Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

[Loss]

If you were just focusing on the "NO" screaming, I might be inclined to agree with you. It's not my favorite part of Flair's game.

 

But then when spots like this are described:

 

Now granted... he does bitch out of the face reverses it, and he does bitch out if the face (Any Face) applies to him and happens to apply it better than the Master of the Figure Four and those do more damage to Ric than Ric's own figure four did to the Face. I mean... if they do go to those spots, Ric is bitching out like a MoFo.

You are describing a wrestler allowing others to get offense on him. If that is what constitutes "playing the bitch", then every wrestler who has ever had a competitive match is guilty of it.

[Loss]

And I apparently don't know what "playing the bitch" means. I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense, to a point when I was surprised when I started watching Jumbo matches that he actually sold and gave people openings pretty regularly. The argument always seemed to be that top wrestlers are wrong to do that.

[jdw]

I literally can't fathom the suggestion that Flair is akin to the Honky Tonk Man

For what it's worth, I have no idea where the HTM stuff came from. I don't recall throwing out that thesis before. I was disagreeing with Jerry above on the "Bitch" aspect.

 

Hell, it's been so long since I've given two shits about HTM to watch his matches and worry about whether he was a bitch. The words/phrases that came to my mind when watching him back in the say were "shitty", "joke", and "for fuck's sake has the IC Title gone to shit since Savage stopped holding it".

 

In contrast, I tend to think Flair was a pretty damn great/effective champ.

 

John

[NintendoLogic]

But by Starrcade, in storyline, Flair had had months to prep -- and was now being positioned as greatest champ ever™. He was able to take out Luger's leg during the match, which gave him the win. That match was designed to leave you thinking Flair is the GOAT champ and that Luger is not going to get another title shot for a long time.

 

Sure, Luger gets a lot of time on top in both matches, but in the second match there's no sense in which you come away from the match not thinking Flair is the better wrestler.

You mean the match where Flair destroys Luger's leg with a chair while JJ Dillon has the ref distracted and gets the pin with his feet on the ropes?

[jdw]

This thread is my Hotel California.

My girlfriend has a combination of putting together Hotel California, Freebird, Sweet Emotion and Stairway to Heaven... the four AOR songs she hates the most.

 

John

[jdw]

He and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches,

Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33?

 

I think Flair took less than that. I recently re-watched the Flair/Garvin match from the Superstars on Superstation special and (IIRC) Flair got all of 3 (!) moves during a 16 minute match and this includes the weak ass running knee to Garvin's back which ended the entire thing. Sure, Flair threw some chops here and there but all of those were done just to set up getting his ass kicked over and over by Garvin.

 

Awesome.

 

Part of that is Ronnie: he really liked to Top. His great match with Tully saw him really kick the living shit out of Tully. There were times where it looked like Tully transitioned, thought "Alright... might turn to be on top for a while and get some FIP on Ronnie..." and then a minute or so later Ronnie had enough of that, and went back to kicking the shit out of Tully.

 

Ronnie could sell, and had his own way of doing it. But he also had a lot of fun turning a heel into a pretzel.

 

John

[jdw]

If you were just focusing on the "NO" screaming, I might be inclined to agree with you. It's not my favorite part of Flair's game.

Again... go back to the earlier thread. Folks had a tough time coming back after mountain upon mountain of bitchy Flair was piled up. Christ, Loss... we tossed out examples of him bitching out to REFS!

 

What I don't get is why people still get defensive over this after we also say:

 

"While he was bitching out to the Ref, it was an effective spot to fill up time in the match because people loved it."

 

It's a bit like people getting defensive over over factual statements about this legendary car of the 80s:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F40

 

It's a fact that the car had no sound system, no door handles, no glove box, no leather trim, no carpets, and no door panels were installed. The interior of the car was... well... goofy, though there was a reason for the goofiness.

 

It was also a great, great, great car for the era and for what it was trying to do.

 

Obsessive F40 Fan might get so locked into "This is God's Gift to Super Cars and can do now wrong" that any factual statements that he reads as "ripping" completely overwhelm what the other person is saying:

 

"This is one mutherfucking great super car. It has its goofiness, but it's fucking great!"

 

"Goofiness? What's this goofiness shit you're talking about?!?!"

