[1998-12-21-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair and Barry Windham

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Ric Flair interrupts a Barry Windham vs Van Hammer match to get his revenge, and he looks great doing it. A referee tries to break things up and Flair slugs him. Crowd is quite hot for this. I love Flair gouging his eyes and face and doing all the low blows. Those punches are great too. I'd say this impromptu brawl is the best Flair has looked in years. Vincent runs in and gets low-blowed by Flair, then Arn comes in to help with that. Brian Adams and Horace try a save and get ambushed by Benoit and Malenko. Security pulls them apart, which angers Tony Schiavone and rightfully so. They are at least selling this like something is up with security intervening the way they did.

 

Back in the ring, Flair does an incredible promo with tears in his eyes with his voice breaking. He gets the word "shitcan" past the censors. He talks about how Bischoff tried to ruin his career but the people wouldn't let him do that. So he sicked his lawyers on Flair. He finally says why he came back. Reid approached him to ask why he didn't just beat the hell out of Bischoff and get back in the swing of things. This is an incredible segment that REALLY has me hyped for Flair-Bischoff. This is more emotional than anything WCW has done all year except for Flair's actual return.

[soup23]

Windham not joining the NWO but doing their dirty work is a little odd.

Flair whips his ass and gives him multiple punches to the nuts and fights dirty. I loved the Horseman sneak attacking the NWO coming down and Bobby rightfully says this is what they should have done all along. Tony pointing out that its dumb they are getting restrained by security shows how effective he still could be at this time when allowed to do his own thing. Remember we are only two weeks away from his most regrettable call as an announcer and where people have constantly said he had checked out. Tenays new favorite saying is "LET THEM GO"

 

Flair comes back into the ring and gives maybe the promo of the year. This has been a great year for mic work and this was so amazing with him mixing in swears and displaying emotion you just don't see much. I felt chills when he was talking about Reid and how his message to him is to never give up. That is haunting stuff.

[PeteF3]

Holy shit, I called Flair's return the Last Great Nitro Moment, but again, we have a sudden contender emerge as the year closes. So many twists and turns in this mini-angle, with Bischoff getting some measure of heat and to some degree the last laugh, as we head into Starrcade. Flair and the Horsemen get some revenge on Windham and some NWO B-teamers, while you really, really *really* want to see Flair and Eric finally mix it up. WCW is attempting to close out their television on a hell of a high note for '98.