Maryland’s Most Magnificent Match Terry Funk vs Ric Flair 23.07.1989

Maryland’s Most Magnificent Match Terry Funk vs Ric Flair 23.07.1989

This series has finally escaped from 21st century indie wrestling, good riddance to it i say. I hope it never returns. We have driven to the city of Baltimore in the great state of Maryland, home of the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, some of America's greatest artists have also called Baltimore home such as Edgar Allan Poe or John Waters. Specifically we are at the Baltimore arena which would later be renamed and e CFG Bank Arena, it was built 1962 where an old congress hall that the Continental Congress met at once stood. The venue has played host to many over the years but most prominently was the home of the Baltimore Bullets, now the Washington Wizards, from 1963-1973. And today on July 7th 1989 it has a 

match that combines Pos’s Macabre writings, the transgressive stylings of John Waters’s and the creativity of 1969 starting shooting guard for the Baltimore Bullets Earl Monroe.

The match in question Terry Funk vs Ric Flair. Before the bout starts we are informed of Funks ongoing neck injuries and then we get to the entrances. Good wrestling entrances should act as a prologue to the match telling everything you need to know about the competitors before the bell rings. We get exactly that there with Terry Funk the yellow bellied son of a bitch he is, comes out with twenty or so security officers. He is also accompanied by Gary Hart and is wielding his famous branding iron. Flair then comes out with the whole shebang he's got the robes, he's got the pyro, he's got the girls and the crowd loves him for it, we see that Flair is still that dirty playa he's famous for he's just one we cheer for over that chicken Funk.

The opening third of this match is built around a very simple concert, a coward getting what he has coming. Funk is constantly trying to get space between him and Flair, hiding behind the guardrail just waiting for an opportunity to get a cheap shot in. He is beautifully punished for this, Flair lays down chops and punches. We even see Flair target Funk injured head with multiple piledrivers which gets funk to do what triple H famously called “Terry Funk spinning around in a circle like Homer Simpson. … Whooop … wooooop woooop woop woop” and it rules bitch. This match also speaks to how wrestling used to be able to get so much more out of so much less, Funk and FLair aint working super stiff and no one is taking sick bumps but the match feels very intense and violent. Funk and Flair have such clear character that the flow of the match feels so natural. 

This opening act is interpreted when the scaredy-cat Funk is handed his Branding iron by Gary Hart who then distracts the ref allowing Funk to nail Flair in the head. This reinforces something I've always believed, all blondes should bleed. Flair bleeds like a stuck pig and it dies, his hair a delicious crimson. The Milksop Funk is so punishing in this control section with his fantastic punches he threatens to get even with Flair threatening to piledrive him on the exposed concrete, though Flair is able to counter it. While Funk is on top Flair showcases great use of steamboat rule, always working to get something in.

Once fair manages to recover and even gets Funk bleeding and now we get into the match's climax returning to a previous idea but with more intensity. Sometimes a coward go to fucking get what he has coming. Flair unleashes on funk in glorious fashion, he's all over the guy continuously threatening to get the figure four in. Funk in desperation abandons his neck targeting tragedy instead going for his spinning toe hold but it's only a matter of time before he's beaten, Flair ends up getting with it a schoolboy. It could be said that this match ending with a schoolboy is anticlimactic but I see it as Flair returning to what he knows. The wild brawl that follows with Muta coming down to attack Flair and Sting coming to make the save (im sure hell never regret making  decision like that) means the intensity from the match continues.  

What a match

It use to be better

5 Cal Ripken Jr.’s out of 5

next up Virginia