-F40 Fan

 

 

But then when spots like this are described:

 

 

Now granted... he does bitch out of the face reverses it, and he does bitch out if the face (Any Face) applies to him and happens to apply it better than the Master of the Figure Four and those do more damage to Ric than Ric's own figure four did to the Face. I mean... if they do go to those spots, Ric is bitching out like a MoFo.

You are describing a wrestler allowing others to get offense on him. If that is what constitutes "playing the bitch", then every wrestler who has ever had a competitive match is guilty of it.

Ric lets others get offense on his by:

 

* getting hiptossed all over the place

* getting back body dropped all over the place

* getting shoulder blocked all over the place

* getting tossed into the corner for the Corner Bump

* getting Tossed Off The Top Rope

* Gorilla Slammed

* Clothesline-fu

* eating whatever suplex they want to give him

* getting put in whatever hold they want to put him in

* letting the Ref get offense on him

* eating the Ten Count Punch in the corner

* letting the Face win 80%+ of the Chop vs [Face Answer] spots

* etc, etc, etc, etc

 

With the figure four, we're faced with this dilemma. We are told:

 

* Ric is the Master of the Figure Four

* it's his "finisher"

* he does it better than anyone else

 

What we see is:

 

* Ric's Figure Four only really, really, really hurts the face of he cheats by grabbing the ropes

* Everyone can reverse Ric's figure four

* even a decade plus after Ric has "pefected" it, he hasn't figure out how to keep it from getting reversed

* reversing Ric's figure four hurts Ric more than Ric's figure four hurts the face

* we'd best not think to hard about the Risk-Reward of that too much...

 

Aw, fuck it... let's for a moment:

 

1. Face Reversal > Ric's Figure Four

2. 100% chance of Figure Four Reversal

 

Ric is taking the first shot in Russian Roulette with a six shooter... with six live cartridges in the chambers. By attempting the Figure Four, he is going to bitch out and take more damage.

 

This is one of the side tangents people have had in prior Flair discussions:

 

A. This spot doesn't make a bit of sense from a logic standpoint: Ric is going to fail

B. Ric must know this from vast past experience: it happens to him All The Fucking Time

C. However... the spot makes great sense if the objective is to pop the crowd by Ric bitching out

 

It doesn't make a bit of sense from a storyline standpoint, as does a hell of a lot of stuff in Ric's matches... beyond the true point of Ric's heel working stylings:

 

- Ric Has Shit To Do

- That Shit Keeps The Match Moving Along

- That Shit Pops The Crowd

- That Shit Makes The Face Look Great

- That Shit Makes Flair Look Weak

 

Those are Ric's Five Shits Of Doom to work a match. Nothing else really matter. It was really effective.

 

Okay... where were we on the figure four...

 

* Ric's Figure Four only really, really, really hurts the face of he cheats by grabbing the ropes

* Everyone can reverse Ric's figure four

* even a decade plus after Ric has "pefected" it, he hasn't figure out how to keep it from getting reversed

* reversing Ric's figure four hurts Ric more than Ric's figure four hurts the face

* we'd best not think to hard about the Risk-Reward of that too much...

 

Okay... next...

 

* Nearly Everyone puts the figure four on Ric

* Everyone's figure four does more damage to Ric than Ric's does to them

 

Ric is the Master... he's perfected it over a decade... it's his finisher (even if you could go a year without seeing him beat anyone of note with it)... the Face may not ever use the hold in his other matches... but out of nowhere he can slap it on Ric, apply it better, do more damage to Ric, and make Ric squeal from it.

 

Bitch spot.

 

A glorious great one since the crowd is going batshit for it. Never annoyed me much.

 

I don't care for the Ref Shove & Bump Spot, but couldn't argue with Frank years ago when he pointed out that it was really effective bitching because the crowd ate it up.

 

Anyway...

 

Get past the obsessing over the word Bitch. It's what Ric played in the ring. Exceptionally well. He was a great worker. One of the best, if not the best, of his era. Like the Ferrari F40: one of the greatest super cars of all time, despite its quirks.

 

John

[jdw]

And I apparently don't know what "playing the bitch" means. I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense, to a point when I was surprised when I started watching Jumbo matches that he actually sold and gave people openings pretty regularly. The argument always seemed to be that top wrestlers are wrong to do that.

