sting can respond, but Sting comes into even the sides.

 

Pretty good angle, but the Clash tag build is rushed--and Jesus God, are the Kongs a complete waste of an opponent for something that should be treated as a big deal.

 

I have NO recollection of babyface Sting wrestling babyface Flair on TV.

[soup23]

Flair and Sting teaming up is cool but the Kongs and Race being the main antagonist feels a bit like a buffer angle from Memphis where Lawler fends off the heel de jour.

[garretta]

Flip the matches around- the World title match at the Clash, followed by the tag match on WCWSN- ​and we might have something. The Clash is supposed to be bigger than ​WCWSN​ even in this new era, after all. They'll probably do a few teased dissension spots in the tag match, but even with those the Kongs should be no problem. Were they even heard of again after this?

 

God bless Harley, he's gone above and beyond during his managerial run, both with Luger and Vader. But if you're WCW and he's your main antagonist for the NWA World champion at his age and with his physical problems, it shows how much you think of both Flair and the NWA World title. Honestly, it's getting kind of hard to watch him having to bump and take punches like he still does, though he doesn't look half bad. Still, he should probably be retired to a commissioner's role or something similar, especially since Vader doesn't need him; he's an above-average talker in his own right. I read somewhere that he was Leon's real-life babysitter on the road, but that doesn't mean he has to be taking bumps anymore, certainly not on behalf of a tag team that I'd honestly never heard of until I sat down to watch this angle unfold tonight.

 

(As an aside, I liked him admitting that he hated for people to put his hands on him when he was champion, then shoving Flair anyway. Only a former wrestler with Harley's reputation would do something like that and expect to get away with it.)

 

How are we counting NWA title reigns, exactly? I've always thought that Flair added his WWF World title reigns to his NWA ones to make nine total World championships, so he should be at eight NWA reigns, not ten. Does that make nine Harley's record in the eyes of WCW, then? I know there was a back-and-forth between the two of them in Australia that wasn't originally acknowledged but later was, so maybe that was it.