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Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/ric-flair- … 45928.html
Deserves his own thread rather than the wrestling thread. This doesn't sound good.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Oh Jesus....
My all time favorite wrestler. His legacy a bit tainted as he aged and acted off everywhere, his financial problems people mocked, etc.
I don't care. While Hogan may have placed wrestling on pop culture's radar in the 80s, its not the same without Flair. The NWA was a much more realistic portrayal of wrestling when compared to the cartoonish version McMahon presented. It might have even been ahead of its time to an extent as some of the stuff going on in the NWA would've fit right in to the Attitude era of the late 90s.
He's one of the few wrestlers thats instantly recognizable even with people who never watched wrestling.
There will never, EVER be another one like him.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
I read a post by some wrestling dirt sheet guy basically saying this is really bad news.
There was a TMZ article about multiple organs being affected. Doesn't sound good.
Ric put over the stinger and that makes him cool in my book.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
He had a bowel obstruction that required surgery. Then his kidneys shut down due to the obstruction and is now undergoing dialysis.
He also needs another surgery in the upcoming weeks.
Always loved the Flair post rumble 1992 win interview/promo.
Oh I also had no idea that his current fiancee was Fifi the maid from his 1993 (or 1994) WCW promos.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Oh shit....forgot about Rumble 92. Talk about a magical night. Might be Heenan's best work. I know he didn't go over well in his WWF run but it showed under the right circumstances how much better it could've been(maybe a couple years earlier). WWF was entering a transitional phase. Bad timing all around.
Oh I also had no idea that his current fiancee was Fifi the maid from his 1993 (or 1994) WCW promos.
I wonder how that happened.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Love Flair...so many great moments. Hope he hangs in there.
I loved his WWE retirement match - such a great story!!
Even if I did see him in a local ring against hogan like 2 years later lol
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Yeah James, I mostly watched WWF but always seemed to 'know' NWA was better. Seemed more legit, real, and raw. Always seemed like it lacked the funding to take it to the next level (advertisers, venues, production/writers), plus the wrestlers just seemed old school, the characters were more real, less charactures (Koko B Ware lol). I think the wrestlers as a person didn't wanna do that cheesy stuff, even tho at the time it sold.
I'll always remember watching an episode of NWA one week, and the final match was about 20-25 minutes (in hindsight was probably to kill time, but it was a pretty captivating watch). In the end, someone handed the wrestler who was losing a foreign object (they didn't mention, but something like brass knuckles). He knocked him pretty cold to take back over the momentum. He swung the wrestler into the ropes, and swung the object at his head, only, the other wrestler ducked & ran thru it. Stopping behind the guy holding the object. He then grabbed him from behind, suplexed him, and pinned him for the win at the very end of the show. It was epic. And I kid you not, the very next week I saw Ricky the Dragon Steamboat win about a 20 minute match in the exact same fashion on WWF. Definitely was copied, it was exact to a T, foriegn object and all. Wish I could remember who he was wrestling, someone could probably look it up on the WWE channel.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Always seemed like it lacked the funding to take it to the next level (advertisers, venues, production/writers),
Crockett not only didn't know how to properly run a wrestling promotion, he didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing regarding the need to morph it into a truly national company.
His father ran the NWA/WCW for eons until he died. Enter stage right his children....Jim Crockett, David Crockett(remember his announcing with Schiavone), and I forgot the sister's name. Funny....she was actually more experienced than her brothers and MIGHT not have run the company into the ground if she had been in charge.
While I LOVED the old school look in that small studio, it was the very last thing they needed at the time. Wrestling had its fork in the road moment in 83-84. It was either go national(global) or go home and let Mcmahon dominate and eventually monopolize the industry. Crockett achieved both. 
While Mcmahon's TV shows were held in arenas nationwide, NWA's programs were held in a studio that held 50-100 people.
That's terrible. Killer match leading to an interesting feud but the whole thing is just too small time. Crowd so small you can hear little kids in the background during the announcing. There are independent, irrelevant wrestling feds in this decade with bigger crowds. These shows were also being held in the morning ....
I'm sure the handful of fans in attendance loved it.....but there's no excuse for that.
