To ease this off his personal life a bit, when was it that you think his ring persona started to crack? For me it was when he came back to WCW in '98. Before he left he was just being himself and seemed to have his stuff together. But I noticed a major difference during "the greatest day in the history of our sport". It didn't get any better once he went on with WCW during it's final years, and only seemed to be more like the guy we all idolized during the Evolution period.

A lot of that was how he was booked and his subsequent loss of motivation. Once everything was about his kids and what a whackjob he was, he stopped working out and began screaming all of the time. I just saw his match with Jericho from Summerslam 2002 and it was probably the best shape he'd been in in seven or eight years.

To ease this off his personal life a bit, when was it that you think his ring persona started to crack?

 

Work: 1993 WCW Return

Persona: 1996 Hyper Ric

To me, character-wise, it was really when he came back from injury (on TV) in late 96/early 97. He had been on and off since his comeback in 93, with a last peak of being super fun in 96 with Liz & Woman feuding with Savage. In 97, he wasn't the same guy anymore. Some point out to the Hogan feud in 94. I would disagree although at times yeah he was already in hyper-Ric mode then and not in a good way.

You could probably make a very entertaining five disc comp of his WWE stuff, including promos and angles. He could still go occasionally during 2002-2006, especially in tags. Of course, that would be a fraction of the hundreds of hours he spent on television, so there is still a lot of crap, but I'm not one of those who thinks he should necessarily have retired in the 90s.

 

And his promos were still entertaining as fuck:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HbCGhhL7o

What would be considered his last great match? After his first WWF run I'm drawing a blank. I like a lot of stuff after that (Steamboat '94, WCW Savage feud, HHH and Foley WWE feuds), but I wouldn't say they touch anything previous.

Yeah, I don't think anything after 95' or so really touches what he did prior to that year, but I think there were a few matches/feuds I enjoyed a great deal. I thought the match against HBK at WM24 was awesome and that he had some good matches against Edge and HHH in 05'. I think one missed opportunity during that final run in WWE was to have somehow had him work heel (or at least heelish) against Cena.

Royal Rumble 92 was his last hurrah as a great wrestler.

After dropping the title to Sting at the Great American Bash in 1990, he was never the same Ric Flair he was in the 1980s again. But he still had a few strong years in him. When Hogan retired him at Halloween Havoc '94, he dropped off in a big way upon his return in 1995. He still had value as a star and had occasional good matches after that, but no great singles matches.

 

He dropped off as a character when jumping to the WWF when they had him do publicity photos mid-whoo, which looked amazingly stupid, and he was expected to wear his robe and wrestling gear even when he wasn't wrestling. But he rebounded upon returning to WCW and maintained it until 1995 when he cut his hair and they made his gimmick that he was a crazy old man. He had pockets of being good after that, but it was inconsistent.

I think people sleep on that Foley match. Some of it was spectacle for the sake of spectacle but I think Foley is very good at making that sort of stuff mean something and he directs Ric through the hoops to create one of those WWE storytelling matches that does stand out.

The hardcore Flair run was definitely cool. That was one "crazy Ric" period I liked because the story was Foley had gotten inside his head and he was rolling around in thumbtacks against Big Show to prove a point.

Last great match I can recall is versus Savage at The Great American Bash '95, although that was mainly due to Savage and not Flair.

The cage match against hhh was damn near epic and the best match either man had put on in a loooong time. watch it sometime dudes.

Weird that the hardcore stuff ended up being his best matches in the WWE, considering his disdain for 'garbage wrestling'. A few bloody cage matches, the TLC vs Edge and the ridiculously violent Foley matches were all very fun. I always liked the Undertaker WM18 match as well, thought the build up was great.

He was always defensive of Terry Funk becoming a hardcore wrestler because he considered him someone who was a great worker for many years first. I think he had issues with guys who he thought couldn't work at all and totally relied on garbage wrestling, not post-prime guys compensating. It's ridiculous he's still giving Foley a hard time, though.

I think both in terms of in-ring and character, Flair was good until 1996 and specifically upto the NWO angle.

 

There is obviously decline from 89 to 96, but there is still good work in there, vs. Savage in 92 and especially in 95/6 which is some of Ric's best ever character work, vs. Vader in 93, vs. Steamboat in 94. I think there's plenty of good to great stuff from that portion of Flair's career. I think after 96 he's more or less done though.

 

I was never much of a fan of INSANE Ric from 1998, y'know, elbow dropping his jacket and so on. Although even there, I do like the promo he cuts on Bischoff.

I think both in terms of in-ring and character, Flair was good until 1996 and specifically upto the NWO angle.

 

There is obviously decline from 89 to 96, but there is still good work in there, vs. Savage in 92 and especially in 95/6 which is some of Ric's best ever character work, vs. Vader in 93, vs. Steamboat in 94. I think there's plenty of good to great stuff from that portion of Flair's career. I think after 96 he's more or less done though.

 

I was never much of a fan of INSANE Ric from 1998, y'know, elbow dropping his jacket and so on. Although even there, I do like the promo he cuts on Bischoff.

I remember really liking the Souled Out 98 match with Bret. Thought it was Flair's best since the Savage match at GAB 95. Agree that there wasn't much essential stuff between those two matches though.

The cage match against hhh was damn near epic and the best match either man had put on in a loooong time. watch it sometime dudes.

Watched it again recently. Thought it was solid, bit overly long. Probably Flair's best in a long time, but HHH had a better HiaC with Batista that June, imo....

The absolute nadir of his character's mystique for me would be in 2000, when he had a crew cut and wrestled in a Hawaiian shirts and slacks. Even his worst WWE stuff was a dramatic improvement over that.

The absolute nadir of his character's mystique for me would be in 2000, when he had a crew cut and wrestled in a Hawaiian shirts and slacks. Even his worst WWE stuff was a dramatic improvement over that.

I liked his hair style in 2001. It looked a lot better than his Joe Biden style he's been rocking since almost the day he returned to WWE.

Flair's segment drew the highest QH of the show last week. For that reason the company is thinking about offering him a role on TV

They are in serious denial about Flair's coherency.

Flair as a manager mixing it up with Zeb and Heyman would be fun. Or bring back Flair for the Gold. Not good, but fun. I want to hear more about HHH's love of ribeyes.

I remember watching one of those pre or post Raw shows and being amazed how Jim Duggan was way more of a natural and making more sense than Flair.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/ric-flair-surgery-recovery-26656113