Ric Flair vs. The Big Show

[7.0] "[3.5*] This match ruled. Bloody, short and engaging TV bout for the ECW Title. Show dominated the first half of the bout and Flair's comeback was just awesome, very creative and cool. At the end it wasn't enough as Show won nonetheless, but the match was very dramatic. Very cool piece of work."

[8.0] "Very interesting match. With this two names i never thought in a extreme rules match that this could work. Great match seriously, Ric Flair despite his age knows this game better than a lot of excellent wrestlers. His storytelling in this match is great, i mean he can bring the very best of Big Show in this ages. Ric Flair uses the weapons really well and Big Show is treated like a monster. Really cool match. ***/75"

[8.0] "This was a brutal, old-school style ECW Extreme Rules bout with Show asserting early dominance, but Flair's resilience kept things competitive. The first half is more about psychology and pacing, with power moves, suplexes, and headbutts, but once the weapons come into play around the eight-minute mark, the match ratchets up into full-on hardcore mode. Flair's barbed wire bat spots and the thumbtacks are shocking at first, but they're used sparingly enough that they punctuate the action rather than overwhelm it. Show's size and power dominate the match, but Flair's crafty offense and timely kicks create tension and make his near falls believable. It's not a non-stop weapon fest like some ECW matches; there's breathing room for storytelling and the classic dynamic of the big man versus the wily veteran. The finish, Show hitting a chokeslam and cobra clutch backbreaker to retain, is satisfying, keeping him strong while letting Flair look tough as a pin cushion. It's a violent, calculated showcase of Extreme Rules wrestling rather than chaotic bloodbath madness. ***3/4"

[8.0] "Ric Flair knows both the audience he is performing for (that flip off before the boxing stance while on the floor would have not been done if not in ECW) and what the goal is (to put over the Big Show as a monster champion) and delivers to perfection. Credit to Show also, not only protecting his size (Flair calls in the ring some no sells that are good, but the staggering bit while getting hit in the head really helped build the anticipation for the thumb tacks bump), but also being nasty at times. The dismissive way he throws Flair to the tacks after he is already won is a highlight of a very concise and effective match."

[8.0] "Ric Flair wrestling The Big Show on ECW and putting the big man over by putting on such a good match is a testament to the man's greatness. Flair gets manhandled by The Big Show who no-sells his offense, which is great, therefore he goes after Show's nuts and delivers some nasty low blows, has an awesome but short lived comeback as Show gets the win in one of the best matches of his career. *** 3/4"

[7.0] "Never would you think that one of the best wrestlers of the ECW reboot was Ric Flair. This embodies pretty much everything I talked about in my comment on Big Show vs Rob Van Dam and most of that is thanks to Ric Flair. Big Show goes out there and dominates Flair and Flair bumps like a boss for him. Flair dawns the crimson mask really early to kick things into gear and takes full advantage of the extreme rules stipulation and treats Show's nether regions as a speed bag. What follows is Flair spamming weapons, everything from chairs to a barbwire baseball bat and it's when Flair has a trash can wrapped around the skull of Big Show when I realised that this is the perfect way to sell Big Show as an ECW champion. ECW wrestlers can be as extreme as they want but it'll take more than weapons to take down the world's largest athlete. The match finishes after Show takes a bump on thumbtacks which enrages the giant and he chokes out Ric Flair to retain. Big Show throws Flair into the thumbtacks for good measure and we're left with the awesome images of Big Show holding the ECW championship with half his face covered in blood. If Big Show's reign was made up of defences like this it'd be an all time title run of this era but unfortunately this was an outlier in the ill fated ECW reboot"

[9.0] "Both guy having a chip on their shoulder, Big Show trying to prove himself as a proper ECW champion and Ric Flair going for his 17th time world champion and proving to Mick Foley that he can do what he do. You just dont expect both of them to do all the spots at the back end, and the story added up for them to go all out. Flair barely got out of the match bleeding and tacked, if you look at this in insulation, this really sold Big Show as a monster. Just the most bloody, old habit die hard match, Ric Flair firing up with full excitement, and Big Show showing some good dominant moves unlike what he get used to later on in his career."

