[1990-07-07-NWA-Great American Bash] Harley Race vs Tommy Rich

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

They packed a lot into a sub-7 minute match. Race could still go. He cut a quick pace and showed lots of offense. He was helping fill in main events on house shows at the time in matches that were pretty well-received in the WON. Looking forward to the longer Zbyszko/Race match now.

[PeteF3]

I know this match primarily for Jim Ross making one of the all-time great announcer saves, in regards to Race's crown gear, speculating that Harley must be a fan of the Sacramento Kings. Actually JR, I think he'd be a Royals fan. This is a pretty impressive bomb-throwing sprint albeit with a marked lack of heat. Race throws some wicked clotheslines in addition to his usual arsenal and surprises me by rolling through a cross body to get a clean pin.

[soup23]

Good legends style match and I really kind of miss this match in wrestling as they both seem so wiley and its fun for the viewer to see the wrestlers still go. Race especially looked a lot better than I would have imagined.

[shoe]

A good solid bout. When I saw it live in 90 I was shocked how good it was. Even knowing it was a good bout, I was still surprised.

[Dylan Waco]

In a weird way this is one of my favorite matches ever as this is just a "well fuck it we'll let two old guys and do whatever the hell with no angle or no backstory at all" and they just decide to go out and have a balls to the wall match.

[Kevin Ridge]

Tommy Rich looking in decent shape. Harley is wearing his King tights. Race continues to takes some bumps he probably shouldn’t be taking at this point. Pretty good little match.

[JerryvonKramer]

Holy shit this was awesome! I am pumped for tomorrow's show now Chad.

 

Amazing!

[Karl]

One of the things I hated was WCW home videos more often than not would leave matches off their tapes. This is one such match.

[flyonthewall2983]

It's not on the Network version either.

[PhilTLL]

FYI, the Network version of GAB '90 has been updated to the full 169-minute runtime. If you dare.

 

This was fine for what it was, much more enjoyable than Rotunda/Sheik (yikes) and Furnas/Dutch. Even Pillman/Landell was underwhelming. The high knee and swinging neckbreaker Harley hits here are so crisp they should be in training videos. Above his own high standards even at this late date.

[garretta]

These two held nothing back. Kudos to JR and Bob for educating the fans on the past history between these two; that was becoming a lost art even in WCW by now.

 

Harley looked really good for someone who'd just had his insides repaired not all that long ago. He was wearing a singlet to spare the world his scar, I'm sure.

 

Tommy knew who he was in there with and gave a little extra as a result. I've never seen a piledriver sold in quite the way he did it here, bouncing all the way up to a standing position and then collapsing. To come up with something like that in what was basically a nothing match shows how dedicated he still was to his craft.

 

I think the JR line was part save and part subtle dig at Vince and the WWF. I'm sure the "Sacramento Kings" part was deliberate; as Pete noted, the more apt choice had JR not wanted to get a dig in was Harley's hometown Royals, who I'm sure he's a fan of if he follows baseball.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong; the next time we see Harley on WCW TV is at the Bash the following year when he shows up in Luger's corner out of nowhere and leads him to the World title.

[drew wardlaw]

I love this match. Harley Race just going out and hitting big moves on Tommy Rich for 5 minutes or whatever. Total surprise and very entertaining.

[dawho5]

Very good match for two guys as seasoned as they are. Harley's neckbreaker was about as picture perfect as it gets. Tommy selling the piledriver was a lot of fun.

[Beast]

Fantastic match, especially at this point in the show, following three unspectacular random singles matches.

The decade-old backstory is mentioned, with Race/Rich so in tune with each other that it feels like they've been waiting for this moment ever since. Makes me sad this was a one-off for Race as he is so on point here. Crisp, dangerous looking moves, with Rich doing everything he can to make them look amazing. And then not to be outdone, Race takes a tumble out of the ring where he sells like he's hit his head on the apron.

Of course, this is immediately followed by MX/Southern Boys (and therefore erased from everyone's minds), but I thought this was an awesome short sprint.