[1993-12-25-WCW-Saturday Night] Interview: Ric Flair

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Flair dons a Cosby sweater and sits next to a fireplace with Gene Okerlund and Tony Schiavone. This is an OUTSTANDING segment, with Flair talking calmly about what his career has meant to him, why he put it all on the line against Vader, and how he feels like the odds are in his favor going into Starrcade. Great piece of business. This was the first time they pushed Flair trying to recapture past glory as a storyline, and it was also the best.

[El-P]

Flair is great is this setting. I love these kind of interviews because it feels legit and real. The build to Flair vs Vader was simple and excellent.

[Kevin Ridge]

Random location for an interview as they are by a fireplace in oversized chairs but they make it work. Tony is off to the side. Okerlund with a beverage. The setting does allow for a more low key interview from Flair. Really good in getting over the seriousness of Ric putting his career on the line and that this could be his last match.

[PeteF3]

This has the look of a Bing Crosby Christmas special, supposedly from Gene Okerlund's Minnesota cabin. Flair is so good in low-key settings that it sometimes feels like a shame that he's so associated with a screaming act. Okerlund is really great here, too.

[garretta]

Assuming that this was actually from Gene's cabin (and it might have been, since they could have taped this at any time after Battlebowl), why did Tony fly up there to do ​absolutely nothing? Even if it was just a studio set, having him there was a total waste of time if we were only going to see him for two seconds at the start of the piece. As I've said several times throughout this Yearbook, if this is the way Bischoff handled money it's no surprise that they went out of business. The surprise is that it took them eight years to do it.

 

Ric and Gene may or may not have spent the last five New Year's Eves together, but their friendship seemed a hell of a lot more genuine than Gene's supposed friendship with Hogan, even though he and Hogan had known each other for longer. There was a warmth between them here that was obvious from the start, and though Gene inevitably slipped into shill mode a bit, it didn't ruin the moment. Maybe it would have been better for the JCP old-timers if it had been Tony doing the interview instead, but regardless it was something special. (If Gene chose to party with Flair, the face of the competition, it might be one reason why Vince fired him several times during his final years in the WWF.)

 

Flair sounded like an athlete for once in his life, and as Pete said he was so good when he low-keyed it that it's a mystery to me why he started screaming and acting like a lunatic. He was quietly confident in his ability to handle the challenge of Vader, and even accepted the possibility of a loss with grace and class. (Okay, that may have been because he knew he was winning, but still.) This was the Flair that people brag about and call the greatest wrestler ever, and it's a shame that we haven't seen him since the '92 Royal Rumble at least. If what I've read and heard is right, this may be the last time we see him for quite a while, too. What a shame.

 

I'd have loved to have seen an answer interview from Vader in a similar vein; we know he's capable of being low-key and reflective from some of his Japanese interviews. WCW hasn't chosen to portray him that way, though, and they definitely wouldn't have started just two days before a Starrcade that was pretty much built around the fact that he was going to lose.

 

Interesting that Ric mentioned that his family was going to be in the audience. I thought from what we saw in the prematch from Starrcade that they were staying home. Maybe they were coming in their own car later.

 

The NBA players hyping the match may have been great for Turner corporate synergy, but we didn't need to see Charles Barkley right on the heels of an interview like this. They could have played that soundbyte (which I'm pretty sure we'd seen before) at another point in the program.

[soup23]

I had never seen this before and it is GREAT. Flair feels warm and adds gravity to the impending match. I wish this didn't happen on Christmas day as I doubt the audience was as big as It could have been. Overall, this is one of those segments that reminds me that FLair is able to get me emotionally invested like few other wrestlers in history.