Bret admitted during his 2004 feud with Flair (over the book - again!) that he'd heard a lot about Flair in the 80s but hadn't seen much prior to 1991 in WWF.

For what it's worth, Terry Funk disagreed with Flair ALOT in his book, and called him out a few times over disagreements about various guys.

 

But when they did the joint shoot, they were nice as pie to each other and didn't disagree on anything. Bret is a more prickly character than Terry, so it led to more awkwardness, but in person it seems like people don't really want to disagree with Ric face to face, whether it's out of respect or not wanting to hurt his feelings or whatever.

 

Flair clearly has things he likes (stiffness, selling, motion, action) and things he doesn't (matwork) and things he thinks he can't do (offense). It's a pretty clear philosophy even if he doesn't always articulate it.

Flair clearly has things he likes (stiffness, selling, motion, action) and things he doesn't (matwork) and things he thinks he can't do (offense). It's a pretty clear philosophy even if he doesn't always articulate it.

 

Listening to Flair rag on his own perceived shortcomings is frustrating because he really sells himself short. When watching his 80's work, it's obvious that Flair brought a lot to the table offensively--he threw four good looking suplexes, used backbreakers and kneebreakers and had some nice ways of working over the knee to set up the figure four. I think Flair's significantly better when he's on top for a decent stretch of the match. Not long after we get to the nineties, Flair seems to pare down his offensive repertoire and begins to spend more time working underneath. His matches seem far less compelling the more that this shift occurs.

JAC, I totally agree with you and have said so a lot on this board before. I like how Flair can sometimes surprise you by going into the deep recesses of his offensive arsenal when the situation requires it.

 

The butterfly suplex vs. Steamer. The chop block and shinbreaker vs. Luger. I think he busts out a gutwrench suplex at one point vs. either Harley or Jumbo. He has a lot of different tricks that don't always come out, so when they do it's like "whao!".

I think the problem may be Flair remembers his late stuff more and let's face it WWE run Flair was pretty weak on offense.

WWE-era Flair matches where he got in a lot of offense always seemed like a big deal. The Raw match with HHH and the one with Angle where he pulled out some suplex variations felt special.

That Angle match was a different breed of Flair altogether. It was really refreshing & engaging to see, but yeah. Not your typical Flair match by far - a lot of interesting stuff there, including the eye gouging and fish hooking.

I always found Flair's opening matwork to be pretty compelling too. Whether or not it means something or should mean something is a different matter, but he's usually pretty entertaining about it.

 

There are different axes on the scale when it comes to matwork. Complexity or "tricked out"-ness is only one of them.

Flair's good at trash-talking or yelling out in pain during matwork sequences. I think because in his mind it is boring, he's constantly trying to do things during it to keep it entertaining through character work.

Fuck it. I'm actually really frustrated that no one bit on this statement from before:

 

 

Look, I have a harder time respecting Flair because there isn't the thought behind what he did.

 

On the one hand, though, Rose said that's how he wrestled too, but then there was all the research he did and how he came up with moves with Wiskowski and the amount of work that he put into things that was on a different level than spending money on suits. It's obvious in his work and his angles and in everything he did. Also the wide variance of working week after week in front of the same crowd, which is something we don't have as much with Flair, and I wish we did. He wasn't good at explaining what he did, but I believe fully that he spent all of his time thinking about it whether he realized he was doing it or not.

 

With Flair, I can't, in good faith, put the world's most talented (and/or drunk) idiot savant as my #1 I think,

 

 

That comment sort of made me feel it again.

You seem to privilege strategic reasoning over intuition Matt.

The joke is: "No, no, you're thinking about Johnny."

 

The statement I will say instead is: I value the outcome of one over the outcome of the other but think both are important.

 

I am well on record in saying that the most important element of wrestling to me is "making moves matter." Understanding pro wrestling and then utilizing that understanding to a desired effect.

It helps, as well, when that desired effect matches up with my own preferences, but I try to understand situations when it doesn't, so long as I feel that understanding is there from the other end.

If making moves matter and "efficient" wrestling is what you're after, I'd stongly recommend the anti-workrate masterpiece that is Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Mr. Fuji from MSG (6/30/73).

 

That is maximum output from minimum input. Every little thing in that match matters.

 

It's a fucking travesty of a match, but everything matters.

When I watch those Misawa and Kawada matches suggested to me in the other thread, I'll make sure to watch that one too.

 

I did stick in the execute to desired effect bit in there too. I was going to go on about how a general "desired effect" might match up or not with my own desired effect and then my grand theory of Flair, but I've got to write about Larry Zbyzsko in Japan here.

Don't listen to Parv, Strongbow vs Fuji is fantastic pro wrestling