Against The Grain 4.12.09: My Discovery of Ric Flair

Welcome everyone to Against The Grain, my (bi-weekly) take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. Ric Flair is arguably one of the best wrestlers in the world. Period. From his groundbreaking promos to his legendary matches, the man is seen as a wrestling god to many, many fans. It was just too bad that one of these crazed fans wasn’t me. That is until I watched hours and hours of matches, promos, and moments from the “Naitch” via multiple DVDs, WWE Online, and the magical and mystical power of YouTube in the last year right after the man retired from the sport at Wrestlemania 24. Now I think that I am an official fan of the man known as Slick Ric. So let me explain how this revelation came about and why I truly agree with the many others on him being viewed one of the best to ever step into the squared circle.

Right before I get started, I would like to give a shout-out to everyone who enjoyed my “Living Through A Decade of Wrestlemania” column a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been writing here on 411 for a little over a year now and these were easily the nicest heartfelt comments I’ve ever received. I truly appreciated and enjoyed all of them.

“To Be The Man…You’ve Gotta Beat The Man”

“I’m a limousine ridin’, jet flyin’, kiss stealin’, wheelin’ dealin’ son of a gun.”
“Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it has the longest line!”
“To be the man, you’ve gotta beat the man!”
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

These are just some of the infamous and very well-known quotes from the mouth of the legendary grappler known as Ric Flair. Many fans know them. Others obsessively recite them. I, on the other hand, didn’t really know about them at all in my younger years growing up watching wrestling. This is my brief history leading up to now of how I’ve known of the Nature Boy. When I was watching wrestling as a kid, I like many others was mainly a WWF fan. Hogan. Savage. Million Dollar Man. Andre The Giant. Sgt. Slaughter. Piper. You get the idea. So when I on a rare occasion ran across the other major wrestling alternative in the form of NWA/WCW which played on the TBS station, I honestly wasn’t digging it. I’m not sure if it was the format it was played in (visually slightly different than the WWF) or the plain sad fact that they actually featured more “real wrestling” and less cartoon-ish gimmicks (being a kid…the WWF was automatically better), but I really didn’t care to ever watch the brand. So instead of following the drama of Flair and The Four Horsemen, I opted to view the trials and tribulations of The Mega Powers with Hogan and Savage.

The few times that I did see Flair on my TV screen as a youth in both WCW and briefly in WWF, I just looked at him as “the guy wearing the crazy robe with the funny looking hair that went WOOOOOO!”…that was it. I didn’t see him “hulking up”, “doing flying elbows”, nor appearing to have a “cool gimmick”, which as a kid to me was being a sumo wrestler (Yokozuma), a rich dude (Million Dollar Man), or someone’s who’s just plain crazy (Ultimate Warrior). When Ric came down to the ring with his luxurious robe, did his technical wrestling, and cut promos about getting with chics, it just wasn’t hitting me upside the head at a horribly young age. So years later around 97′ – 98′ when I officially became a die-hard fan of the sport (due to the NWO and Stone Cold Steve Austin), I noticed Flair once again except now he was to me “an OLD man” who came down to the ring with his luxurious robe, did his technical wrestling, and cut promos about getting with chics. Now even with my better knowledge of wrestling up to this point, I still was essentially “like a kid” with my liking of heavily gimmick-based wrestlers, only now with the “adult themes” (i.e. The Rock, Stone Cold, DX, NWO, Goldberg), over the other horribly gifted, old-school wrestlers like Flair. Even with my high interest of Flair when he returned from suspension and reformed the legendary Four Horsemen (who I never seen at that point, but heard so much about), it was quickly diminished when WCW killed off the comeback idea and just had Flair float around storylines that were somewhat goofy (i.e. being President of WCW).

