Posted in: The Northern Star The Northern Star--Moving Forward, Staying Away
By XanMan
Feb 4, 2009 - 8:51:55 AM
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."--Revelations
Interestingly, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair has become a bit of a muse of mine lately, though I appear to keep writing around him instead of writing about him. That changes, in a way, with this piece. Ric Flair may not be the greatest wrestler in the history of professional wrestling, but he's undoubtedly one of the most important. While Hulk Hogan was dominating the syndicated airwaves in the 1980's and was instrumental in Vince McMahon's plan to bring what he renamed "sports entertainment" to the masses, Flair was the standard bearer for the other major organization in United States, the organization that would eventually be absorbed into the World Wrestling Federation, but before that became World Championship Wrestling and very nearly ended Vince McMahon's company. I'm talking, of course, about the National Wrestling Alliance, more commonly referred to as the NWA. The NWA still exists today, but has gone back to being a collection of territories and is no longer the national power it once was. The belt that was once held prominently on national cable television by Ric Flair now represents the World Heavyweight Championship in the WWE.
Notice I said, "the belt" and not "the championship." That's because the title continued without the Nature Boy to grace it with his presence, dominance, and charisma. It's currently held by Blue Demon, Jr., but before that it was prominently defended in Ring of Honor by first Adam Pearce of Larry Sweeney's Sweet and Sour, Inc. and then by Brent Albright. Sweeney claimed that "Scrap Iron" was the greatest champion in NWA history, but, of course, we know that to be false. Pearce wouldn't make the top 10 of NWA World Champions; maybe not even in the top 50. It's been a long time, though--at least 17 years--since the NWA was thought of as a national promotion all on it's own, and the man who was at the heart of the rip was The Nature Boy. He might as well be the Alpha and the Omega of their promotion. He was certainly the Alpha dog during their time spent as playing second fiddle to McMahon's world power and he was--for all intents and purposes--the ending(omega) of their promotion when he brought his nice, shiny "Real World Championship" to the World Wrestling Federation and basically turned the promotion into a laughingstock.
It began gaining prominence again in 2002 when Jerry and Jeff Jarrett formed Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, which was then known as NWATNA, but dropped off again when the two organizations split in May of 2007. It seems altogether too obvious that while Ric Flair may have made his name in the business by wrestling for the National Wrestling Alliance, at the time of emergence of WCW, the NWA needed Flair far more than he needed them, and it's continued ever since then. Flair didn't become a legend in the business by being an asshole and keeping the NWA Title until he received his deposit back from them, but it certainly didn't hurt his legacy, while it practically destroyed the organization. The trashing of their title in favor of the ECW Championship by Shane Douglas and the difference of opinion and subsequent split with Total Nonstop Action didn't help, either, of course, but it's clear from history that at least at one point Ric Flair was more important to professional wrestling and its fans than the organization he represented as its champion. Wrestling may be predetermined, but if you raise a figurehead too high, you run the risk of his jump crushing you from above.
They seem to have recognized their mistake in recent years; it's even highly probable they realized their mistake long before that, but it wasn't until Flair was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame that he was asked to also be inducted into the NWA Hall of Fame--and the refusal of the WWE to allow him to appear and participate in the induction was one of the factors that led to him asking for his release from the company. It says a lot, though, that Ric Flair was asked to be a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. Some would say it was automatic and I would say, "Huh?" to that. Yes, there's no doubt at all that Ric Flair is one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of wrestling and yes, the WWE has absorbed most of the organizations that have ever existed, but they haven't absorbed the NWA and as great as Flair was for them, he wasn't the same guy in WCW or in the WWF/E. He won his only two major championships with them while it was still the World Wrestling Federation and neither of the reigns were anything to write home about. In fact, his lasting legacy in the WWE may be what he taught Randy Orton, Dave Batista, and even Triple H while he was in Evolution with them.
