JerryvonKramer Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 The idea that Flair was not versatile is just batshit insane to my mind. Let's talk about versatility. What's versatile? This: The good old potato. You can make them into fries and have them with your steak or burger, or you can put them in a wildly different context like in the main course of a meal at the 3-star Michelin restaurant and they don't look out of place on the plate. And what's more, in both contexts, the potato is doing a lot of the work in terms of making you full and giving you a nice dining experience. You can mash potato, you can make it into chips, you can roast it, you can boil it, you can fry it, you can sautee it. You can serve it with fish, meat, eggs, pies, as the "feature of a dish" (e.g. jacket potato). Probably in the top 10 meals you've ever had, potato features somewhere. So do you rag on potato because in EVERY meal it's kinda the same thing? I mean whichever way you cook it, it's a bit starchy right? No matter what you do to the potato, it still has a certain potatoness. Ric Flair is the potato of wrestling. You can stick him in there with Sting or Luger or Hogan or Jumbo or Funk or Steamboat or Fujinami or Vader or fucking Sam Houston .. you can have him in All Japan, New Japan, Mid South, Memphis, Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta, WWF ... you can have him in sprints, 45-minute broadways, cage matches, tag matches, last-man-standing matches, hardcore matches ... and he'll still be fairly enjoyable, he'll still be working hard to make your meal as nice and filling as it can be. If that isn't versatility then was is it? You can't do the same thing with every food. You can't take, for example, artichoke and make it work in all the contexts in which potato works. It just isn't as versatile. As much as anyone wants to praise certain guys what does Tenryu look like in WWF if not a fish out of water? Can you take Kawada and slap him in a mid-80s Texas setting, does he still work in the same way? You can with Flair. No matter the opponent, no matter the setting, no matter the context, Flair works. It's fucking insane in my mind think that he wasn't versatile because he does a flop, a flip and chop in every match. There isn't a single wrestler who doesn't get their shit in every match. You don't see Terry Funk matches where he doesn't do his standard spots. The recent thread has borne out that this is true of Lucha stars as much as Japanese stars as much as US stars. It's a total fucking misnomer that Flair is doing something wrong that other people are getting right when it comes to varying repertoire. I don't want to read ever again from anyone that "Flair always has the same match", it's a total nonsense. He brings the same basic ingredient to every match -- potato, Flair -- and the opponent brings something else and they combine to make a meal. Fish and chips is not the same meal as burger and fries. Potato gratin is not the same meal as shepherds pie. Flair vs. Luger is not the same as Flair vs. Garvin, which is not the same as Flair vs. Jumbo. Please wake up and smell the coffee on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I just realized that if Ric Flair is a potato, HHH was instant mashed -- some people were tricked into thinking it was something worthwhile, but it wasn't a real potato. It was really just water (spat from a bottle, as the case may be) and powder. Occasionally, someone like Foley could come along to put some gravy on it and make it seem okay, but at the end, there wasn't much there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackwebb Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I thought this was going to be the Ryback promo thread based on the title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subatomic_elbow Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I think Frispo might be a better analogy for HHH. Almost food, but it melts after a bit into a gruesome puddle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I have no idea what Frispo is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 If there were a chef who put a potato in every meal he prepared regardless of how well it meshed with the other ingredients because that's what he thought his customers wanted, I don't know how many people would consider him the greatest chef of all time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 If his specialty was potatoes, no one would frown on that at all. The best chefs aren't necessarily the ones who can cook every possible thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 You can get a good look at a bull by sticking your head up a butcher's ass. Wait... That's not right. It's gotta be your bull. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted December 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 This thread wasn't started like this, I was replying to something in another thread, but Loss liked the idea of wrestlers and food analogies. NintendoLogic - why are you still sticking to this idea that Flair wasn't versatile? I don't understand it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 It's not that Flair wasn't versatile at all. It's that he was less so than other guys in the GOAT conversation. In fact, it often seemed as if he was actively resisting changing with the times and was simply content to play his greatest hits every time out like some classic rock band. It doesn't necessarily disqualify him, but it's something to take into account if you're trying to determine if he was better than every other wrestler who ever lived. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted December 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 You know I'm a guy who always always considers "total package" when working out the worth of any guy. Is Ric Flair the BEST in-ring wrestler ever to strap on a pair of boots? Probably not. I would never argue that he is. But he is in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches against a greater variety of opponents than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Did Flair have more great matches over a longer period of time than anyone else? He's in the conversation. Is Flair the best wrestler of his generation? He's in the conservation. Is Flair the top 2 or 3 draws of his generation anywhere in the world? He's in the conversation. Is Flair the best talker of all time? He's in the conversation. Was Flair involved in more great and memorable angles than any other wrestler? He's in the conversation. Was Flair the best heel of all time? He's in the conversation. Was Flair the greatest NWA champion of all time? He's in the conversation. This is the reason I will continue to pimp Flair as a GOAT pick. He might not necessarily be number 1 in any of those categories, but he's going to be top 5 minimum. That's what makes him exceptional. Take the other GOAT candidates and they aren't top 5 in each and every category. I think you have to be very generous or favorably disposed to Terry Funk to make him top 5 in some of those. Naturally, different people use different criteria. Some people don't consider things outside of the ring to be important when assessing a guy. For me, as I've argued many times, the match is only one part of the whole thing. It's a big part, but it's still just a part. We wouldn't care about Flair half as much as we do if he wasn't such a great promo and if he didn't have such an infectious character -- it's part and parcel of why he was on top for so long. Even with that question aside, taking only the in-ring related questions, he's still there or there abouts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Generally speaking when people are talking about GOAT around here they are talking in ring. You can say "well I think you have to count X, Y and Z that aren't related to in ring" and that's fine, but it's a different conversation than the one that is being had. Also while I would generally agree that he's "in the conversation" in all of those categories, but I think saying "he's going to be top five minimum" is a stretch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted December 23, 2012 Report Share Posted December 23, 2012 Is Flair the top 2 or 3 draws of his generation anywhere in the world? He's in the conversation. Much more compelling conversation that this is not true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 23, 2012 Report Share Posted December 23, 2012 Is Flair the top 2 or 3 draws of his generation anywhere in the world? He's in the conversation. Much more compelling conversation that this is not true. Depends on how you define "his generation." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 28, 2012 Report Share Posted December 28, 2012 I don't think Flair has to be better than every other wrestler who ever lived to be the best wrestler who ever lived. He just needs to have had a better career full of more great matches than any other wrestler who ever lived. That's my metric. We can find things about everyone at that level that annoy us, Flair included. "Best wrestler of all time" and "most talented wrestler of all time" are two completely different things. Flair would be my pick in the first category. Barry Windham would probably be my pick in the second, and in no way whatsoever is he a GOAT contender. If I considered Windham a GOAT candidate, it would be totally based on a hypothetical. Ranking wrestlers based on talent instead of output is rating wrestlers on the hypothetical instead of the reality of what they managed to do with the skills they had. If someone is going to argue against Flair as a GOAT, I don't think the way to do it is to point to flaws in his style, or point out that other people were better at some things than him. Microtargeting Flair's weaknesses is a pretty useless exercise to me, much like microtargeting any wrestler's weaknesses. I think the better way is to look at all of his acclaimed matches and point out why they aren't as great as they are made out to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooley Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 I thought this was going to be the Ryback promo thread based on the title. That's ok, I was expecting something about Meltzer's ridiculous "Norwegian food" analogy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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