4 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Hall Of Fame 2023

2. Flair Loses The Thread

Ric Flair undoubtedly could tell stories of his decades in the wrestling business for hours on end and captivate fans.

But there’s a time and place to spin certain yarns, and poor Ric apparently didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to be inducing Japanese legend the Great Muta on Friday night, not sharing tales of his days wrestling in Japan. Flair spent the bulk of his time talking about the badasses he faced from Japan, at one point running down a list of “Japanese wrestlers who beat me to a pulp”… and Muta was not on that list.

In fact, Flair barely said anything about their time together in the ring, merely noting that Muta was the greatest Japanese wrestler he ever faced. Slick Ric put Asuka over more during his remarks than he did the guy he was there to honor.

Flair even realized he was straying and commented that he needed to wrap it up before Triple H was sent out again to pull him off stage. If WWE is going to trot Flair out for these spots, someone needs to approve his remarks and get him to stick to a script.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.