Ric Flair

[WingedEagle]

Wrestling is art, not sport.

 

That's why this discussion will not get resolved. I think that statement is as baseless and incomplete as saying that wrestling is pure sport and not art. There are fortunately elements of both on display to varying degrees every time out.

[Matt D]

 

Wrestling is art, not sport.

 

That's why this discussion will not get resolved. I think that statement is as baseless and incomplete as saying that wrestling is pure sport and not art. There are fortunately elements of both on display to varying degrees every time out.

 

There is an athletic element but it's more like a narratively-driven improv dance than like Michael Jordan. Maybe I'd be more apt to liken it to folk music duets, where you need to tell a story, have the physical skills and training, and know your range while working with someone else, than anything else, and that's so far off it's not even funny. It's very much it's own animal, which is in part why we love it so much. That said, differences of opinions make the world go round, though "Baseless" might be a little harsh.

[Shining Wiz]

Pairs figure skating is the best sport analogy.

[Matt D]

I don't think the narrative element is there with that, though.

[Shining Wiz]

I don't think the narrative element is there with that, though.

 

Not a figure skating watcher, I see.

[NintendoLogic]

Figure skating isn't a sport.

[Matt D]

 

I don't think the narrative element is there with that, though.

Not a figure skating watcher, I see.

 

 

Who has time for that? Do you have any idea how many Jumbo matches i need to watch?

[JerryvonKramer]

Brando is punished for his late career.

He really isn't. In fact, Brando isn't even punished for the shit he did during his supposed peak. More than any other actor he more or less gets a bye for being in loads of mediocre stuff on the strength of a handful of phenomenal performances (Streetcar, On the Waterfront, Godfather, possibly Last Tango if you rate that).

 

Brando is just about the worst example you might have used. No one is bringing up The Island of Dr. Moreau or The Score as evidence of him not being the GOAT. Those who push for Brando as GOAT don't tend to do it on overall body of work, they argue along the lines of raw natural talent.

 

I am very confused as to why you, of all people, are adopting this line.

 

Last week, it was all about how you only need so many Bock matches to show you that he's a great worker, and that lets you know how good he is overall. But now with Flair you want him to be consistent for his whole career including his post-peak? I don't get it.

 

---------

 

I understand both points of view on this by the way. Position A is something like:

 

- Robert De Niro cemented his reputation as an all-timer back in 1990 and no matter what else he does, his case is already made, he can only add to it.

 

Position B is:

 

- Robert De Niro might have made many fine performances in the 70s and 80s but since about 1995, he's coasted and made an awful lot of shit, and we're now at the point where he has almost 20 years of being on uninspired autopilot. This has to be a knock on his GOAT case.

 

Position A makes the argument "from peak performance".

 

Position B makes the argument "from overall body of work".

 

What I don't understand is Matt D -- a guy who has consistently argued from neither of those positions but from something like "overall ability" (which would be the line Brando advocates would tow) -- now switching to insist on overall body of work. Makes no sense.

 

-------

 

I struggle with this question. I get the "overall body of work" argument, but at the same time, you make it an advantage to die early or retire. If Flair dies in 1993, he has a better career than if he retired when he did? Really? If De Niro dies in 1995, he has a better career than he does now? Seems arse-backwards to say that to me.

[Matt D]

It's about getting data points for evidence. You use them to plot a map of a wrestler. It's better to have them scattered throughout the career. With Bock basically all we have is his late career. It's not better for Lawler if he retired in 95. It might have been better for Flair. That's the whole point. Figuring out how or why and what it means.

 

You figure out ability through body of work and more diverse primary sources you have in type and role and situation, the easier it is to work this out. I think you learn something from a wrestler's ability to adapt to different situations, including the loss of physical gifts.

[WingedEagle]

Baseless might be harsh, but I think saying that wrestling is art rather than sport is pretty harsh as well. It dismisses the incredibly physical nature of any narrative or storytelling that wrestlers may be presenting and takes for granted the ability to do that on a consistent and prolonged basis, which is a huge part of Flair's legacy.

