Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

[Loss]

The point is that the things you feel makes someone better are different than what I feel makes someone better.

 

Using your criteria, I probably agree that Flair is better. But I value my criteria more than yours, understandably.

 

In a WON HOF note we argue things like drawing a lot more. Here, the criteria is different than even that. It ultimately means that we're talking about different things, but that doesn't mean we can't express our point and have a coherent discussion. There may be elements that I find in a Bret vs Kwang CV match that I find to be more appealing and more fundamentally impressive than in a Flair vs Windham or in Flair vs Koko or whatever.

 

The math in my head is different than the math in yours, and that's okay. I'm not saying you're wrong in how you feel. I'm just saying that to me, Bret is better.

 

This side of wrestling is the subjective side. The Art side.

The point is that I'm not seeing the ability to separate who you would rather watch from who is better. Do you acknowledge that those are completely different things? My favorite wrestlers to watch right now are El Dandy, Dirty White Boy, Buddy Landell, Billy Joe Travis and Bobby Eaton? I could point to individual things in each of their performances that I think outshine Flair's performance in similar situations.

 

It is perfectly fine that we view wrestling in different ways. Yours works for you, and I support that.

 

We all have our favorites. I just wish there was an attempt at objectivity. When I'm debating who is better, I'm going to downplay my personal preferences and try to be fair. Is that wrong? Do you disagree with that?

[Matt D]

Also, I am totally going to watch those matches all in a row sometime in the next six months and do my annoying long pbp style write up on them and break things down in a comparative way.

 

I'm just not ready yet.

 

The point is that the things you feel makes someone better are different than what I feel makes someone better.

 

Using your criteria, I probably agree that Flair is better. But I value my criteria more than yours, understandably.

 

In a WON HOF note we argue things like drawing a lot more. Here, the criteria is different than even that. It ultimately means that we're talking about different things, but that doesn't mean we can't express our point and have a coherent discussion. There may be elements that I find in a Bret vs Kwang CV match that I find to be more appealing and more fundamentally impressive than in a Flair vs Windham or in Flair vs Koko or whatever.

 

The math in my head is different than the math in yours, and that's okay. I'm not saying you're wrong in how you feel. I'm just saying that to me, Bret is better.

 

This side of wrestling is the subjective side. The Art side.

The point is that I'm not seeing the ability to separate who you would rather watch from who is better. Do you acknowledge that those are completely different things? My favorite wrestlers to watch right now are El Dandy, Dirty White Boy, Buddy Landell, Billy Joe Travis and Bobby Eaton? I could point to individual things in each of their performances that I think outshine Flair's performance in similar situations.

 

It is perfectly fine that we view wrestling in different ways. Yours works for you, and I support that.

 

We all have our favorites. I just wish there was an attempt at objectivity. When I'm debating who is better, I'm going to downplay my personal preferences and try to be fair. Is that wrong? Do you disagree with that?

 

How do I decide what should be objective? I don't agree that great matches are the end all. If I back up and say that it is, because a majority of people say that, then, maybe I can agree that Flair has the most great matches relative to what we have available? Some sort of ratio like that.

 

But I don't think we can sum up my feelings on that as just personal preference. Just what I like. It isn't just what I like but what I honestly think is the best way to figure out who is the BEST. The qualities I believe makes someone the best wrestler.

 

So we can't reach an agreed level of objectivity, you and I, because I have a different way of not just seeing wrestling than you but judging it.

 

The best I can do is see your point of view, and the best we can do is have a vote.

 

Flair's winning 2 to 1. That means he has a majority. It does not mean he has a consensus. If you re-did the poll saying "Who has the most great matches?" Or "On average to his total body of work, who has the most great matches?" Then maybe you'd get an answer you'd find more objective.

 

To me, though, it wouldn't better answer the question of Who is Better?

[Frankensteiner]

What is this great Flair narrative that people are mentioning? Overconfident champ gets taken to the limit and becomes desperate to hang on? You would have to be one dumb son of a bitch to not learn your lesson over 15+ years.

 

I can easily see why people are such marks for the guy. Probably starts with people being marks for the gimmick. Flair also works an exciting style and if you’re into his carny shit, you’ll probably like his work too. With the current fascination with more violent-gritty matches, I can see why people would like Flair. In general, he’s a great character and I will freely admit that he’s easily my top guy as far as mic work is concerned. But that’s what makes his matches even more frustrating. I want to go back and enjoy them like I used to. Guess I’m still waiting for someone to give me different perspective to look at the matches. Most of the time Flair comes off as a guy running around with his head up his ass.

