[1994-06-25-WCW-Saturday Night] Contract Signing: Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I love the overproduction of the intro to the press conference. ATLANTA, GEORGIA - HOME OF THE CABLE NEWS NETWORK. Ted Turner is present and goes into full shill mode about the Braves, CNN and WCW. This setting isn't really a fitting one for Hogan. Flair thrives in these types of angles and is awesome at points, but even he has the volume turned up too high. Turner's smiling the whole time cracks me up.

[Kevin Ridge]

I do like how they put over the match really big by doing the whole contract signing with Ted Turner appearing. Flair blows off Bockwinkel’s handshake attempt. Wish I could pull off Turner’s mustache. Turner legitimately seems to be having a lot of fun being apart of this. Check out Hogan’s eyes on the poster behind Flair. Evil! This was fun and I think Turner upstaged everyone with just sitting there and smiling.

[Exposer]

Bill Shaw finds the whole thing hysterical. Ted Turner slightly ducking when Hulk leaned over his shoulder while shouting at Flair was hilarious. The setting is just outrageous to begin with. I like this in parts but at other times it just seemed too much.

[soup23]

I do always love Flair in these business settings because he acts like the most cockiest prick you have ever dealt with in doing these. This did a good job making the match seem very important. While watching this I guess I realized that this match felt like the biggest built match of the year for the big two even more so than Owen/Bret and Taker/Taker.

[El-P]

This is what WWF should have done back in 1992, obviously. Hogan was too goofy and cartoonish for these kind of settings (ah, remember his totally oversold reaction at the Royal Rumble 92 "press conference"), but Flair is great here. Flair being hyper is nothing new to the character and having him really excited (and anxious, as he's a full fledge heel now) at the idea of fighting Hogan works for me. Hogan comes off unlikable as always when he says Flair has no choice but to sign the paper. Here you go dictator Bollea. Turner is a mark, which is fun to see.

[Zenjo]

The highlight here was Ted Turner because he was such a mark for both guys. He wouldn't have poured all that money into WCW if he didn't love wrestling.

[PeteF3]

I'm STUNNED, legitimately, that Okerlund doesn't introduce Ted Turner as his "close, longtime personal friend." WCW does go all-out to make this look like a big deal, but it still carries an air of phoniness (especially Gene's fawning intro of Hogan and the tepid applause following) and lacks the WWF's early-'90s slick production values. Cool of Turner to take part in this, though--the dude was always loyal to wrestling and we were all better off for it. Flair is always great in these settings, but I kind of wish we'd gotten cocky and laid-back Slick Ric. He had reason to be that way after vanquishing Sting, but he has to look paranoid and insecure instead.