



Ric Flair v. Ricky Steamboat, March 18 1989

Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat first met in '78 or '79 working for Jim Crockett Promotions when they were in their late 20's. Their feud, which spanned the 1980's (with the exclusion of '85-'88, when Steamboat was in the WWE) produced arguably the best set of matches between any two guys in the history of pro wrestling. In 1989, three matches from their series of four with NWA-WCW earned a 5 star rating from Dave Meltzer. The other match earned six stars, which remains a unique distinction from the Wrestling Observer. I can't say I regard Meltzer's opinion as gospel, but he's still a good judge of match quality. The six star match wasn't broadcast on television or pay-per-view, but there is this footage which is from a closed-circuit feed that aired in the skyboxes live during the event, at the Capital Centre in Maryland.For the first and last time, I'm posting a match I haven't watched yet. I hope you guys are excited as I am.More trivia- Match of the year in 1989 went to another of Flair and Steamboat's matches, the Clash of the Champions 2/3 falls match I referenced in the last MMS. That match took place on April 2nd, a few weeks after this one, so maybe Meltzer decided the April 2nd match was better, but that the 5-star system should remain intact, and stuff. The other piece of trivia I want to share is that Ricky Steamboat's real name is Dick Blood. Go ahead and look it up.