What about Flair?

[Timbo Slice]

Well, the biggest contrarian Flair opinions on this board were because he overstayed his welcome in a lot of fans eyes and they wanted to penalize him for it to the point where people forgot how fucking great he was for a 15-year period. That's not necessarily being a hater, but it's the idea that the best wrestler ever has to have a career that's great from beginning to end accounts for more than a prime that's in a lot of cases, even when you put up your faves against him, the greatest of all time. That's not a bad opinion, but the amount to which Flair was dinged was egregious in a lot of cases.

 

Flair's going to be my #1 and I stand behind it not because I feel like it's the easy choice, but even with all the other great wrestlers out there who had peaks and might have even had runs that were better than Flair's at some point, I can't think of a wrestler who to me was considered the best more times throughout his career than him. There will be people who put Lawler or Funk or Jumbo or Hansen ahead of him, and I wouldn't bat an eye. To me, when Flair was at his best, nobody was better.

[Loss]

How does he compare to Bret Hart?

[JerryvonKramer]

It would be cool to come up with a standard list of questions that could be used to compare and contrast wrestlers, not so much to limit comparisons to just those questions, but to give us a starting point and some structure.

This also co-signed.

[benjaminkicks]

I feel like I need to see more of Flair before I can properly rank him for a list like this.

 

I've seen pretty much all the Flair footage available on the WWE Network, and my opinion of him is very high from all of that, but I haven't seen much of what I think a lot of people consider "peak Flair". Like late 70's and early 80's? Earliest match of his I think I've seen is the Starrcade '83 match with Harley Race.

 

If someone wants to be helpful, I'd love some suggestions of good matches to check out from that time period.

[JerryvonKramer]

long post

Here's the only thing that slightly irritates me, Dylan, and it's that guys like Funk or Hansen sometimes feel like they get a free pass because no one voices any criticisms like they constantly do with Flair. That's not because they don't have flaws.

 

Why doesn't anyone ask why Hansen's matches with Slaughter, Jumbo and Misawa are all disappointing at a time when those guys were having classics with others? Why doesn't anyone ever bring up the fact that he works 90% of matches the same, with the jump start and the skipping of the shine?

 

With Funk, no one ever brings up the fact that he worked too much shtick while he was NWA champ, that there are times when he undercuts the intensity of a match with cartooniness. That he plays the same trick of longterm injury selling while Dory works the match more or less alone in a ton of tags.

 

Do you think it's because these sorts of candidates are less assured of their place than Flair that people aren't as prepared to put them to scruitny?

 

In a sense, the question I asked Grimmas which triggered this thread was less about Flair and more about why he prefers those other candidates.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'll say something else too, which is that when I've been critical of Kawada or Kobashi on the All Japan Excite Series, it's almost as if I've committed some sort of heresy, like those guys are above criticism in some strange way. At least that's how it has felt.

[Dylan Waco]

I think the AJPW guys tend to have the same "you can't criticize them!" qualities Flair has with certain people.

 

On the point about criticism of others, I would note that every criticism you mentioned of Hanson and Funk is a criticism I've seen before. In the case of Funk the criticism regarding his selling and goofiness is something that has been used against him multiple times, with some even arguing he's not great at all, let alone GOATC. That argument is not a new one, nor do I think it is underrepresented.

 

That said I think there is something to the argument that Flair criticism is over represented - a byproduct of Flair "discussion" in general being over represented. In no way am I saying people shouldn't talk about Flair, but it would be interesting to hear new arguments or more detailed ones. At times you and Loss have both done this Parv, but I think there is a tendency to always slip back into the volume of great/good matches argument. By the same token I think there is a tendency to pick on Flair because for many of us Flair as the de facto god of wrestling is a lazy position that isn't expanded upon enough. It's a cycle and probably an unproductive one but it's been going on for decades.

 

Having said this I would note that not all flaws are equal. You can point to flaws in any wrestler, but if you think the flaws of one are worse or more numerous than the flaws of the other, you are probably going to conclude that the wrestler who's flaws are less bad/numerous is the superior wrestler. For many I don't think it's that Hanson, Funk, et. are flawless or not capable of being criticized so much as it is that their flaws are seen as being not as bad as the flaws of Flair.

