Ric Flair: great wrestler or greatest wrestler?

Ric Flair has become known as the greatest professional wrestler ever. Any discussion on this point will usually lead to mocking by fans who have bought the hype both from the WWE and the man himself. Flair is a twenty time champion. He held the NWA Title when it meant going out and wrestling eight times most weeks, in hour long matches every night, then successfully shifted enough to still be successful when wrestling changed from territories to national organizations. The territory he headlined was among the most-successful, and he was still headlining when it went national and became WCW. He’s been in many of the best matches ever with wrestlers like Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Harley Race, Terry Funk and many more. He was also the best opponent for a ton of wrestlers, ranging from Sting and Lex Luger to the aforementioned Steamboat and Windham. He began wrestling in the late 70s and is still going today, making him a veteran of 30-years, most of which were on top. That’s the resume, so with that, is Ric Flair a great wrestler, or the greatest wrestler? I say the former. Let’s examine why.

Ric Flair certainly had a lot of title runs. He was the champion, however, during a period when multiple reigns became the norm. As the guy on top as this occurred, he would naturally get a greater number of reigns than the NWA champions that came before him. Can we really say he was a greater champion than Harley Race, Jack Brisco, Dory Funk Jr, or Lou Thesz merely because of when his reigns came? Sure, he was more well known, but all of those men were huge draws, just not having their name as known because they happened to not be champion when cable brought wrestling nationwide.

To further this point, the champion was largely a political issue. Jerry Lawler was a ridiculous draw, yet never given a chance to hold the NWA title. Ted Dibiase was in multiple classic matches, just as great as Flair’s were early in Flair’s run, and promised a NWA Title run, only for politics to have cut that off. The politics were so bad, that the WWWF with Buddy Rogers and the AWA with Verne Gagne both founded their own, accepted World Titles. Two of the greatest ever couldn’t get a title reign back then. More, there were champions who were considered relatively unsuccessful, like Terry Funk, who drew absurd amounts without the belt, every bit the equal to what Flair did with it. The best example of the belt not making the wrestler is Danny Hodge. The best wrestler in-ring of his era, he was a huge draw in the Mid-South area before Mid-South existed, so good that the territory let Jack Brisco go to Florida. Every bit the wrestler and draw of Flair, Hodge was “too small” to be NWA champion. Flair was a great, successful champion, but that he was champion in the era wrestling was popularized nationally and titles began to be traded regularly does not automatically put him above other greats who held the belt, and even several who did not.

“But Flair’s in ring work surely stands above,” cry the masses! That’s only true if you don’t look very closely. Ric Flair had a six year peak of absolutely incredible in-ring performance. Pretty much every classic match he had was in that period, and as far as being great but in slightly lesser matches, there’s another five years after that where he was legitimately great. After that he’d have an occasional, rare great performance, but wasn’t near the level of best anything. That’s an 6-year peak with five more of being legitimately great. Harley Race’s peak was longer. Terry Funk’s was shorter with greater relevance. That of the pariah, Chris Benoit lasted about a decade (from Super J Cup 94 to after Wrestlemania XX). Ted Dibiase had a six-year peak that overlapped almost perfectly with Flair’s but the tale end of that was with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in the WWF’s then restrictive environment. Even Barry Windham, a guy whose prime was considered incredibly short, peaked from ‘85 through ’88. Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkel… hell, even Bret Hart (great through the 80s if you see the old house-shows or Stampede, then ’91-‘97 of a great peak) manage to top Flair for longevity being relevant. It’s like Flair hung around so long after his peak, we forgot how shot it actually was.

But surely Flair’s ring work during this peak tops anything anyone else did? No, not so much. We have video of Bob Backlund on the new Hulk Hogan DVD carrying an absurdly green Hogan to a match better than anything a still great Flair could do. Harley Race is on tape in matches the equal of any of Flair’s, as is Terry Funk. Unfortunately, most of the surviving video is from Japan and not readily available to most. Of course, that’s without considering all the greats before Flair like Thesz or Hodge for whom video is hardly available at all.

Then we have the fact that Flair had one formula match that he worked with everyone. In the territories, that didn’t really matter. When no one was seeing the guy every week, no one realized that it was one match multiple times. Is it coincidence that once Flair was working for a natural company he peaked almost immediately as his formula was taken as far as it could go by the likes of Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat? Even in that era, as champion, he was given longer and greater spotlight for these matches and his formula. There is little doubt Windham, Steamboat and others could have had matches just as good as Flair did, but as NWA champion when things went national, they weren’t given the opportunity. Again, Flair is being considered the best through fortuitous circumstance as much as any skill of his own.

Next we have that Flair was an incredible draw. His territory was so successful, he must have been the reason and then Crockett made a ton of money and went national with him on top, so he must be incredible. Both of these ignore simple facts. First, the Carolinas were always a hotbed for wrestling. Ric Flair certainly drew huge there, but as NWA champion, was rarely there and the company still drew incredibly, so he could hardly have been the reason. Then Crockett definitely did well for awhile with Flair on top, but they were the second wrestling company to really go national thanks to TBS, so everyone had seen and heard of them and, even then, Crockett went broke. Flair gets credit for their early success partially sure, but he also must bear some blame for their later failure. After that, Flair was regularly atop companies that lost money, so, again, while he could draw, he wasn’t necessarily the draw he’s made out to be. Many NWA Champions, again, notably like Harley Race and Dory Funk Jr, drew huge without the periods of loss Flair experienced.

There is the claim that Flair was influential, which he certainly was… but he was a rip-off of the first Nature Boy, Buddy Rogers. Since it was Rogers that Flair was imitating, he’s the truly influential one. Flair helped young talent? He never left the belt on a Sting or Luger to truly pass the torch and cut the title run of Vader and push of Steve Austin.

With all that said, Ric Flair is truly among the best ever. He has had numerous classic matches, he did draw, he helped make stars (even if he didn’t put them over the top), and he was a long-term top champion. But Ric Flair was also the beneficiary of numerous circumstances outside of his immediate control. It was these that lead to him being considered, wrongly, without question the best ever.