In the 1980s, there was Hulk Hogan rocking the WWF and bringing it to new heights. In the NWA, there was Ric Flair, who was selling out arenas, and putting on the best main events in the industry. For purists, it was Flair who was the greatest wrestler in the world. The biggest dream match for years would be seeing those two clash, but they were always in seperate companies. Besides, Flair was too well respected, and too well paid to jump ship to the more cartoonish WWF. That is until 1991. When a former Pizza Hut regional manager got control of WCW, he didnt realize Flairs worth. He didn't get wrestling at all. He wanted Flair to cut his hair, take a paycut, and be known as Spartacus. When The Nature Boy rightfully refused, he was let go. Two months later he showed up in McMahon country. What made Flairs debut so shocking was that WWE had not been recognizing other wrestlers histories at that point. Guys like Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, Dusty Rhodes and Harley Race didn't have incredible resumes. They just appeared to be McMahon creations. And now here was Bobby Heenan holding the WCW World Title on WWF television claiming that it was the real world championship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ggDRV5Rj4 Sure enough, on Prime Time Wrestling, the familiar 2001: A Space Odyssey music hit and out emerged Flair. To help fully explain the surrealness of the situation, Flair was 41 when he first joined the WWF. That means decades of him as a top star in wrestling went by without ever setting foot in the WWF. Its hard to imagine something like that will ever happen again.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