[10.0] "No idea why this match was booked. And I have no idea how I stumbled upon this match. And I don't know why both wrestlers decided to put on a GOATED match especially Ric Flair at his old age. But all I know is that this is a 5 star match. (5/5)"

[8.0] "A match that feels like a fever dream. Two WCW guys(Flair being THE WCW GUY) fighting in a WWE ring over the ECW championship in what is basically a death match. Blood, stiff as hell chair shots. Barb wire and thumb tacks in which both men are thrown into them. A crazy match. Flair was 57 here and is giving his old rival Terry Funk a run for being middle aged and crazy. WWE version of ECW was a total failure but we got a handful of gems from it in which this is one of them"

[10.0] "WWE's version of ECW was a bust nearly from the start. Don't get me wrong, RVD winning the title from Cena in front of one of the most hostile crowds ever was amazing, but pretty much the moment the weekly show started it was obvious WWE had immediately lost interest in treating the brand as anything other than a mid tier WWE show with minimal effort to retain any kind of true ECW feeling. That should be no surprise to anyone familiar with 00s WWE but even so, the first four weeks were nothing but squash matches, WWE regulars being featured over ECW originals, and baffling joke gimmicks such as "The Zombie", "Macho Libre", and an overweight male stripper, it was seemingly the nail in the coffin when Big Show pinned a soon-to-be-suspended-for-being-pulled-over-with-a-bag-of-marijuana RVD to win the new ECW title. However we can take at least one silver lining, because the week after the title change we had this match in the main event. On paper it makes absolutely no sense, a 57(! ) year old guy not on the ECW brand with no connection to ECW at all challenges a champion who also never had anything to do with ECW before. There's really no reason for these guys to fight at all, somehow this is thinly connected to Flair's feud with Mick Foley but not really. However, out of the mouth of irrelevancy we suddenly got a shockingly brutal and highly exciting match! Great wrestling can suddenly happen anywhere if everyone decides to put the effort in, I suppose. Even in the early going this match showed promise, as Flair laid in a lot of great looking shots and Big Show looked badass just bulldozing through a lot of the attacks with sheer size and power. Flair started taking some massive bumps, really incredible to think what he was doing well at this age still. Flair gets bloody as things get more hardcore, and the Nature Boy even retrieves Foley's signature barbed wire bat and gets Big Show bleeding as well. A big pile of thumbtacks is added to the match and things get genuinely fairly brutal as both guys end up bumping in and coming out quite skewered, some awesome visuals there. In the end a gushing bloody Flair is choked out in Big Show's short lived clutch finisher, but the match definitely exceeded expectations as well as anything else we've seen on the weekly show. Very bizarre that the most ECW-esque match so far was between these two but hey, you can't knock what they did. In my top 10 WWE matches from 2006."

"(10.0) This might unironically be one of the best WWE matches of all time. Truly the only classic from this ECW on Sci-Fi run. Flair bumps like a madman. Show feels like an actual monster who is just impossible to kill. From the cobra clutch backbreaker, the nasty chops, Flair hitting a violence party on Show in the middle of the ring, the tack in the back of Flair's head, and the crowd not just shitting on everything. Whole match feels like a fever dream in the best way. Literally no complaints."

[8.0] "Ric Flair vs. The Big Show in an ECW Extreme Rules match for the ECW World Championship - who could've seen this coming back in the 90s? The referee in this match wasn't the best, before the bell had even rung, he messed up by holding the ECW title upside down (shades of The Great Khali right there), although he did correct himself and flip it round. The ref also patted both men down - not sure why considering this was an Extreme Rules match where anything goes! Joey Styles on commentary says "Big Show has got himself into the best shape he's been in in years" - Eh, not so sure about that one. At this stage in his career, Big Show wasn't looking too hot physically, he didn't look too well, and he would be gone by the end of the year, with the shape he was in being one of the factors that caused him to leave. However, the match itself was a fun one; Ric gets busted open very early on (c'mon, you didn't think Ric WOULDN'T get colour in a match like this, did you? ) Show hit Flair with a vertical suplex, which I can't imagine was fun to take, especially with Ric's history of back problems. As it was an Extreme Rules match, weapons came into play here (steel chairs, a trash can, barbed wire baseball bat, and thumbtacks) - Ric Flair wielding a barbed wire baseball bat was a sight to behold. As a result of said barbed wire baseball bat, Big Show gets himself some colour too. Towards the end, Flair repeatedly hit Show in the head with a steel chair, causing him to fall down into the thumbtacks that were plastered all across the mat, however this just mad Big Show mad instead! Show gets up, chokeslams Flair, and then hit him with the Cobra Clutch Backbreaker thing that he was doing at the time before sinching in the Cobra Clutch to win via submission. Show retains his recently won ECW World Championship and then ragdolls Nature Boy into the thumbtacks for good measure. There's a lot to be said for WWE's revival of the ECW brand back in 2006, but this match was one of the bright sparks; it didn't go too long (in some respects, it felt like it could've gone longer), there was violence, some great bumps on the part of Ric Flair and, overall, it was a very enjoyable David vs. Goliath matchup."

