Int'l Region, Montreal Subregion, First Round: (1) Ric Flair vs. (32) Bill Longson

[klunderbunker]

This is a first round match in the International Region, Montreal Subregion. It is a standard one on one match held under International Rules. It will be held at Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

#1. Ric Flair

Vs.

#32. Bill Longson

​

Polls will be open for three days following a one day period for discussion. Voting will be based on who you feel is the greater of the two competitors. Post your reasons for why your pick should win below. Remember that this is non-spam and the most votes in the poll win. Any ties will be broken by the amount of posts of support for each candidate, with one vote per poster.

Also remember that this is a non-spam forum. If you post a response without giving a reason for your selection, it will be penalized for spam and deleted.

 

[Bernkastel]

Wow. The draw went up fast this year.

This should not be a first round match. This should be a third or fourth round match. Longson probably won't win this match due to people haven't ever heard of him, but that's fine when you consider most casuals that don't think too hard on pro wrestling haven't head of Ric Flair either. So allow me to explain why Longson should be a regular in this tournament from now on...

Drawing power - we all know that Flair was popular force in the NWA that many big houses for the Alliance over his career. But compared to Hogan and the WWE his star power was not as potent. Longson was the most popular superstar of the 19040's. By far. And this is the era where stars like Lou Thesz where on the up and coming and megastars like Ed Lewis were winding down. Longson had victories over both those men. And more.

Recently the WWE gave some stats for the Royal Rumble. Through the 30 year history of the event, with all the star power and promotion and advertising pumped into it the event has drawn over 470,000 total fans. That's damn impressive. Or so one would think. With 50 appearances Longson managed to draw over 570,000 fans to the St Louis territory alone over the course of just 3 years, and that's not included the other big cities he worked. Over the course of his 30 year career he drew millions. And this was 60 years ago. That's the kind of drawing power Longson boasted. No million dollar marketing and promotional machine backing him either. Food for thought. Longson = bigger draw than the WWE's second biggest show, which has included Flair numerous times.

Ability - I'll skip this one. We all now that Flair was good, and clearly Longson was fantastic to have been the type of draw that he was. In fact Longson was pro wrestling first real "edgy and cool" heel. He was called "Wild Bill" for a reason. He invented the piledriver - a move everyone uses today - and when fans saw it they went just as nuts as fans do today.

Both men wrestled a long time and beat everyone important in their time periods. But I'd say Longson remained consistent for longer. His career as a main eventer was winding down by the time the NWA was formed, but he was the man that kept wrestling afloat and prosperous during WWII. I guess you could say that Flair kept JCP afloat, but didn't have the success Longson had. Competition was fierce for both men. Flair worked in Hogan's shadow, while Longson had plenty of rogue and corrupt promoters to deal with, who wanted a piece of the monetary action back then, while dueling with Paul Bowser's Frank Sexton - the other top US star at the time.

Both men were highly charismatic and could talk, except Flair benefited from television while Longson had to constantly travel putting himself over on radio and through the newspapers. I think this points rather moot. People will be biased because some of us where old enough to see Flair in his prime, while none of us were alive to see Longson. Other thing is that Flair as a heel lost quite a bit as a top star, while Longson as a heel didn't. He was given face status even though fans hated him. Or well... feigned hating him because that's what cool heels do.

Because Flair always makes a run in this thing, and Longson is a deserving opponent as any Flair will come up against for at least 4 rounds, I'm going to go with the upset and give Longson my vote. They were literally one place away from each other on my list anyways.

Vote Will Bill.

 

[deem]

This match should be closer than it will be, so my initial gut is to make a case and vote for Longson. I may still do that, whether I think it's right or not. Here's briefly where I'm at.

Flair had a greater deal of longevity than Longson. They probably had very similar billings in North America - it'd be a stretch to consider either the outright Ace in America (Longson you could make a case for) but I think it's fine to say both were certainly in the top 5 in the country during their primes. Both draw, both worked a very similar style - classic dirty heel. It'll def be heel vs heel, both men are popular enough that that'd work very well, and I imagine the winner is the one that pulls the last trick. Definitely not a clean finish, this is won with the tights or a low blow.

As I've just hinted at, I DO think Longson at his prime probably kayfabe eclipsed Flair as his. However, this brings me to my thought - athletes evolve. Even IF Longson was the #1 professional wrestler in the country in the 40's, that may not compare favourably with Flair being even top 10 in the 80s and early 90s. But it could. This is what makes it tricky - the Olympic long jump World Record was set in 1968 by Bob Beamon and is yet to be beat. The guy best at jumping a really long way competed in 1968 - even with the advance in sports science, he's still the best. BUT the trend is up. Records get broken. Athletes get better. They get cleverer. Competition gets more severe. It's harder and harder to make it to the top, you have to be better.

