Longevity

[Dylan Waco]

"Longevity" is a notion that gets tossed out a lot in wrestling discussions on the web in both discussions of stardom (see the Sting thread at Classics) and in ring performance (see...well every thread ever on in ring performance). I was thinking about Ric Flair today and the debate that has sort of jumped around from thread to thread on the board about him over the last several months and it struck me that in terms of available footage the longevity of Flair as a high end worker is actually lateral to or LOWER than a lot of guys who we would generally presume have "less" longevity than him.

 

Unless I'm forgetting something the earliest we can really get a decent sampling of Flair stuff is around 81/82ish. Depending on how generous you want to be, most people on this board - including many of his bigger supporters - would probably give him through 94 at the longest as a truly "high end" guy. Perhaps I'm wrong in that assumption and I think he had some matches/periods after that that were very good (I like a lot of 05/06 Flair for example), but generally speaking that's his "run" that we can document in a meaningful way.

 

That's a lot of time as a high end guy and we have a ton more televised/taped high end Flair matches than with virtually anyone, but my point is that the "run" of time for high end Flair that we can actually document is really not THAT extraordinary. For example Negro Casas has DOUBLE that (albeit with a much smaller sampling of footage). To some degree the same could be said for Tenryu. Hansen is basically lateral with Flair. You could easily argue that a guy like Dundee has a longer "run" and even guys who are seen as having had brief/unfulfilled potential relative to others like Eddie or Barry Windham you could easily argue aren't far behind.

 

My point here is not to diminish Flair. It's not his fault that we don't have much 70's MACW in full and what is out there hasn't really been reviewed much or talked about a lot. My point is that I wonder A. to what extent "longevity" has just become a meaningless talking point B. what length of time really qualifies as a substantially "long run" and C. whether or not we generally overrate "longevity" as a trait when looking at both workers and stars.

 

Perhaps I'm just being an obtuse, nitpicky, bastard, but I would be interested to hear others thoughts.

[Loss]

I think longevity is helpful in comparing wrestlers, but it's not useful in isolation, and without context. There's a difference between being "great" for 20+ years, and being one of the best in the world for 20+ years.

 

There are wrestlers who have been great much longer than Flair, but Flair sustained a GOAT-level peak longer than anyone else I can recall. I look at that as 1982-1989. He still had gas in the tank after that, but Ric Flair as the idealized version of "The Man" was never the same after that.

 

I can't think of anyone else who had as many good, great and classic matches in an 8-year period. I'm willing to admit that I may be wrong, (As I told Dylan recently, I was wrong once. It was a Thursday.) but anything after that doesn't really factor into my opinion of him, whether I like it or don't like it. I may have learned to love it at times when he pulled out a great match, but it was no longer the best thing going today.

 

Being great for 8 years is impressive, but plenty of people fit that bill. Being the #1 guy in the promotion while also being the best wrestler in the world for an 8-year stretch is something I can't think of anyone else ever doing. (1987 and 1988 are the two years where I'd probably argue that he wasn't for various reasons, but he was still in the top 2-3 at worst.) So I use the phrase "best in the world" loosely. He had a very strong case every single one of those years. The guy is the biggest reason I want to do 80s yearbooks. Release a 1985 Yearbook and see Flair alongside everyone else in wrestling at the time, and there's no way his GOAT case isn't sealed. At least that's how it plays out in my mind.

 

Watch a yearbook from any year in the 90s so far. The biggest takeaway is that "Wow, All Japan had some great matches", not "Wow, Kawada had some great matches." That's the difference between those guys and Flair for me.

 

I think we have to be careful saying guys like Casas "double" Flair's longevity. Just because he had an all-time classic in 1987 and an all-time classic in 2012, we shouldn't assume that based on that alone, he was delivering them every single year in between. I love Negro Casas. He's probably my #2 GOAT, to be honest. And in most years that I have seen a Negro Casas match, I have seen a stellar Negro Casas match that is one of my favorites of the year. But he probably wasn't one of top two or three wrestlers in the world every single year from 1987 - 2012.