I'm not a mark for Ric Flair. My opinion is an attempt to be objective. I'd rather watch about two dozen other guys than watch Flair.

 

There's no "different perspective". You're simply tired of the existing one. Which is your problem, not Flair's.

 

So tell me, how do you see Flair matches? What is it that you like about them? Is it the moves, the pacing, the storytelling? Do you think he was telling different stories between his matches with Magnum TA, Dusty, and Luger?

 

For the most part, all of the pro-Flair responses in this thread are "OMG how can you question Ric Flair!! There's no comparison. Bret was good but Flair is Flair!!" And it's "he had x amount over great matches over x amount of years with x amount of opponents." I'm trying to figure what about his work people find appealing. Maybe I can see what others see.

 

I mean if I asked you about El Dandy, you would explain to me why you find him to be great without just throwing out that he's had a large number of great matches

[JerryvonKramer]

Things Flair does well in his matches:

 

- selling. Yes it is theatrical but not to Hennig / Steamboat cartoony levels, he makes a lot of noise and cries of pain and so on and that adds to how convincing it is. You can be Lex Luger, Nikita Koloff, Ronnie Garvin, Jumbo or Ricky Steamboat and Flair can put on a match that will not only make you look like a million bucks but ALSO extenuate your strengths, so Luger and Koloff come off like supermen, Garvin like a guy who would clean your clock down a dark alley, Jumbo like respected star who has proved he can move onto the next level and be company ace by hanging with the world champion for 45 minutes, Steamboat like the best wrestler in the world.

 

- working the crowd. Look at the way he'll take time out to shout at a fan in the 5th row and call him a "fat boy", he's one of the best at that sort of thing. Look at his stalling. That sort of thing we take for granted, but Flair is seriously one of, if not THE best staller of all time. I'll give you a point of comparison: Barry Windham. Windham as a heel US champ does quite a lot of stalling. He's not as good as Flair at doing that in such a way that riles up the crowd and fires up the opponent. Flair is basically the master at the bailing / stalling stuff. We all take that for granted, it's not that easy to be GREAT at something like that -- and there are lots of examples of people who suck at it like Mike Rotunda.

 

- execution. Again, something we all take for granted with Flair but laud a guy like Bret for. Who else executes the standing vertical suplex as brilliantly as Flair? He doesn't have a SHIT TON of moves, but the ones he does, he does expertly. I don't think I'd put peak Bret over peak Flair for execution. I don't think I'd put peak anyone over Flair for that.

 

- offense and pacing. This is distinguished from the above by the fact I'm not talking about HOW Flair executes moves, but what he does when he's in control of a match. Flair is one of the BEST guys at transitions and switching gears, again something no one ever gives him any credit for but when Flair wants to move from 2nd into 5th you can FEEL the intensity turn up in a match. He can bring violence. It's not just about getting desperate in the final 3rd, it's about the way he is able to hone in like an assassin on one bodypart, it's about how he can flick a switch from stalling and begging off to pushing someone's knee out of joint and almost breaking their leg.

 

 

That's what I like about Flair as a wrestler. He was one of the greatest ring generals ever to lace up a pair of boots. There are little things we can all find annoying about his matches and I agree that structure is not his strong point (although his fundamentals listed above are so strong that he can overcome that), but these aren't enough to detract from what I find so great in him. To me Flair is at GOAT levels in each of the 4 areas I've listed above. I think Bret is only at GOAT levels in 1 of them (execution) and arguably in the 1 area I've said Flair isn't that strong in (structure).

 

Even taking great matches out of the equation and breaking down on what makes Flair a good wrestler, I still think he's better than Bret.

[Loss]

Ric Flair was the master at making other wrestlers look better than they really were. He's better at that than anyone in history. He had a formula, but it was a formula that could be applied to any wrestler, regardless of how good they were, and at a minimum produce a decent match. Sometimes, that limited the other greats. But it lifted up those who wouldn't have a lot to offer without it.

 

I see a guy who could convince everyone in a building that he was very lucky to be champion. I see a guy who had a case for being the very best wrestler in the entire world every single year from 1982 to 1989, during a time period where there was stiff competition every single one of those years. I see a guy who had the career match with almost all of his top opponents during this timeframe. I see a guy who could get long matches out of people who tended to blow up otherwise. I see a wrestler who could carry limited wrestlers better than anyone in history.