NWA/WCW being a truly national company was a mirage. They had a killer TV slot.....WTBS....in an era before everyone had 500 channels he had his wrestling shows in almost every house. Remember how before commercial breaks they would show the dates/locations for upcoming shows? It was always Charlotte, Atlanta, Charleston, Roanoke, New Orleans, etc.
I asked this question to the TV when I would see this.....
Where's Sacramento? Where's San Francisco? Where's Oakland? Hell.....where's Los Angeles ?!?!? Your product is NOT available in the 2nd largest city in the country? Why not? It's the National Wrestling Alliance.
By the time he truly attempted to enter the west coast(late 87), it wasn't promoted at all and by the time anyone knew it was happening, it was already over.
How in the living hell do you not promote a Wargames match(Horsemen vs Road Warriors, Dusty, and Nikita) in San Francisco at the height of its craze and it never being held on the west coast before? Just pure stupidity.
Crockett also didn't understand the impact on pop culture that wrestling had. EVERYBODY knew about it and/or watched it. It wasn't going away. Little kids to great grannies were watching.
Mcmahon had his wrestlers doing the late night circuit of talk shows(Tonight Show, Letterman, Arsenio, etc.) and even the morning news shows like GMA and for a brief period... even had their own talk show on the USA network. How many times did Crockett have NWA wrestlers on those types of shows? ZERO. Flair would've been perfect for such programs. So would Magnum TA. TA was like the Savage of the NWA.
WWF had toy wrestlers. AWA even got in on this action in 86. What did NWA do? NOTHING. They allowed AWA to make an action figure of Flair....which was never promoted by the way.
Everywhere you looked you saw WWF...even when you went to the frozen section of grocery stores to buy ice cream. Go into the health/fitness sections, there's the Hulk Hogan workout set. NWA? NOTHING.
How did Crockett spend his money? Buying a private jet so Dusty can fly from here to Timbuktu. Moving their main base of operations to Texas. Complete idiocy. If that wasn't bad enough, he started buying dying federations to merge them into NWA/WCW instead of what Mcmahon would do.....let the feds go under and poach the talent from its carcass.
UWF a great example. crockett got scammed into buying it a nanosecond before it died. mcmahon poached its biggest stars...Million Dollar Man, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and One Man Gang/Akeem. Crockett merged it into WCW and as its main stars had Terry Taylor(who McMahon poached a year later), Dr. Death Steve Williams, and Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin.
He also didn't know how to handle NWA's hardcore fan base while attempting to go national. He allowed Starrcade 87 to be held in Chicago. This pissed off loyal fans in the east and NWA wasn't popular enough in Chicago to warrant holding your version of Wrestlemania there. It flopped. he also pissed off the Chicago crowd with a screwy finish to most matches...mainly the Road Warriors match...who were from Chicago!! Its also famous for the crowd cheering Flair in the title match and Flair is supposed to be the heel! Yeah I know Flair was always popular but come on.
You cant make constant mistakes after constant mistakes like that...especially with Mcmahon as your competition. NWA became small potatoes in the face of what WWF was accomplishing.
Wrestlemania 3 was held in a sold out stadium in detroit.......while on the other side of the country Ric Flair is begging for mercy in a match with scrawny Ricky Morton in front of a hundred people.
NWA didn't have a chance.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
Always seemed like it lacked the funding to take it to the next level (advertisers, venues, production/writers),
Crockett not only didn't know how to properly run a wrestling promotion, he didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing regarding the need to morph it into a truly national company.
His father ran the NWA/WCW for eons until he died. Enter stage right his children....Jim Crockett, David Crockett(remember his announcing with Schiavone), and I forgot the sister's name. Funny....she was actually more experienced than her brothers and MIGHT not have run the company into the ground if she had been in charge.
While I LOVED the old school look in that small studio, it was the very last thing they needed at the time. Wrestling had its fork in the road moment in 83-84. It was either go national(global) or go home and let Mcmahon dominate and eventually monopolize the industry. Crockett achieved both.
While Mcmahon's TV shows were held in arenas nationwide, NWA's programs were held in a studio that held 50-100 people.
That's terrible. Killer match leading to an interesting feud but the whole thing is just too small time. Crowd so small you can hear little kids in the background during the announcing. There are independent, irrelevant wrestling feds in this decade with bigger crowds. These shows were also being held in the morning ....
I'm sure the handful of fans in attendance loved it.....but there's no excuse for that.