To Winged Eagle's question about Great Match Theory - I just think it's wildly uninteresting and narrow. The idea that you can reduce assessment of a wrestlers talent to a counting game strikes me as silly and defeats the purpose of a discussion in the first place. This doesn't mean great matches don't matter, but rather that WHY the match is great should be at least as important as the fact that the match was great when talking about the individual wrestlers involved. Appeals to volume alone evade the details of the performances all together and tell us little.

 

I also think Great Match Theory has way too many inherit flaws to it to hold up. For example, what is more important, ratio of good/great matches, or number? Is someone with 100 good matches out of 200 that have made tape worse than someone with 300 good matches out of 1200 that have made tape? Or is it the opposite? If you aren't talking about what each performer brings to the table it's impossible to say.

[Grimmas]

Great match theory is akin to this actor was in a lot of great movies, so therefore he is the best. You can put in great performances but the circumstances and co-actors can stink. That is why I am against the great match theory, personally.

 

For example, you can probably point to more great Triple H matches in 2000 than Regal. However, I would argue that Regal is the better wrestler.

[Grimmas]

 

In a sense, the question I asked Grimmas which triggered this thread was less about Flair and more about why he prefers those other candidates.

 

 

I prefer them, because I get very frustrated with Flair watching him. Flair does a lot of the things that piss me off about Angle and return-era Michaels, he wants to get his stuff in and keep everything active.

 

Has that produced a LOT of great matches? Of course. Is it something I love? Nope.

 

Hansen, Funk, Lawler, etc... all have flaws, but there flaws don't irritate me. I feel if Flair came around in the last decade or so he would had been shit. If Lawler, Funk, Hansen, etc.. came around during the last few decades I would had loved them.

 

I guess it's a wrestler's philosophy difference? It's hard to explain.

 

Not that I am hating on Flair, probably a top 5, going to be in top 10 or 15 easily.

[Childs]

None of the guys mentioned get a free pass. Loss has written plenty about finding Funk's schtick annoying. MattD has written about how Hansen might have been more of a great tool for other workers than a great worker himself. Lots of people have written about how over-the-top and overwrought Kobashi was. Dylan has often said Kawada wasn't the best guy on his own tag team in the late '80s.

 

 

Flair takes more shots because he gets talked about so much in general and because so many are so familiar with his work. But at the end of the day, he's still probably going to finish top 5 in this poll and could well win it.

[JerryvonKramer]

Great match theory is akin to this actor was in a lot of great movies, so therefore he is the best. You can put in great performances but the circumstances and co-actors can stink. That is why I am against the great match theory, personally.

 

For example, you can probably point to more great Triple H matches in 2000 than Regal. However, I would argue that Regal is the better wrestler.

This analogy is off because wrestlers have more creative input into matches than actors do into the process of filmmaking. The analogy doesn't work, because you have guys like Hitchcock who say "actors are like cattle". Films don't rest solely on the performances of actors because it is and has always been "a director's medium".

 

Wrestling matches are not "the road agent's medium" are they?

 

There's no part of this analogy that works at all. And I'm loathe to come up with an alternative because I'm not sure that an analogy helps.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'll have Santo well below Flair. Santo's greatest outings, ones in which he really grinds through the body of the match, I love. But there are a whole lot of matches in which he's pretty ordinary outside of hitting his signature spots beautifully. Now, those signature spots are wonderful and I give him points for hitting them decade after decade in different settings. Hell, I still pop for them. I'm just not sure he can claim as many bell-to-bell masterpieces as the guys who will go at the very top of my ballot.

Santo's a great one to thrash out because he's as much of a formula guy as Flair. His signature stuff is breathtaking to watch, especially in his younger days, but it's hard to argue how "smart" he worked when it's the same patterns over and over. I have no doubt he had an excellen grasp of lucha psychology, and I'm sure those who've seen him live will attest to his ability to work a crowd, but it's not an original thing he's doing. When he delivers a strong match he's delivering classic lucha. The psychology isn't a matter of indvidual brilliance but a shared, communal psychology that hundreds of workers have demonstrated. Santo has a mystique that comes from his mask, his lineage, and how he coped with the burden of expectation; but what do we really know about him? Few of us could break down his character or understand his motivations. I still can't understand the heel turn and subsequent storyline. What you're left with is a cool looking guy in a mask who's a caricature: a super hero and son of a legend. Every positive point you can make about Santo's character is drawn from a generic concept of how a tecnico should behave.

