1. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (Clash Of The Champions VI)
Flair vs. Steamboat is the best in-ring feud in pro wrestling history and if Ted Turner needed any initial validation for purchasing WCW, this is it. Neither Ric Flair nor Ricky Steamboat were better before or after this feud. It's as if wrestling each other elevated both themselves and their craft out of the body they used to inhabit and up into the ether forever. After this point, Flair and Steamboat were both great, but honestly like only able to reach 100% of the 150% they gave during this feud. Two out of three falls. For the average wrestler, that's poetic license to go out and craft a spectacle. For Flair and Steaboat, it's being given the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to paint, and they create a masterpiece. Wrestling for that many minutes at that high of a level against your most ideal opponent has only been met once hereafter in thr WWF by Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XII. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xz7fi4_04-89-04-02-ric-flair-vs-ricky-steamboat-2-out-of-3-falls-clash-vi_sport WCW's first year was probably its best year. This is the best match of that year (arguments for 1997 will be accepted), and therefore the best WCW match of all time.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