"It is a matter of harmony, the adapation of the free inner life to the outward necessity of things."--John C. Ransom
Still, those are two more WWF Championships than most other wrestlers have ever held and maybe just as a two-time Champion he deserves to get in. As I said, there's no doubt of the greatness of Ric Flair. And here's something else: like Mick Foley, the guy did more with less than just about anybody else in the history of professional wrestling. There was nothing physically intimidating about Ric Flair. He wasn't the biggest, strongest, or fastest guy in the fight; almost any time he stepped in the ring. What he was, however, was a master of ring psychology. If you've watched wrestling for any length of time, you've almost certainly heard the term "ring general" used to describe a veteran grappler. I grew up as an army brat so I know something about military ranks, and though my dad was an enlisted man who turned down his opportunity to go to West Point to become an officer, I know that while(other than President of the United States) the highest rank one can achieve in the United States Army is that of general, that there are 5 levels of general, referred to by the number of stars they wear on each shoulder. If there was ever a 4-Star general in professional wrestling, it's Ric Flair.
Why not a General of the Army(the official title of a 5-Star General?) Because this rank only exists in a time of war, and while Flair was always on the losing side of the Monday Night Wars, he never led the charge for WCW, as though The Four Horsemen certainly existed during Eric Bischoff's reign, they weren't at the top of the heap. That honor belonged to Bischoff's buddies, the NWO. Bret Hart has complained about Flair always wrestling his match and being unable to adapt his style to that of his opponent, and given the career of The Hitman and my respect for it, I give that opinion due consideration, but in the end have decided to write it off as a bit of rubbish, mostly because I don't think a guy like that would have risen to the ranks that Flair did. Hulk Hogan always wrestled the same match, as well, but not because he couldn't do anything else; it was because it was what was required of him by his promoter. Vince McMahon didn't want his WWF standard bearer to be an excellent technical wrestler. He wanted him to be a big, strong tough guy who could survive any assault, and that's the story that The Hulkster told (very successfully) in every one of his matches.
I own a lot of WWE dvds because despite including advertisements in nearly every statement they send me, Mediacom doesn't offer WWE 24/7 in my area, claiming that they don't have the right kind of equipment up here and they aren't going to concentrate on getting it until the deadline for having to use digital television passes. I think it's ridiculous, but I guess that's what I get for living in the cold capital of the U.S. here in rural Northern Minnesota. You want to know another thing that's ridiculous? The fact that Bret Hart's first ever WWF Title victory--over Ric Flair--in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CA is excluded. After reading past comments by Hart regarding Flair, I understand why it is and find the reasoning very petty. As much as I like Bret, the fact is that Flair neither needed nor likely wanted any additional publicity from being on Bret's dvd, while Bret deprived his fans of an important moment--perhaps the pivotal one--in his career by not including it on there. The other reason I mention the dvds I own is that Rob Van Dam mentions on his that he was taught that you'll try to do your stuff and your opponent will try to do his, and that makes up the match.
You'd think Bret, being "The Excellence of Execution" and "The Best There Is, Best There Was, and The Best There Ever Will Be" would know that, and the fact that he either didn't or chose to ignore that fact doesn't speak very well for him...to make a short story long. Ric Flair is so well respected in the business because of all he accomplished, of course, but that's not all of it. The respect he's given speaks to the kind of man he was--the kind of warrior he was. Not every man could break his back in a plane crash and come back to wrestle, much less become one of the top performers in the history of the business. Not every man can, as Hulk Hogan's many comebacks provide clear example of, supplant his ego to the point that he can accept that he's no longer what he once was, yet still have a desire to contribute and work in his chosen profession. It's hard to imagine Donald Trump becoming a middle manager in one of his many businesses, but maybe the better comparison is to Clint Eastwood, who was once a big time blockbuster actor and now directs his own independent movies that speak to the human condition. He's still relevant, but certainly not the box office champ he once was.