No one has ever said that Flair should give very few of his opponents any offense. It certainly wasn't part of the prior Flair thread. I think you know that, and I'm kind of surprised that you're claiming that was an argument people made. :/

 

John

[jdw]

But by Starrcade, in storyline, Flair had had months to prep -- and was now being positioned as greatest champ ever™. He was able to take out Luger's leg during the match, which gave him the win. That match was designed to leave you thinking Flair is the GOAT champ and that Luger is not going to get another title shot for a long time.

 

Sure, Luger gets a lot of time on top in both matches, but in the second match there's no sense in which you come away from the match not thinking Flair is the better wrestler.

You mean the match where Flair destroys Luger's leg with a chair while JJ Dillon has the ref distracted and gets the pin with his feet on the ropes?

 

Now now...

[Loss]

And I apparently don't know what "playing the bitch" means. I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense, to a point when I was surprised when I started watching Jumbo matches that he actually sold and gave people openings pretty regularly. The argument always seemed to be that top wrestlers are wrong to do that.

No one has ever said that Flair should give very few of his opponents any offense. It certainly wasn't part of the prior Flair thread. I think you know that, and I'm kind of surprised that you're claiming that was an argument people made. :/

 

John

 

Frankensteiner just pointed out that Flair had three offensive moves in the Garvin match, and you agreed with him. Was the point to praise that as a good thing or criticize it as a bad thing? I don't think it was a neutral statement. We have agreed on the only facts stated in this back and forth, which were that:

 

* Ric Flair sold a lot for muscleheads, and gave them lots of offense in his matches

* Ric Flair and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches (And yes, Garvin probably did more of that)

* Ric Flair sold a lot for Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat, and gave them lots of offense in his matches, but they also did the same for him

 

If you're trying to get me to concede a point that Flair sold a lot and gave his opponents a lot of offense, I'm not going to disagree with that. What I don't understand is that it's a point of criticism. And I don't understand the difference between doing that and "bitching out", despite the explanation. It seems to be some term that only applies to Ric Flair.

[Childs]

I'm horrified that this thread has again risen from the grave anew, but I do like the phrase "Five Shits of Doom" as applied to Flair. Made me smile.

[Johnny Guitar]

I don't see Flair "bitching out" as necessarily a bad thing. I think that was one of the things the NWA champion had to do as part of the job.

 

They were all mostly heels. At best tweeners, and their job was to put over the locals and then get out of town. We don't have the footage, but I bet there was tons of times were Lou Thesz bumped and stooged like a king.

 

Flair was just following in that tradition.The only difference being that he was on national TV, so everyone got to see it. Made worse that his counterpart (Hogan) was running roughshed.

[ohtani's jacket]

I've never gotten the sense watching Flair that his opponent was the better wrestler or that Flair didn't have a fighting chance. I also recall Jumbo playing the bitch any time he'd do those whiny facial expressions of his.

[jdw]

And I apparently don't know what "playing the bitch" means. I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense, to a point when I was surprised when I started watching Jumbo matches that he actually sold and gave people openings pretty regularly. The argument always seemed to be that top wrestlers are wrong to do that.

No one has ever said that Flair should give very few of his opponents any offense. It certainly wasn't part of the prior Flair thread. I think you know that, and I'm kind of surprised that you're claiming that was an argument people made. :/

 

John

 

Frankensteiner just pointed out that Flair had three offensive moves in the Garvin match, and you agreed with him.

Seriously... do I have to recap what that was about? Okay, if I must:

 

Loss: "He and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches"

 

That was in the process of explaining that Ric only really got the shit kicked out of him by Big Monster Babyfaces.

 

jdw: "Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33?"

 

I pointed out that Ronnie-Flair wasn't remotely Even Stevens, unless you think 67/33 is a Close Fight.

 

Frakensteiner quoted both of us with actually Stats and Examples and Stuff:

 

He and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches,

Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33?

 

I think Flair took less than that. I recently re-watched the Flair/Garvin match from the Superstars on Superstation special and (IIRC) Flair got all of 3 (!) moves during a 16 minute match and this includes the weak ass running knee to Garvin's back which ended the entire thing. Sure, Flair threw some chops here and there but all of those were done just to set up getting his ass kicked over and over by Garvin.

