The Ringsider — Jim LeMond
Good-Bye to Ric Flair!
Our savvy ringsider pays homage to the greatest wrestler to ever lace on boots — The Nature Boy!
Professional wrestling has peaked.
The in-ring career of perhaps the greatest performer in professional wrestling history ended last weekend. On Saturday, Ric Flair was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Sunday at Wrestlemania, he lost an excellent retirement match to Shawn Michaels. The next night on Raw, WWE held a retirement ceremony for Flair in the main event position of the show. It was easily the most wonderful thing I have ever seen on a pro wrestling broadcast.
In the week leading up to Wrestlemania, Flair did tons of media. One man interviewing him asked who the next Ric Flair would be. Flair said something to the effect of, hopefully there will never be another Ric Flair because hopefully no one ever wrestles this long again.
He hit the nail on the head. Flair essentially had two lengthy careers, half as the touring champion during another era in the business, and half on the national stage. He is the last true link to the territorial days. There were some who were, for a brief peak time, better in the ring. Some may have been at times his equal on promos. There were certainly many who looked better cosmetically. But no one excelled at all aspects of the game so well for so long as the Nature Boy.
There is no sense in doing a long bio on Flair; they’ve been done to death lately and you could always just pick up his book. Here are the basics. He was born in Tennessee in 1949, and as part of the infamous Tennessee Children’s Home Society adoption scam, was taken from his birth parents and delivered to his adopted parents (who had no idea of the scam). He tried twice to walk out of wrestling training, but Verne Gagne literally drug his ass back. He nearly died in a plane crash and was back in the ring six months later. He became the greatest touring world champion during the territorial days. Once things went national, WCW tried several times to kill him off, but every time business was down, they went back to him as champion. He had a brief yet successful run in WWF. He came back to WCW and while buried practically non-stop for seven years, was routinely the highest ratings draw until the day the company died. He went back to WWE and had another seven-year run near the top, and while buried at times, largely was in the upper-midcard and shined whenever the spotlight was on. He made countless careers and would always prefer to lose than win. Up until 2004, he was always at or near the top of any discussion of the best in the ring. As noted in his final promo, he wrestled in front of more fans, raised more hell, and had more fun than anyone.
The unfortunate reality, though, is that in 2008, Richard Morgan Fleihr could no longer be Ric Flair. The more you think about it, the more beautiful this made his final match. There was the bridge spot he couldn’t get up for, the flip into the buckle he couldn’t pull off any longer. The match was a microcosm for the reason Flair is retiring. It is a story of a man who would rather walk away than hang around and not be what he’d always been.
Quite simply, he was the best. But the time is right for him to retire. And that’s what makes this all feel so odd.
–Jim LeMond
jim_lemond@hotmail.com
(4/7/08)
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