Ric Flair's 10 Greatest WWE Matches
The Nature Boy's finest work for Vince McMahon.
He’s a guaranteed face on wrestling’s Mount Rushmore, a 16 time World champion, one of the greatest ever in the ring and on the stick. His matches with Vader, Sting, Harley Race, and Dusty Rhodes, to name just a handful, are legendary, and on top of all that he’s one of the most colourful characters in the business, which is saying a lot.
His days under Vince McMahon, though, are often forgotten. Flair was Mr NWA, spending the majority of his peak under Jim Crockett and later Ted Turner, and while he spent a brief spell with the-then WWF in the early ‘90s, it wasn’t the greatest fit for Flair.
Even if his finest matches took place elsewhere, though, his WWF/E runs boast a great deal to enjoy. From his shock appearance clutching another promotion’s belt, to a latter-day resurgence all the way up to his retirement (we’ll pretend he never went to TNA), Flair had some terrific times wrestling up North.
The man gave his heart, body, and soul to the business, and came out with a glistening showreel.
It wasn’t all gold, but his best WWE matches stand up to anything in his - or most anyone else’s - career.
10. Vs Vince McMahon (Royal Rumble 2002)
As a match, objectively, this is somewhat of a mess. Two men in their 50s ploddingly hammering one another until one of them finally catches the other in a submission hold to take the win - it’s a touch unbecoming.
As a spectacle, with the weight of the industry’s history behind it, though, this is the good stuff. There was a great storyline powering it, in which Flair had become the co-owner of WWE, but really this comes down to Mr WCW versus Mr WWF.
Vince gives himself a touch too much offence but the booking itself isn’t so important - for a longtime wrestling fan, seeing these two titans knock lumps out of each other was something we never thought we’d witness. There are some cool spots (Flair pulls a monitor out of the desk, which replays him beating Vince while he doles out further abuse in real time), and the right old man goes over.
This is probably the lowest time in Flair’s career, before impending retirement gave him fresh legs for a spell, but even at this time he’s able to put on an entertaining, reasonably compelling match with a non-wrestler, which is the measure of the man.