10 Forgotten Ric Flair World Title Reigns

8. Pandemonium In Puerto Rico (1983)

Less than six months after the Veneno fiasco, Flair would find himself in hot water once more, this time in the heat of Puerto Rico and in the pool of the World Wrestling Council.

At the turn of 1983, Ric Flair was well into what had officially been deemed a 15 month reign as NWA Champion, with the NWA formally ignoring the Midnight Rider incident and the aforementioned blip in the Dominican Republic. However, Flair would once again fall foul to circumstance in a familiarly uncomfortable situation in the Caribbean, as he locked horns with WWC poster boy, Carlos Colon.

As co-founder of the WWC with fellow Puerto Rican, Victor Jovica, Colon was a constant of the company’s main event scene; so much so that he would hold the title of WWC Universal Championship an ironic 26 times of his own throughout his career. So when it was announced that globetrotting champ Ric Flair would be travelling to San Juan to defend his NWA Championship, one man stood high atop the list of contenders.

Locally, the match was billed as a unification bout - supposedly merging both the NWA and WWC Heavyweight Titles. However, a key factor in this story is that Flair and the NWA had allegedly not agreed to this stipulation and controversy reared its head once more.

When the showdown came to pass on 6 January 1983, the result would come as a huge surprise to the fans in attendance and even more of a shock to the NWA back in the States. With Colon emerging victorious, the result led to Colon deeming himself to be both NWA Champion and WWC Champion - and soon enough a “Universal Championship” was born.

Flair is believed to have regained the strap in a rematch just over two weeks later on home turf in Miami, Florida. However, very little evidence of the rematch exists. The controversial circumstances of the switch and the lack of documentation for the rematch has led many detractors to believe the supposed “rematch” to be a phantom change; much like Pat Patterson’s infamous Intercontinental Championship tournament “win” in Rio De Janeiro.

Regardless of the legitimacy surrounding the aftermath, it’s clear that Flair did indeed lose the strap to Colon and regain it later that month; which - despite the controversy and confusion - adds a further championship reign to his legacy.