[Dylan Waco]

I think we have to be careful saying guys like Casas "double" Flair's longevity. Just because he had an all-time classic in 1987 and an all-time classic in 2012, we shouldn't assume that based on that alone, he was delivering them every single year in between. I love Negro Casas. He's probably my #2 GOAT, to be honest. And in most years that I have seen a Negro Casas match, I have seen a stellar Negro Casas match that is one of my favorites of the year. But he probably wasn't one of top two or three wrestlers in the world every single year from 1987 - 2012.

 

I actually agree with this, even though I sort of accidentally ended up making a "hard sell" for Casas in my initial post. I do think we need to be careful about those sort of things, which is kind of the purpose for the thread. We hear about how Flair has unbelievably longevity often - but we can't really document it. Your point about him being at the absolute highest level for the longest consecutive stretch is an interesting way of looking at longevity and maybe a better way to look at it. I'd rather people focus longevity talk on things like that than pointing out that Flair was active for a long time and had a good match here or there through 2008.

 

With a guy like Casas or Jim Breaks, the sampling size is really unfortunate. In the last several years a lot of Casas has made tape and even in his old age he's an incredible wrestler near the very best in the world (probably my pick for WOTY this year for those who care). But there are gaps and period where we have very little. Breaks got more tv appearances than almost any Brit in history, but it's still a smattering of matches compared to what we have from his American counterparts. Yes they are spanned over a pretty lengthy period of time but it's a very, very incomplete picture and he is a guy who won't benefit from more found footage because non exists.

 

In any event my point about Casas was more or less that he is a guy who has a long run of greatness, much like Flair. I.E. Flair is not really "unique" in that regard. He may be unique in the regard you mention - perhaps. I'd have to think about it more, though even on the casual level I can already see possible arguments for other guys including some that might be dismissed because they weren't traveling the road like Flair.

[ohtani's jacket]

Casas is a tricky one.

 

We'll never know how good he was in the 80s because UWA didn't have TV and no new handhelds have emerged to date. The UWA TV that does exist from the early 90s is a different style from CMLL. The guys you expect to be good look good, but the matches are consistently fun as opposed to spectacular, and the Santo/Casas match that exists from '92 is clipped to shit. He shows up in 1992 CMLL and is an absolute genius, which I think it's safe to assume didn't happen over night, but we'll never really know how good Casas was compared to his peers during his UWA days. Remember, there were a lot of good workers in Mexico during that timeframe. From what I've seen, most of Casas' contemporaries in the '89-92 period peaked during that TV boom. Of the top workers from that era, only Satanico really looks like a fantastic worker in the early 80s. So, it's hard to gauge.

 

Also, Casas hasn't ever been put under the microscope like Ric Flair because not enough people have seen him work. At his best I think Casas is an absolute genius, but I have a lot of issues with his work. I think his offense is often weak and his matwork can be poor. There are matches where that isn't the case, but the more offense heavy CMLL became the less I liked his work. There's a decade or more from '98-10 or thereabouts where I wouldn't bother watching his matches. It's probably a stylistic thing more than anything else and apathy towards the direction CMLL took, but I still don't like that era of Casas. In fact, the Casas/Santo shit was so dragged out and took so long to resolve itself and then led to crappy tag matches that were several notches down from the great '97 run that burnout would have been a very real possibility had I been watching the stuff in real time. Lately, he's had the Panther feud which I don't love as much as everyone else but is still worth watching and a couple of strong matches against younger guys, but unless there's a Casas set released that proves me wrong I would agree with Loss' point that it's very difficult to argue that Casas was the best in the world for multiple years in a row. Whether that means he's not a candidate for GOAT, I'm not sure. First I think you'd have to start off arguing whether he's the best luchador of all time, which I think is highly debatable.

 

As for Breaks, I think there's a bit more available that you haven't seen yet, though it may not be in full. Breaks is super fresh, which Flair obviously isn't. I remember Ditch saying that if you've seen one Breaks match you've seen them all, which is a fair comment if you don't love his schtick wholeheartedly. That Young David match is immense, though. Actually, both the Young David matches are really good. I think people may be surprised by how fun young Davey Boy Smith was when the Europe set is finally released.