 

I also don't see the point about Brando or anyone of that ilk as being accurate. Do Dr. Moreau or Don Juan Demarco in any way tarnish the Godfather, On the Waterfront, Apocalypse Now, even The Freshman? Did Last Vegas somehow bring about a reevaluation of De Niro's career? Where an artist has decades of outstanding work, some low quality paydays, output or whatever you want to call it at the end doesn't in any way diminish the greatness that preceded it.

 

Similarly, If Flair's late career run was the bulk of his career, or even a significant part of it -- let's say taking the place of the '80s, -- I could see one taking the approach that his career, on the whole, wasn't exactly up to GOAT snuff. But it didn't take the place of that. It was just what occurred at the end. Perhaps it comes off worse to you because of the view that is strictly art without any element of sport. I just happen to also see it as the result of his abilities declining due to his physical condition after doing what he did year after year after year before that. Which isn't something I'd hold against him.

[WingedEagle]

 

Brando is punished for his late career.

Last week, it was all about how you only need so many Bock matches to show you that he's a great worker, and that lets you know how good he is overall. But now with Flair you want him to be consistent for his whole career including his post-peak? I don't get it.

 

 

Great point. If we're going to be fair, we need to seek out all of the late career and junk someone may have put out rather than choice selections from the peak. I don't know anyone's viewing habits or history here, but Flair's downside was something I watched basically week to week, as opposed to even his peaks, which I was too young to see and appreciate, but I'm not about to hold that exposure against him. Its one of my concerns in ranking people I really haven't seen more than a handful of times, Bock included. I'll have seen the best and worst of many US & Japanese guys from the last 20 years or so, and nothing close to as much from those before then. There has to be a balance in not penalizing someone to whom we have greater exposure and rewarding those with limited exposure.

[Dylan Waco]

I only hold it against Flair in the context of a debate like this which is based on the sequential ordering of people. In a GOAT debate you sometimes look for tiebreakers or variables that may separate two very close candidates. One of those variables (for me) is someones work in their post prime. Notably this is not the ONLY variable. But I don't get and never will get the argument that it should not be considered in the context of a project like this

[Matt D]

I don't want him to be consistent. I want him to be a good enough pro wrestler to I understand that he needs to adapt and then be able to do it, especially when comparing him to other wrestlers that did just that.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm also pretty baffled at the notion that Matt's application of principles is inconsistent or has changed all of the sudden. If anything I think Matt is TOO consistent in how he looks at wrestling

[dawho5]

Sometimes I think Matt and Parv argue just for the sake of arguing. Whether or not that's true, I don't see how late career coasting can either tarnish the earlier greatness or be completely ignored. To me it's a matter of the sum total. Did the great stuff outweigh the subpar late career paydays? By how much did that late career slide hurt Flair's (or anyone else's) case in your eyes? Or on the opposite side, did the garbage come out ahead for a career with great matches peppered in? How much do those great performances elevate the career underachiever to the point where they make the lower part of a ballot? Those seem like the more pressing questions than the big extremes being presented.

[Matt D]

And I opened up the idea above that maybe I do need to look up Flair inconsistently than other wrestlers due to his delusions and other mitigating causes.

[Loss]

It's a plus, but I don't subscribe to the idea that wrestlers have to be great when they get old in order to be talked about at that level. If a wrestler happens to get great when he's old, it's a feather in his cap because it's rare and unusual. If all other things were equal, I might use it as my tiebreaker too. I'm interested in looking at the whole of a wrestler's career, to the point that I think I was narrow-minded in the past in only focusing on the peak. But a made man is a made man - there's nothing an established GOAT contender can do to bring his case down in my eyes, no matter how sharp the decline. He can only enhance it with additional work. And Flair definitely has plenty of matches after the 1980s that are excellent and worth watching. But even if he didn't, I don't know that I'd see him all that differently.

 

That doesn't only apply to Flair. There's little in wrestling I hate more than Kobashi chopfests late in his career, but that has absolutely no bearing on how I rank him. He made his case long before that started.

[JerryvonKramer]

With Bock basically all we have is his late career. It's not better for Lawler if he retired in 95. It might have been better for Flair.

