Talk about it here.

Handheld footage of a cage match on a house show. Probably 10 minutes total, and it's not something that's going to change the world, but these two meshed well during this time and the match had lots of heat and typical Flair cage spots, so you can imagine what you'll get.

 

It's not for the title, and Piper wins.

Escape the cage rules. The video isn't the greatest, but we get an all right bout.

The footage is pretty rough, compared to the other stuff on here, but this is a fun outing. I especially liked that in addition to the typical spot where the heel is almost out and the babyface pulls him back up and in, that Flair also got to do that to Piper. The finish was fun with Flair outsmarting himself to lose.

Nice to see what these two were doing on the house show circuit, but obviously nothing too memorable. Standard spots at the top of the cage early which saw the crowd get pretty into things. Flair's chops send Piper to the floor for the win in a non-title match.

 

**1/2

We get a rehash of the Hogan/Orndorff double escape, carried out in about the most perfunctory manner possible, and again the match restarts. Flair gets a field goal to the groin early on and after the restart Piper pays him right back. Not much of a match, with a lot of the boring WWF-style climb-the-cage spots, but a very heated crowd.

Can't help but wonder how people managed to sneak a camcorder into the arena in 1992. Those things were larger than the laptop I am typing this on.

 

I've never been a fan of these cage matches where the entire match is based around climbing the cage. Very little wrestling, lots of climbing. Some of the spots were probably a lot fresher in 1992 but this really didn't do much for me. Generic house show cage match, at least the crowd was hot.

This match is everything bad about the WWF cage rules in one short bout. Not only is there no blood (which we were used to by now), but there's almost no action. Other than a few chop exchanges and Piper's half-hearted attempt at a sleeper, this match was nothing but two men in a maze trying to figure a way out. Not only that, the idea of Flair dropping non-title matches to a man who would be retiring from wrestling after Mania VIII strikes me as mind-boggling, close friend or not. If Vince wanted to book a series of cage matches like this, Flair should have wrestled Savage, his opponent at Mania VIII.

 

I thought using the iconic Hogan-Orndorff finish was ludicrous under these circumstances. These two had barely engaged each other, so why shouldn't they both be able to escape whenever they damn well pleased?

 

Was it my imagination or did the outside referee slam the door in Piper's face about two minutes near the end? Rod sold it better than he did anything else in the match. I thought maybe Curt had done it, but Vince wasn't sending managers on the house show circuit by now.

 

I mentioned this up above, but the lack of anything resembling contact for most of the match floored me. Okay, so they couldn't bleed, but these two had a hot feud just a couple of months ago, and now they were both champions. Surely that combination could have led to a more spirited match than this. I know most WWF guys tended to half-ass house shows, but there had to be a reason that we didn't even get an eighth of an ass here. My guess is that either someone was hurt or the show was running obscenely long. Given that (according to Graham Cawthon) we only had a little under forty-three minutes of timed in-ring action plus a Rick Martel opener that a time wasn't given for, the only way the show could have run long was if there was a half-hour between each match. Ergo, someone sure as hell better have been hurt.

 

By the way, according to Graham it was Martel who slammed the door in Piper's face. In typical WWF fashion, this was never followed up on; Piper didn't wrestle again after Mania VIII, although he was booked to wrestle at least once (against Martel, of all people) and did several Piper's Pits that never made the air.

This was an alright match, but these two were held back by the cage. WWF cage matches (except those involving both Valentine and Santana) are incredibly boring.