Background: In the debut episode of “The Main Event”, The Four Horsemen of NWA World’s champion Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson took on the NWA Tag Team champions Barry Windham & Lex Luger with their partner for the evening in Sting.
The Main Event
Spartanburg, SC
March 31, 1988
Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson vs. Sting, Barry Windham & Lex Luger
Barry Windham had Tully Blanchard bouncing around like a super ball with right hands. When The other Horsemen tried to intervene, Sting & Lex Luger ran in to put a stop to whatever they had in mind. An obvious edit occurred where Luger had knocked down the all the Horsemen before tagging out to Windham so he could work Blanchard over a little more. Sleeper by Windham was cinched in on Blanchard. Flair illegally came in, feeling the sleeper as well. Without a tag, Flair was accepted as the legal man as Windham beat him from pillar to post. The Horsemen seemed to done for the evening until Arn Anderson talked them out of leaving. Anderson wanted lead by example, only to be headlocked by both Windham and Sting. Power slam on Flair courtesy of Sting topped off by a head scissors on the entering Blanchard. Lex took control, whipping Tully chest first against the turnbuckles. Blanchard needed help to free himself from the bear hug, helping Anderson set up the DDT on Luger.
For the first time in this one The Horsemen were in complete control. Cutting off the ring, Luger was being punished by all three opponents at any given time. Missing a left hook, Anderson caught Luger coming off the ropes with the spine buster that somehow only gave him a two count. Luger also took a hangman’s neck breaker courtesy of Blanchard as it was announced they had been doing battle for fifteen minutes. The torso was The Horseman’s bull’s eye. Luger took Flair’s delayed vertical suplex, firing off a clothesline to tag out. Windham became the legal man, power slamming Blanchard. Windham’s follow up cross body saw Blanchard duck and send him to the floor. Barry recovered, turning Blanchard’s suplex attempt into the roll up. Flair broke up the sure pin, punching Flair as the referee tried to regain order. Blanchard bashed Windham in the face with a foreign object to knock him out for the three count once the referee turned around and counted down the horizontal Windham.
Winner: The Horsemen (13:00 shown)
Is It A Classic: That was a wild one, but a bout hindered by TV time limits causing a chunk of the match to be lost to viewers. It didn’t take away fully from it being a great encounter of almost mythical proportions.
