reddevil69
Getting Noticed By Management
Flair's legacy has been re-packaged and re-manufactured for the past 6 years due to the fact that upon returning to WWE, he became close friends with HHH who idolized him as a young man and that is who inspired him and HBK to become wrestlers. Hunter and Shawn and the WWE have pandered to his legacy over and over again.
Back in the 80's Flair was great and considered just that by many of the magazines and wrestling pundits, but so was Randy Savage. Flair was never any better than the best guys in the business at that time.
I will agree with the posters who say that he was a hard worker, no doubt about it. He was passionate about the business, no question but everyone needs to consider this:
In 1991 Flair came to WWF and was released just over a year later. WHY? If he was so important to the business and drew money Vince would have never let him go in the first place. Hogan had left, Savage went down for over a year with a severe knee injury that required surgery, Warrior was fired again....why would you let Flair go at that point when your top 3 guys were all gone? He let him go because he did not need him..period. Flair was not drawing the kind of money nor garnering the attention that was becoming of a guy who was touted as the 'real world champion'.
I don't want get into a Bret Hart debate here, but Flair has accused Hart of being a weak champion, yet he was the one asked to drop the strap to Bret and history and numbers have shown us that Bret Hart drew far better as a champ than Flair did in 1992,1993 and 1994...when Flair went back to WCW,the WWE was still out-drawing them in house shows and ppv's...all the while Bret and Taker were the top guys in WWE....while I agree with HBK-Aholic, we as fans should not care about who drew what, if you are entertained by someone than why should you care what they draw, I think that the claim Flair made against Hart is ridiculous when you consider the facts, Hart has sold more merchandise and his DVD has outsold Flairs, so for Flair to say he's not a draw means Flair was less of a draw.
When it came time to step up to the major league WWF in 1991 and perform on an international platform, Flair did not produce the desired results the promotion was looking for. I'm sure this is where his sour grapes towards Hart stems from...again you have to put this in perspective, human nature is human nature: Flair most likely thought that with Hogan,Savage and Warrior out of the way, he would be firmly entrenched as the top man in WWF and was blindsided by McMahon's decision to put the world title on Bret Hart.
Of course one would think that if Flair was so passionate about the business and had any inclination of what wrestlers were making a large impact on the fans in 1992, that he would have seen Bret coming.
He was a hard worker but he was limited in the ring. I've watched his dvd and all the matches are generally the same, with all the same spots in all the same places.(again he accuses Hart of being a routine wrestler)I've heard it said that Flair /Steamboat was the best match of the 80's, i disagree. Savage /Steamboat was a far more entertaining match in my opinion.I don't care if Ricky and Ric went an hour, it was full of boring rest-spots and the match dragged. Savage /Steamboat at WM3 is still talked about to this day as stealing the show at that event.
Flair was great but he never adapted with the times and changed his style of ring work like Undertaker has which is why he's having the best matches of his career at 43 years old.Taker is far better than Flair was at 43 in the ring. I think that he was one of the best during his era but not of all time. Hell Curt Hennig had it all: good looks, better body than Flair, more athletic than Flair,could cut a great promo, had charisma and could draw great heat as a heel, yet no one speaks about him in the same light as Flair. He was having great matches in AWA for years before coming to WWF and if he did not suffer the recurring back injury that put him out of wrestling for over a year, I think he would have been Vince's world champ at some point.
Again i think flair was a great wrestler, but not the best of all time, not even close and for that i'd say he is overrated and he has benefited from the fact that he is the only guy from his era that has been able to perform as an active wrestler under the WWE hype and marketing machine for the last 6 years or so. Just because HHH and the WWE say he's the greatest does not make it so. That is like saying that the Rolling Stones are 'the world's greatest rock n' roll band" as their slogan says. Just because they are the oldest and been around longer does not make them the greatest.
I think Flair should have retired 15 years ago and maybe he'd be remembered as one of the greatest instead of someone who wore out his welcome and embarrassed himself by having to be carried by younger wrestlers for the past decade.