 

I see a wrestler who worked to steal the show every single time out, who never had a lazy performance that I've seen, and whose matches always got a big crowd reaction. I see a wrestler who could go from place to place without skipping a beat.

 

Look at this stretch.

 

04/23/85 - Flair vs Choshu (All Japan)

04/24/85 - Flair vs Jumbo (All Japan)

04/27/85 - Flair vs Kerry (Mid South)

04/28/85 - Flair vs Taylor (Mid South)

05/03/85 - Flair vs Taylor (Houston)

05/05/85 - Flair vs Kevin (World Class)

 

In a two week period, he headlined in All Japan, Mid South, Houston and World Class. Is every single match in that two week run a great one? Definitely not. But they are all good. And that's extremely impressive.

 

Looking at each match individually, some hold up well and some don't. I can't make a blanket statement there. I can say I have enjoyed more than I haven't.

 

Just like any wrestler, Flair is flawed. He has habits that can be annoying at times. On a micro level, quite a few guys are better. But when you take the whole of his career into account, I just don't see it for anyone else.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Why are we ignoring promo work? Unless I missed it, wasn't the purpose of this thread to discuss who is better, not who is better in-ring or who structures matches in a way that makes the most sense? Having a general debate about "who is better" and not factoring in promo work is a waste of time.

 

It's fun and all to pick apart a guy's matches because he does this or that too often or in places where it doesn't make sense. But in the grand scheme of a "who is better" discussion, it's a small piece of the pie.

[Ricky Jackson]

Objectively, yes, Flair was the better all around performer. Many of you may not agree with this, but one of the ways I judge how "great" a performer a wrestler was is by observing how non-fans respond to them. During a period when I routinely subjected a group of friends, all of the non/very casual fan variety, to wrestling, a few wrestlers stood out from the pack in their eyes. Randy Savage was definitely one. So were Hogan and the Rock. Flair, however, probably garnered the strongest response from them, especially for his promos. That said, Bret's matches sucked them in as much as anybody. But if I had took a vote with them asking who they liked the most, Flair probably would have won. Even my wife, who has zero interest in wrestling, occasionally marks out for classic Flair (Santino was her favorite wrestler, so I'm not sure what importance any of my non-fan observation criteria for judging wrestlers holds).

 

Anyway, I love Flair. I love Bret. Savage is likely the only guy I would rate above them, and it's very close. I chose Bret out of a vague feeling of loyalty. Whatever, this thread wouldn't be much fun if we all voted for Flair and weren't swearing at each other and setting up camps preparing for a civil war.

[Dylan Waco]

What is this great Flair narrative that people are mentioning? Overconfident champ gets taken to the limit and becomes desperate to hang on? You would have to be one dumb son of a bitch to not learn your lesson over 15+ years.

 

I can easily see why people are such marks for the guy. Probably starts with people being marks for the gimmick. Flair also works an exciting style and if you’re into his carny shit, you’ll probably like his work too. With the current fascination with more violent-gritty matches, I can see why people would like Flair. In general, he’s a great character and I will freely admit that he’s easily my top guy as far as mic work is concerned. But that’s what makes his matches even more frustrating. I want to go back and enjoy them like I used to. Guess I’m still waiting for someone to give me different perspective to look at the matches. Most of the time Flair comes off as a guy running around with his head up his ass.

Bret's gimmick and the fact that he was a WWF guy is a massive reason he is thought so highly of too. That works both ways.

[Matt D]

Objectively, the only thing that I am sure of is that you people don't know what the word objective means.

[Childs]

I like that Flair worked his ass off night after night because he took his responsibility seriously. I like that he worked holds competently in an old-school kind of way. I like that he hit hard and conveyed a really vicious side when challenged. I like that his matches don't feel like someone reading off a blueprint but instead like a master performer riffing off some basic structures and character traits. I've just never found Bret as viscerally exciting as Flair. I think of Flair trying to up the intensity of his offense after losing an amazing first fall to Jumbo Tsuruta, of him trying to grind Ricky Morton's face off in a steel cage, of him scrambling desperately to run out the clock against Barry Windham, of him going shot-for-shot with Ronnie Garvin, of him trying to tear a piece out of Terry Funk's ass at the '89 Bash. I like Bret Hart, and I was a huge fan of his circa 1996-1997. But he never sucked me in the way Flair did in the aforementioned moments.

