By Christ what a match. This is a glimpse into an alternate world where Trump was the president of the NWA and not of an actual country and he decided to roll the dice on those rumours of Murdoch being a closet Klan member by giving him the big belt for six years. In a perfect world those rumours would've been nonsense and the ACTUAL NWA president gave him the big belt for six years anyway. He was tremendous in this. Don't get me wrong, Reed was amazing as well, but Murdoch was on another level and it might be the ultimate Captain Redneck experience. Following that altercation on TV a couple days before, things are tetchy almost straight away. They play that up for the first twenty minutes, constantly escalating with tensions rising and threatening to boil over, always threading its way through everything they do. It was so, so good. On a basic level it's pretty much Reed working a headlock and Murdoch working the arm, but everything they do with those holds is excellent and the little subtleties they add really set it all apart. Reed has a great headlock, really squeezes and grinds it in, leans way back like he's trying to pull Murdoch's head off, then when Murdoch tries to roll him into a pinning position Reed just shifts his weight so he's lying completely on Murdoch's head instead. Murdoch tries to trip the leg from a standing position, so Reed spreads his base and forces Murdoch to the mat. When Murdoch finally escapes into a hammerlock he sells the aftereffects of the headlock like his ears have been ground into stubs. All of his work on the arm was incredible. He was always going to be the one who wound up leaning towards that heel end of the spectrum, so he played that up by being a nasty bastard while working entirely within the rules. Loved all the joint-manipulation, where he'd have Reed's shoulder, elbow and wrist all twisted in different yet equally painful ways, often at the same time. He'd bar the arm and stomp Reed right under the armpit, drop knees across the bicep, stomp the lat, maybe even take a few liberties and add the fingers to that joint-manipulation (Reed: "He's got my fingers!"). As time goes on the work in between holds gets meaner and meaner. The armdrags at the start make way for forearm shivers and elbows, but I love how much they play up not throwing blatant fists, despite them REALLY wanting to on more than one occasion. Even Tommy Gilbert being sort of overbearing as the ref' was cool in that sense, where he'd get right in the middle and try to keep a lid on things. Of course everybody knew it was a matter of time before it went out the window. Murdoch came up bloody-mouthed way at the start after a dropkick so those little rabbit punches to the ribs were clearly payback, and I loved him being sly with it by shifting Reed out of Gilbert's line of sight each time he did it (while still working the hammerlock). Murdoch demonstrating his open-handed strike on Gilbert and Gilbert selling it like he got winded was awesome as well. That moment where Reed says fuck it and lands one on Murdoch's jaw was pretty much the perfect way to cap off that stretch of the match. From there it just continues to escalate and builds to Murdoch slamming Reed on the concrete, then the Reed comeback leads to the big exhausted finishing run. I guess it's not as exciting as your big Flair finishing runs, at least in that there aren't as many nearfalls, but I'll take Murdoch's punch-drunk selling over the backslide and slam off the top any day. And hey, if you're REALLY missing Flair then Murdoch even puts his spin on blond champion being put in the figure-four! That made for a killer finale with Reed going after the leg and Murdoch trying to boot him in the face from his back. The legwork also directly sets up the finish and the post-match pull-apart was about four minutes of these two punching each other in the face, with the REAL payoff of someone finally decking Tommy Gilbert for sticking his nose in. Honestly, I was a wee bit worried this wouldn't hold up like I wanted it to. I can happily say it's yet another example of me being a fool because it was everything I remembered it being and more.
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