This is for Ric Flair’s newly won NWA World Heavyweight Championship, and is a Best of Three Falls match.
Normally you know how this goes with the NWA Title on the line n Japan, BUT Ric’s just won the title for the first time and is largely unproven, so Jumbo is on more equal ground than usual. This is AWESOME. Hot start and Ric tries to slow it down. They do some cool matwork stuff. Classic NWA Title match deals with headlock counters and all that. They’re really great at always keeping it moving forward, so I didn’t really mind. Flair tries to pick the pace up, but Jumbo surprises him by going with it and he hits the high knee first. He follows with the Butterfly Suplex AND THEN JUMBO BREAKS OUT A MISSILE DROPKICK TO GO 1-0! Jumbo has some good stretching of Ric down on the mat, but then he comes back and gets the Figure Four on as soon as he can. Jumbo fights it, but he passes out and Ric goes 1-1. They have some good back and forthish stuff here. Jumbo sells the leg well enough in transition, but then bleeds some after eating the post, so Flair goes after that a little instead. The third fall is easily the least of the two. Flair dodges another high knee attempt and Jumbo lands groin first on the top. He bounces off to the mat and Flair covers to retain. Excellent first meeting, but there’s definitely stuff they can improve.
***1/2
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