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02-24-2006, 08:19 PM
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Death Magnetic
Join Date: May 2003 Location: City of Champions
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Rep Power: 113   gXboxLive Position: 57th | Ric Flair NWA/WCW After three years with the AWA, Flair joined the NWA affiliated Jim Crockett Promotions based in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. On the rise, he suffered a severe back injury in a October 4, 1975 plane crash in Wilmington, North Carolina. Doctors told Flair that he would never wrestle again, but Flair proved them wrong by returning to active wrestling the next year. Ric Flair won the United States Heavyweight Championship 4 times, then won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time by defeating Dusty Rhodes in 1981. Harley Race won the title from Flair in 1983. Flair regained the title at StarrCade '83 in Greensboro, North Carolina in a steel cage match. Flair would go on to win the NWA title 6 more times. As the NWA champion, he defended his belt around the world, including frequent stops in the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. Throughout the 1980s Flair became affiliated with The Four Horsemen stable. Flair's main rivals for the NWA title were Race, Rhodes, Kerry von Erich, Magnum T.A., Nikita Koloff, Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Lex Luger, Sting and tag teamers Ricky Morton and Road Warrior Hawk, among countless others. He was constantly seen with various valets such as Woman, Miss Elizabeth, Fifi, Sherri Martel and Baby Doll. World Wrestling Federation After a contract dispute with WCW head Jim Herd, while still NWA/WCW champion, Flair left WCW (a group run by Ted Turner which had just separated from the NWA) in July 1991. Flair was offered a 50% pay cut and no longer got the option of booking power. Herd wanted to make Lex Luger the top star and wanted to make Ric Flair a midcard star despite the fact that he was still a huge draw. Flair disagreed and a week before the 1991 Great American Bash, Herd fired him. According to Flair, Herd also wanted him to change his appearance (i.e. by cutting his hair and wearing a diamond earring) in order to "change with the times". During Ric Flair's first run in the WWF, he took the "Big Gold Belt" with him, and was billed as the "Real World Heavyweight Champion". This is because Herd refused to return the $25,000 deposit that Flair had put down on the belt itself, plus interest. The NWA required the NWA World Champion to place a $25,000 deposit on the belt to ensure that the champion wouldn't leave the Alliance with the belt. Since Flair did not receive his deposit, he felt it was still his property. WCW tried to sue the WWF to regain it, but the case was thrown out of court. Eventually, Flair returned it to WCW in exchange for the original $25,000 deposit, plus $11,000 interest. In the meantime, Flair wore an old WWF World Tag Team title belt that was blurred out on television. In January 1992, Flair began his first run in the WWF, winning the WWF Title in a 30-man Royal Rumble. Feuding with Randy Savage, Flair also won another WWF Title before leaving the company. At the end of his run, Vince McMahon and Flair himself simply felt that Flair was no longer needed in the WWF. McMahon thought Flair did everything he could in the WWF and Flair was ready to go back to WCW. McMahon and Flair amicably ended Flair's contract with Flair ultimately losing a "loser leaves town match" to Mr. Perfect on Monday Night Raw. Flair has often referred to the 18-month stint as a highlight of his career. Second WCW run Flair returned "home" to WCW in February 1993, hosting a short-lived talk show in WCW called A Flair For the Gold as a compromise to work around a no-compete clause in his previous WWF contract. He could appear on TV, but not wrestle. Arn Anderson would sit at the bar and Flair's maid Fifi, would always be cleaning or bearing gifts. Flair would briefly hold the NWA World title once again, before WCW finally left the NWA in September 1993. Later in 1993, WCW planned to have Sid Vicious win the WCW World title at Starrcade '93, but following Sid's firing for his part in a violent altercation with Arn Anderson, Flair was inserted into the role, and defeated Big Van Vader for the title. Flair later feuded with Hulk Hogan upon Hogan's arrival in WCW in June 1994, and lost a retirement match to Hogan at Halloween Havoc '94. Flair took a few months off, before returning as a wrestler and part-time manager in 1995. Flair would have several more title reigns in the subsequent years. During the late 90's Flair would suffer depression due to the people at WCW ,and the atmosphere and how he was constantly treated badly by Eric Bischoff. Flair was very upset at WCW and wanted to jump to The WWF, but knew he would put down the Four Horsemen, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Steve McMichael, and Arn Anderson. WCW even sued Flair for not showing up at a WCW Thunder show. However his contract had expired in February 1998. He would return on September 14, 1998 on Monday Nitro on an emotional return to WCW, and to the Four Horsemen. Flair would continue to be a key player in the dying days of WCW until it's demense in March of 2001. When WCW was purchased by the WWF, Flair was the leader of the heel group called The Magnificent Seven with Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Road Warrior Animal, Rick Steiner, Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell. Flair lost WCW's final match on the March 26, 2001 edition of Nitro to his longtime rival Sting. World