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In the SPOTLIGHT!
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FWrestling.com - Circuit News and Info
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FWrestling.com - Circuit News and Info
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Fwrestling.com news
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ESEN Spotlight: The Killing of the King (Part Three)
You got some nerve to come back here, you’re not the only one who can smell fear.
The match itself was a back – and – forth contest between two wrestlers at the absolute peak of their ability, but their respective seconds and associated partners were destined to interfere. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Eli officially won the match via disqualification, but the image that remained in the minds of the people watching was Bandit and Junior Hornet holding Eli back while Troy strapped the World Title belt around his own waist.
As previously stated, title belts were almost never a part of the feud between Eli Flair and Troy Windham. Eli quickly showed why, as he practically demanded a match with Troy at the upcoming THANKSGIVING WEEKEND SPECTACULAR two – day event, despite the fact that he had a World Title defense on Night One against the seven foot tall Deacon, and was to lead his team in WAR GAMES in the main event of Night Two against The UnHoly. His fight with Troy, sandwiched in as the opener of the second night, would fall short, as he lost the championship to Deacon.
Still, in their match; the second and last that they would have in the old millennium, Eli managed to score the pinfall victory with a reversal of a submission hold; the last wrestling move between these two men for nearly seven years. Following the WAR GAMES main event, Eli would also not wrestle for several months, citing injuries and general fatigue, and was looking forward to an open – ended break.
His return would mark the night that he Staked a Claim on the CSWA.
The World Needs a Hero
CSWA Anniversary 2000 featured a main event that most of the professional wrestling world had been hoping for and anticipating for over two years. Ever since he made his CSWA debut, The Deacon had been a silent, efficient Hero, walking the line with dignity and poise. From a marketing standpoint, he was everything that the CSWA could have hoped for – his clean cut image was a throwback to the days when the good guys wore white and the bad guys wore black, every time, but despite the nature of the ‘character’ he was never the type to lecture or bore the people. From a wrestling standpoint, he was a heavyweight that could move like a cruiserweight, and his ability kept the fans coming back night after night.
The match that was a pipe dream quickly became a possibility following the Thanksgiving Weekend Spectacular 1999, as ‘Devastating’ Mike Randalls made his return to the CSWA. For the man formerly known as the King of Darkness to square off with The Deacon, at CSWA Anniversary 2000, the World Title was almost an afterthought. Indeed, the two men wrestled one of the most memorable matches in Anniversary history for more than sixty minutes, until the unthinkable happened.
Eli Flair, Poison Ivy, and Hornet joined forces with Mike Randalls, with their intent to ‘Stake a Claim’ on the CSWA. To this day there is little information on how much of their subsequent promo was part of the show and how much of it was an attempt at a power play, but the immediate after effect was that Eli Flair, Hornet, and Mike Randalls, dubbed the ‘ClaimStakers,’ were the new villains on the block. Further complicating things was the fact that the only real ‘Hero’ in the CSWA, Deacon, was forced to vacate the championship and leave the company due to complications from Multiple Sclerosis. The CSWA needed a trio of fearless heroes to combat this new threat, and the only men who stepped up were, ironically, The Playboys, Troy Windham and Eddy Love.
They would be joined for a spell by Cardigo Mysterian, who would prove the deciding factor in the first official meeting between the men as part of their respective stables. Mobile, Alabama would see a Sixty Minute Marathon match between Hornet and Eli of the ClaimStakers, and the Playboys, Troy and Eddy. Two sights dominated the night: first, as the time limit ran out and the teams were tied at four falls apiece, Cardigo Mysterian emerged from the crowd to tip the scales in favor of the Playboys in sudden death overtime. Second, more hauntingly, Eli Flair dragged Eddy Love’s valet Sweet Melissa from the floor to the ring apron, and viciously powerbombed her through a table on the outside. This action would have severe consequences for the King of Extreme in the months to come.
In a move just as polarizing as the formation of the ClaimStakers itself, CSWA Commissioner Chad Merritt pointedly included Mike Randalls in the Round Robin tournament, and discluded both Hornet and Eli Flair, despite the fact that the only other former champions included in the field were Randalls himself, and Eddy Love.
But it would be at Elvis Lives XII where, not only did the IRONMAN come to a close with Randalls and Love wrestling the deciding match, but the war between Eli and Troy would escalate in such a way that nobody would ever be the same.
You will know me from scars I bear! You will know me by the hate I swear!
As the ClaimStakers/Playboys feud continued to escalate, the Playboys shifted out Cardigo Mysterian as their unaffiliated third party and replaced him with ‘The English Gent’ Lawrence Stanley, and gradually broke down to their individual parts. Randalls and Love would meet in the final match of the IRONMAN, Hornet and Stanley would feud over Teri Melton, of all people, and Eli and Troy would reignite the hatred and ill will they had towards each other the previous year. The only difference between the three matches was the fact that Eli and Troy were to settle their differences – indeed, they had each won one of their two prior matches – inside a roofed steel cage.
Or so the plan was to go.
In reality, the moment the bell rang, the moment the cage began to lower around the ring, Eli tackled Troy and both men collapsed to the outside. For the next thirty minutes, there was no wrestling to be had at Elvis Lives XII. For the next thirty minutes, Eli and Troy beat each other to shreds with their fists, with chairs, with walls, with concrete floors and steel guardrails, and with the meaty goodness, boiling water, and warm broken glass of a hot dog vendor.
It was clear at that point that the original sins of Troy putting Eli out for a year, and Eli considering himself on the same level as Troy were far forgotten in the heat of the intense ultraviolence that the two men were inflicting on each other. Even after Troy dropped Eli from the lower tier to the floor, by way of the hot dog vendor, the King of Extreme refused to take the slightest back step.
When the two men finally returned to ringside, and there was no way for them to get back into the ring, Troy simply improvised. He climbed the side of the cage and dropped himself on Eli. Then he did it again.
But Eli was not to be outdone, and when Troy went up for a third go, Eli met him halfway up.
They struggled, they traded blows, and when Troy kicked him in the jaw, Eli fell twelve feet, square on his back.
Troy climbed to the top of the cage to survey the damage, and he saw something that would be forever burned into the psyche of every CSWA fan in attendance: he saw Eli Flair, mere seconds after taking the Nestea Plunge, pull himself to his feet. Unbelievably, as Troy attempted to climb even higher in order to deliver a more permanent finishing blow, Eli caught his ankle three quarters of the way up the cage, and held on tightly. Troy did his best to kick the King of Extreme away, but Eli held onto the cage, if not Troy’s ankle.
It left nowhere for Troy to go but the top of the cage. And in a moment that would both signal the moment of escalation for this feud, and the tremendous resilience of both men, Eli ducked Troy’s initial assault and drove the King of the Slackers to the mesh ceiling with a Slacknife of his very own, causing the top of the cage to break, and both men to fall to the ring below. This would have been Eli’s moment of triumph, if not for the fact that Troy was able to get a hand on his chest, and take home the pinfall victory.
Afterwards, as both men struggled to their feet and ignored the cheers of the fans, Eli Flair dropped Troy Windham with a right hand and a chokeslam before walking out to a stunned silence. Not only did this act mean the war would continue, but it was a clear sign to the masses that not even a mere fall through a cage would sate their lust for each others’ blood. Something had to – and would – give.
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