Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat
- Lots of Ricks out here. Oh god, Steamboat brought his kid? Why, so he could show him what a real dad is supposed to look like?
Jesse Ventura is extra-annoying on commentary, and not in a good heel commentator way either. This match is an Iron Man match, so I have 30 minutes of this to go through. Steamboat gets an early advantage with a gutbuster and slows things to a crawl with lots of submissions targeting the midsection. Rude tries to turn things around, but gets put into a
Walls of Jericho Boston Crab for his troubles. As an aside, it's very confusing to see guys slamming the mat, but it's not considered to be counting out.
Rude gets thrown into the corner, and counters Dragon with a knee to the face, and rolls up the tights for a quick pinfall. The audacity! Rick uses this time after the pin to go on the offensive, including a Rude Awakening for a second pin. The entire time, Rude is selling those ribs like he took a bullet to the gut. Rick Rude goes to the top rope to intentionally DQ himself (fucking dumb dumb dumb) in order to land a knee on Dragon to get another pinfall. Rude picks Dragon up for more punishment, but Dragon comes back quick with a flurry to stop Rude. Rude then puts Dragon in a camel clutch, and Dragon makes it to the ropes. He stomps on him afterwards, then tries to taunt but his ribs are so hurt that he can't.
Wow, a swinging neckbreaker. You don't really see those anymore. The only reason why I'm bringing that up is because they're in a headlock spot at the moment and I'm just typing my stream of consciousness. Yo damn, Rude hits a picture-perfect piledriver, but it's not enough for a 3. This time Rude goes for a Tombstone, but Ricky does a crazy reversal and hits his OWN Tombstone for a pinfall. They go back and forth a little since they're so winded, but Steamboat counters a possible top...I mean, 2nd rope move into a Superplex (which is somehow legal????). Amazingly, that's not enough for a 3. They both get up and smack each other with a double clothesline with 10 minutes on the clock. Rude goes for a pin, but Ricky reverses it into his own for the pinfall to tie things up!
Rude goes on the offensive but Ricky knocks him down and they both rest for a bit. Things are slowed down for a bit around the 7:50 mark, and you can see a grandma getting into the match in the background lmao. JR gives us some real A+ commentary: "these men have wrestled for nearly 24 minutes...which is just under 27 minutes." Rude goes for the Rude Awakening, but Ricky reverses it into a
neckbreaker Rude Awakening! Still not enough for a pinfall, though. At this point it's just near-fall after near-fall, both guys going for whatever they can think of. Rude manages to clinch on a seeper around the 4 minute mark, and people are freaking out.
WHAT THE FUCK, STEAMBOAT TURNS IT INTO A PIN. Rude goes crazy and tries to land every pin he can think of, but it's too late, and Dragon wins.
Rating:
Zach-o-meter: A