NWA/WCW being a truly national company was a mirage. They had a killer TV slot.....WTBS....in an era before everyone had 500 channels he had his wrestling shows in almost every house. Remember how before commercial breaks they would show the dates/locations for upcoming shows? It was always Charlotte, Atlanta, Charleston, Roanoke, New Orleans, etc.
I asked this question to the TV when I would see this.....
Where's Sacramento? Where's San Francisco? Where's Oakland? Hell.....where's Los Angeles ?!?!? Your product is NOT available in the 2nd largest city in the country? Why not? It's the National Wrestling Alliance.
By the time he truly attempted to enter the west coast(late 87), it wasn't promoted at all and by the time anyone knew it was happening, it was already over.
How in the living hell do you not promote a Wargames match(Horsemen vs Road Warriors, Dusty, and Nikita) in San Francisco at the height of its craze and it never being held on the west coast before? Just pure stupidity.
Crockett also didn't understand the impact on pop culture that wrestling had. EVERYBODY knew about it and/or watched it. It wasn't going away. Little kids to great grannies were watching.
Mcmahon had his wrestlers doing the late night circuit of talk shows(Tonight Show, Letterman, Arsenio, etc.) and even the morning news shows like GMA and for a brief period... even had their own talk show on the USA network. How many times did Crockett have NWA wrestlers on those types of shows? ZERO. Flair would've been perfect for such programs. So would Magnum TA. TA was like the Savage of the NWA.
WWF had toy wrestlers. AWA even got in on this action in 86. What did NWA do? NOTHING. They allowed AWA to make an action figure of Flair....which was never promoted by the way.
Everywhere you looked you saw WWF...even when you went to the frozen section of grocery stores to buy ice cream. Go into the health/fitness sections, there's the Hulk Hogan workout set. NWA? NOTHING.
How did Crockett spend his money? Buying a private jet so Dusty can fly from here to Timbuktu. Moving their main base of operations to Texas. Complete idiocy. If that wasn't bad enough, he started buying dying federations to merge them into NWA/WCW instead of what Mcmahon would do.....let the feds go under and poach the talent from its carcass.
UWF a great example. crockett got scammed into buying it a nanosecond before it died. mcmahon poached its biggest stars...Million Dollar Man, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and One Man Gang/Akeem. Crockett merged it into WCW and as its main stars had Terry Taylor(who McMahon poached a year later), Dr. Death Steve Williams, and Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin.
He also didn't know how to handle NWA's hardcore fan base while attempting to go national. He allowed Starrcade 87 to be held in Chicago. This pissed off loyal fans in the east and NWA wasn't popular enough in Chicago to warrant holding your version of Wrestlemania there. It flopped. he also pissed off the Chicago crowd with a screwy finish to most matches...mainly the Road Warriors match...who were from Chicago!! Its also famous for the crowd cheering Flair in the title match and Flair is supposed to be the heel! Yeah I know Flair was always popular but come on.
You cant make constant mistakes after constant mistakes like that...especially with Mcmahon as your competition. NWA became small potatoes in the face of what WWF was accomplishing.
Wrestlemania 3 was held in a sold out stadium in detroit.......while on the other side of the country Ric Flair is begging for mercy in a match with scrawny Ricky Morton in front of a hundred people.
NWA didn't have a chance.
Yea but man could you imagine being in the last row of the Pontiac silver dome? Those tickets should have been $1.
I heard Ric woke up over the weekend.
Re: Ric Flair in critical condition
I always figured tickets for those rows a mile away from the ring were papered and given away in various radio and local TV contests.
If they really sold those tickets for 15-20 bucks a pop, shame on them.
I think they were given away. Mcmahon wanted that stadium jam packed. It was truly a spectacle and the entire world watching. He was too smart to leave the possibilities of a sellout to chance.
I hate how wrestling nerds make a big deal out of the 93k audience. They say it is a kayfabed number. It will always be open to debate I suppose. I'm in the group that doesn't care. IMO if its a worked number, the real number is HIGHER, not lower.
It is obvious even to Stevie Wonder and Ronnie Milsap that the venue is completely jam packed. If its less then 93k, its around 90k.
Either way, its impressive. The only time a wrestling extravaganze on such a scale had been attempted it was when World Class tried it with Parade of Champions. Not even close to what Mcmahon pulled off.
