Many say that, in his prime, Richard Fliehr was the greatest wrestler in the world, and theres an argument that the larger than life Ric Flair character the stylin, profilin limousine ridin, jet flyin, kiss stealin, wheelin n dealin son of a gun helped to bring in the age of sports entertainment. It very nearly didnt happen at all. In the autumn of 1975, the sold-out Legion Stadium in Wilmington, North Carolina was waiting for the card to begin, featuring Johnny Valentine, Wahoo McDaniel, Bob Bruggers, and a young rising star, a pre-Nature Boy Ric Flair. Only minutes before the show was due to begin, the flight carrying Flair, Valentine, Bruggers and Tim Mr. Wrestling Woods, as well as promoter and announcer David Crockett, ran out of fuel and crashed into a railroad embankment around a mile from the airport. The Cessna aircraft, piloted by Joseph Farkas, was badly damaged in the crash. Farkas had failed to fill the plane with the appropriate amount of fuel for the journey. He was the only one to die in the crash, ending up in a coma from which he would never awaken. Valentine, Bruggers and Flair all broke their backs in the accident. Valentine and Bruggers would never return to wrestling, while Flair, his spine broken in three places, was able to make a recovery sufficient to return to wrestling only three months later, when he picked up feuding with Wahoo McDaniel as if nothing had happened. Well not quite. Flairs original style was very much in the brawling, powerful style popular at the time, and he was forced to completely redesign his approach in the ring. If youve ever seen Flair take a bump and wonder why he never lands on his back, but instead on his hip and side, this is why. Only a couple of years later, he would feud with the Nature Boy of the past, Buddy Rogers, in a classic upstart versus legend match that gave him his new nickname, and kickstarted his career. The rest is professional wrestling history.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
