411’s WWE Table for 3 Report: Legendary Rivals (Fair, Sting, Steamboat)

411’s WWE Table for 3 Report: Legendary Rivals

-Original air date: 11/27/17

-This was filmed WrestleMania weekend and was to be aired a few months ago, but Flair’s health issues put this one on the shelf until now. I kind of have some hopes for this one, but the running time of 18 minutes leaves me figuring this is going to be short changed.

-Flair jokes that it is wonderful to be together at 8 AM. He says for him it’s not fun as he hasn’t been to bed yet and jokes that everyone else matured, but him.

-Steamboat gets into a story about the two of them running up a large bar tab, and Flair says no different than what he did the previous night.

-Flair and Steamboat catch up a bit and say they see each other about once a month. Steamboat has a new fiance as does Flair and Sting has a new wife (going on 2 years according to Sting). All the talk gives Flair a chance to joke about being the only guy in the business to pay alimony to 3 women at the same time.

-They talk about having contests on who could do the most work on a stair master. Flair says that no matter how hard he partied the previous night he never missed a workout.

-Flair says that Sting and Steamboat are the 2 guys always brought up as his two best opponents. They talk about Flair/Steamboat’s first angle together in 1977 and naturally they have video footage of it and it is fantastic. Steamboat talks about Flair rubbing his face in concrete and it actually messing his face up for quite some time.

-Over to Sting and Flair as they discuss the angle they did at Halloween Havoc 1995 when Flair turned on Sting in one of the greatest angles ever. Sting loved that moment and loved the angle in Texas where he tried to climb the cage to get to Flair, but unfortunately when he came back down he tore his patella tendon. Flair had to improvise and come out of the cage and didn’t know Sting was on one leg as they continued to brawl around the arena.

-We move on to road stories and Flair talks about renting a BMW with Steamboat while on the European tours instead of riding the bus. They drove it so hard that it overheated as they were doing 100 plus MPH and Sting can understand as instead of 7 hours on a bus they could do 2 hours in the car. Flair talks about Steamboat driving his Corvette and doing 130 MPH while he was in the passenger seat trying to drink and it scaring the crap out of him.

-Steamboat has a road story and he brings up it was one of the times they did a show in South Carolina where Flair went over and Ric says that was unusual. Steamboat says he can count on one hand the times he ever beat Flair clean. He gets back to his story and how they were driving to the next town and the fans knew where the wrestlers would stop so they caught Flair and Steamboat at the same store. Kayfabe was huge then (1977) so Steamboat spun Ric around and started talking crap on him to keep the act going for the fans that did see them. It was so convincing that Flair called Steamboat that night to see if he did something wrong.

-Sting talks about kayfabe dying and Flair says they were all in the NWA when people started calling it Sports Entertainment. They discuss the changing of the business and the current state. Flair says it is a good time for everyone right now and says that he feels SmackDown is better than RAW a lot of the times. Sting talks about how they were never taught how to be social like the kids today.

-Flair talks about current rivalries and brings up Charlotte and Sasha Banks. He says he has been told that they have chemistry like he and Steamboat had. Flair puts Charlotte over as being 10 times the worker he is, but points out he is better at promos.

-Stings brings up Shane McMahon being insane as they show him jumping off the Cell at Mania. Flair says all the McMahons are crazy and puts over that Vince will never ask the talent to do something that he wouldn’t do. Steamboat is a fan of the Wyatt/Orton build and Sting likes Bray as he is old school with his character.

-They talk about the fact that between the three of them they have had somewhere around 15,000 matches together. Flair was honored to induct both of them in the Hall of Fame and talks about calling Sting to tell him he will be inducting him and he had no choice. He then puts over Sting and jokes that he has won more World Titles than anyone as his number is somewhere around 35.

-They wrap things up with Flair putting both guys over as two of the nicest men to ever work in the business and Steamboat jokes to Sting that Flair is probably working them again. Nice!

-This was a very short episode as it clocked in around 18 minutes and I’m kind of baffled why these shows keep losing time. I was hoping for more from this one, but really how much can you talk about in 18 minutes with a group as legendary as this one. I can only wonder what was left on the cutting room floor. From what we get it was a mix of talking about the old days and hyping up the new era of guys and girls which made for a weird show. I wanted to hear more about the discussing their feuds and matches, but that didn’t happen nearly enough. It’s still worth a watch and as you would expect, Flair was the driving force behind most of the conversation with Sting being the one to lay back and chime in when needed. Some good stuff, but it could and should have been great.