 

As for the matches, he probably had a ton of great matches in the late 80s and early 90s given the talent he faced. He probably had his share of disappointments too. With the matches we do have, only Dandy really compares to quality of singles matches. I guess Casas too considering people love his modern stuff. He's probably the cream of the crop when it comes to singles matches even if I think other workers are more interesting. A lot of the more interesting workers are rudos, which naturally allows them to be more creative, however I'm not sure I'm able to distinguish Santo from other top tecnicos other than the fact that Santo has the matches on tape and they don't. I also want to make sure Santo gets some credit for always delivering a classic lucha match even if it's the same formula again and again. At least he delivers.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm also not rehashing any arguments I've made about "the Flair formula", because they always appear to fall on deaf ears. It's like it doesn't matter how many times we hash it all out, the specifics we point to, the wide variety of different matches and types of matches and performances and nuances in his character and shifts within his character and all of that stuff, that I have laid out, that Loss has laid out, that Chad has laid out. Sometimes in painstaking detail.

 

None of it matters, because in the end, people just ignore it and default to "oh he wasn't that good in the 90s and he was a formula guy".

 

I'm past the point of trying to have that argument because we've been through it so many times. Which is why I'm much more interested in focusing on the good and bad points of all the other candidates. Once people's minds are made up about something, it's very hard to change them, that's how people are.

[Dylan Waco]

Just because you make an argument doesn't mean others have to accept it. Flair formula is overstated for a few reasons, but it is a real thing (also not intrinsically a bad thing I would add). Also most of the criticism of Flair on this forum has centered on arguments about logic and not formula. And the "he stunk when he was old" position is primarily used as a tiebreaker when all other things are equal.

[Grimmas]

 

Great match theory is akin to this actor was in a lot of great movies, so therefore he is the best. You can put in great performances but the circumstances and co-actors can stink. That is why I am against the great match theory, personally.

 

For example, you can probably point to more great Triple H matches in 2000 than Regal. However, I would argue that Regal is the better wrestler.

This analogy is off because wrestlers have more creative input into matches than actors do into the process of filmmaking. The analogy doesn't work, because you have guys like Hitchcock who say "actors are like cattle". Films don't rest solely on the performances of actors because it is and has always been "a director's medium".

 

Wrestling matches are not "the road agent's medium" are they?

 

There's no part of this analogy that works at all. And I'm loathe to come up with an alternative because I'm not sure that an analogy helps.

 

Whatever analogy you want to use the fact of the matter is that the person with the most great matches is not the automatic greatest wrestler ever.

 

Atmosphere, opponent, story, audience, time, placement on card, etc... all those go into a great match or a bad match. While a great wrestler can be great in a match and it still not be special. I don't see how counting great matches really proves anything.

[JerryvonKramer]

It makes sense for Bock to be logical because he was a thinker and presented as a thinker. Same with Dory Jr, or Baba, or other such "chessmasters".

 

Flair was the nature boy and his touchstone wasn't to be cerebral, it was emotion. Desire to show he was the best. He was a show off. Someone who wasn't above peacocking. So such a character wouldn't always be logical. Almost everything Ric does makes sense in terms of his character.

 

Funk and Hansen were two different shades of crazed Texan. Lots of the things they do don't always make sense either, they aren't always logical. But these things tend to be accepted as part of their intrinsic unpredictability and danger.

 

If logic is so highly sought after a commodity, why isnt everyone putting Dory over in their top five? Oh I forgot, it's because he doesn't make faces.

 

Seems to me that criteria can be picked and chosen to suit whatever argument you want to make about someone.

[Dylan Waco]

Do you believe a World Champ should be wrestling 15 plus minutes with, giving up multiple near falls to and showing ass for George South because he says "Wooo!" And sleeps with lots of women?

 

Logic is not the only criteria people look at. It is one. If Dory is a logical wrestler but lacks in other things it's shouldn't be hard to understand why some might not rate him.

[Grimmas]

It makes sense for Bock to be logical because he was a thinker and presented as a thinker. Same with Dory Jr, or Baba, or other such "chessmasters".

 

Flair was the nature boy and his touchstone wasn't to be cerebral, it was emotion. Desire to show he was the best. He was a show off. Someone who wasn't above peacocking. So such a character wouldn't always be logical. Almost everything Ric does makes sense in terms of his character.