Wrestling Entertainment After a brief hiatus from pro wrestling, Flair returned to the WWF in November 2001 as the on-camera co-owner of the company. He turned face by joining forces with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Flair later turned heel again by turning on Austin. When Austin walked out on the company, Flair turned face once again after an altercation with Vince McMahon. McMahon, who purportedly only had control of SmackDown! at the time, challenged Flair (the onscreen owner of RAW) to a match for exclusive ownership of WWE. Flair lost the match when Brock Lesnar charged the ring, knocking him "unconscious" and allowing McMahon to make the cover. Flair remained on RAW as an occasional wrestler and eventually turned heel by betraying Rob Van Dam and joining forces with World Heavyweight Champion Triple H, with whom he later formed the stable Evolution. During 2003, Flair had a short-lived feud with Shawn Michaels which began when Michaels took Kevin Nash's side against Triple H, his archrival. The two would go at it whenever they were accompanying their friends to the ring, and this led to a legendary confrontation at Bad Blood 2003, which led to Flair winning thanks to Randy Orton's interference. In 2004, Flair lost to Shelton Benjamin at Backlash 2004, in an effort to avenge several losses by Triple H to Benjamin. Later that year, Flair lost to Randy Orton, who had been violently kicked out of Evolution, in a steel cage match at the first Taboo Tuesday event. Several months after Batista left Evolution, Flair returned to RAW on August 22, 2005. He was interviewed on "Carlito's Cabana" and turned face by attacking the host Carlito. Flair would align himself with Shawn Michaels in a feud with Carlito and Michaels's new rival Chris Masters. After Flair was brutally attacked by Carlito backstage, the two had a match at the 2005 WWE Unforgiven event for Carlito’s Intercontinental Championship, a belt Flair had never won. Ric Flair made Carlito tap out to the figure four and won his first Intercontinental Championship. With this win, he became the second wrestler to ever hold all six major titles from WCW and WWE. Several weeks after his title victory, Triple H turned on Flair after a victory in a tag match against Masters and Carlito. Triple H would later claim Flair was a shell of the wrestler he was once was and he wanted to put Flair out of his misery. At Taboo Tuesday 2005 Flair defeated Triple H to retain his Intercontinental Championship in a Steel Cage Match. The two met again at Survivor Series 2005 in a Last Man Standing match. This time, Triple H defeated Flair after three Pedigrees, a sledgehammer shot to the back, and a screwdriver in the face. Flair returned to the ring on the December 12 edition of RAW in Boston , wrestling Kurt Angle where the winner would earn a spot in the upcoming Elimination Chamber match at New Year's Revolution 2006. Unfortunately for Flair, Angle nailed him with his gold medals and got the victory. Flair faced Edge for the Intercontinental Championship at New Year's Revolution which Flair won by DQ. On the January 9, 2006 episode of "RAW," Flair interrupted Edge's celebratory in-ring foreplay with Lita, calling him a "disgrace" before running into the ring. However, Edge quickly got the upper hand and deliver a conchairto shot on the announcer's table. John Cena later ran Edge off before giving Lita his signature finishing move, the F-U. This incident lead to a TLC match against Edge on the January 16, 2006 edition of RAW for the WWE Championship. Edge won the match and retained the title. On February 20, 2006, Flair lost the Intercontinental Championship to Shelton Benjamin after being hit twice with an oxygen tank and a T-bone suplex. Legacy Despite his age and his less-than-chiseled physique, Ric Flair can still take on wrestlers half his age, at least in kayfabe. Even though he is long past his prime as a "main-eventer," he still serves a purpose by getting in the ring and making younger wrestlers look good. Flair is over in the ring due mostly to his in-ring antics, including cheating ways (earning him the distinction of being "the dirtiest player in the game"), his trademark strut and his legendary shouting of "Wooo!" In a tradition started by the vocal fans of ECW during a time when the WCW management was thought to be unjustly holding Flair down, anytime a wrestler delivers a hard back hand chop to the chest of his opponent, fans yell "Wooo!" in tribute to Flair, whose stiff chops often made his opponent's chest raw or even bloody. This tradition long outlived any controversy it was meant to protest and has carried over to WWE and almost all other North American promotions. Since the late 70s, he has worn ornate, fur lined robes of many colors with sequins, and since the mid 80s, his approach to the ring was often heralded by the playing of the "Dawn" section of Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra (famous for being used in the motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey). The look and sound complements his cocky in-ring persona. Late in 2003, WWE released a three-DVD retrospective of Flair's career (focusing mainly on his career prior to 1993), The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection. It became WWE's fastest-selling video package up to that time. Flair released his autobiography, To Be the Man, in July 2004. The title is taken from one of his catchphrases, "To be the man, you gotta BEAT the man!" Flair is an icon in the Carolinas on a par with Michael Jordan and Richard Petty, and he has made the Charlotte area his home since the days of the Crockett promotion. His name has been mentioned from time to time as a possible candidate for governor of North Carolina. Controversy Ric Flair has often been the subject of controversy. In 2004, Flair engaged in an off-screen rivalry with Bret Hart, in which both claimed to be the best wrestler of all time and accused each other of performing the same routines in most of their matches. Hart responded that Flair had spent the majority of his career in the NWA/WCW which he stated "is and always has been second rate to the WWF". Flair spent two years in the WWF prior to 2001, losing the WWF championship title to Hart in 1992. Flair has also had issues with Mick Foley, who he attacked in his autobiography, writing
