The Toronto Connection
Wrestling Exchange - September 1980
- story by Marty Slobin

July 20 1980

One of the hottest feuds in professional wrestling involves former tag-team partners Ric Flair and Greg Valentine. At one time they were a well co-ordinated team that tore up their opponents. Now they only want to destroy one another. When Greg Valentine returned to the Mid Atlantic wrestling area, he was surprised to find that his former partner was now a fan favorite. They would have continued to eye each other from opposite sides of the arena, except for the proposition that Valentine made to Flair.

When Valentine offered to join Flair in a tag. team match against Jimmy Snuka and The Great Hossein. the opportunity was too great to be lost. After all, Flair and Valentine had always been a smooth and deadly team. Flair was anxious for the best possible partner in a match with foes of the caliber of Snuka and Hossein.

All four wrestlers went into the match prepared for organized mayhem. Early in the match, Flair found out that he was on his own. Valentine repeatedly refused to tag him. Ric Flair is a great wrestler, but the combined efforts of Snuka, Hossein, and their manager Gene Anderson wore him down. Without Valentine's needed assistance, Flair was the eventual victim of a Fiji drop and running body slam by Snuka. After Flair was battered and pinned, Snuka held his left arm and Hossein held the right, as Greg Valentine borrowed Anderson's cane and hit the secured U.S. Champion with the heavy weapon. It only took three blows of the cane to break Flair's nose. Flair appeared on television and swore that he would take revenge on Valentine.

Since Flair's injury, most of the battles with Valentine have been exercises in pain, rather than defenses of Flair's U.S. title. Each wrestler has concentrated on injuring the other rather than using wrestling holds to pin an opponent. This particular Toronto, Flair-Valentine match was not without holds, counters, and complex combinations, but each wrestler tried to break the other's nose!

Ric Flair entered the Maple Leaf Gardens to a screaming and applauding ovation. Where he had worn a nose guard in previous appearances, he only used heavy tape to protect his nose. Valentine ignored the "boos" of the fans, and tried to stare Flair down. The champion broke Valentine's concentration with a well-placed elbow smash. The war of the noses had begun! The early parts of the match were dominated by Valentine who used a series of armlocks and hammerlocks to weaken Flair:. Instead of going for victory when he had his opponent in trouble, Valentine supplemented the holds with blows to Flair's nose and face. When Flair used punches and flips to get out of trouble, Valentine regained control of the match with a flying atomic skull crusher. Instead of going for a pin, Valentine backed Flair into the ropes and gave him hard blows to the nose and chest. Valentine alternated effective arm holds with brutal blows, but he seemed more interested in inflicting pain than in winning the U.S. title held by Flair. In later brawling outside the ring, he made Flair bleed by bashing his head into the outside of the ring. Even when action returned to the ring, Valentine continued smashing, punching, and refusing to pin his opponent.

It took a series of knees to the stomach and atomic drops to get Flair back into the match. Although he was bleeding, he threw Valentine all over the ring, and to the excited cheers of the fans, began punching Valentine in the nose and face. Every time Flair hit Valentine in the nose, the crowd cheered for more. Flair did not need much encouragement. Once Valentine was bleeding from the head, Flair combined jabs with roundhouse punches and kneelifts. After out- brawling Valentine, both inside and outside the ring, the champion turned his attention to winning the match. First he lifted Valentine in a high vertical suplex, and brought him down hard. Then he followed up with an elbow drop and went for the victory with a figure four leg- lock. Valentine refused to submit, and dragged the action into the ropes where the referee would have to break the hold. By holding the champion in the ropes, Valentine began another elbow attack on Flair's nose.

Once again the action went outside the ring where both men went back to brawling, When he had gained the upper hand, Valentine went back into the ring, dragging Flair behind him, While Flair was outside the ring, Valentine held him from behind to set him up in a Lou Thesz suplex. Flair fought against being lifted from behind, over the ropes. When he was in the ring, but still in the air, -Flair shifted his weight, kicked the ring ropes, and turned the suplex into a half-cradle and press.

After Flair won the match, Valentine jumped half way round the ring to continue the battle. Although the match had gone well over half an hour, and both wrestlers were bleeding, they continued to batter each other despite the attempts of most of the wrestlers who came in from the dressing room to pull the brawlers apart.

Flair won an exciting match, but that was not important to either wrestler. As long as the strong desire for revenge remained, the war of the noses would continue.

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