 

Funk and Hansen were two different shades of crazed Texan. Lots of the things they do don't always make sense either, they aren't always logical. But these things tend to be accepted as part of their intrinsic unpredictability and danger.

 

If logic is so highly sought after a commodity, why isnt everyone putting Dory over in their top five? Oh I forgot, it's because he doesn't make faces.

 

Seems to me that criteria can be picked and chosen to suit whatever argument you want to make about someone.

When did I say logic was the only criteria?

 

Greatest wrestler ever, to me, comes down to who do I think is the best.

 

Everyone is not going to be judged based on the same criteria, because not everybody is in the same position. Aja Kong, Rey Mysterio Jr and Bret Hart are all out there trying to accomplish different things in different roles. I will look at how great Aja is at being a monster, how great Rey is as an underdog, how great Bret is as a never give up technician. Aja can do things in the ring that if Rey did them, it would be idiotic and vice versa.

[JerryvonKramer]

Do you believe a World Champ should be wrestling 15 plus minutes with, giving up multiple near falls to and showing ass for George South because he says "Wooo!" And sleeps with lots of women?

You know as well as I do that the reality is, if the booker says "go out there and give me 15 minutes with wrestler X" then the wrestler's job is to make that happen.

 

I've been critical of Harley Race for working too weak most of the time as champ, I think Flair usually asserts his superiority enough to demonstrate he's the better wrestler or a class above or whatever most of the time -- main exception being his WWF run in 91-2 when he was booked like HTM. But that's because Vince doesn't know how to book a heel champ.

[Matt D]

I don't think the right comparison is the Beatles. I think it's Elvis.

 

Especially in his movies. No one was better at being Elvis than Elvis.

 

No one could possibly star in an Elvis movie as well as Elvis could. You could put him in almost any scenario. Give him any leading lady and he could give you an Elvis movie. If you asked him what went into a good Elvis movie, he couldn't tell you. He'd just shrug and say "I'm Elvis." He'd just be himself and that was enough.

 

Then my analogy ends with King Lear. But I'm sick here and at half speed, so you guys can just work out the rest.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

It makes sense for Bock to be logical because he was a thinker and presented as a thinker. Same with Dory Jr, or Baba, or other such "chessmasters".

Flair was the nature boy and his touchstone wasn't to be cerebral, it was emotion. Desire to show he was the best. He was a show off. Someone who wasn't above peacocking. So such a character wouldn't always be logical. Almost everything Ric does makes sense in terms of his character.

Funk and Hansen were two different shades of crazed Texan. Lots of the things they do don't always make sense either, they aren't always logical. But these things tend to be accepted as part of their intrinsic unpredictability and danger.

If logic is so highly sought after a commodity, why isnt everyone putting Dory over in their top five? Oh I forgot, it's because he doesn't make faces.

Seems to me that criteria can be picked and chosen to suit whatever argument you want to make about someone.

 

When did I say logic was the only criteria?

 

Greatest wrestler ever, to me, comes down to who do I think is the best.

 

Everyone is not going to be judged based on the same criteria, because not everybody is in the same position. Aja Kong, Rey Mysterio Jr and Bret Hart are all out there trying to accomplish different things in different roles. I will look at how great Aja is at being a monster, how great Rey is as an underdog, how great Bret is as a never give up technician. Aja can do things in the ring that if Rey did them, it would be idiotic and vice versa.

Okay, so what is it that Flair does that doesn't fit his role? Don't you think someone with the level of hubris of Slick Rick would keep going for that move off the top? A. because it won him titles before and B. because -- even kayfabe wise -- he knows it gets a reaction and he's a showman who gets off on that.

 

Care to point to anything specific?

 

I mean I've used the same argument for Dory, his character was all about being ice cool and showing no emotion, so it makes sense that he seldom shows any. Emotion = loss of control = weakness. He was wrestler-as-master-tactician.

[Matt D]

Look, I have a harder time respecting Flair because there isn't the thought behind what he did.

