Grimmas Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Parv wanted a thread for this, so let's have at it. He's considered by a lot of people a slam dunk number 1 pick, but what do you think of Flair? Where will he rank for you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Can't see him any lower than top 3 for me. The more I have poured through the 90's and watched older stuff, the more I realize that almost every performer has pockets where not a whole lot is going on or they turned in disappointing performances. Flair certainly has that but then he has a match like Superbrawl IX vs. Hogan. Not a great match at all, but one where he is working so hard and popping a big number 16 years after he became the Man. In the other thread, Matt brought up that Bockwinkel did everything with Flair smarter. That is an interesting narrative that I don't disagree with, but the amount of Flair on tape vs. the amount of Bock is pretty significant. Even though I thought Bock was fantastic in the AWA set and a really great worker, none of the top end stuff on that set holds a candle to my favorite Crockett stuff of the 80's. Bock may be smarter than Flair, but Flair is more organic, more emotional and even more versatile vs. a variety of opponents IMO of the footage we do have from the 80's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Besides, from what I've seen there is quite a bit of Bock on tape from the 70s where he's either unremarkable or actively boring. He worked to the mode of the day. In the tags I've seen so far, he's outshone Stevens but the work is NOT A PATCH on the Flair we have from 77-8, let alone early 80s Flair. It seems like people want to overlook the times when Bock isn't that engaging for the sake of making the case. The idea that Flair "wasn't smart" is really quite overplayed as well. I've said many times that Flair is organic as a worker and doesn't really plan things out, he goes with the flow and works on instinct. But that's not necessarily a knock because Flair's instincts are often gold. And in some ways, what Flair comes up with on-the-fly are better than what you could plan. I watched that segment with Lawler the other night and it's really one of the best things I've ever seen. I know outside-of-ring stuff isn't being considered for this, but just look at what he does in the match portion of that segment. How he works it and dominates Lawler because "Lawler is a slow starter" and because he's getting over this idea of himself as the best wrestler in the world coming to this rinky dink town. I honestly don't think you could put Bock in that segment and have it come off as well as it does. I don't want to knock Bock, he's likely a top 10 for me, top 15 minimum, but I don't think in what we have on tape he shows us more than Flair shows us. He really doesn't. Yes, Bock is versatile, but is the range from Bock vs. Billy Robinson to Bock vs. Larry Z really wider than Flair in Japan working technical classics with Jumbo, Flair working stiff-as-fuck with Garvin, Flair as the underdog vs Vader, Flair as the dominant champ, Flair as the chicken-shit champ. The case is simply overstated and it sells what Flair does far far too short while making quite a lot of a slim volume of matches from Bock. I get it, Flair is the number 1 stalking horse and therefore there's a temptation to go for a more niche or "contrarian" candidate like Bock over him, but it's really to make a very big deal out of a few small things about Flair while willfully overlooking the mountains of tremendous stuff he has on tape. It's like putting Leonard Cohen over Bob Dylan because Dylan has a few minor album tracks you don't like (or something like that.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 You probably haven't reached that point but Bock vs. Lawler is one of the all time great 80s feuds. Bock didn't need to work the angle like Flair because he comes in with his own kick ass Lawler angle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 But do you rate Bock over Flair, Will? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I understand you're speaking more generally, but since I'm the one who raised it, do you really think that I, personally, would pick Bock over Flair to be niche or contrarian or controversial, Parv? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted March 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I don't think anybody is going to put someone above Flair just to go against the grain. He won't be my number one, because he does a lot of things I dislike and doesn't work how I like. However, he will be very happy due to how many great matches he had. It's that simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 So hold on, the little things he does which you don't like are enough to off-set the quantity of great matches? Will you hold every other candidate to that level of scrutiny? How about our All Japan guys? Doesn't Bock have any bad habits? Doesn't Hansen? Doesn't Lawler? In each case how much weight to you give to the little things that bug you vs. the great matches? And Matt -- no I didn't have anyone in particular in mind, but more that someone like Bock gets a bit of a rub from being less familiar than a "slamdunk" pick by Flair. Flair's shortcomings and limitations are highlighted and magnified and made to do incredible things like count more than the metric ton of 4+ star matches he has. Whereas with someone like Bock people will zone in on the highlight reel and conveniently forget about shit like the OTHER match with Billy Robinson or any of the other times where he's not setting the world on fire. He's just not held to the same amount of scrutiny. "But Flair always does the Flair flip", yeah, but shit how many times does Bock want to go to the king of the mountain spot? You see what I mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'll probably be the low vote for Flair. I appreciate him a lot more than I enjoy him. I know next to nothing about lucha, but i'd easily take Negro Casas over him. There will probably be more guys once I make an effort to actively watch non-contemporary lucha. From the US I'd take at least Vader and Stan Hansen over him. And then there's about 20 puro guys I'd have above him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted March 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 So hold on, the little things he does which you don't like are enough to off-set