 

And I find it amusing that Bret fans cite believability as a mark in his favor. Do I think Bret spent time dreaming up ways to make his matches more believable? Sure. But he thought about it in such a pro wrestling way that if anything, his "realistic" spots come off as more self-conscious than Flair's carny shit. His face-first run into the turnbuckle looked great, for example. But is that remotely what it would look like if someone tried to sling you around in a fight? Hell no. So it really just comes off as Bret saying, "Hey, I rethought a basic tenet of pro wrestling to make it cooler." Which is fine but takes me back to what I said in the Bret thread: He never stopped feeling like a calculated performer. If you enjoy his highly logical approach, that's great. No skin off my butt. But it's that level of obvious calculation that keeps me from getting into his matches the way I do with my very favorite wrestling.

[Dylan Waco]

The problem with great match theory is it is a way of invoking matches without talking about the matches. What the participants did is deemed irrelevant in favor of volume alone. By this metric you can argue all sorts of weird things that make Bret over Flair look like nothing by comparison. For example it's entirely possible that Matt Hardy has had more great matches than Volk Han and hundreds more good matches. Villano IV had one of the best single performances I've ever seen in a match this year, but only showed up a few times and while he looked awesome every time, Dolph Ziggler - who I think had a disappointing year if anything - had far more good matches and probably as many great ones. Taue was involved in more great matches than Buddy Rose. The Ultimate Warrior had more great matches than Brad Armstrong.

 

Great matches matter and are a metric of value. They are not the be all and end all

[Dylan Waco]

But when you take the whole of his career into account, I just don't see it for anyone else.

I think Flair is better than Bret, but taking "the whole career into account" is not an argument I would advance in Flair's defense.

[JerryvonKramer]

I did have a go overleaf at breaking down Flair as a performer in general and what he did well without referencing specific matches. Unfortunately, it seems not to have ignited. I would have liked a like-for-like reposte from Matt D or another champion of Bret.

[Loss]

But when you take the whole of his career into account, I just don't see it for anyone else.

I think Flair is better than Bret, but taking "the whole career into account" is not an argument I would advance in Flair's defense.

 

I should clarify that I mean "the whole of his prime".

[Loss]

The problem with great match theory is it is a way of invoking matches without talking about the matches. What the participants did is deemed irrelevant in favor of volume alone. By this metric you can argue all sorts of weird things that make Bret over Flair look like nothing by comparison. For example it's entirely possible that Matt Hardy has had more great matches than Volk Han and hundreds more good matches. Villano IV had one of the best single performances I've ever seen in a match this year, but only showed up a few times and while he looked awesome every time, Dolph Ziggler - who I think had a disappointing year if anything - had far more good matches and probably as many great ones. Taue was involved in more great matches than Buddy Rose. The Ultimate Warrior had more great matches than Brad Armstrong.

 

Great matches matter and are a metric of value. They are not the be all and end all

This is a perfectly valid point. But I think the great matches metric works fine for Flair and Bret. It doesn't work for every single "Who is better?" argument. It's a non-factor with Flair and Bret, as they both worked a full schedule for many years, and they both have a large body of accessible work. But Flair is a GOAT candidate, and Bret is in my top 50 at worst, so I think it's reasonable here.

 

I don't want how I approach this to be mistaken. "Who is better?" is not a math problem where the highest number always wins. What I do is look at the peak run and compare. So I compare Flair's 1982-1989 with Bret's 1992-1997. Flair comes out ahead. We could go into the granular points of that. One reason I haven't isn't because I think it's self evident (although I do), but because actually walking through Flair's entire 80s run is a long project, and not something I could do in a quick message board response.

 

Another reason is that I remain hopeful that we'll get 80s yearbooks at some point. It's one thing to watch a Mid South set and see some Flair matches pop up that are pretty good. It's another thing entirely to watch Flair pop up all over the place putting out strong performances in multiple settings all year long. Flair/Jumbo on April 24, 1985 and Flair/Kerry on April 27, 1985 are both very good, but not remarkable. Seeing what came before (Flair in All Japan for a series) and what came right after (Flair working Mid South for a week before heading to WCCW, doing awesome promos on TBS and Mid Atlantic TV in between) is what makes it impressive to me.

 

There are cases when other factors come into play besides just "great matches" for sure. But I think it's the exception, not the rule. Debating wrestlers is an art, not a science, but striving for objectivity instead of feeling or personal enjoyment I think should be the goal, even if those things can't help but influence everyone's perspective.

