[2000-02-28-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair vs Curt Hennig

[Loss]

Flair gets a shockingly lukewarm reaction coming out, but wakes the people up when he starts talking. Luger is a better talker when he has to share interview time with Flair, but Flair is a total incoherent cartoon character here. Luger is obsessed with mentioning his body fat percentage. Hennig cuts them off when they start running down Minnesota. This is such a weird back and forth. I think Flair is on drugs. Hennig promises to streak in Minneapolis if he can't beat Ric tonight, and he's so much better as a hometown babyface than he is in any other role at this point. I hate this trend in both companies of double the time being given for hyping the match as for the match itself, as this gets less than four minutes, but it's set up with a 7-minute interview segment. This is a slower version of Flair-Hennig from even three years earlier but they make up for it with lots of hard chops and that plus it being in Minnesota works. Luger interferes after Hennig hits the ref for weird reasons that make no sense. The referee comes revives after Luger bails, but then Hennig tries to hit Flair with a chair, only to get pinned after an old-fashioned kick to the balls. Bad setup, a match that is a decline from years earlier even if I still sort of liked things about it and a mess of a finish. Don't rush to see this.

[soup23]

Flair and Luger cut a promo and Flair gets offended when Luger says he is from here. Hennig interrupts as a face and says if he can’t beat Flair, he will strut down the street butt ass naked. Kind of a weird stipulation if you ask me. Quick match but they pack a good bit in here. Ref bump of course and Flair gets kicked low although it looked awkward and gains the win. Pretty rough finish there. *1/2

[GSR]

Team Package head down to the ring to join Mean Gene. Flair cuts a similar promo to the one on Thunder about Hulkamania being dead and it’s no longer running wild. Luger says that they kicked Hogan’s ass last week, while Sting once again showed himself for the scared coward that he is when it comes to the ‘Total Package’, as he was nowhere to be found and he just doesn’t have it any more. Lex challenges Buff Bagwell to a match (as he hit on Liz earlier in the show) and says that he calls himself ‘the stuff’, but tonight he gets snuffed! The two of them start to run down Minnesota when out comes Curt Hennig. He tells Lex to lose the Curt Hennig hairdo as it looks terrible on him, and to take that 4% of body fat that’s between his ears and hit the bricks! He says that Ric Flair doesn’t have a match scheduled for this evening and challenges him. Ric accepts and tells him that he’ll do to him what he did to his Dad twenty years ago, before Hennig promises to streak down Henman Avenue butt naked if he can’t beat him in Minnesota tonight.

 

Onto the match and a collar and elbow tie up and Flair backs Hennig into the corner. Curt blocks a right then nails him with one of his own followed by a series of chops. Ridiculous selling by Flair on these, topped off with the face first bump. Hennig starts working on Ric’s leg, but he’s quickly back to his feet hopping around, and an eye poke later he’s forgot all about it and is walking around as if nothing happened. The two exchange chops and more ludicrous looking selling from the Naitch. Irish whip and Flair takes the over the top turnbuckle bump to the floor. Curt catches him as he climbs the turnbuckles and slams him to the canvas. Flair reverses an Irish whip and Hennig clotheslines the referee (huh?) KO’ing him. Perfect-plex and Lex Luger is out to break it up. He heads immediately to the back, not bothering to stay around and Hennig steps outside to collect a steel chair. He brings it back in the ring but Nick Patrick has come back around by now, sees it and tries to grab it off him. As the two are fighting over it, Flair with a low blow kick to the groin and he makes the cover for the win.

 

Hugely disappointing match considering who was involved. You had every Flair staple bar the Figure Four, which I though was coming, crammed into a four minute match. His selling of the chops was ridiculous and hokey looking, while he sold the leg for a matter of seconds before forgetting about it. The ref bump looked awful, with Hennig clotheslining the referee for some reason. While I could understand him splashing him, a clothesline? We then get a pin after a low blow! It was as if they had enough and just wanted to get out of there.

[Stiva]

I dig the (potentially) coke-fuelled, egomaniacal promos from Flair and Luger here. Luger's is definitely better considering it, you know, has a point but I liked Flair saying "I know what camera to look at, I'm Ric Flair" and him really loving the 4% body fat delivery. As said, the match is a big disappointment and another fine example of WCWs status as a total nostalgia promotion. Flair hits all of his spots, we get another poor, confusing finish and that's Nitro.