For the second time, a War Games match makes an appearance in Meltzer’s Classics. It also once again features The Four Horsemen with Ric Flair, Barry Windham and Sid Vicious teaming up with Larry Zybysko who is replacing an injured Arn Anderson. On the other side of the two rings are our babyfaces, Sting, Brain Pillman and the Steiner Brothers.
The opening story of this match is Brian Pillman playing the plucky underdog. Against the wishes of his team, he starts things off despite having a heavily strapped shoulder. It doesn’t stop him bringing the fight, however, as he explodes into Barry Windham taking control with a low blow and busting him open by scraping his head along the cage and following it up with having a good old gnaw on Barry’s forehead.
In a surprising twist, the heels then win the coin toss, and Ric Flair enters the ring setting up the standard formula. The bad guys are in control when they have the man advantage until the faces come in and even things out. Trying to keep up with everything that happens is tough, so I’ll stick to the highlights which definitely won’t include Ric Flair’s hair which is atrocious but might include Scott Steiner’s luscious locks.
Pillman and Sting are the undeniable stars of this match. Pillman for his ability to take punishment and Sting for his ability to absorb it. At one point he completely no sells a series of chops from Flair and later on he military presses the Nature Boy above his head, smashing him into the low-hanging roof of the cage. Pillman meanwhile mainly gets the shit kicked out of him as the heels focus on his injured shoulder.
On the other side of proceedings, Sid Vicious is made to look like a monster, a fact that eventually plays into the finish. He destroys Pillman with a couple of powerbombs, one of which almost sees him kill Brian as he nearly drops him on his head. This brings out El Gigante who demands that the match is ended as Pillman can’t continue and the ref agrees.
Like all WarGames matches, this is a bit of a cluster fuck. There’s so much going on that trying to cover it all is near impossible. I’m a big fan of the story told with Pillman. He’s the plucky babyface who eventually goes through too much, and those powerbombs from Vicious were sickening. However, if you take that finish away, I don’t think this is a five-star match. A lot happens, but it’s the kind of stuff we’ve all seen before. Maybe in 1991 the sight of Flair and Windham bleeding from being scrapped across the cage was exciting, but in 2017 it’s a bit same old same old. This is a good match, but I don’t think it stands up as a classic today.
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