Ric Flair

[Dylan Waco]

Flair did reinvent himself eventually as a garbage match worker and was quite good at it. Of course that was always going to have a short shelf life and was somewhat dependent on the idea of Flair as a washed up, crazy old guy, but still.

[KrisZ]

What I'm curious to see with Flair is how people think that his last "full-time" year as a wrestler was because it can be argued that 1998 was the last year and it can also be argued that his run with Evolution was his last "full-time" run although he was still mainly a second even though he held the tag titles and such.

 

Regardless, Flair is going to be a tough one to figure out where he ranks on the greatest list because of various factors and his case kinda resembles the case of Brett Favre when it comes to ranking NFL QB's all-time.

[Shining Wiz]

What I'm curious to see with Flair is how people think that his last "full-time" year as a wrestler was because it can be argued that 1998 was the last year and it can also be argued that his run with Evolution was his last "full-time" run although he was still mainly a second even though he held the tag titles and such.

 

Regardless, Flair is going to be a tough one to figure out where he ranks on the greatest list because of various factors and his case kinda resembles the case of Brett Favre when it comes to ranking NFL QB's all-time.

I don't quite get the comparison to Favre. He was still good when he retired.

[KrisZ]

Favre wasn't in his prime when he retired and his run with the Vikings was like Flair's run as a garbage wrestler after some non-descript years with the Packers like Flair's run from 1998-04.

[Shining Wiz]

If Flair's last WWE run was 1/4 as successful as Favre's Viking stint, we wouldn't be having this conversation, NFC title game and 4th in MVP voting and all.

[KrisZ]

He had the Edge match, the Mania match with Shawn

[Loss]

So I thought maybe after reading this thread that Ric Flair's career started when he was called up in his 50s from developmental to wrestle in WWE. But it turns out that Flair had a career that started in 1972, which shocked me! He was also supposedly pretty good in the 1980s and even for a big chunk of the 90s. What are everyone's favorite and least favorite Flair matches and performances in those years? I had never heard of the guy before reading this thread, so I was only vaguely aware of that. I saw a few references to his early stuff and some people seem to like it, but would you all consider those years a significant part of his career?

[Dylan Waco]

This is gonna be a long, long project

[Goodear]

I wonder how much of this is based on Ric's post peak being so long with him being on television the entire time and it warping people's perspective of his ability. If we figure he was wrestling ten years after aging out of his best stuff, that is a whole generation of fans growing up looking at a guy performing at less than his best. Its not hard to understand why those fans would have a hard time putting that aside mentally to assess him.

[Grimmas]

So I thought maybe after reading this thread that Ric Flair's career started when he was called up in his 50s from developmental to wrestle in WWE. But it turns out that Flair had a career that started in 1972, which shocked me! He was also supposedly pretty good in the 1980s and even for a big chunk of the 90s. What are everyone's favorite and least favorite Flair matches and performances in those years? I had never heard of the guy before reading this thread, so I was only vaguely aware of that. I saw a few references to his early stuff and some people seem to like it, but would you all consider those years a significant part of his career?

I think we broke Charles.

[El-P]

Pairs figure skating is the best sport analogy.

 

Damn ! Where's Mike Oles when you need him ?

[Loss]

I think we broke Charles.

 

 

I'm in one piece.

 

And for the record, anyone who wants to consider the twilight of Flair's career isn't going to get too much of a hard time from me as long as it's not being disproportionately weighed against the years where he made his case. I would say the same if we had multiple pages talking about chop-chop-chop era Kobashi, 1998-1999 Randy Savage or late 90s Jumbo. But I think six pages where the majority of the posts have been fixated on that part of his career instead of discussing the years where he earned his reputation is a little excessive, although admittedly some of the posts were more about the general point being made. Or, if we are going to do it for Flair, we should be doing the same thing for other wrestlers that have fallen off at the end.

 

My post had plenty of snark, but it was also an attempt to steer the conversation away from something that people seem fixated on more than it's relevant in my opinion. Ric Flair had 36 years as a full time performer and all but the first 10 years or so are available for pretty in-depth mining by anyone who wants to take it on. So let's talk about all of it - the 80s, the 90s and yes, the 2000s.

