How Good Was Ric Flair Actually?

2. Drawing Power

Ric Flair is the biggest star to graduate from the days of the territories to wrestling becoming a global enterprise. Hulk Hogan may have wrestled for the AWA and been something of a draw, but Flair was as big a draw as anybody you want to mention when it comes to traveling the USA as the World Heavyweight Champion. Bruno Sammartino was a draw in New York, and Jerry Lawler was a draw in Memphis, but wherever Ric Flair styled and profiled, he drew the house.

Ric carried this on after Vince McMahon dismantled the territory system, winning the WWE Title twice, and constantly being WCW's biggest draw in the late 1980s and first half of the '90s. He made the likes of Starrcade and Clash of the Champions feel like seismic events, even if the means to track PPV buyrates had not yet been invented.

Then there are Flair's numerous reigns as World Champion wherever he went. John Cena may now be the "never seen, 17," but he had to usurp Flair's long-lasting record of World Championship victories to get there.

The flipside to these arguments is that when WCW was at its height in the Monday Night Wars, Ric Flair wasn't really a major player during those years. Sting, Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Goldberg all had their moments as the focal point of the company during their 83-week streak over WWE, but Flair was used in a smaller capacity during this era. He still had three World Title reigns across 1999 and 2000, but WWE was firmly back in charge during those years.

Flair had a glittering array of matches at The Showcase of the Immortals, but he also never headlined a WrestleMania. All of which is to say that Ric is one of the most recognizable names in the game who helped establish the art of professional wrestling on a global basis, but there are holes in this particular side of his game.

7.5/10