Halloween Havoc 1989
Thunderdome Cage Match
Sting and Ric Flair vs. The Great Muta and Terry Funk
I don't know much about WCW before 1995 or so. I've seen the Flair-Steamboat matches from the late 80s, I've seen some Road Warriors stuff and I've seen a handful of Sting, Ron Simmons and Barry Windham matches from around this time. So, as a whole, I'm pretty much blind to what's about to happen.
Ironic to me though that Bruno Sammartino walked away from WWE and wrestling in general for a bit, not approving of the direction of pro wrestling, yet they were able to coax him into being the special guest referee for a damn “Thunderdome Cage Match” which from what I can surmise is an electrified cage and the match can only end when the corner man of one of these teams is forced to throw in the towel. In the corner of Muta and Funk is Gary Hart and in the corner of Flair and Sting is Ole Anderson.
This match is like peak late 80s. The match itself is a Mad Max reference I believe, they play “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath as the cage is lowered. The cage is decked out with pretty cheesy halloween props which catch on fire before the match even starts. The managers are actually relevant to the match. The match can only end if they throw in the towel, which I can't remember seeing more than a few times this millennium. And of course we have four of the biggest wrestling stars in the world mixing it up right here.
The match is pretty much a brawl from the very beginning. You have to tag in and out but they're very (very) lax as far as switching in an out and staying in their corner. Of course every time the match goes to the floor, the match devolves into chaos. The cage comes into play quite a lot. Funk is the most excited about using it. What is hard to understand is why someone would climb the cage, knowing that only the top part of it is electrified. Climbing the cage does nothing to win you the match, it can basically only end poorly unless your strategy is to bait your opponent to follow so you can deliver some kind of punishment. There is a rope hanging on the corner of the cage which comes into play when Sting uses it to swing across to kick Funk who is across from him in that corner of the cage. He goes to the well one too many times and gets his leg caught in the cage, at which point Funk uses the rope to tie Sting to the cage. This gives the heels a moment to team up on Flair until Ole frees Sting, at which point Sting jumps from the cage into the ring, onto Funk.
Once the faces regain control, it's game over. Flair targets Funk's knee. He eventually is able to cinch in the Figure Four Leglock, as Sting delivers splashes onto Funk who is locked into the hold and completely vulnerable. Muta takes a swing at Sammartino, but gets walloped by the special ref. As things reach a boiling point, Gary Hart and Ole Anderson both head into the ring where Ole ducks Gary, which causes his towel to go flying out of his hand. Bruno sees the towel and takes that as a surrender, declaring Sting and Flair the winners of the bout!
So in the end, Flair did his thing. He probably threw two or three dozen chops, hit a couple of knee drops and vertical suplexes. Sting brought the energy as he usually does. Funk was just being his mean, nasty self, constantly breaking the rules and looking to deal out as much punishment as possible. Muta seemed to take the brunt of the offense, but got in his shots in here and there. In the end, this match just wasn't very good despite having the ingredients to be a big deal with four main eventers, special ref Bruno Sammartino and a gimmicked up cage and the promise of brutality since the match could only end via stoppage, but they even went with a cheap finish on that so it was just a mess of a match.
But! In an interesting turn of events, the ending of the match did make me realize… I have seen this before! But, I was like five or six years old and watched it on a random VHS I'm guessing my parents got for me at some point. So, that was a crazy flashback for me when I realized I has seen this all before. I just didn't know at that time what I was watching. Still doesn't make the match any better.
Let's say **1/4