No. Because people peak at different times. It's entirely possible for example that Bock was better in the 80s than he was in the 70s. We don't know for sure until we see a good sampling for Bock in the 70s, but it's possible. It's also possible that Bock is a strange case of someone who simply doesn't have a post-peak. Well, great for him. But I don't see why this should necessarily be a knock on guys who do have one. Bock is a freak of nature, because he seemed to be able to bump around like a 25-year old when he was in his 50s.

 

Flair didn't work a style that was going to see him well into old age. He was all-action, he thought on his feet a lot of the time, he relied on his stamina and workrate to see him through. So, yes, by the time he's 50 a lot of his key tools are taken away -- because unlike Bock he wasn't able to keep going.

 

I don't see how any of it detracts from Flair's career before that.

 

I only hold it against Flair in the context of a debate like this which is based on the sequential ordering of people. In a GOAT debate you sometimes look for tiebreakers or variables that may separate two very close candidates. One of those variables (for me) is someones work in their post prime. Notably this is not the ONLY variable. But I don't get and never will get the argument that it should not be considered in the context of a project like this

Okay fine, but then it becomes a case of "well, do you have the goods to even get to the tiebreaker with Flair?"

 

And let's say someone does. How does one call it? Do you go back to 1978 and bring in extra Steamboat matches? Do you go to the HBK match? Or the times when he was tagging with Batista and actually working pretty smart?

 

Let's say it's a theoretical someone whose peak is "tied" with Flair's and then he's got nothing else because he retired ... what do you do? Is Flair's post-peak an overall plus or minus? Well?

[Shining Wiz]

Sometimes it is better to burn out than to fade away.

 

A guy like Jumbo or Steamboat was done so quickly, he never had the chance to grow old and decline before our eyes/on video. Flair (and I by no means think he is the worst 'offender') and guys like Foley, Wahoo, Watts and others stayed around long enough that the lasting memory, or at least an aspect of it, is them struggling to be 1/2 as good as they were in their prime......or worse, 1/2 as good as when they were already past their prime.

 

For the record, I don't personally think it will effect my booting that much, but we are talking the elite of the elite here, and the vote isn't for "best wrestler at their absolute peak", it's for the best of all time, and for that, all their time in the ring matters to some degree.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't necessarily consider Flair's post-peak as a whole, because I think it was so long and the quality of what he was doing varied greatly. For example if you think his peak ended in 90,the WWF run through around 94 is still very good stuff. 95-97? Eh. I don't hate it, but it's a mixed bag. Dying days WCW? Bad, but not entirely his fault. Evolution-era? I wouldn't call it smart - in fact I thought Flair was in the running for worst guy in the world during much of this run. American Onita Flair? Loved it.

[Matt D]

A lot of this goes back to what I value, and again that is different than what is my favorite, though it does inform it. I value a style were physical tools aren't the most important and so long as I am honest and open and consistent about this, then I don't see what the problem is if I use the tools that I have available to make the decisions I need to make.

[Loss]

Kenta Kobashi is a very interesting wrestler to evaluate with that criteria.

[JerryvonKramer]

Out of interest, is anyone going to bother to consider matches that Terry Funk has had aged almost 70 with his brother looking like the Cryptkeeper?

 

Or does Flair only get this because he happened to be doing it on WWE TV?

[ohtani's jacket]

Sometimes it is better to burn out than to fade away.

 

A guy like Jumbo or Steamboat was done so quickly, he never had the chance to grow old and decline before our eyes/on video. Flair (and I by no means think he is the worst 'offender') and guys like Foley, Wahoo, Watts and others stayed around long enough that the lasting memory, or at least an aspect of it, is them struggling to be 1/2 as good as they were in their prime......or worse, 1/2 as good as when they were already past their prime.

 

For the record, I don't personally think it will effect my booting that much, but we are talking the elite of the elite here, and the vote isn't for "best wrestler at their absolute peak", it's for the best of all time, and for that, all their time in the ring matters to some degree.

 

Jumbo had a whole period where he worked comedy 6-man tags. I don't know how many are on tape, but I'm damn sure people ignore them.

[goodhelmet]

The problem is that we aren't penalizing Flair for getting old. We are rewarding Tenryu, Lawler etc having multiple great post prime performances after they got old. Nothing wrong with that.