A couple years later when WCW closed and Flair returned to the WWF/E, I still remained stubborn about wanting to really like the guy. I honestly just thought that he was an old wrestler who wanted one more shot at superstardom and was still trying to go at it when he really shouldn’t be at his age (again…semi-ignorant talk at the time). He simply wasn’t “as popular as Hogan” and he didn’t put on any matches in the few years (1998 – 2003) I’ve been immensely watching that I was really interested in. So in 2004, I started to peep what Flair was about with his role the multi-generational stable, Evolution (w/HHH, Randy Orton, Batista). Even though I wasn’t feeling the group since their formation in 2002 (mainly due to my deep hatred at the time of Triple H), I really dug their match against the Rock –N- Sock Connection (The Rock and Mick Foley) at Wrestlemania 20. The handicap tag match wasn’t the greatest bout ever, but it was really cool because I saw that Ric Flair was still a pretty good wrestler despite his age. His interaction with the Rock during it was one of the funniest and enjoyable things I’ve ever seen in wrestling.

So trailing this later on that same year, I caught him going against Randy Orton at the Taboo Tuesday PPV in a cage match after Orton got booted from Evolution and it was a very unbelievably awesome bout. Seeing Flair go hold for hold with the much, much younger Orton was a slight to behold. I personally discounted the guy and really didn’t think that he had it in him (again…just talk). So then the “light” slowly starting to appear to me that the man was truly a living legend. After Evolution slowly separated, Flair broke out on his own and started having a nice steady series of good to great matches. An Intercontinental Title run against the young rookie Carlito. A very good and underrated feud against his former teammate Triple H. A surprisingly nice World Title ladder (yes…ladder!!!) match against Edge. An ECW hardcore (w/thumbtacks!!!!) match against The Big Show. And an interesting battle against his semi real-life rival (and my favorite wrestler) Mick Foley that involved nice promos and a sick and bloody “I Quit” bout. Top all of this off with a “retirement tour” that concluded with his final emotional match against Shawn Michaels last year at Wrestlemania. After seeing this, I was left wondering…why exactly did everyone worship the wrestling ground Flair walked on for the last 3 decades?

So to find out this man’s history, I decided to watch all of the guy’s DVDs (“The Definite Ric Flair Collection”, “Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen”), highlighted matches (Steamboat, Hart, Savage, Rhodes, Sting), and tons and tons of promos (“Stylin and Profilin”, “Space Mountain”). After watching it all, the only thing I have to say is…damn. Say what you say about the man good or bad, he is undeniably the shit. I realize now that the man has influenced so much of what I watch today on my wrestling TV screen. People’s intense promo styles. The scale of wrestlers’ flashy entrances. Being part of one of the first real wrestling stables. Showing what living a gimmick to the fullest is all about (expensive clothes, riding around in planes and limos). Flair was truly an innovator and his in-ring skills were horribly uncanny. Witnessing all of this man’s history and what he’s done for the wrestling industry was definitely a very interesting trip to say the least. I’m admittingly still not THE biggest Flair fan nor do I worship the ground he walks on (mainly cause I simply never grew up with his work). BUT I am now a bonafided true-blue fan of his and am very appreciative of all that he has done in the linage of near picture-perfect work in his career. On a final note ….WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

For Your Viewing Pleasure
My personal favorite Flair moments

OLD SCHOOL FLAIR

Pimpin’ In New York

Funk – I Quit Match

NEW SCHOOL FLAIR

Feud Against Triple H

Foley – I Quit Match…Again

Next Time On….Against The Grain
It’s officially been a year since yours truly has been writing for the lovely site known as 411Mania Wrestling. I’ve really enjoyed every single moment here and I love writing about the random and wacky things here on “Against The Grain”. So to commemorate the anniversary here, I would like to return to the column that started it all for me. The column that I still cherish and hold dear. The column that a good number of people loved and a whole lot that plain as day simply hated. I bring to you all the grand return of…
“PLEASE…DON’T HATE”
I want to go old school and bring back the column for a few weeks leading up to summer. I will first rehash a couple of topics that definitely got under the skin of a lot of readers and then I will bring up some brand spankin’ new subjects for shits and giggles. I will first start with the topic that gave me the most amount of reader comments (took like a couple of days to read!!) and definitely generated a lot of mixed thoughts. With this, I’ll cover again…JOHN CENA.

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