So it's tough. Is Longson a guy that was only the best in a less competitive era? Or did he dominate enough to the extent that he would be regarded in the same light as Flair if he was born at a similar time?

I think the right vote is Ric Flair, but I do think it's close and as such i'm voting Wild Bill. I don't think it's an awful vote by any means, he's probably a bigger draw and Flair's the type of elite star that wouldn't be out of place exiting in the first round. Tough first match this year, it's a shame the voting won't be indicative of that

 

[Bernkastel]

I'm a believer in older athletes that where so good that they stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and if you were to place them in the modern era they'd be successful. Especially if you were to equip them the modern training methods. The thing about Ric Flair compared to Longson is that Flair's prime came 30 to 40 yeas later. Not 70 like modern wrestlers today. You could very much make a case that athletic science had not increased all that much, or at least not the level where it would make THAT much of a difference. Just look at athletes now compared to athletes 20 years ago; huge difference.

Bill Longson didn't retire from active competition until the 60's, due to injury, which was just a mere decade before Flair started his career. And over his career Longson fought and pinned men like George, Thesz, Buddy Rogers, and Billy Watson, while fighting Gene Kiniski [another notorious heel] to a DQ finish. And many of these men were all still around during Flair's time. Along with pinning many of the older stars, including Strangler Lewis. Who rarely lost to anyone. Ever.

At his peak Longson was making upwards of 100,000+ a year. Which would have been about 1.4-1.7 million today. So he was making comparable money to Flair in regards to his skills. And when it came to ring skill Longson knew his way around. He more than likely taught the guys that taught Flair how to be dirty. EDIT: Wild Bill trained Freddie Blassie and has beaten him too. This is a definite.

I'm staying firm with voting Longson on this one. It's close; but I think Wild Bill would probably edge out a win. Especially considering that Flair lost quite a bit and was used to doing jobs, while Longson didn't. Their time periods were pretty much as far apart as Cena's is from Hogan's. And Cena still does not go over Hogan.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

I'll be honest here. Longson is a guy I don't necessarily know a lot about... but from what I know of the era, and with what Bernkastel has said about him...

I voted Longson.

I doubt he'll win, just because of who he's up against, and the fact that most people reading this will know next to nothing about him, but he's got my vote anyways. He deserves it.

 

[Tastycles]

I will have this conversation a million times during the course of this tournament, but wrestling fans need to get their head out of the sand when it comes to Flair. He was the biggest name in an amateur promotion. Whilst Hulk Hogan was wrestling on Saturday night on network television to an audience of millions, Flair was barely selling out 5,000 seat arenas. Longson actually was one of the biggest draws of his day, so should win here.

 

[Bagpipes]

So how many people do you know that when they see a piledriver their reaction is "Vintage Longson"?

Conversely, how many "woooooooo's" do you hear when someone takes a chop?

Flair may have been the biggest name in an amateur promotion, at his peak, but his name was, is and will always be associated with what the epitome of a performer and pro wrestler is. Regardless of who drew what and who won how many championships and who could beat who in a shoot, when you say "pro wrestling" far more people associate it with Ric Flair than they do Longson. Flair is a multi-generational superstar whose body of work as a performer is arguably the greatest of all-time, there's no way he loses to a guy who just happened to be a very good wrestler relatively early in the history of pro wrestling in the United States.

 

[Bernkastel]

So how many people do you know that when they see a piledriver their reaction is "Vintage Longson"?

Conversely, how many "woooooooo's" do you hear when someone takes a chop?

Flair may have been the biggest name in an amateur promotion, at his peak, but his name was, is and will always be associated with what the epitome of a performer and pro wrestler is. Regardless of who drew what and who won how many championships and who could beat who in a shoot, when you say "pro wrestling" far more people associate it with Ric Flair than they do Longson. Flair is a multi-generational superstar whose body of work as a performer is arguably the greatest of all-time, there's no way he loses to a guy who just happened to be a very good wrestler relatively early in the history of pro wrestling in the United States.

And for how long was Flair peddled as being the greatest ever? How many years past his prime did the WWE keep him employed? How often is he seen in the public's eye remaining relevant? Or how often does someone from the WWE talk about him?

Longson wasn't associated with WWE in any way so why would the McMahon's talk about him? They didn't talk about Verne Gagne, Harley Race, or Bruno for years and their legacies started to fade from the public eye. But that doesn't make them any less great in comparison to Flair now does it?

WWE as the most prosperous promotion gets to chose who they hype and who they don't hype for what best suits their marketing. That's why we still see HBK despite him being "retired."

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

Voted for Flair, ye Im a victim of the WWE selective propaganda but Flair has done a good share on top to deserve my vote here. A lot of oldtimers will have the biggest ' draws of their time' line fed, and thats almost all right. Flair and his entourage made a territorial promotion go beyond its border, but the excesses killed it. Or maybe not having a Jewish accountant.