 

Even if you like him in pockets when he's older, focusing on that at the expense of his prime is robbing yourself of a lot of fun wrestling watching. Don't even have Flair on your list for all I care. But his 2000s being disappointing at times is a strawman of sorts. Who's out there defending it or calling it something good? I'm sure not.

[shoe]

Flair is a stud. He's a guy who has had guys best matches with or close to it. Some of those names are Lex Luger, Ronnie Garvin, Nikita , Kerry VE, BJ Haynes , Sam Houston, George South, Ricky Morton, Barry Windham, Bobby Eaton, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat , and others I'm missing. That's an impressive list either to have your best match, or close to it with one wrestler Ric Flair.

[Childs]

I'm actually interested in what picture we think we have of him as a 1970s worker. Obviously, we have some reel-to-reel footage and he was pretty fully formed by about 1981. But I'm not sure I have a very clear mental image of say, 1977 Flair. Does anyone?

[Matt D]

A lot of what we have is just snippets:

 

 

 

 

It's cool that we have it, but I don't have a great picture either.

[Loss]

I've wanted to go through the Mid Atlantic film footage for a long time, but the nerd in me can't bring myself to watch wrestling without knowing the date.

[Loss]

A 1978 match with Jumbo hit All Japan Classics a while back. I never watched it. I looked for it online and don't see it. I remember hearing that the Ric Flair of 1978 was not in the same ballpark of the Ric Flair three years later, but I don't know.

 

There's also the match against Pete Sanchez from MSG in 1976, which isn't anything special but is there.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kzjf_flair-debut-ric-flair-vs-pete-sanch_sport

[Loss]

I think anyone who watched the matches I've listed below will have a really good grasp on peak Flair. I've tried to not just list best matches, but also any notable competitive matches that are out there. I'll do this for each of his first six title reigns, which to me is where the meat of his #1 case is.

 

1st Title Reign (9/17/81-6/10/83)

 

1st tour of Japan - Title Defenses

Ric Flair vs Genichiro Tenryu (10/06/81)

Ric Flair vs Terry Funk (10/07/81)

Ric Flair vs Ashura Hara (10/08/81)

Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta (10/09/81)

 

2nd Tour of Japan - Title Defenses

Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat (06/04/82)

Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta (06/08/82)

 

3rd Tour of Japan - Title Defenses

Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta (06/08/83)

 

Mid Atlantic

Ric Flair vs Ole Anderson (10/17/81, Strap Match)

Ric Flair vs Jack Brisco (08/18/82)

St. Louis

Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes (01/01/82)

Ric Flair vs Bruiser Brody (02/11/83)

 

Florida

Ric Flair vs Mike Graham (02/20/82)

 

Georgia

Ric Flair vs Harley Race (02/28/82)

 

Portland

Ric Flair vs Brett Wayne Sawyer (04/10/82)

Ric Flair vs Brett Wayne Sawyer (10/02/82)

 

Memphis

Ric Flair vs Jerry Lawler (08/14/82)

 

World Class

Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich (08/15/82)

Ric Flair vs David Von Erich (10/11/82)

Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich (12/25/82, Cage Match)

Ric Flair vs Terry Gordy (02/04/83)

Ric Flair vs Kevin Von Erich (04/01/83)

 

Puerto Rico

Ric Flair vs Carlos Colon (10/16/82)

 

Tag Matches

Ric Flair/Dick Slater vs Giant Baba/Atsushi Onita (All Japan, 06/06/82)

Ric Flair/Crusher Blackwell vs Dory Funk Jr./Ken Patera (Wrestling at the Chase, 06/13/82)

Ric Flair/Rip Oliver vs Roddy Piper/Billy Jack Haynes (Portland, 05/14/83)

[NintendoLogic]

I had been thinking that 1982 was a good dark horse pic for Flair's best year, and that list would seem to confirm it. i'd rank the first Kerry match and the second Sawyer match among his very best, the Jumbo match is also quite good, and the Lawler match is a great angle disguised as a match. I have no idea if the Colon match is any good. I'll watch it tonight.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm actually interested in what picture we think we have of him as a 1970s worker. Obviously, we have some reel-to-reel footage and he was pretty fully formed by about 1981. But I'm not sure I have a very clear mental image of say, 1977 Flair. Does anyone?

