10 Forgotten Ric Flair World Title Reigns

5. Dawn Of WCW (1991)

When Sting defeated Ric Flair in their iconic encounter at The Great American Bash in the summer of 1990, it seemed inevitable that, sooner or later, Naitch would once again get his chance at redemption and, more importantly, title reclamation. That day would come six months later on 11 January 1991, where Flair would challenge The Stinger for the NWA Championship at a run-of-the-mill house show in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Falling just two weeks shy of the festive holiday, the bout itself turned out to be a late Christmas present for the fans in attendance; resulting in gold for the 'Nature Boy', a frankly incensed Stinger and murky title history to follow.

Capitalising on an inadvertent ref bump by way of a Sting cross body, a bloodied Naitch managed to avoid certain defeat twice before getting the best of a clash of heads, with Flair landing in triumphant convenience on top of The Stinger. Flair even pulled Sting’s foot off the ropes mid-count to further add to the heelish tactics of the victory, resulting in a sobering dose of 'January Blues' for Steve Borden.

The win would officially make him a seven time World Champion in the skewed eyes of kayfabe history; however, it was the events of the weeks that followed that would put a further wrinkle in the curious title history of the 'Nature Boy'. Shortly after the victory, WCW began to recognise Flair as the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion; however, the new WCW Championship reign was not considered an individual title reign - despite the NWA and WCW Title lineages splintering thereafter.

By comparison, when Rob Van Dam won the WWE Championship from John Cena in June of 2006 only to be awarded concurrent ECW World Heavyweight Championship status a week later, both reigns are considered separate championship accomplishments, making the Flair NWA/WCW scenario all the more confusing.

Regardless of the blurred lines, Flair was still the NWA World Heavyweight Champion at the time that WCW officially declared him their inaugural champion, essentially making him a dual champion of both the NWA and WCW, despite the fact that he had just one belt in his possession. The fact that Flair would go on to defend both championships as individual entities further validates the claims that these reigns should be considered distinctive accolades and separate championships on his résumé.