About Me
THIS IS A TRIBUTE PAGE TO THE NATURE BOY / PLEASE DON'T THINK ITS THE REAL ONE BECAUSE HE'S QUITE OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO CREATE ONE. PLEASE VISIT MY OFFICIAL TRIBUTE TO RIC FLAIR ON HTTP://WWW.16TIMES.CO.UK (CURRENTLY UNDER REDEVELOPMENT)
A SHORT HISTORY OF "THE NATURE BOY" RIC FLAIR
His birth name, depending on the particular documents examined, was either Fred Phillips, Fred Demaree, or Fred Stewart. He was one of several thousand children adopted through the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an agency that was revealed in 1950 to have fraudulently induced numerous mothers to give up their children for adoption. His adoptive parents, who received him when he was less than a month old, were a physician (father) and a theater writer (mother) who named him Richard Morgan Fliehr. At the time of his adoption, his father was finishing his residency in gynecology in Detroit; soon afterwards, his parents settled with the young Richard in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota.
Flair played football at the University of Minnesota while in a pre-medical academic program, but he dropped out before receiving a degree. He then worked as a bouncer before meeting Ken Patera, a former Olympic weightlifter who had established himself in professional wrestling. Patera encouraged Flair to pursue a pro wrestling career, and Flair soon joined the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association (AWA), working his first match for that promotion on December 10, 1972.
After three years with 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. Flair went as far as suing the estate of the pilot who caused his 1975 plane crash and actually won.
Ric Flair won the United States Heavyweight Championship five 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 8 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 Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Lex Luger, and Sting. Flair also feuded with Magnum T.A., Nikita Koloff, Ricky Morton of the Rock 'N Roll Express, and Kerry von Erich, 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 WCW/NWA champion, Flair left WCW (a group run by Ted Turner which had just abdicated from the NWA alliance) in July 1991. Flair was offered a 50% pay cut and no longer got the option of booking power. WCW officials wanted to make Lex Luger their top star and wanted to make Ric Flair a midcard star. Flair disagreed and a week before 1991 Great American Bash he either quit or was fired by WCW. According to Flair, Jim Herd wanted Flair 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 WCW/NWA World title belt with him. This is because Herd refused to give Flair the $25,000 deposit he put down on the belt itself, plus interest. Back in the NWA days, the NWA World Champion required to place a $25,000 deposit on the belt to ensure that the champion wouldn't leave the NWA with the belt; he dropped the belt, the $25,000 would be returned to him, plus any interest that had accumulated over time. Eventually, WCW tried to sue the WWF to regain the belt, but the case was dropped, because the belt itself was still the property of the NWA. Eventually, when Flair returned to WCW, the company finally paid Flair $36,000 for the belt (the $25,000 deposit, plus $11,000 interest). In the meantime, Flair wore an old WWF World Tag Team belt that was blurred out on television, and he was billed as the "Real World Heavyweight Champion."
In January of 1992, Flair began his first run in the WWF including winning the WWF Title in a 30-man Royal Rumble. Flair also won another WWF Title before leaving the company. 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.
Second WCW run
Flair returned 'home' to WCW in February 1993, feuding with the likes of Vader, Sting, Hulk Hogan, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and Eric Bischoff, gaining the WCW Title 8 more times before the company was bought out by Vince McMahon's WWF.
Ric Flair was also sued by WCW in 1998 for failure to show for a wrestling event. Flair had been working without a contract since February 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 he decided to not show up at a particular WCW Thunder taping. Flair was instead, busy watching his son Reid's amateur wrestling tournament.
WCW's booking committee decided out of nowhere to reform the Four Horsemen that particular night and announcers said he would be on the show over and over with a "big surprise." When Flair failed to show up, WCW got upset and filed a $2 million dollar 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 of 1998.
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.
Ric Flair was also the very first WCW Champion.
World Wrestling Entertainment
After a brief hiatus from pro wrestling Flair returned to the WWF in late 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 (then heel) Vince McMahon. McMahon, who purportedly only had control of SmackDown! at the time, challenged Flair (the onscreen owner of Raw) to a match. If Flair lost, he would surrender his ownership of to McMahon, giving him exclusive control of the WWE once more, whereas the opposite would apply if Flair was victorious. Flair lost the match when Brock Lesnar charged the ring, knocking him unconcious and allowing McMahon to make the cover.
Flair remained on Raw as an occasional wrestler, and eventually turned heel once more by betraying Rob Van Dam and joining forces with multi-time WWE Champion Triple H, with whom he later formed the stable Evolution.
Evolution disbanded in 2005 following weeks of in-fighting between HHH and Batista. After several months absence, Flair returned to RAW on August 22, 2005. He was interviewed on Carlito's Cabana, and eventually attacked the host, Carlito. As a result, Ric Flair has once more turned face.
On August 29, 2005, Ric Flair was assigned to a tag team match with Shawn Michaels against Carlito and Chris Masters. During the broadcast, Flair was brutally beaten and busted open by an unknown assailant in a backstage area, and thus the match was changed to a handicap match with Shawn Michaels against Carlito and Masters. Ric Flair (bandaged, with a bloodied face and shirt) did join Michaels as a much-needed tag partner near the end of the match, but was eventually rendered unable to continue by Chris Masters's finishing move, the Master Lock.
On Sept. 6, 2005 Carlito was the one who attacked and bloodied up Flair. Those two will meet at Unforgiven for the Intercontinentol Championship.
Legacy
Despite his age and his less-than-chiseled physique, Ric Flair can still take on wrestlers half his age. Even though he is long past his prime as a "main-eventer," he still serves a purpose by getting in the ring and making the 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 Richard Strauss composition Also sprach Zarathustra (the theme of the film 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.
In 2004, Flair engaged in an off-screen rivalry with Bret Hart, in which both claimed to be the best wrestler of all time. Flair has also had issues with Mick Foley, who he attacked in his autobiography, writing "I don't care how many thumbtacks Mick Foley has fallen on, how many ladders he's fallen off, how many continents he's supposedly bled on, he'll always be known as a glorified stuntman."
