10 Forgotten Ric Flair World Title Reigns
6. Race Around The World (1984)
Despite the various hot potato title switches with the likes of Rhodes, Veneno, Colon, and Jovica, Flair’s official reign as NWA Champion (in the eyes of the National Wrestling Alliance) would last 631 days by the time he officially lost the title to Harley Race in Race’s hometown of St Louis on 10 June 1983.
Following the loss, Naitch would soon embark on his now-legendary quest to regain the crown in what would soon be dubbed “A Flair for the Gold”: a chase that would also become the centrepiece of the inaugural Starrcade event. The Nature Boy’s journey would lead him to the main event of the Thanksgiving spectacular where the bloody challenger would finally regain the title from Race in a historic steel cage encounter on 24 November 1983.
That much the history books will tell you. What the pages of history often neglect is the fact that Race himself would briefly regain the strap on the other side of the globe just four months later.
With Flair amidst another globetrotting run as travelling NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion, his winding road of title defences would soon take him to Wellington, NZ, where he would once again square off with 'Handsome Harley'. It would be during this encounter when controversy struck once more when Flair and Race colluded with NZ promoter, Steve Rickard (himself a former challenger to Flair’s NWA gold), to boost local business by creating history. The events that followed would ensure that history was indeed made.
In a wild turn of events - and, by all accounts, completely unbeknownst to the rest of the National Wrestling Alliance - Race would dethrone the defending champ in New Zealand’s capital, marking his triumphant return to the top of the wrestling world for the eighth time (a then-record number of World Title reigns). Sadly for Race, the joy of victory would be fleeting and he would hold the NWA gold for mere days before relinquishing the domed globe to the Nature Boy in Singapore.
The brief tenure of the run coupled with the unsanctioned nature of the switch often leaves this title change completely buried in wrestling history. Despite being currently unrecognised by both the WWE and the NWA, the reign was previously recognised by WCW, making the decision to now overlook the title trade all the more questionable.