[NintendoLogic]

I sometimes think that in discussions like this, "objectivity" is code for "the way I see things." Objectively speaking, the greatest wrestler of all time is Hulk Hogan. Wrestling is entertainment, and different people are entertained by different things. Talking how hard Flair worked every night and the great reaction his matches got isn't terribly persuasive if you think that, by and large, the matches weren't that great. For the record, I'm abstaining in this poll.

[Loss]

Considering that you narrowed your favorite matches down to 40 because you felt like liking 50 matches was too many, you not caring for a match is not really a major strike against it. It just means your standards are probably way too high.

[Loss]

Objectivity is not code for anything. It's just referenced here as recognizing the difference between personal favorites and best.

 

Ric Flair is not my personal favorite wrestler. I'm agnostic on those things, as I mentioned recently.

[jdw]

Considering that you narrowed your favorite matches down to 40 because you felt like liking 50 matches was too many

I keep seeing references to this. Did I miss the thread this is referring to?

[Ditch]

Considering that you narrowed your favorite matches down to 40 because you felt like liking 50 matches was too many

I keep seeing references to this. Did I miss the thread this is referring to?

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=18070

[Frankensteiner]

Ric Flair was the master at making other wrestlers look better than they really were. He's better at that than anyone in history. He had a formula, but it was a formula that could be applied to any wrestler, regardless of how good they were, and at a minimum produce a decent match. Sometimes, that limited the other greats. But it lifted up those who wouldn't have a lot to offer without it.

 

I see a guy who could convince everyone in a building that he was very lucky to be champion. I see a guy who had a case for being the very best wrestler in the entire world every single year from 1982 to 1989, during a time period where there was stiff competition every single one of those years. I see a guy who had the career match with almost all of his top opponents during this timeframe. I see a guy who could get long matches out of people who tended to blow up otherwise. I see a wrestler who could carry limited wrestlers better than anyone in history.

I think you misunderstood me or perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm asking what makes Flair's matches great. That entire post is a good summary but other than the bolded parts, not really a good argument for why his matches are great. If someone didn't believe the matches weren't very good to begin with there's not much there to convince them otherwise.

[JerryvonKramer]

I feel like I wrote this post in invisible ink. Nevermind.

[Matt D]

Objectivity is not code for anything. It's just referenced here as recognizing the difference between personal favorites and best.

 

Ric Flair is not my personal favorite wrestler. I'm agnostic on those things, as I mentioned recently.

You're still defining what the "objective best wrestler" means and someone else might think it means something else.

[Loss]

Here's a direct comparison, and the two matches are online for that matter. Let's look at your throwaway TV match and compare the two. Tom Pritchard is a better wrestler than Tom Zenk, so ideally that would give Bret the advantage.

 

Bret Hart vs Tom Pritchard, WWF Monday Night RAW 02/22/94

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8bu9q_br...m-pritchar_news

 

Ric Flair vs Tom Zenk, NWA Power Hour 02/02/90

 

In case this is a skewed example, we could also look at this for Bret. Or this. Or

. Or this. Or

. Or this. Or this. Or

.

 

And we could also look at

for Flair. Or

. Or this. Or this. Or

. Or

. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this.

 

I don't want to be too biased, because Flair also has this stinker and Bret has perhaps my favorite singles match ever on WWF TV. But it's hard to argue Bret over Flair.

[Loss]

Ric Flair was the master at making other wrestlers look better than they really were. He's better at that than anyone in history. He had a formula, but it was a formula that could be applied to any wrestler, regardless of how good they were, and at a minimum produce a decent match. Sometimes, that limited the other greats. But it lifted up those who wouldn't have a lot to offer without it.

 

I see a guy who could convince everyone in a building that he was very lucky to be champion. I see a guy who had a case for being the very best wrestler in the entire world every single year from 1982 to 1989, during a time period where there was stiff competition every single one of those years. I see a guy who had the career match with almost all of his top opponents during this timeframe. I see a guy who could get long matches out of people who tended to blow up otherwise. I see a wrestler who could carry limited wrestlers better than anyone in history.

I think you misunderstood me or perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm asking what makes Flair's matches great. That entire post is a good summary but other than the bolded parts, not really a good argument for why his matches are great. If someone didn't believe the matches weren't very good to begin with there's not much there to convince them otherwise.

 

This is bullshit. I get trolled into an argument at least once a fucking week over Ric Flair, and I haven't made the case for him. I've walked through his matches plenty of times in folders on this board. More than you've ever made the case for any wrestler, I promise.