I've seen Flair in St. Louis from around 1978, he works a little angle with DiBiase. It's on the Larry Matysik St. Louis Classics footage, but has probably been uploaded.

 

Flair in 78 is pretty much Flair from 82.

[ohtani's jacket]

Flair in 78 is pretty much Flair from 82.

 

 

I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think if people are looking for any interesting take on Flair then tracking his development over the late 70s to early 80s would be an interesting route to go.

[JerryvonKramer]

I was thinking more in terms of his character than anything else. Care to go into specifics OJ, because this is a very interesting topic for me.

 

I have talked in the past about "Minnesota Flair" and "Carolinas Flair".

 

Starrcade 83 hushed-voiced family-man serious Flair is the former. "Slick Rick" in the shades is the latter.

 

I had wondered when Flair "became" the Flair we all know and love.

 

Now when I saw Flair in St. Louis from 1978, I was struck by just how much he was *that* Flair. He had the strut. He had the talk. He had a lot of the mannerisms down. It seemed to me that Flair had already become "Slick Rick" at that point.

 

When he becomes NWA Champ in 81, I'm not sure how he played it. But by the Race feud in 83 he's "Minnesota Flair".

 

It's not even as easy as saying that one was face and the other was heel because even in 1984 in the feud with Dusty, Flair was more the "Minnesota Flair" type character. He morphs back into Slick Rick some time after that.

 

I'd love to see what you think the trajectory is OJ.

[JerryvonKramer]

Incidentally, the "82" I flung out there wasn't arbitrary, it was because the last Flair match I was actually watched was from 82 (see here): Dory Funk Jr and Ken Patera vs. Ric Flair and Crusher Blackwell (7/4/82)

 

This like the 78 stuff I mentioned was from St. Louis, and again I was struck by just how much Flair was like the Slick Rick from 85 onwards.

 

Now I realise that that's St. Louis and it could just be in a bubble, but I'm sure I've seen him in that mode in Mid-Atlantic around 81-2 as well. And definitely he had that character in early 80s GCW.

 

-----

 

I'd actually love any and all guys who have watched Flair to weigh in on this because piecing together his evolution is a great topic. And it might just rescue this thread from the shit we've had on the previous 6 pages!

[Loss]

The second title run is a shorter one. To me, the first run as NWA champ was great and the second run is too short to be as meaningful as some of the others, but still produced some good matches. The best is yet to come. I admit there is more stuff I haven't seen here than at other points in his career. My favorite matches of the ones I've seen are in blue.

 

Time between reign number one and reign number two

Ric Flair vs Greg Valentine (06/12/83, Mid Atlantic)

Ric Flair vs Harley Race (08/19/83, Mid Atlantic)

 

2nd Title Reign (11/24/83 - 05/06/84)

Around the Territories

Ric Flair vs Harley Race (11/24/83, Mid Atlantic) - Flair wins title, Starrcade

Ric Flair vs David Von Erich (12/25/83, WCCW)

Ric Flair vs Dick Slater (01/21/84, Mid Atlantic)

Ric Flair vs Mike Von Erich (01/30/84, WCCW)

Ric Flair vs Chris Adams (02/03/84, WCCW)

Ric Flair vs Bruiser Brody (03/10/84, St. Louis)

Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat (03/17/84, Mid Atlantic) - 60-minute draw

Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich (05/06/84, WCCW) - Flair drops title

 

Tour of Japan

Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta (12/10/83, AJPW) - Possibly clipped, I haven't seen this one. I think it was on AJ TV at the time, but never on Classics. But it's out there.

Ric Flair vs Kabuki (12/12/83, AJPW)

[JerryvonKramer]

Seeing these listings from Loss, I also want to mention re: the character stuff that he would behave differently in different contexts.

 

Dick heel Flair on TV was not the same as the stately regal Flair you get in Japan. At times he'd be babyface in Mid-Atlantic while being heel in Georgia. He's not the same in those Jumbo matches as he is in the ones with Race. He's slightly different again in Texas.

 

Of course, all of this is just more evidence of the guy's greatness, but when you see it all listed out like that, it brings home how multifaceted he could be.