The 50 Greatest Wrestlers Of The Last 50 Years: Who Is #1?

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#1 Ric Flair”To be the man, you have to beat the man” is not only one of the most iconic catchphrases of all-time; it still rings true today. More than 25 years following his famous interview at WrestleWar 1989 when he first uttered that phrase, Ric Flair is still the man. During the course of researching and compiling all of the information for this project, I moved a lot of people around on the list. Some guys were originally slotted much lower than they ended up being and some guys were slotted higher and went down. However, there was never really any debate that Flair was going to end up being number one; and despite some strong cases being made for other talent, Flair remains the top guy. Flair holds onto the number one spot because he checks off the most boxes when it comes to evaluating a career. As a pure worker few have ever been better, both in the ability to exchange holds and work crisply and in the ability to sell his opponents offense and tell a story in the ring. Charisma-wise he was at times flamboyant and obnoxious, acting in a manner worthy of the nickname “The Nature Boy” which he adopted from Buddy Rogers, the mid-century star who popularized many of the classic heel traits associated with today’s villains. He could also play a sympathetic babyface, take a beating as well as anybody in wrestling history and get the audience behind him. As a draw Flair was strong, if not quite on the level of guys like Hogan and Austin. He never had the benefit of being the top guy in New York City, and most of his prime was spent anchoring promotions from an older business model. Flair was a big wrestling star in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and was certainly better known in those parts than Hogan was in New York, but because the WWF was working in the media capital of the world and under the supervision of Vince McMahon, Hogan’s business numbers and ultimately his popularity would dwarf Flair’s. Still, Flair was probably the most popular non-WWF wrestler in the United States and Canada for about 15 years, and was a reliable draw wherever he went, even if that was often in smaller markets. Flair came from humble beginnings, born an orphan in Memphis before being adopted by a couple and eventually moving to Minnesota. As a teenager Flair excelled in football and amateur wrestling, winning two state championships in wrestling in 1966 and 1968. He played football at the University of Minnesota upon graduating from high school, where he was a teammate of Greg Gagne, the son of American Wrestling Association owner and perennial champion, Verne Gagne. Flair eventually dropped out of school and was working at a night club when he encountered Ken Patera, an Olympic weightlifter who told Flair he was going to train with Verne Gagne to become a professional wrestler. Interested, Patera introduced Flair to Gagne and impressed by his amateur background, Gagne agreed to train Flair along with Patera. After training with Gagne and British wrestling star Billy Robinson, Flair debuted in December of 1972, wrestling George Gadaski to a 10-minute draw. He used the ring name Ric Flair, which was remarkably close to his legal name of Richard Fliehr. In the early days of his career Flair hardly resembled the icon he would become. The former lineman weighed well over 250lbs and had a thick, muscled physique and dark brown hair. However, he still exhibited a lot of natural charisma in the ring and he quickly got the attention of different promoters who saw that Flair had something special.

After spending time mainly as a show-opening wrestler for the AWA, Flair would move onto the territory that he would become synonymous with, Jim Crocket Promotions and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Shortly after his debut in May of 1974 he began teaming with Rip Hawk and in July they defeated Bob Bruggers and Paul Jones for the NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championships. They would hold the championships until December when Hawk got injured and had to be replaced by Brute Bernard and Flair and Bernard lost the titles to Paul Jones and Tiger Conway Jr. In February of 1975 Flair won his first singles championship when he defeated Paul Jones for the NWA Mid-Atlantic Television Championship. A bully heel, Flair would defend the championship against charismatic babyfaces like Wahoo McDaniel and Rufus R. Jones before losing it to Jones in August. In September of 1975 he stepped up and won the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship from Wahoo McDaniel, perhaps the biggest regional championship in the National Wrestling Alliance. Just as it seemed Flair was going to excel to the next level in wrestling and become a national star, he was snatched right out of the air. On October 4, 1975, Flair was a part of a serious plane crash in Wilmington, North Carolina. The crash killed the pilot and paralyzed the legendary heel Johnny Valentine; Flair broke his back in three different places and was famously told by doctors that he would never wrestle again. However, Flair recovered and returned to the ring in February of 1976, resuming his feud with McDaniel. The injury did play an unforeseen role in the development of Flair’s career. When he returned to the ring he had a thinner physique and wrestled a different style from his bruising, physical character to a slicker, more antagonistic technical wrestling style, mixing in classic underhanded tactics. The new Ric Flair would eventually generate enough attention from fans that the iconic Buddy Rogers came out of retirement in 1978 to wrestle Flair. Flair defeated Rogers and was allowed to use the nickname “The Nature Boy”, which he adopted from Rogers and would arguably usurp Rogers as the most fabulous heel in wrestling history. Coming off of his back injury Flair would win the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship back from McDaniel and continued his feud with the popular babyface. McDaniel and Flair wrestled all over the territory having violent and bloody matches that transfixed crowds in the Southeast. McDaniel would finally win the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship from Flair in Steel Cage match in Greenville, SC in September of 1976, only for Flair to regain the title a month later in a Championship vs Hair match, but McDaniel won it back in December.