Having said that, i think calling him a piece of shit is completely uncalled for and just not true.
Back in the 80's Flair was great and considered just that by many of the magazines and wrestling pundits, but so was Randy Savage. Flair was never any better than the best guys in the business at that time.
I will agree with the posters who say that he was a hard worker, no doubt about it. He was passionate about the business, no question but everyone needs to consider this:
In 1991 Flair came to WWF and was released just over a year later. WHY? If he was so important to the business and drew money Vince would have never let him go in the first place. Hogan had left, Savage went down for over a year with a severe knee injury that required surgery, Warrior was fired again....why would you let Flair go at that point when your top 3 guys were all gone? He let him go because he did not need him..period. Flair was not drawing the kind of money nor garnering the attention that was becoming of a guy who was touted as the 'real world champion'.
I don't want get into a Bret Hart debate here, but Flair has accused Hart of being a weak champion, yet he was the one asked to drop the strap to Bret and history and numbers have shown us that Bret Hart drew far better as a champ than Flair did in 1992,1993 and 1994...when Flair went back to WCW,the WWE was still out-drawing them in house shows and ppv's...all the while Bret and Taker were the top guys in WWE....while I agree with HBK-Aholic, we as fans should not care about who drew what, if you are entertained by someone than why should you care what they draw, I think that the claim Flair made against Hart is ridiculous when you consider the facts, Hart has sold more merchandise and his DVD has outsold Flairs, so for Flair to say he's not a draw means Flair was less of a draw.
When it came time to step up to the major league WWF in 1991 and perform on an international platform, Flair did not produce the desired results the promotion was looking for. I'm sure this is where his sour grapes towards Hart stems from...again you have to put this in perspective, human nature is human nature: Flair most likely thought that with Hogan,Savage and Warrior out of the way, he would be firmly entrenched as the top man in WWF and was blindsided by McMahon's decision to put the world title on Bret Hart.
Of course one would think that if Flair was so passionate about the business and had any inclination of what wrestlers were making a large impact on the fans in 1992, that he would have seen Bret coming.
He was a hard worker but he was limited in the ring. I've watched his dvd and all the matches are generally the same, with all the same spots in all the same places.(again he accuses Hart of being a routine wrestler)I've heard it said that Flair /Steamboat was the best match of the 80's, i disagree. Savage /Steamboat was a far more entertaining match in my opinion.I don't care if Ricky and Ric went an hour, it was full of boring rest-spots and the match dragged. Savage /Steamboat at WM3 is still talked about to this day as stealing the show at that event.
Flair was great but he never adapted with the times and changed his style of ring work like Undertaker has which is why he's having the best matches of his career at 43 years old.Taker is far better than Flair was at 43 in the ring. I think that he was one of the best during his era but not of all time. Hell Curt Hennig had it all: good looks, better body than Flair, more athletic than Flair,could cut a great promo, had charisma and could draw great heat as a heel, yet no one speaks about him in the same light as Flair. He was having great matches in AWA for years before coming to WWF and if he did not suffer the recurring back injury that put him out of wrestling for over a year, I think he would have been Vince's world champ at some point.
Again i think flair was a great wrestler, but not the best of all time, not even close and for that i'd say he is overrated and he has benefited from the fact that he is the only guy from his era that has been able to perform as an active wrestler under the WWE hype and marketing machine for the last 6 years or so. Just because HHH and the WWE say he's the greatest does not make it so. That is like saying that the Rolling Stones are 'the world's greatest rock n' roll band" as their slogan says. Just because they are the oldest and been around longer does not make them the greatest.
I think Flair should have retired 15 years ago and maybe he'd be remembered as one of the greatest instead of someone who wore out his welcome and embarrassed himself by having to be carried by younger wrestlers for the past decade.
Having said that, i think calling him a piece of shit is completely uncalled for and just not true.