[Mad Dog]

I've mentioned it in other threads, but I think Jeff Jarrett is really underrated for his longevity and consistency over his 26 year wrestling career. He's made slight tweaks to his style over the years but the quality of his matches have been pretty much the same for about the last 22 years of his career. He might have those really great match of the year type matches but you can depend on him to give you a solid to good match on a fairly consistent basis.

[Dylan Waco]

Casas is a tricky one.

 

We'll never know how good he was in the 80s because UWA didn't have TV and no new handhelds have emerged to date. The UWA TV that does exist from the early 90s is a different style from CMLL. The guys you expect to be good look good, but the matches are consistently fun as opposed to spectacular, and the Santo/Casas match that exists from '92 is clipped to shit. He shows up in 1992 CMLL and is an absolute genius, which I think it's safe to assume didn't happen over night, but we'll never really know how good Casas was compared to his peers during his UWA days. Remember, there were a lot of good workers in Mexico during that timeframe. From what I've seen, most of Casas' contemporaries in the '89-92 period peaked during that TV boom. Of the top workers from that era, only Satanico really looks like a fantastic worker in the early 80s. So, it's hard to gauge.

 

Also, Casas hasn't ever been put under the microscope like Ric Flair because not enough people have seen him work. At his best I think Casas is an absolute genius, but I have a lot of issues with his work. I think his offense is often weak and his matwork can be poor. There are matches where that isn't the case, but the more offense heavy CMLL became the less I liked his work. There's a decade or more from '98-10 or thereabouts where I wouldn't bother watching his matches. It's probably a stylistic thing more than anything else and apathy towards the direction CMLL took, but I still don't like that era of Casas. In fact, the Casas/Santo shit was so dragged out and took so long to resolve itself and then led to crappy tag matches that were several notches down from the great '97 run that burnout would have been a very real possibility had I been watching the stuff in real time. Lately, he's had the Panther feud which I don't love as much as everyone else but is still worth watching and a couple of strong matches against younger guys, but unless there's a Casas set released that proves me wrong I would agree with Loss' point that it's very difficult to argue that Casas was the best in the world for multiple years in a row. Whether that means he's not a candidate for GOAT, I'm not sure. First I think you'd have to start off arguing whether he's the best luchador of all time, which I think is highly debatable.

 

As for Breaks, I think there's a bit more available that you haven't seen yet, though it may not be in full. Breaks is super fresh, which Flair obviously isn't. I remember Ditch saying that if you've seen one Breaks match you've seen them all, which is a fair comment if you don't love his schtick wholeheartedly. That Young David match is immense, though. Actually, both the Young David matches are really good. I think people may be surprised by how fun young Davey Boy Smith was when the Europe set is finally released.

I agree that Casas hasn't been put under the microscope because frankly virtually none of the Lucha greats have. To be honest the only person I ever see be critical of the guys usually regarded as strong Lucha workers is you. I don't mean that as an attack on you either. In fact one of the things I enjoy about your contributions to this board is that on things like Lucha and Euro wrestling you have an eye that is both critical and appreciative.

 

I've probably seen a lot less Casas than you have. What I have seen has been overwhelmingly strong, to the point where I don't know that I have ever seen a performance of his that I didn't enjoy on some level. That's not to say such a thing doesn't exist. In fact I'm sue it does. I just haven't gotten there yet. Or the relative freshness of Lucha is still something that makes me blind to the weaknesses. Or both. Probably both.

 

At the moment I have Casas as my highest rated Lucha worker. I think in some ways Dandy and Satanico are better and this may be a case where implied longevity for Casas is elevating him to a slot higher than he should be. I love Panther, but I see him as a slight step down. I like Santo a lot more than you do but wouldn't rate him ahead of either of those four offhand, though if I ever buy Will's comp I could be persuaded. Not sure who else would even be in the discussion after those guys.

 

Agree on Davey Boy in Europe. I love Breaks, but he is fresh(er at least). I wouldn't argue he's better than Flair for a multitude of reasons, though Breaks does strike me as a guy that could have been great in the States and I can even envision him being a very good touring champion. I would say that peak Breaks is right up there with my favorite peak runs. He's not as impressive as Buddy Rose to me or El Dandy, but there aren't many others I'd rate clearly above him during the period/nights when he was really "on."