In 1998, Flair was sued by WCW for no-showing an event. Flair had been working without a contract since February of that year and had refused to sign a new one, citing differences between the document and the terms he had previously agreed to work under. Seeing that he wasn't needed for any WCW television tapings at the time, Flair decided not to show up at a particular WCW Thunder taping. He instead watched his son Reid's amateur wrestling tournament. That particular night, WCW's booking committee decided out of nowhere to reform the Four Horsemen, and announcers repeatedly stated that he would be on the show with a "big surprise." When Flair failed to show up, WCW management (led by Eric Bischoff) became upset and filed a $2 million lawsuit against him for damages, saying he signed a letter of intent to re-sign with WCW. He later filed a suit of his own in response, but the matter was settled out of court. Ric Flair finally returned to television in September 1998. On May 5, 2002, a number of WWE wrestlers and management members flew from Great Britain to the United States following the end of a European tour, which concluded with the Insurrextion pay-per-view event in the United Kingdom. World Wrestling Entertainment was hit with a sexual harassment suit by Sportjet flight attendants stemming from the alleged actions of Ric Flair, Dustin Runnels and Scott Hall among others. The lawsuit alleges that Flair, wearing only his robe, flashed everyone and forced an attendant to touch his crotch. Personal information Flair does not know his birth name. In a chapter of his autobiography titled "Black Market Baby", he notes that his birth name is given on different documents as Fred Phillips, Fred Demaree, and Fred Stewart. The chapter title is a reference to the fact that the Tennessee Children's Home Society, the agency with which he was placed for adoption, was revealed in 1950 to have fraudulently induced thousands of mothers to give up their children for adoption. The future Ric Flair was adopted when he was six weeks old by a physician (father) and a theater writer (mother). At the time of his adoption, his father was completing a residency in gynecology in Detroit. Shortly afterwards, the family settled in Edina, Minnesota, where the young Richard Fliehr lived throughout his childhood. The pilot of the private jet involved in Flair's 1975 plane crash languished in a coma for a year before dying. It was discovered after the accident that the pilot was flying on a suspended license. Flair later sued the pilot's estate for damages and won. Flair is sometimes seen attending the Carolina Hurricanes NHL ice hockey games. At many home games when the Hurricanes score a goal, a trademark Ric Flair "Carolina Goal! Wooo! Wooo Wooo!" is played. Flair has been active in North Carolina Republican politics, most notably supporting Jesse Helms. Flair has appeared in three motion pictures: The Wrestler (1974), Body Slam (1987) and Sting: Moment of Truth (2004). Flair's son David Flair is also a professional wrestler. Flair's youngest son Reid Fliehr is an accomplished high school wrestler and made several appearances on WCW television along with his sisters Ashley and Megan. Flair is not related to the Andersons. He was billed as their cousin in the various NWA territories and WCW. Roddy Piper was the best man at Flair's second wedding. Jim Crocket Jr. was the best man at Flair's first wedding. In May 2005, Flair's wife Beth filed for divorce, citing steroid and alcohol abuse, in addition to incidents where he slapped, kicked, choked and bit her. Flair has been ordered to pay Beth $20,000 a month until the divorce in finalized. The judge overseeing the divorce is considering freezing Flair's assets because he spent $92,000 for a ring for his new girlfriend. Flair contends that he and his wife lived well beyond their means and racked up substantial debt to the IRS and other creditors. Flair owed the government more than $1 million in 1997, and the IRS is now seizing more than $200,000 of his salary in 2005 to cover the owed taxes. In December 2005, a magistrate issued arrest warrants for Flair after a road rage incident that took place in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which Flair allegedly got out of his car, grabbed a motorist by the neck and kicked the door of the motorist's sport utility vehicle. That left the motorist with bruises and a dent in his Toyota 4Runner. Flair was charged with injury to personal property and simple assault and battery, both misdemeanors. This incident has been ridiculed on WWE programming, most notably by the wrestler Edge. In wrestling Nicknames
Quotes
Finishing and signature moves
Signature illegal moves
Flair's "failing" moves Flair has gained a measure of notoriety for his (kayfabe) inability to successfully execute certain moves without being thwarted.
Championships and accomplishments
Championship succession
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