the quantity of great matches? Will you hold every other candidate to that level of scrutiny? How about our All Japan guys? Doesn't Bock have any bad habits? Doesn't Hansen? Doesn't Lawler? In each case how much weight to you give to the little things that bug you vs. the great matches? Everybody has flaws, Flair's flaws just bug me more than others. Bug isn't even the right word, since I'm considering him for a top 3 pick. I'm still under the philosophy that great matches and being a great wrestler aren't exactly one-to-one correlation. Great matches help Flair's case a lot and put him high. If he didn't have those he would be way down on my list, obviously. However, I value more what I see someone do in the ring, more than the quality of the overall match since there is more variables involved in that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 So hold on, the little things he does which you don't like are enough to off-set the quantity of great matches? Will you hold every other candidate to that level of scrutiny? How about our All Japan guys? Doesn't Bock have any bad habits? Doesn't Hansen? Doesn't Lawler? In each case how much weight to you give to the little things that bug you vs. the great matches? And Matt -- no I didn't have anyone in particular in mind, but more that someone like Bock gets a bit of a rub from being less familiar than a "slamdunk" pick by Flair. Flair's shortcomings and limitations are highlighted and magnified and made to do incredible things like count more than the metric ton of 4+ star matches he has. Whereas with someone like Bock people will zone in on the highlight reel and conveniently forget about shit like the OTHER match with Billy Robinson or any of the other times where he's not setting the world on fire. He's just not held to the same amount of scrutiny. "But Flair always does the Flair flip", yeah, but shit how many times does Bock want to go to the king of the mountain spot? You see what I mean? King of the Mountain is strategy used organically to cool down a hot babyface. Flair Flip is a spot that Flair forces into his matches because he thinks the crowd will be disappointed if he doesn't. In some ways you just made my argument for me. But seriously, I get your meaning and I do think Bock in the 70s/early 80s is an issue especially in what we have with him vs Verne (where he worked more like Flair). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillThompson Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Flair's probably right outside my top 10. Mainly because his later career stuff does hamper him. He's the opposite of Lawler, where late career Lawler is still a terrific worker who augmented his ways to make the young talent he was working with look like a million bucks. Watching him versus Tazz in 2000s WWF is a sight to behold, because he works circles around Tazz while making Tazz look like a million bucks. Flair remained Flair, and he still had his moments, but there's a good ten year chunk of his career where he became consistently mediocre. Some don't care about those years, but so much of those years for Flair made tape that it's not something I can look past. My current #1 contenders are Jumbo, Hansen, Lawler, and Hijo del Santo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Santo/Flair is actually a pretty interesting compare/contrast. I'd love to see someone go more in depth there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Santo/Flair is actually a pretty interesting compare/contrast. I'd love to see someone go more in depth there. It's a difficult comparison to make in fairness because Santo footage is so limited and Flair footage is definitely not. Santo was a great worker for at least 20 years based on footage (again, that's based on limited availability of footage -- he may have been pretty inconsistent during that time) while Flair even on the most generous side was an elite worker for about 15 years or so (late 70s-early 90s). Santo was never really in the best in the world conversation, but that's mostly based on lucha bias. Both had a formula that worked really well, and both could deviate from it when the situation called for it without compromising who they were in the ring. Flair was often put in a role to make others look good. Others were often put in a role to make Santo look good. Santo-Casas is a rivalry on par with Flair-Steamboat in my eyes, maybe even slightly higher because of the decade between great matches (although it's possible Flair and Steamboat hit that level in the late 70s when cameras were not rolling). Both worked tough schedules and traveled a lot. If you look at them wrestling outside their home country, Flair is ahead of Santo's output in Japan, although he was also in a higher profile position and given more opportunity. Santo was a journeyman who had great matches over a long period of time. I wonder if Terry Funk is a better comparison. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Do we really need another Flair debate? Flair as #1 is a boring choice. Yes, it's contrarian to vote someone over Flair just because Flair is a stodgy choice, but it's equally heinous to vote for Flair just because he's an institution. I like the passion people show for Flair and that the love can be re-sparked by a promo or television segment, but to me the best approach to the list would be to challenge that passion by watching as many wrestlers as possible, and if you come back to Flair you know that passion is unequivocal. As far as criticisms go, I wish could cricticise/scrutinise their favourites to the level they do Flair, but I've just about given up on that hope. I'd love to know what makes Santo better than Flair, for example, but no-one is ever willing to go in depth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'd love to know what makes Santo better than Flair, for example, but no-one is ever willing to go in depth. Yes, co-signed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childs Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'll have Santo well below Flair. Santo's greatest outings, ones in which he really grinds through the body of the match, I love. But there are a whole lot of matches in which he's pretty ordinary outside of hitting his signature spots beautifully. Now, those signature spots are wonderful and I give him points for hitting them decade after decade in different settings. Hell, I still pop for them. I'm