"Glory days! Well they'll pass you by! Glory days! In the wink of a young girl's eye!"--Bruce Springsteen
In the same way, Flair was relevant right up to the end, as evidenced by the fact that there was talk about his retirement match with Shawn Michaels being the main event of Wrestlemania XXIV and that the angle that ended his career resulted in not one, but two upper midcard angles, one of which was easily the Feud of the Year, contributed no less than two Match of the Year candidates, and allowed Chris Jericho to find a new character within himself that led him to heights never before achieved, as he was the WWE's Superstar of the Year and the collective IWC wrestler of the year for pretty much the first time ever. It's hard to imagine anybody else having the same effect from their retirement match, though an argument could be made that a ripple effect was created by the aforementioned Hitman being concussed into retirement by Bill Goldberg, since it was the reported decision to put the World Title that had to be removed from him onto Tank Abbot in a battle royal that caused Vince Russo to lose his job to former booker Kevin Sullivan, and that change resulted in the requested releases of Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn who immediately signed with the WWE.
Let's assume that argument is wrong, though, and that Flair is the only man who could have such an impact on professional wrestling. What got him to this point? As I mentioned earlier, he was not the most physically gifted wrestler in history, or even close, though his comeback from the pain crash showed that he had tremendous heart. What he had in abundance was charisma, talking ability, and endurance; and he always played to those strengths. He came out in flashy robes and to the timeless, classical music of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. Everything about Ric Flair's entrance and mannerisms said, "Here I am, look at me," and you couldn't help but take notice and do what his actions commanded. While Triple H is much larger and Shawn Michaels is obviously more physically gifted, you can't help but take notice of how much what they do is influenced by what they saw Flair do while they were growing up. "Sexy Boy" certainly isn't timeless, and it doesn't even fit Michaels' current character, but when it originally became his theme, it fit the cocky image he was trying to portray in a more up to date manner, but still along the same lines as Strauss' classic did for Flair.
The last few years, I've had a hard time watching The Nature Boy. While I enjoyed Evolution--who didn't?--it was clear that his best days were behind him, and while I know he'd been fading for a long time, it was sad to see him slip into a caricature of himself. In the beginning and middle stages of his career, Flair was one of the best technical wrestlers in the world and the history of the business, so to see him go from that to basically chop-bodyslam-chop chop--face flop--chop--get thrown from the top rope--chop--crotch grab--chop--chopblock--figure four; or some variation of that formula was sad. As I said before, I'm a connoisseur of WWE dvds and I own all three of the collections they've put out for The Nature Boy. While I wasn't able to watch him much growing up because we lacked cable and it was hard to find the NWA(later WCW) otherwise, I've been able to watch some of his classic stuff on these collections, and I'll tell you that when he was at his best it was hard to imagine anyone being better. Nowadays, people fly around the ring with ease, but a lot of them have lost the art of telling a story while doing so. I like Rob Van Dam and AJ Styles a lot, but I'll take Flair any day over those two.
Earlier I mentioned the accomplishments of Flair, and aside from the fact that there are so many people who grew up influenced by him--and were once thought to be able to lay claim to the rhyming title "The Heir to Flair"--including Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Steve Austin; and the lasting legacy of The Four Horsemen that is being carried today in a way by (ironically enough) "Legacy," the fact that is most often associated with Ric Flair is that he is a 16-time World Heavyweight Champion. Flair himself acknowledges only 12 of those championships, and in a sport that is predetermined it's hard to put a value on exactly what that means, except that he was trusted many, many times by the National Wrestling Alliance, World Wrestling Federation, and World Championship Wrestling to be their figurehead at the top, representing the best of the best that their promotion had to offer. While Flair holds the record for championships, that's starting to slip away from him, and while the fact doesn't enrage me it does feel me with sadness and an odd sense of wonder. Triple H has now matched the total that Flair, himself, recognizes and that doesn't bother me as much as the one inching ever closer to them.