To which I did two things:

 

(i) "Awesome!" for bringing the details

 

(ii) indicated that was consistent for Ronnie: he liked to kick the shit out of heel like Flair and Tully

 

Now how you go from (i) me saying that Ronnie-Flair was 67/33 and Frankensteiner to saying the it was even more extreme than that to (ii) "I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense" is gobsmacking, Loss. No one remotely is saying The Best Of All Possible Flair's should give very few of his opponents any offense. What we are saying is that the Real Flair gave them a shitload, bitched out, and it was really effective.

 

This is similar to the old Hulk Hogan argument:

 

Old Hardcore Fans: "Hogan sucks! He can't work! He doesn't do shit in there! Same crap all the time!"

 

Revisionist Hardcore Fans: "You know... Hogan's pretty effective in there. The matches are laid out well. They have their movements to build heat. He, or guys like Patterson, get what the fans want to see. That shit is really working well. Might not be my favorite type of wrestling, but it's smart and effective."

 

I love Flair at the time. When I watch him now, I'm about as bored out of my skull as Daniel and Dylan are when watching Misawa-Kawada at their peaks. I could write a lot more on why, but it's a sidebar. But I still see him as a really effective worker: he gets fans into his matches. At his peak, he drew well so it was quite a few fans there that were into what he and his opponent were doing. An all-time great worker. I tend his work in specific terms isn't what people think it is when waxing poetically (i.e. people who try to draw big picture deep thought of his work when he's really as simplistic of a worker as say Hogan was in the 80s). But I don't disagree with the notion that he was a great worker.

 

His method of being a great worker was to stooge and bitch to faces. Folks don't like those words, but I could use "debase himself" just as easily and it's even more accurate.

 

 

We have agreed on the only facts stated in this back and forth, which were that:

 

* Ric Flair sold a lot for muscleheads, and gave them lots of offense in his matches

Ric sold for everyone, and as a heel gave most of the key stuff to his opponents. He did this well to draw heat and make the faces look good.

 

 

* Ric Flair and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches (And yes, Garvin probably did more of that)

Ric sold for Ronnie just like he sold to all heels. Since they wrestled "stiff" and the Chop/Slap was a key element of the storyline, people have this image that they beat the hell out of each other. Really... Ronnie beat the hell out of Flair.

 

 

* Ric Flair sold a lot for Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat, and gave them lots of offense in his matches, but they also did the same for him

Barry did that for all heels. Ricky did that for all heels. This wasn't really anything that Ric brought to the table: it was the faces dictating that based on how they liked to work. On the other hand... they also beat up Flair. They weren't Even Steven matches, or close.

 

If you're trying to get me to concede a point that Flair sold a lot and gave his opponents a lot of offense, I'm not going to disagree with that. What I don't understand is that it's a point of criticism. And I don't understand the difference between doing that and "bitching out", despite the explanation. It seems to be some term that only applies to Ric Flair.

You're stuck in Bitching = Criticism, no matter how many times folks toss out Flair Was Great.

 

This is like when I original explained that Flair pretty much worked Spotfu with theme of I've Got Stuff To Do while blowing off shit that just happened. I tried to explain that Flair's Stuff was effective in moving the matches along, giving the fans lots of stuff to pop for, giving it a forward moment even if it didn't look back to what happened earlier. You know... the same shit that New Japan Juniors get shit on because it became fashionable to shit on New Japan Juniors. People really hated that, because Stuff might just be a negative in two directions:

 

* jdw might be having Stuff almost be the Flair equiv of Moves~! and we all know that Moves~! are evil in the Re-Re-Revisionist Minimalistic Analysis Era

 

* jdw might be dismissing that Stuff as being Meaningless when we all know that everything Flair did had meaning

 

Well... fuck it... Flair's Stuff *is* his equiv of Moves~! Just like Lawler's Stuff is his equiv of Moves~! because Moves~! are just Stuff as well. I can't help it if people get Wrestling Dysfunction / Impotence when Stuff makes them think of Moves~! and they feel all uneasy about their wrestling identity like those most virulent of homophobes who really secretly think a little too much about it.