[Jingus]

One thing that bugs me is when people point to longevity by itself, without further context, as if it's supposed to impress us that this guy has simply hung around that long. By that metric, Abdullah and Moolah and Gypsy Joe are the greatest wrestlers of all time.

[goodhelmet]

whether I like it or don't like it. I may have learned to love it

I see what you did there Awesome!

[goodhelmet]

One thing that bugs me is when people point to longevity by itself, without further context, as if it's supposed to impress us that this guy has simply hung around that long. By that metric, Abdullah and Moolah and Gypsy Joe are the greatest wrestlers of all time.

I disagree with this. On this board, the longevity is always attached to great matches or the idea that a guy should have hung it up a long time ago.

[El-P]

but it was no longer the best thing going today.

[KrisZ]

The thing about wrestling is some guys get better the older they get as they change their style to adapt to their age where when they were younger they were able to do more athletic moves but when they lose a step they must go with a more psychological style to have a good match. Some guys didn't adapt and kept trying to be young and they can't do much either physically or psychologically.

[Jingus]

One thing that bugs me is when people point to longevity by itself, without further context, as if it's supposed to impress us that this guy has simply hung around that long. By that metric, Abdullah and Moolah and Gypsy Joe are the greatest wrestlers of all time.

I disagree with this. On this board, the longevity is always attached to great matches or the idea that a guy should have hung it up a long time ago.

 

I wasn't accusing anyone here of doing that, just noting that I've seen people do that on occasion.

[Matt D]

The thing about wrestling is some guys get better the older they get as they change their style to adapt to their age where when they were younger they were able to do more athletic moves but when they lose a step they must go with a more psychological style to have a good match. Some guys didn't adapt and kept trying to be young and they can't do much either physically or psychologically.

God yes. I talk about how much I like what I've seen of Bock in the 80s and i fully believe that I probably would like it more than Bock in the 70s. I was just saying this to Dylan the other day. The match of Bockwinkel's I like the least on the AWA set is the Verne match from 80 or so where he was going all out and bumping huge for the boss. Super energetic, and I have no use for it. When guys are forced not to rely on their athleticism, then you see if they are really great wrestlers or not.

[Dylan Waco]

To be fair Bock was a really good athlete who could cut a quick pace up until he quit as a full timer in 87...and I have seen 70's Bock that is not as "go, go, go" as that Verne match

[JerryvonKramer]

I really like Flair in 95 and 96 as well. I think 89 is far too early and don't really see why 94 should be the cut off point.

[NintendoLogic]

I would argue that Misawa's run as best in the world or close to it was at least as long as Flair's, and he did it when the worldwide standard of work was higher.

[ohtani's jacket]

If Misawa had a run as best in the world it was in 1994 and 1995.

[Dylan Waco]

I really like Flair in 95 and 96 as well. I think 89 is far too early and don't really see why 94 should be the cut off point.

What great matches does Flair have in 95 and 96?

 

89 was the last year where he was at an all time great level and felt like the epitome of a champion which I think was Loss point.

 

94 was the final go around of the Steamboat feud with several good matches and some stuff with Hogan that was actually pretty good. I think it's the last year where you could point to Flair having a quality in ring year that someone could feasibly rate near the top of the pack in the States (I wouldn't have him terribly high, but I could see an argument).

 

95....what is there? I enjoy some Flair stuff in 95, but even in a terrible down year for WCW I'm not sure he was even a top five guy IN THAT COMPANY that year. He wouldn't make my top ten for the States - possibly/probably not even my top twenty. No way he was a top tier guy in 96 even with the Savage feud that produced some fun enough matches as I recall.

 

I don't think Flair was terrible during that period. He was decent enough and the hard collapse didn't come until later. But he wasn't close to a top level guy and I can't imagine anyone really watching him those yeas and thinking he was great.

[Dylan Waco]

I would argue that Misawa's run as best in the world or close to it was at least as long as Flair's, and he did it when the worldwide standard of work was higher.

I'm not sure I ever thought Misawa was the best in the world, though he was close for as long as Flair was close.

