Exposing The Myth: Vince McMahon Buried WCW Talent
3. Ric Flair's Second WWE Run
As mentioned elsewhere in this article, Ric Flair is one of the wrestlers most synonymous with the WCW brand name.
Few people can lay claim to being as important to WCW as the Nature Boy, with him being a mainstay of the National Wrestling Alliance, the NWA's unification under Jim Crockett Promotions, and the transition from JCP to WCW.
The point being, the legend of Ric Flair is one created and cemented away from Vince McMahon's promotion. Flair had a fantastic rivalry with Randy Savage in the WWF throughout 1992, but the rest of Naitch's greatest rivalries - such as his battles with Dusty Rhodes, Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Terry Funk, Roddy Piper, and even Hulk Hogan - all took place under the banners of the NWA, JCP, or WCW.
For Flair to actually return to McMahon's company in 2001 and then become an active competitor once more by the time of the 2002 Royal Rumble, that in itself was a shock. But then for Ric Flair, one of the poster boys of WCW, to wrestle for WWE for a further six years, up until the age of 59 was unprecedented for a wide variety of reasons.
Not only is it most unique to see McMahon allowing somebody anywhere close to that age wrestle even semi-regularly, but it's even more surprising when this somebody is someone who was so synonymous with the long-time rivals of WWE.
Of course, Ric Flair is Ric Flair, one of the true all-time greats. Yet if Vince really did have a penchant for burying those so associated with WCW, there's no way he'd have afforded such a spotlight to a Flair who, in his second run with the company, was long past his in-ring prime.