 

Movesphobic: "I don't understand Moves~! Er... not that there's anything wrong with Moves~! it's just that I don't know any Moves~! that I like, and kind of which they'd keep to themselves on indy shows so I didn't have to watch them on tv."

 

jdw: "Well... that's Stuff that you like is just like Moves~! Is there any reason that Moves~! can have their own role in wrestling matches, even a big role, if the Moves~! love each other?"

 

Movesphobic: "Don't mess with the sanctity of my Stuff with your Movies~!"

 

And I could run that into the ground so more as it's too fun...

 

But anyway, I think that while people may not have loved the initial point of Flair Has Stuff To Do, since that got talked about, bubbled in their brains and they've watched Flair matches since... they pretty much have a tough time ignoring the fact that it *is* how Flair works. He really doesn't just have Stuff To Do out there, not to different from spot machines. He was pretty great at it, and people dug it.

 

At some point folks will accept that Flair was a Stooge & Bitch Heel. Really no different than say the Young Guns if you see them work one of their good indy matches.

 

John

[jdw]

I've never gotten the sense watching Flair that his opponent was the better wrestler or that Flair didn't have a fighting chance.

My thought would be to watch Starcade 85.

 

John

[jdw]

I'm horrified that this thread has again risen from the grave anew, but I do like the phrase "Five Shits of Doom" as applied to Flair. Made me smile.

I felt like Bluto making the Germans comment with that one:

 

Otter: "Germans?"

Boon: "Forget it... he's rolling."

 

 

John

[jdw]

I don't see Flair "bitching out" as necessarily a bad thing.

And that's one of the points: he was great at it, and the fans ate it up.

 

It's just a matter of admitting what it was.

 

Air Supply wasn't a heavy metal band. On the other hand, 8 Top 5 hits in 4 years off three albums + a greatest hits album... they *were* a successful group and not a Men At Work style one hit wonder.

 

Admit what Ric is, how he works, and you'll reach the same result in the end: he still was great.

 

John

[Matt D]

So what are you saying he not then, John?

 

The GOAT?

 

Or more to the point, what are people saying that he is that you disargee with?

[Loss]

I am completely hung up on the word "bitch". The word is important. And as long as you use the word, I'm going to make an issue of it. The biggest reason is that it's a Flair-unique term. And all it seems to mean is to sell and give opponents offense, which is a standard thing that every wrestler does, especially heels.

 

Do you talk about Jumbo playing the bitch? Or Kawada? Or Hansen? Or Liger? Or the MX?

 

At best, it's a backhanded compliment. It's not a term that I think anyone would associate with praise, much less as a neutral statement of fact.

 

Ric Flair liked to sell. He liked to bump. He liked to give his opponents offense. He liked to make his opponents look good. He liked to build to really hot nearfalls where people thought he was about to lose. There is truth in this for any wrestler that anyone around here would praise.

 

In addition to that, he didn't win decisively in a way that made him look like the better man very often. I'm sure we could point to occasions when he did, but it wasn't the norm.

 

"Playing the bitch" is an implication that he's doing something other top heels don't do, and that doing it is wrong, no matter how many times you say that it isn't.

 

I could bring Vader into this argument, who may have taken more bumps (way more if you add in Race's bumps) per match at his peak than Flair did. Did Vader play the bitch too? If not, why not? If so, have you ever used that term to describe his act?

[ohtani's jacket]

Men At Work had two hit albums.

[Loss]

And as much as I'm sure it seems the opposite is true, the purpose of me being so adamant about this is not to keep defending Flair. I'm a fan, but I have fatigue on going through arguments like these. Still, when Flair is held to a critical standard that no one else is, I'm going to speak up when I think those criticisms aren't being fairly applied to other wrestlers.

[Bix]

Men At Work had two hit albums.

Men At Work was a great band.

[goodhelmet]

Overkill was one of the greatest song of the 1980s.

[Matt D]

[NintendoLogic]

I don't understand the hangup over the term "bitch." I mean, "chickenshit" isn't exactly a term of endearment, but we use "chickenshit heel" in neutral or even laudatory terms all the time. As for what playing the bitch entails, it goes beyond selling and bumping big for your opponent. It's acting in a way that makes you come across as a coward or a buffoon.