 

As far as the worldwide standard of work being higher...I don't know about that. Coming out of tape trader/newsletter culture that was the talking point that was sold for years, but the 80's sets and the footage explosion has shown me that the general level was a lot higher than our previous assumptions indicated.

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't disagree with that, but in that case the cut off point is 89. I can accept 89 is the last time he's having GOAT-level matches.

 

But he has a lot of good to very good matches in the period from 90 to 96. 95 and 96, the triangle match sticks out in my mind, and some stuff with Savage. Again they aren't STELLAR but in no way worse than anything he was doing from 90-94. I'm just saying the drop off happens after 96. If we're saying the Steamboat matches in 94 are "very good", I think he had matches at that level in 95 and 96.

 

I don't know how much stock anyone would put into this but in 96 he was second runner-up in the PWI Wrestler of the Year and WON's readers favourite wrestler for that year. I think it's the last year that the Flair we all know and love was still around. Two years later and we get the insane lunatic late-WCW Flair I never much cared for, and his work in that period really goes downhill fast.

 

If we're setting a boundary for when he was "still good", it should be 96, if it's for "Top 5 worker anywhere in the world" it's clearly 89.

 

On a side note, how do people view his year in WWF here?

[ohtani's jacket]

Flair stopped being Flair when he cut his hair. Or perhaps before that when he started wearing it in a ponytail. I liked his 1990 stuff and don't think it was too much of a step down from 1989.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't disagree with that, but in that case the cut off point is 89. I can accept 89 is the last time he's having GOAT-level matches.

 

But he has a lot of good to very good matches in the period from 90 to 96. 95 and 96, the triangle match sticks out in my mind, and some stuff with Savage. Again they aren't STELLAR but in no way worse than anything he was doing from 90-94. I'm just saying the drop off happens after 96. If we're saying the Steamboat matches in 94 are "very good", I think he had matches at that level in 95 and 96.

What matches did he have in 95 or 96 that were at that level? I'm not saying they don't exist, but I can't think of any and that triangle match wasn't even good the last time I watched it, let alone as good as Steamboat v. Flair even in 94.

 

I don't know how much stock anyone would put into this but in 96 he was second runner-up in the PWI Wrestler of the Year and WON's readers favourite wrestler for that year. I think it's the last year that the Flair we all know and love was still around. Two years later and we get the insane lunatic late-WCW Flair I never much cared for, and his work in that period really goes downhill fast.

 

If we're setting a boundary for when he was "still good", it should be 96, if it's for "Top 5 worker anywhere in the world" it's clearly 89.

I put no stock at all in awards like that when talking about in ring ability for a variety of reasons.

 

If we are giving points to Flair through 96, there are a lot of other guys we will be giving charity points for longevity as workers.

 

On a side note, how do people view his year in WWF here?

Some good matches, not on the level of his best stuff, but still a guy you could reasonably argue was one of the top level guys in the States.

[Mini Bennett]

IMO, Flair in 1995-96 is when we started to see him decline somewhat, but it wasn't a massive drop off or anything. I think Triple H has recently started this point of his career as well (not that Hunter is really comparable to Ric). It's pretty remarkable that he only just show signs of declining around the mid-90s considering how good he was for that long.

 

Also, what's the deal with Bret? Are his critiques of Ric in his book (during his WWF run and then again in 98) anything we can actually take seriously?

[FLIK]

What matches did he have in 95 or 96 that were at that level?

There's a lot in that period i'd rate good to great, especially once the Nitro era kicked in. The Savage matches stand out above anything else but he had good stuff with Luger, Arn, Hogan, Sting & others. Carried the Giant to the best matches of the early part of his career.

 

Same time frame he was still doing tours of Japan and I thought his matches vs Hase, Mutoh & Koshinaka were great. Recall liking the Inoki match from Korea. He worked Hashimoto too but I can't remember anything about it other then I didn't think it was bad atleast.

 

To me the start of Flair no longer being a consistent high lvl guy is 97.

[soup23]

I am almost halfway through the 1990 yearbook and would say Flair far and away is still my #1 WOTY at this point.