In July of 1977 Flair captured the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, probably the second most important championship under the NWA banner, behind only the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, when he defeated Bobo Brazil for the title. Flair would defend the championship against Brazil, Rufus R. Jones and Steve Keirn, but his best opponent would be a young babyface new to the territory, Ricky Steamboat. If Flair was the classic dirty heel in the model of Rogers, Steamboat was the classic slick-wrestling babyface in the model of Lou Thesz. Together they had fast-paced, dramatic matches that were probably the best wrestling matches going on in the United States during the late-1970s. Steamboat would win the championship in October and the two would trade the championship back and forth throughout 1979 in a prelude of the epic feud they would have a decade later. Flair would continue to trade the United States Championship with the likes of Jimmy Snuka, Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper. Proving that he had everything that it took to be a regional champion, the call came from up top for Flair to become the top guy in the NWA. In June of 1981 Dusty Rhodes defeated Harley Race for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Despite Rhodes’ overwhelming popularity; the NWA board was hesitant to book him as the long-term champion, mainly because they didn’t think Rhodes’ status as a sub-par worker and his flabby physique would make a good long-term kingpin for the NWA. With Race currently out of the picture, the onus fell on Flair to take the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Rhodes. In September of 1981, Flair defeated Rhodes for his first world championship. Flair’s first reign as NWA World Heavyweight Champion lasted officially 631 days, where Flair would establish himself as the most reliable performer in perhaps the entire world. Flair throughout the 1980s came across as a hybrid star who bridged the gap between two different generations of wrestlers. With both the World Wrestling Federation and the AWA dominating wrestling above the Mason-Dixon line, the NWA, particularly with Flair as champion, became mostly a regional promotion based in the Southeast. Southern wrestling is different from the flamboyance of New York City and the mat-based style of the Mid-West, it is much more traditional with classic babyfaces and classic heels and a heavy emphasis on Southern wrestlers, particularly as babyfaces. That is part of the reason Flair was always billed from Charlotte, NC, even though he is really from Minnesota. But Flair also helped take the stagnant NWA into the modern era with his character and presentation. Flair cut epic promos throughout the 1980s, coining many different catchphrases and always coming across as a total superstar in his promos. While the WWF was heading towards global domination on the backs of Hulk Hogan and a litany of colorful characters, Flair remained the best of the rest with his consistently entertaining promos and great matches. Flair got over with the southern audience in a way that few have ever done, but he was also colorful enough that he could be marketed all over the world as the universal superstar, which made him the perfect person to hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Flair defended the championship across the globe, including dates in Japan against Jumbo Tsuruta. It would be in the Dominican Republic that Flair would face some controversy over the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, as he was originally slated to drop the championship to local hero Jack Veneno, and Veneno would then lose the championship back to Flair shortly thereafter at a show in the United States. This is similar to booking patterns that had been used in Japan with Giant Baba enjoying a pair of short reigns as NWA World Heavyweight Champion before dropping the title back to the original champion at the end of the tour. Veneno, knowing he would be dropping the title as soon as he stepped foot in the US, refused to defend the championship outside of the Dominican Republic. His reward was to be stripped of his championship and was never acknowledged by the NWA as the champion, wiping his name out from the history books and Flair remained the champion. In January of 1983 Flair did a quick title swap with Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico, but similar to Veneno’s title reign it was never recognized by the NWA. Flair’s first title reign officially came to an end in June of 1983 when Race defeated him. During his title reign Flair–despite embodying everything that a classic heel would do–began to get some crowd support simply because of how talented he was. Eventually the NWA decided that Flair may actually be better as a babyface than a heel, and he became a babyface towards the end of his title reign, made clear by having him lose the championship to Race, a perennial heel. The title loss was only a minor setback for Flair, as it was setting up a title chase that would culminate at the first Starrcade, a special event heavily promoted by the NWA and Jim Crockett Promotions with Flair and Race in a Steel Cage match for the championship as the headliner. There had been large events and super shows promoted for years before Starrcade, but Starrcade was one of the first shows to be presented not only as a big event but also one that would be screened in arenas via closed-circuit television around the Southeast. The annual spectacular would become the godfather to annual PPV events, most notably WrestleMania which would take place a year later. The first event, held at the Greensboro Coliseum was a tremendous success, not only selling out the arena but the traffic caused by fans trying to get to the arena and the various screening facilities caused a massive backup, effectively shutting down transportation in the city. With former champion Gene Kiniski as the special guest referee, Flair defeated Race in the main event for his second NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

Flair would swap the championship with Race during a tour of the Pacific, losing the title to Race at a show in Wellington, New Zealand only to win it back three days later in Singapore. Once again, these reigns were never officially recognized by the NWA and for all that most fans knew Flair had never lost the championship at all. Flair however would officially drop the championship in May of 1984 to Kerry Von Erich. Von Erich won the title in front of a massive crowd of over 32,000 people …

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