The Iron Claw Review: 6 Ups & 3 Downs

2. ‘Ric Flair’

By now, most wrestling fans have seen and ridiculed the portrayal of then-NWA World Champion Ric Flair in the movie, easily one of the worst characterizations of a wrestling figure. And that includes some of the more egregious casting blunders on Young Rock.

Played by Aaron Dean Eisenberg, Claw’s Flair appears in the final third of the film to wrestle Kevin Von Erich while he is grieving the loss of yet another brother, Mike (more on that later). Eisenberg delivers some of Flair’s more famous promo lines in the most unconvincing way possible, even seemingly speaking in a southern drawl at one point. But perhaps his biggest sin is being unable to even “Woooo!” properly, screeching the Nature Boy’s battle cry.

Flair is onscreen for maybe a total of three minutes from promo to match to locker room afterward, but it’s easily one of the most jarring moments for even a casual wrestling fan. It’s an unforgivable crime that someone who is so widely known and impersonated was portrayed so horribly.

One has to believe that Eisenberg had never watched a single Flair promo and the filmmakers just let it all slide, which is just sad. As fans have noted, it would have been less offensive to have Jay Lethal play Flair as a spot-on impersonation, or have Will Ferrell do his Ashley Schaeffer character from Eastbound & Down (which was based on Flair himself).

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Contributor

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.