1989 Ric Flair v Ricky Steamboat is a series looking at four of the matches Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat had in 1989 for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship.
The ‘third’ match in the legendary 1989 National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Worlds Heavyweight Championship series between titleholder Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair took place in Nashville, Tennessee during NWA WrestleWar 1989. A new wrinkle added to the match saw former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champions Lou Thez, Pat O’Connor, and Terry Funk appointed as judges to ensure if the match went to the 60-minute time limit — a winner would be declared.
The match was also billed as the last time Flair would have an opportunity to challenge Steamboat for the championship. Once again, Ric came out with an entourage of women while Steamboat came out with his wife and young son.
During the early portions of the match Steamboat once again slapped Flair, a common symbolic gesture throughout the program, yet this time Flair fired back with a slap of his own, setting the physical tone of the match. The change was followed up by Steamboat heavily working Flair’s arm to set up the Double Chickenwing submission later during the match, Steamboat’s focused attack made logical sense, building on their previous televised contest in New Orleans.
Steamboat was extremely over with the crowd, while Flair had to battle back after a slow start to gain some momentum on the champion. Per usual during the program, Flair resorted to underhanded tactics to gain an advantage over Steamboat in conjunction with clever mat wrestling at times.
Ric was able to tangle his feet in the ropes when Steamboat went for the Double Chickenwing again, showing that he learned from the New Orleans match and soon after was able to pin Steamboat with a horizontal cradle (small package) to regain the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship.
After the match Flair turned face after being assaulted by Terry Funk, but the segment didn’t overshadow the series of matches between Flair and Steamboat during the first half of 1989.
The series holds up as being great even under a modern microscope, with even a house show match being of an extremely high level. It could be argued that maybe Steamboat could have drawn more money with a longer reign, but he solidified himself as being one of the best of his era (globally) with how he worked as champion. Flair already was established as a legendary figure at this point, but his series with Ricky solidified just how good he was at his peak levels of performance.
