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COMPLETE RIC FLAIR'S LAST MATCH PPV BLOG

Welcome to my Ric Flair's Last Match PPV blog.  David Tees will be doing a play by play of the show elsewhere on the main page of PWInsider, so I thought I'd post my ongoing thoughts.

I think I am like most people here where I just hope Flair comes out of this uninjured.  I don't think there's a person in the world who didn't love watching Ric Flair at some point in their wrestling fandom and while I love the idea of a Jim Crockett Promotions style show, it's not 1985 and after everything that man has lived through, the last thing anyone wants is for Flair to injure himself or worse.  

They went to Tony Schiavone and David Crockett in front of the reconstituted JCP TBS set, which brings me all the happy, warm feelings you can imagine.  Ian Riccaboni joined them and they are going right to the ring for the first match.

Yuya Uemura  vs. Ren Narita.

Some basic wrestling early on.  Ian was in the role of filling people in on who the talents were with Crockett asking lots of questions about the wrestlers.  Ithre t's really, REALLY nice to hear Tony and David bantering with Ian.  They threw some nice chops.   Narita gained control.

The legendary George Napolitano is at ringside shooting.  I am sure he could write a book about covering Flair matches alone!

They had some nice, damn solid wrestling until Narita scored the win.  It was a really good opener.

Karen Jarrett and Jay Lethal came out for promo.  The crowd was chanting "Who are you?" at Karen, to which she responded, "I'm Karen Jarrett and you will remember me."  Great comeback.

They showed Al Snow and Santino Marella in the crowd as well as Frank the Clown, as if anyone needed to acknowledge him.

They brought out Dave Prazak for the next bout, The Bunkhouse Battle Royal.

They were about to start when Frank the Clown grabbed the mic and said this was Flair's last cash grab before he died.  Jacob Fatu came out for the Battle Royal, so it appears Frank is about to be the one who dies.  Frank ran away but Mick Foley tossed his future son in law back in the ring for Fatu to murder.  Well, if you could assist that, wouldn't you?

They aired a video package of people wishing Flair well including Nick Aldis, Dixie Carter (why didn't she just come to the show?), Trish Stratus, JBL, Kurt Angle and Cody Rhodes.

They then aired a great video piece on the history of the Bunkhouse Stampede.  They are bringing back the bronzed cowboy boot!

Bully Ray got the last entrance, leading everyone to brawling.  The announcers said they were hearing there was an incident at the production truck.  Nick Gage's music played and he made his way to the ring as everyone stopped and stared at him.   He took the mic and asked where his MDK gang was and a bunch of GCW talents including Joey Janela, Jordan Oliver and others attacked Bully Ray.  No big pop for Gage, so it looks like this audience isn't the same as GCW the other night.  

Kal Herro, a good young star from OVW, was in the ring and was hit by James Storm's whirlybird.  Kizarny, Gringo Loco, Komander, Crowbar, Wolfie D, Crimson and others are also in the ring.

I have to say hearing Dave Prazak on the call on a PPV makes me thrilled.  He's done far more than a lot of others to further pro wrestling, especially women's professional wrestling without the riches that should come with it.  A good guy who deserves his flowers.

Effy and Bully teamed up to do some classic Team 3D spots.  It came down to Bully and Mance.  Bully powerbombed him through a table.    Fans changed for ECW.  He went to toss Mance, who reversed it and won.  So, Team GCW get to go over in the end.   Mance drank beer out of the boot, which was much smaller than the one Dusty Rhodes used to win back in the day.  I guess it shrunk in the dryer.

Tony Schiavone and David Crockett interviewed Mancer.  Bully Ray showed up, raised his arm and poured beer in his mouth.  

They went to video of Sting wishing Flair well and talking about how Flair groomed him and made Sting the star he became in the business.  Jim Ross then praised Ric Flair via video.  They noted Jimmy Valiant is there.  They showed JJ Dillon in the crowd.  Showing all the personalities makes it feel like a big deal

They showed Cody Rhodes well wishes via video.   Rhodes said Flair can do anything he wants and if so, he can come and wrestle Cody on Monday Night Raw.

They showed Vickie Guerrero in the crowd and plugged the Impact Wrestling Emergence PPV.

In the crowd, Mick Foley cut a promo.  He said he still loves pro wrestling and his son just told him tonight was better than Summerslam.  

They went to a video message from Nick Aldis.

FLAIR'S LAST MATCH PPV

They opened with the legendary BOB CAUDLE welcoming everyone to the show.  Caudle wasn't able to travel to Nashville so Conrad and friends went to Caudle to record some material with them, which is awesome.  He sent everyone down to ringside with Tony and David.  

The Wolves vs. The Motor City Machine Guns is the opener.  Scott D'Amore joined Tony and David.

The match had some solid action, but you could feel the crowd isn't losing their mind.  It is likely that there are fans who came JUST for Flair and nothing else.  The Guns had Davey on the defensive early on.  Shelley was cut off and The Wolves worked him over.  The crowd started to really get behind the Guns when they began double-teaming.  The Guns scored the win, which makes sense given Alex Shelley is battling for the Impact title on 8/12 and The Wolves aren't factored into future plans.    This was as good as it was going to get with ten minutes bell to bell.  I wish they had more time to go longer but this was good.

They aired a video package on JCP's past voiced by Bob Caudle.  I won't even pretend it didn't choke me up.  That was a special time.

Joe Dombrowski joined the announcers.

Next up was Killer Kross vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.  Lots of submission wrestling and striking here.  Kross scored the win with The Quickening.  This was too short to be anything of note really but it was fine.

They showed more video messages from Shawn Michaels, Jake Roberts, actor Will Sasso, Doug Dillinger, Lex Luger and more.

Next up was a Four Way with the winner earning a shot at the PROGRESS Championship - Jonathan Gresham vs. Nick Wayne vs. Alan Angels vs. Konosuke Takeshita.  Gresham went over here, which makes sense as he's a regular there.  This was the fastest paced thing on the show thus far and everyone wrestled with a purpose.  I can totally see why so many are championing Wayne as a star.  Everyone had a big spot or moment but at five minutes bell to bell, this was well under what many probably expected.  It's obvious they want to make sure they aren't over time by the time Flair wrestlers, as he's the main draw here.  I get it, but for fans who wanted to see some of the undercard talents who would shine brightest in terms of workrate, it's going to be a slight letdown.

The Mortons with Robert Gibson vs. Brock Anderson & Brian Pillman Jr with Arn Anderson was next.  I love the idea of Arn managing the next generation Horsemen talents and I hope AEW takes that idea and runs with it.  They did a good backstage promo with Arn advising them but the audio was overshadowed by some ring music that was playing.  This was laid out as an old school tag team bout and was good for that style.  They built to Ricky getting the hot tag and it was all solid stuff.  The Horsemen get the win.  Pillman showed some good charisma here.  Fun for what it was and the crowd LOVED the nostalgia.  That's obviously what they are here for.

The AAA four way was next.  I HOPE they give this some time as this has a TON of potential on paper.  This was a TON of fun with lots of big spots and the talents taking big chances.  You could hear the crowd reacting to some of the big moments.  Perhaps it's just me, but the audio mix on the crowd audio for the show sounds pretty low vs. the announcers.  The crowd was loving the hell out of this and thus far, it was easily the best thing on the show.  The crowd was chanting Fight Forever by the end, but seconds later, Rey Fenix scored the win.  Great stuff.

More thoughts on Page 2!

 

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