The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)
35. 1992 | With A Tear In My Eye
WWE has spent the entire modern history of the Royal Rumble match, twice a night, booking multiple wrestlers to endure “iron man” stints in a doomed bid to recreate the magic of 1992. When you watch Ric Flair’s celebratory promo back, you can almost - almost - forgive the completely brazen attempt to insult your intelligence.
The ‘92 Rumble match was a masterpiece - the perfect vehicle with which to stress Flair’s supernatural conditioning as a selling point of his persona - elevated by Bobby Heenan’s breathless, panicked stint at the commentary table.
Flair’s promo was one of his best and most iconic (and think of the endless terrain that covers). His heel hypocrisy was sublime; the man who had arrived in the WWF as an interloper with the blurred Big Gold, the “real World’s champion”, was saying now that winning the winged eagle had placed him atop the wrestling world.
“With a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment in my life,” Flair said, calm and measured by his hysterical standards - but he soon pumped himself up, screaming “I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT!”
The entire scene was brilliant. Flair had aligned himself with Heenan and Mr. Perfect, and what a superb gang of cackling cocky bastards they were together - a clever means of bottling that boy’s club Four Horsemen energy without outright stealing it. The smugness radiated from them in a wonderful sporting scene far more effective than a pyro display.
Who needs a firework when you have the whites of Ric Flair’s eyes lighting up the screen?