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Weekly Rant: 04/06/2008 Ric Flair's career
This week's rant is about the career and looking back on Ric Flair. Now I being a HUGE wrestling fan got into wrestling after seeing some Ric Flair matches. Flair was and still is my favorite wrestler of all time. This last Sunday at Wrestle Maina we all saw the end of Flair's career. Flair wrestled Shawn Michaels in his last match ever in the WWE. However as we all know when a pro athlete says it's his last we all know this means nothing. Look at other sports, Football...Bret Favare of the Packers retired recently but rumors are swirling his agent is shopping his services around to teams. Terry Funk of Pro wrestling has retired and come back and went retired again. Funk is rumored to be part of the upcoming XPW wrestling show in May 2008 and Funk's recent history from the web states, “Most recently, Funk has worked some dates on the independent circuit and in Japan. Currently, he is semi-retired. Although he claims to be retired, Funk has returned to the ring all other times he claimed retirement before this current "claim." In fact, Funk has wrestled self-described "retirement" matches in each of the last three decades (dating back to 1980) and in at least three different countries (Japan, Canada, and the United States). He is scheduled to wrestle in the XPW event "Cold Day In Hell" on May 24th. “ So Flair could come back, however we will operate on his last match being his LAST MATCH!
Flair began back in the 1970's and has been around in the Pro wrestling world since forever in some estimates. Flair waged wars with some of the greats but he had his greatest off screen rivalry with the Legendary Hulk Hogan of the WWF in the 1980's. Back then there were 2 names...Flair and Hulk. Hogan wrestled bigger than life personality's like Macho Man Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior and guys like Rick Rude,etc. On the WWF scene and made these battles like it was Clash of the titans. Flair however waged wrestling matches in the NWA and eventually WCW. Flair would wrestle for 60 minutes sometimes more with guys like Ricky Steamboat and Dusty Rhodes. Flair looked the part of a wrestler and someone who could work in the ring and talk. He did not have to scream and rant and rave like his WWF counterparts. Flair cut promos that were great science and made a match that was big..bigger or a match larger than life. Flair did not Body build like Warrior and Hogan and could have science like matches with Ron Garvin and others.
Toward the end of the 80's when Flair had helped build stars like Lex Luger and Sting. Flair made the big leap of faith and in 1991, he had enough of the WCW politics and also had heard for years that he could not make it in WWF and was just a WCW product. Flair joined WWF and became a big star and Flair also would finally get a chance to help bring a dream to reality when he and Hulk would hook up. Back then, WWF did House shows to test the grounds for on TV feuds and Flair would wrestle Hogan at these shows. WWF would sometimes back in the days of House shows being testing areas. Guys would test new moves, face and heel turns and a lot of the times guys would go stiff or would toss outcomes out the window. Hogan and Flair would go at it and 90% of the time either Flair would run circles around “The Immortal One”. Based on these outcomes, Vince of WWF would never put much into this feud and it never made it to TV.
Flair would come back to WCW after his run in WWF and would wage war with WCW against WWF and at times be left for dead for guys like the New World Order,etc. Flair would also wrestle on several continents and other countries,etc. Flair would make it back to WWF/WWE when WCW was bought by Vince. Flair would wrestle off and on and have several good feuds but eventually Flair would come on and realize at one point he needed to retire. Vince made a storyline out of this and at the biggest event of the year Flair would his “Retirement” match. Flair has along the way held people down in the backstage area and has made some stars, like when he lost the WWF title to Bret Hart and making his career kick off in singles with a bigger bang than it had. Flair would help bring along 2 of WWE's biggest draws, Dave Batista and Randy Orton.
Flair however in my take was a great star and his ring work will be missed, however Flair will continue to be involved with WWE from a marketing stand point and I believe eventually an on-air role with being a “commissioner” or something. Flair used to be a great star and had some great matches with people like “The Dragon” or Sting. Flair has made an impression on the whole business from the inside to the outside to the fans to wrestlers getting into the world of pro wrestling. Flair did a lot to make the wrestling business what it was. Flair took the evil heel and made him more evil and at times was a great face. Flair had some balls to, like when he showed up on WWF TV still carrying the WCW world title. Flair stood up to *******s in the biz like former WCW president, who at one time had a large hate for Flair and tried to drive him from the world of Pro wrestling. Flair has had a lot of negative things said about to him and to his face. However he is the mold that we see for guys like TO in the NFL and Tito Ortiz from MMA,etc.
Finally my favorite memory of Ric Flair has to be the fact that in Pro wrestling, much like other combat sports. They do tour and go over seas, however much like today, you have guys like Hulk Hogan and even today John Cena or Batista go over seas for tours and then they come back to the USA and say they defended the title aboard. However when Cena defends, he defends against contracted WWE guys. Flair would defend the WCW/NWA title against guys like Fuginami who Flair faced in New Japan Super show 1 back in 1991. Flair would wrestle fellow Japanese wrestling Legend, Inoki{Who fought Ali back in the 70's} in the Collision in Korea in 1996. Flair would also wrestle in Mexico and Puerto Rico in the 80s and the 70's. Flair really had a World title, not just a title he defended in the other country's.
[I]-The Jiggy Jaguar-[/I]
[B]Editors Note[/B]
The Jiggy Jaguar Show can be heard Monday Nights on Kjagradio.com
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