International Object

Wrestling Blog. "I have never determined before a bout who will win. Some of my opponents make such offers." - Antonio Inoki Also: Bluesky Why Is It Called International Object?

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Rude sends Flair to the outside, motions to Fifi, who slaps him. He forcefully kisses her, and lifts her into the ring. I'm not really sure what his plan here was, but Flair comes in hot for revenge.

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Flair used this move against Randy Savage at Wrestlemania VIII. It's a good example of Flair's moveset looking sadistic because he's spent 90% of his career as a bad guy.

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One interesting thing here is the camera angles often show the match from Fifi's perspective.

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punk and cody kissing a very flustered danhausen 🎥 matt kempke on youtube / crxssrhxdess on twitter

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Wrestling is for the smooches

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Ventura's comments about women get so obnoxious that Schiavone cuts him off.

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This is a pretty misogynistic situation. Fifi, the woman who's been working with Flair, has been objectified, sexually harassed, and treated like a trophy. I don't want to minimize how bad this is to this person.

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Ric Flair is the main character of this thread, but if there's a number two, it's Rick Rude. He's shown up earlier, losing to Chono twice in 1992 for this title. But WCW was finally ready to pull the trigger and make Rick Rude a world champion.

According to the wiki, the reason WCW left the NWA was because they wanted to make Rude their new World Champion. They drop the NWA name, and just call it the "World Heavyweight Championship," which is exactly what's written on it.

But before we get to all that, let's just enjoy Rick Rude's WCW theme song.

They really do drop all mention of the NWA, and they don't even give Ric Flair a title for his graphic

AI slop design is so bad these days I look back on imbalanced typography with marker with delight and nostalgia. This is very human.

Schiavone lays out the story in the match. He also says "gold belt" in reference to the title, instead of any real name.

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Flair obviously has a lot of all-timer lines, but I think this one deserves more attention. 🤼

Throughout this time period, Flair has been arguing that the Big Gold Belt is the one true wrestling title. He does it in the NWA, WCW, NJPW, when he jumps ship to WWF, and when he jumps ship back.

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Ric Flair wins tenth world title by pinning Windham with the figure four. Did you also learn just now that you could pin someone with a figure four? I sure did, and so did the crowd, and Barry Windham, and also maybe Ric Flair.

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I remember being pretty bored of this match as a kid. Sandwiched between a Rick Rude ironman match and the very-fun-for-kids main event, this felt like two really old men doing old wrestling.

I appreciate it more now, but not much. There's no heat at all. 

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Cappetta knows what the belt is called though, and the title card team does their best to fit in what they can.

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WCW waits five months to do it. Flair would end up doing Horsemen stories against Austin and Pillman, and Windham would be stuck in the low end of the show. Brad Armstrong, Z-Man, William Regal, Arn Anderson, & 2 Cold Scorpio were not in the WCW main event scene.

Finally, in the summer of 1993, WCW gets around to actually having the match they obviously wanted to do back in February: Barry Windham vs Ric Flair at Beach Blast 93.

You'll notice the match is not particularly featured on the awesome VHS cover, because the main event is just way cooler.

By this point, they've dropped "world" and "heavyweight" from the title graphic. It's just "NWA title". This is more or less the last time the NWA name is used here, so that's getting dropped soon too. I wonder if they might soon just call it "belt."

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Ric Flair comes in and helps Windham put the belt around his waist. This sets up the eventual match that happens.

It's a bit lousy for Windham vs Muta.

The match was completely overshadowed by Flair's presence, even if it made all the sense in the world to have Flair there for it.

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A clothesline and a DDT later, Windham pins Muta to bring the Big Gold Belt back to WCW.

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The story of the match is that Windham had Muta's moonsault scouted and got the legs up repeatedly.

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Windham vs Muta is a pretty slow match, even for 1993 standards. But there's a few exciting moments.

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Schiavone and Ventura are an underrated commentary team.