If Not Flair Then Who?

[Matt D]

How viable was Slater? He was seen as sort of a Terry Funk clone inside the business, no?

[KrisZ]

Yeah as a heel definitely he was a Funk clone but he had great exposure as he worked the big money territories in JCP, CWF, & GCW. GCW would bring him in every year as a troubleshooting babyface which he was awesome in that role.

[JerryvonKramer]

I considered putting Slater on the original list, but wanted to leave a few guys for others to pick out. If the shortlist went 10 guys deep, I reckon his name would have been on it.

[KrisZ]

One thing you gotta take into consideration in this debate was this wasn't just about crowning a new champ but a new way of doing business in the NWA.

 

Sam Muchnick was retiring on 1/1/82 and the days of St. Louis driving the NWA was over so now you have Crockett, Graham, Fritz, & Barnett being the guys in charge of the NWA and they were promoting a newer style than St. Louis was so they wanted to make someone champ who could be the face of that new style and there was really no one at that time who could do it but Flair.

[JerryvonKramer]

Out of interest Kris, what do you think the key difference between Flair and Race was in the way they worked as champs? I've seen quite a lot of Race at this point and sometimes he gets his ass kicked a lot more than Flair does -- if anything, at least to me, he seems ... "bitchier". Flair usually has some key moments of offense that makes him look good. You watch something like that Race vs. David von Erich match I mentioned and Race more or less gets his ass handed to him. That's not the only match either.

 

What was it about Flair that made him "new"? Was it more his look and character and promos than in the ring?

[KrisZ]

Flair's whole persona was new and fresh at that time as only a handful of wrestlers were like him and plus you bring him into some of the territories that were "old school" in their presentation he stuck out like a sour thumb.

 

Regarding Flair and Race......Race was more methodical in how he worked but the big difference to me was that Flair had a pet hold that the match was built around in the figure-four while Race would use the diving headbutt and piledriver as his pet holds which weren't treated like Flair's figure-four was.

 

Flair also was cool and cocky in the ring while Race had this tough guy persona until he started taking punishment then he was over the top in his bumping and selling at times.

[Al]

What about David Von Erich? I know he was in the conversation a little down the road from this conversation. He did work heel in parts of the country as well. He seems like the kind of guy they would consider for the belt.

FWIW, I think David by 1984 had he the opportunity and obviously not died prematurely would've been a fantastic champ. He had the ability to work heel, and with his size he would've been a tremendous figure once he filled out. A clone of Fritz, who was a fantastic heel.

[ohtani's jacket]

Isn't there a possibility that they would have stuck with Race?

[khawk20]

I still don't have a good sense of what heels Dusty feuds with in Florida from 75-82 or so.

Jos Leduc and Terry Funk in the summer/fall of 1979, off of his 4 day title reign over Harley.