[7.0] "Really fun match that I wouldve liked to have gone another 5 minutes it breezes by almost too quickly. Flair bumps and sells for show for majority of the match before getting an awesome baby face comeback but wasnt enough to overcome Show. Really fun both guys bleed a lot and they use barb wire and tacks thats all I need. 3.75/5"

[8.0] "Now this is how you do a David vs Goliath style match! As you would expect, Big Show is dominant throughout the match, but Flair is no slouch, your classic brains vs brawn matchup, great GREAT use of weapons, just a sheer delight to watch. Flair made Big Show look crazy powerful"

[8.0] "It's always a treat to see a Ric Flair hardcore match, and this is no exception. The story of the bout is pretty simple: Big Show is an absolute monster, so Flair has to use his cunning to get the advantage. Show manhandles Flair for a while until Flair hits FOUR LOW BLOWS IN A ROW. He then wallops Show with weapons and brings out the largest bag of tacks ever. Seriously, these tacks cover like a fourth of the ring. Flair brains Show with a chair, he bumps into the tacks, AND THEN HE GETS UP AND CHOKESLAMS RIC FLAIR HARD AS HELL. Show locks in the Cobra Clutch and Flair passes out. The cherry on the top, Show biels Flair FACE FIRST INTO THE TACKS."

[8.0] "An enjoyable match that really ramps up the action after Flair hits the double low blow. Very fun as soon as weapons are introduced."

[7.0] "Really good TV main event that sells Big Show as a true force to be reckoned with probably the most at this point in the run, more than the battle royal or match with RVD. Flair is quite good as always and makes Show look like a complete beast. Insane he took a tack bump during this match."

[9.0] "This is a really unique match. It is shockingly violent for this stage in Flair's career. Flair sells his heart, vulnerability and desperation extemely well. The story telling is great and could really only be told with these characters - the twist on extreme rules with Flair being able to take advantage of being 'the dirtiest player in the game' is clever, and I love how comfortable he quickly becomes in the hardcore environment once he starts using weapons. I also love the finish. Flair wails away with chair shots to the head of the Big Show until the giant topples backwards like a tree being chopped down, landing straight in to a pile of thumbtacks... Only to get straight back up, bloodied and battered, and unleash all his fury on the Nature Boy. He looks completely unstoppable and the visual is tremendous. This match has become somewhat lost to time, but it's one of the best things to come out of WWE's ECW revival and definitely worth checking out."

[9.0] "Crazy one. Ric is really good in this. Takes some takes some insane bumps and gets the crowd invested in every comeback. One of the best Big Show matches I've seen."

[10.0] "I love this match so much, I don't really know how to explain why I love a 7 Foot Giant vs. a 50 year old man in a match where they bleed buckets and where the old man gets ragdolled like he owed Show a whole bar tab, but I just enjoy this match everytime I've rewatched it. I may have seen this match like 8 or 10 times and that's something I rarely do, I unironically think it's the best ECW Championship match I've seen, even though I don't count this as the real ECW. I can't really think of any other better ECW World Title matches besides maybe Spike Dudley vs. Mike Awesome? I feel like if this brand was called anything other than ECW it would be highly regarded, but this match is without a doubt the best match the brand ever had, hell it's the best match the whole company had in 2006."

[7.0] "Unironically pretty fun. You're not throwing high star ratings at this but props to both men for the bumps they took. Flair is great as ever."