I realize it has been over a month since my last post but believe you me it has been a busy month. A lot has happened during that month, mainly Ric Flair's career coming to an end. I had a feeling this might happen which is the reason I started this blog. Now, over the course of the next couple of weeks I'll be documenting what I think our Ric Flair's greatest feuds and matches over his illustrious career. I'm only going to do MY top 5 feuds and matches. Obviously when you've had the long and successful career that the Nature Boy has had, you're going to have more than 5 great feuds and 5 great matches but these are MY favorite. As stated in the very first post on this blog, I created the blog to preserve the career and legacy of Ric Flair now that he is no longer active. There's generations of wrestling fans that haven't truly seen "the Man" in all his glory. Afterwards I may do a retrospective on WrestleMania XXIV and the Hall of Fame Ceremony, as well as the emotional Monday Night RAW that followed. This week I will countdown the top 5 feuds in descending order. And the #5 feud is...
When it's all said and done, it has and will come down to two names in professional wrestling: Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. It has been debated over and over again. It is many people's consensus that Flair was the much better wrestler (Flair could wrestle classic 60 minute matches every day of the week and twice on Sunday while Hogan's best matches lasted 15 minutes because he had a 5 minute intro, wrestled for 5 minutes, and posed for another 5 minutes) but Hogan drew more money thanks to the marketing machine that was the WWF. This debate is also looked at as the classic heel (Flair) vs the classic babyface (Hogan). As much as this rivalry had going for it, it could have been 1000 times better had Hogan not been a self-serving, egotistical asshole who wanted to bury Flair and his career while running WCW into the ground in the process (I won’t get into this now because it’s a whole other issue but let’s just say there is no reason, with the right booking and the absence of backstage politics, that this feud shouldn’t be #1- read this article for more perspective: http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/columns/misc/joel06.html).
When Flair went to the WWF in '91, many fans thought their ultimate Flair-Hogan dream match might happen. Flair made an immediate impact by costing Hogan his WWF Championship at the 1991 Survivor Series when he helped the Undertaker defeat the Hulkster. Hogan and Flair did wrestle but it was not on the grand stage many people thought it would be. They never wrestled 1-on-1 on any of the big pay-per-view events. Flair won the WWF title at the Royal Rumble in 1992 and it was expected that Hoga
n would challenge him for the title at WrestleMania later that year. However, sources say that Hulk was going to retire at Wrestlemania 8 (he did but he returned a year later) and didn't want to lose to Ric Flair. Hogan wanted to fight Flair but wanted to win by pinfall and retire with the belt. Vince McMahon didn't like the idea so changed the match to a double main event. Wrestling fans never did get to see a pay per view Hogan vs Flair match until two years later in 1994 when both were in WCW.
In Hogan's first match with WCW, he defeated Flair for the World Championship at Bash at the Beach. Flair then defeated Hulk at Clash of the Champions XXVIII a month and a half later by D
Q (earlier in the evening a masked man attacked Hogan, badly injuring his knee). Halloween Havoc '94 was the site of a steel cage retirement match between the two. Hogan won this as well to retain his title and send Flair into "retirement." Ric came back of course a few months later and eventually led the new look Four Horsemen into a feud with Hogan's NWO for the better part of '96 and '97 (this is when Hogan really tried to stick it to Flair in terms of burying his career). Flair did beat Hogan for his 14th World Championship at WCW/NWO's Uncensored pay-per-view in a first blood cage match. The stipulations for that match were: if Flair wins, he is permanent President of WCW, but if Hogan wins Flair has to retire from wrestling in WCW. With nothing ever really being settled in the ring, the debate rages on between whose better: Flair or Hogan? My money is on the Nature Boy.
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