Today we will look at Ric Flair, A man who by popular opinion is considered “The Greatest Wrestler of All Time”. Fans and wrestlers alike will tell you that Flair is the greatest Professional Wrestler. Well in this article we will look at the pros and cons of Flairs career. I will not look at Flairs personal life or any backstage antics this is looking at Flairs career as a performer.
Lets start off with what makes The Nature Boy Great. the pros of Ric Flairs legendary career.
PROS
The name Ric Flair is synonyms with greatness and legendary matches. Arguably the greatest wrestler of the 80s, Flair put on Incredible matches with fellow wrestlers like Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Terry Funk and he has carried inexperienced wrestlers like Lex Luger and Sting to star making matches. Ric Flair has the most 5 star matches of any wrestler in america according to the opinion of Dave Metzler of “the Wrestling Observer”, With No one coming as a close second…….. Ric Flairs series of matches with Rick Steamboat was considered the greatest matches EVER. Everyone one has their favorite match of the series (mine is Clash of Champions), Matches that still hold up today in my opinion.
Ric Flair, in some peoples opinion was as good on a microphone as he was in the ring. When Ric Flair was motivated, you could see the passion he had for wrestling and that championship when he got on the mic. I remember seeing Flair do a via satellite promo with Fritz Von Erich and it blew me away, it wasn’t the normal Flair playboy promo, It was passionate and it made the NWA championship that much more important….. Ric Flair had the ability to make people hate him and make the crowd wanna see their home town boy beat him and take that championship away from him, which is exactly what the NWA needed for the way they ran business.
In the 1980’s NWA ran their business differently than wrestling promotions are run now. The champion would go from territory to territory and his job was to make crowd hate him and want to see their home town hero (no matter how horrible or inexperienced they were) beat the champion, the champion also had to beat the home town talent without making him look weak. So for example Flair would have to go to a 60 minute draw with a far lesser wrestler (in some cases) and keep the crowds attention. Flair would also sometimes have to win by crook or by the skin of his teeth to keep the home town hero looking strong so they can draw a big gate next time Flair passes through the territory….. Flair was perfect for this job and he did this better than any champion before him, It is also why many consider him to be the Greatest of All Times.
You readers are probably thinking, Great matches, Great promos, Making people look good, What are the cons? Well they are cons and plenty of them and I will get to them now.
CONS
Ric Flair had plenty of great matches in the 80s but Ric Flairs wrestling style was very dated. Once the 90’s came around fans wanted a faster pace and more of a mesh of styles. Ric Flair was no longer getting 45 minute matches or 60 minute matches, Flair had to reduce his matches for TV and PPVs cause of time constraints. Wrestling was changing and Flair wasn’t doing such of a great job of adapting to that.
Ric Flairs style of head locks and low impact wrestling was no longer what the fans were craving. Flair also had trouble adapting his styles to mesh with other wrestlers style. Look at his match with Scott Steiner, Steiner was incredible back in his time, but Flair wasn’t able to mesh with Steiner’s faster more high impact style. The match was a complete mess….. Examples of a great wrestler (in ring I’m speaking of), Look at Bret Hart, Hart could have a great match with a old timer like Bob Backlund or a big man who couldn’t do much like a Kevin Nash or a great wrestler like Curt Henning or a power wrestler like a Davey Boy Smith or a brawler like a Steve Austin. Bret Hart could adapt, Shawn Michaels could adapt but Ric Flair had problems doing this cause he was so dead set in his ways.
If a wrestler wasn’t wrestling a Ric Flair match, the match would end up a mess or a disappointment. Flair also had problems performing moves out of his move set or selling higher impact moves. and I’m not talking about really difficult moves, I’m talking about older moves like a pile driver. Has anyone seen Flair take a piledriver? Has any of you seen Ric Flair sell one? or how about perform one? well its sad. Flair sells high impact moves very awkwardly and Flair also sells very cartoony and phony sometime. Example of that is when he takes punishment and pushes opponent away to fall face first. I think fans refer to it as “the Flair Flop”.
Ric Flairs style was perfect for the NWA but as TV and PPV became more prominent in wrestling, Flair was exposed for his limitations. Flairs matches looked the same, Flairs finishes were redundant, I mean how many times Ric Flair got pinned by a small package while applying the figure four? I cant even count. Flairs matches all looked similar, some stuck out more than others but you pretty much know Flair isn’t gonna bust out a different move.
I once watched a public access show years ago, I think in the mid 90’s and it was one hour of Flair promos. I watched the whole hour and Flairs promos were mostly the same, talking about how nice his stuff were and how expensive his stuff were, Flair would come out with unattractive women and brag about going to bed with them. The promos were so alike I couldn’t tell them apart….. See this bugs me about Flair, Flair had the ability to cut amazing promos when he was passionate, Hell he can still do it today if he wanted to but most the time Flair would just be on cruise control.
Flair was a great draw for the smaller NWA but in the big time Flair didn’t live up to the drawing power of the bigger WWF/WWE stars, Such as Hogan, Austin, Rock or even Savage. I do prefer Flairs work to Hogans but no denying that Flair was no where near Hogans league.
My Thoughts
I think Ric Flair is a great wrestler, I still hold some of his matches in very high regard but I don’t think Ric Flair is the greatest. Flair is very dated especially in the generation of wrestling I grew up in…. Flair has accomplished a lot, Praise by his fans and peers, Legendary matches and records and accomplishments that still haven’t been topped today, but in my opinion Ric Flair is not the greatest.
This article was for readers to form their own opinion of Ric Flairs career and hopefully it will have do
