Finally, after getting back in the cage—the finish. Rich was going to put me in the figure-four, and as I was screaming bloody-murder—the sign of the “New Blood” was to be unleashed on him from high atop the arena ceiling in the way of a huge tub of crimson. As Ric synched on his legendary finish, I pounded the mat with vigor, and at this point I could clearly tell that I had suffered a concussion. With every scream of absolute agony, I felt that my head was just going to explode right there in the middle of the ring. Ric set the move in deeper and deeper, I screamed more and more, but much too both our surprise . . . the blood wasn’t coming.
At this point I could feel myself blacking out. In giving my best sell job, the head trauma that I had suffered early on, was beginning to take over. I remember no matter what—I didn’t want to stop selling his move, because if I did—I would kill it. So I sold, and I sold, until finally the blood came reigning down. This caused Ric to break the hold, and quite honestly from there—I don’t even remember what the finish was.
After the match, I can remember walking to the back in a haze. I knew where I was, but nothing was really “certain”. I can remember being approached by Keith Mitchell, who was the director of the show, and he told me that the delay in dropping the blood was that Ric wasn’t quite in the right “spot”, and they had to wait for him to get there to make sure the crimson hit its target. At that point—I just didn’t care . . . it was over. At that point I knew in my mind that I succeeded in getting through the match without hurting Ric. That was all that mattered to me at the beginning . . . and that was all that mattered to me now.
Working with Ric Flair was everything that you’d think it would be. He didn’t have to do it—I certainly wasn’t going to “force” him to have the match with me, but he did it because it was what was best for business at the time. To this day I am forever grateful to Ric for allowing me that opportunity, and being humble enough to share his ring with an absolute jabroni like me. I think in his mind Ric knew that this punk wasn’t going to make him look bad, because let’s face it—NOBODY could ever make the “Champ” look bad!
Thank you, Ric.
(Vince is launching his new channel, Vince Russo’s BRAND, on the RELM Network this coming Monday. Go to vincerussobrand.com for more details).