"There's a difference between having a chip on your shoulders undeserved and a chip on your shoulders when you're trying to prove something, ... I think that's what these players are trying to do. They're trying to prove that they're better than everyone thought they were."--Charlie Weis
Somehow it seems fitting to me that the two men to have held the most world championships in the history of professional wrestling are Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. Yes, as I said, technically Triple H now has 12 world championships, which ties Hulk Hogan's number, but it seems rather silly to count one that he won and lost in the same night just to put Randy Orton over and one that he won in an elimination chamber after never losing the title in the first place. If what Jim Ross said at Unforgiven last year had stood, there'd be yet a 3rd championship for us to gripe about out of what would then have been 13 championships for The Game. Don't get me wrong; I know eventually Hulk Hogan will not have held as many championships as Triple H, and that Ric Flair probably won't have as well, but it seems a little wrong, considering. It's all a factor of the era in which we live, of course. Not just the era of professional wrestling, but that of MTV, reality television, rap, et cetera. We have shorter and shorter attention spans nowadays, and so it seems that we can't tolerate long title reigns; hence all the hate aimed at John Cena for his reign that lasted over a year.
Still and all, the fact is that the WWE is starting to go overboard with one of their wrestlers. Who? Edge. I don't dislike Edge, at all, but I have to admit that I don't see him the same way that many others do. He's the favorite wrestler of a colleague of mine, and if Shawn Michaels didn't exist, it would be Edge's bed that Degenerate would be looking to keep warm at night. He's never really done a lot for me, especially as a heel. I know a lot of people are big on Edge in that regard, but I just don't see it. He got over huge once by being a complete dick in real life to Matt Hardy and used his immoral relationship with Lita to fan the flames and raise his heel heat up high enough for him to be a legitimate contender and WWE Champion even during the Cena years, but if Kennedy and The Undertaker hadn't gotten hurt at the same time, his push back down from the main event to the midcard after Unforgiven 2007 wouldn't have been interrupted. Edge is what he is, but I honestly don't see him as a great wrestler or a great champion, and while he's improved on the microphone over the years, he's certainly not good on it, so what is it that people see in Edge?
I don't know, but I'm hoping to find out and there's only one way we're actually going to see how good he can be as a heel world champion: The WWE are going to have to give him the ball at some point and let him run with it. You probably think they've already done it. After all, you might argue, if it wasn't for Chris Jericho, Edge would have been the Superstar of the Year in 2008, to which I reply, "Really? Great. Who else was competition for that honor?" As great as Chris Jericho was, and he was magnificent, it was a very down year for World Wrestling Entertainment. So down, in fact, that I wrote a column threatening to stop watching the promotion shortly after returning to write about wrestling. Edge had a great year because he was involved in a tremendous program with the greatest big man--and one of the greatest characters--in the history of the business, The Undertaker and he's over huge as a heel because of who he associates himself with, not because of who he is or what he's done. Matt Hardy got more legitimate heel heat in one minute at The Royal Rumble than Edge got in the month leading up to it. He entered the Survivor Series as a 5-time world champion, and now he's at 7.
But, I ask you, does it really feel like it? To me, the answer is clearly, "No." Edge doesn't feel like a multiple time world champion to me; he doesn't feel like a guy that has more world championships than in the WWE than Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, or Hulk Hogan, and almost as many as The Rock. What he feels like is a kid playing in his big brother's sandbox. The simple fact is that Edge has never won a championship on his own merit, but it's not just that. The more important thing is that even with general managerial help, he hasn't been able to keep his hands on the title for seemingly more than a week at a time. This needs to change. I expect him to do as I've predicted for nearly a year and drop the WWE Title to Triple H at Wrestlemania, but once he eventually gets his 8th reign, it needs to be a long one full of great matches and dramatic victories. If not, he doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath of those who he's approaching in the record books; he'll probably still be a Hall of Famer, but unless the guys who hold the book help him turn the page, Edge won't be a chapter that should be in proximity to Flair's despite F directly following E in the alphabet.
You can send any comments by email to me at XanManX@hotmail.com with the words "Northern Star" or "feedback" in the subject line or you can click here to leave feedback if you're a member of The Lop Forums.