 

On the one hand, though, Rose said that's how he wrestled too, but then there was all the research he did and how he came up with moves with Wiskowski and the amount of work that he put into things that was on a different level than spending money on suits. It's obvious in his work and his angles and in everything he did. Also the wide variance of working week after week in front of the same crowd, which is something we don't have as much with Flair, and I wish we did. He wasn't good at explaining what he did, but I believe fully that he spent all of his time thinking about it whether he realized he was doing it or not.

 

With Flair, I can't, in good faith, put the world's most talented (and/or drunk) idiot savant as my #1 I think,

[Grimmas]

 

 

It makes sense for Bock to be logical because he was a thinker and presented as a thinker. Same with Dory Jr, or Baba, or other such "chessmasters".

Flair was the nature boy and his touchstone wasn't to be cerebral, it was emotion. Desire to show he was the best. He was a show off. Someone who wasn't above peacocking. So such a character wouldn't always be logical. Almost everything Ric does makes sense in terms of his character.

Funk and Hansen were two different shades of crazed Texan. Lots of the things they do don't always make sense either, they aren't always logical. But these things tend to be accepted as part of their intrinsic unpredictability and danger.

If logic is so highly sought after a commodity, why isnt everyone putting Dory over in their top five? Oh I forgot, it's because he doesn't make faces.

Seems to me that criteria can be picked and chosen to suit whatever argument you want to make about someone.

When did I say logic was the only criteria?

 

Greatest wrestler ever, to me, comes down to who do I think is the best.

 

Everyone is not going to be judged based on the same criteria, because not everybody is in the same position. Aja Kong, Rey Mysterio Jr and Bret Hart are all out there trying to accomplish different things in different roles. I will look at how great Aja is at being a monster, how great Rey is as an underdog, how great Bret is as a never give up technician. Aja can do things in the ring that if Rey did them, it would be idiotic and vice versa.

Okay, so what is it that Flair does that doesn't fit his role? Don't you think someone with the level of hubris of Slick Rick would keep going for that move off the top? A. because it won him titles before and B. because -- even kayfabe wise -- he knows it gets a reaction and he's a showman who gets off on that.

 

Care to point to anything specific?

 

I mean I've used the same argument for Dory, his character was all about being ice cool and showing no emotion, so it makes sense that he seldom shows any. Emotion = loss of control = weakness. He was wrestler-as-master-tactician.

 

Like I said everyone is not being judged on the same criteria. Sure using the top rope every match (even though it only worked a few times) might make sense because Ric Flair is that cocky, but does that mean I want to see it? That bugs me. Working the arm for 10 minutes and then working the leg for ten more and then winning with a roll up grabbing the tights is not my favourite thing. You can justify every flaw a wrestler has by working it into their character, that doesn't mean they don't have flaws.

 

Bret Hart had a lot of lazy performances, but that doesn't mean I can claim that since he was the best he was saving all of his energy for bigger matches and coasting by against lesser opponents. Does working that into his character mean being lazy on non-ppv shows is not a flaw?

[Graham Crackers]

I like Flair and I have liked him for a long time. That said, what he does isn't very high on my list of priorities as a wrestling fan anymore. When it comes to American wrestling the only styles I really love are brawls, David vs Goliath matches, and tags. Flair is great at these but he's not the best at them either. When it comes to Americans I'll definitely have Lawler, Hansen, and Funk ahead of him. Throw in Japanese and Mexican workers who perform styles of matwork and match layout I prefer and Flair is someone who might not make my top 20.

[Dylan Waco]

 

Do you believe a World Champ should be wrestling 15 plus minutes with, giving up multiple near falls to and showing ass for George South because he says "Wooo!" And sleeps with lots of women?

You know as well as I do that the reality is, if the booker says "go out there and give me 15 minutes with wrestler X" then the wrestler's job is to make that happen.

 

I've been critical of Harley Race for working too weak most of the time as champ, I think Flair usually asserts his superiority enough to demonstrate he's the better wrestler or a class above or whatever most of the time -- main exception being his WWF run in 91-2 when he was booked like HTM. But that's because Vince doesn't know how to book a heel champ.

 

 

I think the first point expressed is a weak one.

 

Flair was the World champ/top star. He had a lot of pull. Promoters/bookers knew how he worked. The reason he worked those sorts of matches isn't because the booker/promoter told him to - it's because it's how Flair often worked. Hell even IF I was willing to concede the point, Flair was part of the booking committee at times, which means he would have been the one booking himself to put on performances like that.