just not sure he can claim as many bell-to-bell masterpieces as the guys who will go at the very top of my ballot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 But do you rate Bock over Flair, Will? No way. I just didn't like the comparison. Flair will e in my top 10. Bock will miss my Top Ten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted March 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'd love to know what makes Santo better than Flair, for example, but no-one is ever willing to go in depth. Yes, co-signed. There was a Wrestling Culture where Will argued Lawler was better and Dylan argued Funk in great detail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 It would be cool to come up with a standard list of questions that could be used to compare and contrast wrestlers, not so much to limit comparisons to just those questions, but to give us a starting point and some structure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 I absolutely loathe the idea of "anti-Flairism" as a contrarian impulse because it advances one seemingly simple explanation at the expense of a far simpler and much less condescending explanation - Flair, and Flair discussion, are wildly overexposed. Flair is a great wrestler and I would never say otherwise. But if you asked me to make a list of 100 wrestlers who I would actively seek out the work of to watch at this moment he wouldn't be on it. I'm not even sure he makes to top 200. I've seen tons of Flair, I've discussed him to death, I've analyzed him to death. I know what I like about him and I know what I dislike about him. It's not just that Flair as GOAT is old hat, it's that the arguments both sides put forward have largely stayed the same, and the footage for other great workers who haven't been debated for an eternity has never been this rich and/or easily available. Flair "isn't new," and he is competing against things that are "newer" in the sense of being seen for the first time by many. But even going beyond that he's simply competing with MORE. There is absolutely no reason to believe that people prefer Stan Hansen over Ric Flair solely because they are watching the Colon matches for the first time now, and we saw the Kerry Von Erich matches Flair had fifteen to twenty years ago (or longer in some cases). In fact it may be that people prefer the Colon matches because they see them as better matches, that just now became available. New found access to something may lead to overrating, but it does not necessarily lead to overrating. I would also note that the idea that one is close minded for not accepting Flair as an intrinsically great all timer - which is often how criticisms of Flair's work are greeted - is transparently ridiculous. The open minded position is not to argue that a handful of guys are obviously top of the heap guys, and everyone else is fighting for what's left. The open minded position is to look at everyone, try and assess them individually, and see how they fit into the criteria you have established for this project. Much of the debate about Flair is really a debate about criteria, and that's one that I think is interesting in and of itself, and is likely to tell us more about individuals lists than where exactly Flair or Bock or whoever shows up on them. I understand why Flair advocates would be frustrated by the fact that he is someone who gets picked apart by his critics more than others, but that says nothing about whether or not the criticisms of Flair are true or valid. I don't disagree with OJ's point about broadening out the criticism and analysis to a wider range of figures, but I'm not sure he and I would even agree on what that means. In any event, I find Great Match Theory to be increasingly less persuasive, and I usually leave arguments with hardcore Flair advocates having a lower opinion of Ric than I did going in. Maybe that's reactionary of me, maybe I've just tired of it, maybe my aesthetic tastes have changed via persuasion from the other side. But I am probably less likely to rate Flair in the top ten now than at any other point in my life as a fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Flair as the GOAT debates are a lot like the Beatles as GOAT debates I've seen where if you bring up any other candidates you are shot down because there is no way anyone could be better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Flair as the GOAT debates are a lot like the Beatles as GOAT debates I've seen where if you bring up any other candidates you are shot down because there is no way anyone could be better. No Will trolling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Great matches help Flair's case a lot and put him high. If he didn't have those he would be way down on my list, obviously. However, I value more what I see someone do in the ring, more than the quality of the overall match since there is more variables involved in that. In any event, I find Great Match Theory to be increasingly less persuasive, and I usually leave arguments with hardcore Flair advocates having a lower opinion of Ric than I did going in. Maybe that's reactionary of me, maybe I've just tired of it, maybe my aesthetic tastes have changed via persuasion from the other side. But I am probably less likely to rate Flair in the top ten now than at any other point in my life as a fan. I'm interested in hearing this perspective more flushed out. Initially I don't think I agree as it sounds like arguing Steph Curry or Ray Allen are better basketball players than Jordan because they have a better jumper. I also realize that's likely taking things to an extreme -- my interest is in what people may see as trumping the volume and quality of great matches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted March 17, 2015 Report Share Posted March 17, 2015 Flair as the GOAT debates are a lot like the Beatles as GOAT debates I've seen where if you bring up any other candidates you are shot down because there is no way anyone could be better. No Will trolling I wasn't even thinking of Will but that's hilarious. Regarding Flair/Beatles I have no problem with people having them as the GOAT as I can totally see the argument and hell I agree with a lot of it but there are definite criticisms of both that with some people if you bring it up you are deemed pretty much a hater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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