NWA World Heavyweight Title Steel Cage Match: Ric Flair (c) vs. Ricky Morton - NWA The Great American Bash Tour 1986 - Day 4 05/07/1986
I have never watched this before except maybe once when I was six and my Dad was watching a Ric Flair documentary that had this match. But it’s time to have some actual critical eyes on this. The entrance from Flair is legendary and pretty spectacular. The very definition of styling and profiling. This was terrific as it seemed to be on paper. Flair was a nasty, vicious heel working over the nose of one of the best, sympathetic baby faces in wrestling history. The brawling was very rough and heavy. You could feel the punches and the slams into the cage. It’s even cringe-worthy when Flair grates Morton’s injured face into the fence. Morton’s hope spots are really good and it’s always entertaining to see Flair get his ass kicked. The only downside is that even without clear hindsight and wrestling knowledge, Flair was always going over in this match. Excellent title defence for Flair. ****1/4
Kenta Kobashi vs. Kensuke Sasaki - NOAH Destiny 2005 18/07/2005
To say that I've grown jaded on endless strike exchanges could be an understatement. I tend to check out whenever that happens by this point since it's usually mindless and boring but this match will always capture me like no other match despite being the very example of endless strike exchanges. Only with chops being the case rather than elbows. Sasaki and Kobashi is one of the most enthralling, spectacular matches of its kind. It's in the Tokyo Dome, it's the big showdown between the two titans, the enormously hot crowd that eats everything they do up. It's an experience to witness. This is my favourite match of all time so naturally I think it's Kobashi's best which is quite funny considering that when I was the last few matches of the Kobashi GHC title reign, I noticed that he was slowing down a bit. His matches began to suffer from not many new or interesting ideas and just being not up-to usual standard. But here, he works perfectly to his capabilities to match the nature of the match and has an absolute classic, just after his peak has ended. Sasaki, on the other hand, is coming in after freelancing all around Japan so he has something to prove against Kobashi. So when Kobashi throws the first chops, Sasaki fires back. And over 200 chops later, the crowd is still begging for more and more. They eventually move on to an epic bombs away finishing stretch which included a few awesome no-sell pop ups that never fail to get the juices flowing. Just a classic. *****
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