The Ric Flair Formula: A Closer Look

The debate has raged on for a number of years, and I myself, have found myself flip-flopping all over the place on it. The debate is the question as to whether or not Ric Flair was a formulaic wrestler or not. For me there is certainly such thing as a ‘Flair formula’ to his matches and its largely what made him so great, however I don’t know if its necessarily true that Flair was ‘formulaic’. They are two distinctly different thing.

The crux of Flair’s matches largely were laid out as the following: Flair would let his opponent get the better of him in the early going (almost everyone), and that was usually sold with a side headlock (Talyor, Reed, Sting, Steamboat). There would be a quick shift in momentum that would cause his opponent to either miss a move or make a really big mistake (Koloff, Sting, Luger, Steamboat) that would usually cause an opening for Flair to get back into the match.

That control segment would usually center on the leg and result in a figure four, where Flair would cheat a bit behind the ref’s back to milk some near falls. The baby face would eventually fire up enough to turn the hold over and whomever was sitting at the announce table would blather on about how it was the only known counter (Windham, Steamboat, Sting, Luger) to the hold. The baby face would make the comeback, only to catch some face-tomfoolery from Flair to brush them back. Flair would go to the top rope and take his big bump off the top rope and get summarily slammed (Nikita, Luger, Sting, Kerry Von Erich).

From there, we would get some sort of variation of chops. Flair would throw them and then the opponent would react a certain way, be that shrugging them off (Road Warriors, Sting, Luger, Nikita), chop back (Steamboat, Garvin), or sell the punches and fire back with punches in retaliation (everyone else). The next sequence would involve a hot baby face control segment where the face would get a lot of REALLY close near-falls, which really whips the crowd up. They’d usually work the 10 punches to the head in the corner spot to keep the crowd with them (Sting, Luger, Kerry Von Erich), after which Flair would walk to the center of the ring and do his famous flop. As soon as that would happen, Flair would find a way to win the match using his feet on the ropes (Luger), his opponent’s feet on the ropes (Kerry), or a handful of tights. Match over.

There are certainly variations on it, but that’s essentially the working formula.

And it rules.

I understand folks pointing out that Flair is formulaic and at times repetitive, because frankly, he is. What I don’t get is the assumption that:

• It’s a bad thing
• That its somehow different from pretty much any heel in said role
• The matches are SO clung to that formula that; ‘if you’ve seen one Flair match, you’ve seen them all’

The problem with Flair matches in general is that people judge him on the same small sample of matches over and over. I can list exactly the ones I’m talking about with you, the reader, not so much as having to think about them: v. Harley Rave at Starrcade ‘83, the Dusty Rhodes feud, and the Steamboat series. WWE seems at times to be completely unaware of the fact that he had matches with other people in the 1980s to boot, so its little wonder people are sick of the matches they’ve seen over and over again. Sometimes they’ll throw a bone out there and give us a rare match (v. Barry Windham on Worldwide) or a match that hadn’t ever been released before (Ricky Morton), but sadly, no one talks about those. All anyone seems interested in is talking over and over ad naseum about the Wrestlewar ‘89 and Clash of Champions VI matches with Steamboat. Enough. Stop. For the love of God. I’m a big Flair fan, and I’m sick of those matches. Move along…

But these points are worth talking about:

“It’s a Bad thing”

Why exactly? Why is it bad to have signature spots or have similar arches in the way two matches are laid out? Flair wrestled perhaps the most demanding schedule anyone’s ever worked, especially in his touring years in the early 1980s. When would he have had time to sit down and ingest a ton of Terry Gordy matches while he’s in Puerto Rico because he’d be wrestling Terry the next night in Dallas at the Sportatorium?

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at his schedule. No, seriously: http://www.geocities.com/silversalmon1984/1985.html

Look at April and May of 1985 alone. Keep in mind, that schedule is missing dates as well, and doesn’t take into account all the time that one would be spend flying or driving from city to city and then pulling in at the early morning hours to cut a red eye promo about the double shot you’re working that afternoon.

If someone’s going to state Flair’s formula is a bad thing, then the onus is on THAT person to look at any other NWA Champion with a similar schedule, take a week or two block of time where they were wrestling in a different place pretty much every other night, and point out how different (and good) all of those matches were.

Flair’s point of view, for the record was always that because he saw Ray Stevens work live as a kid. Flair walked away from the match disappointed because Stevens worked a ‘different’ match because he didn’t get to see those signature spots, so he vowed to always have “Flair show” elements so the fans wouldn’t be disappointed.

“That’s somehow different from almost every other great heel who had a similar role”

If I’ve discussed this once, I’ve done so a million times. Every wrestler in the history of wrestling is repetitive. That doesn’t mean there can’t be VARIETY~, which of course leads to me turning a lot of what I’ve said on its head!

“The matches are *SO* clung to that formula that if you’ve seen one Flair match, you’ve seen them all”

Ric Flair may had an employed formulas in his matches, but that doesn’t make him formulaic. Here’s why.

Usually the opening mat work would be the side headlock, especially in the cases described above. But sometimes it would be a hammerlock. Or an arm bar. Sometime Flair would throw in some arm work of his own (Wahoo, Luger at Wrestle War ‘90). Sometimes he would throw in the good old “let’s tumble over the top rope” spot in his more heated encounters, but on others, he wouldn’t. Sometimes he would be carefree and animated in the early going (Luger at Starrcade ‘88 and Clash XII) and then sometimes he would be really serious (Funk at the GAB ‘89).

If you look at his Ron Gavin matches, there’s some huge differences between Flair/Garvin and Flair/Sting. There’s hardly anything similar about them in any way. If you watch the Flair/Jake Roberts match from Mid South, you’ll see a match that is a total out lier, a match completely unlike any match Flair’s worked before. You might find similar examples of that if you dig into his history, like his getting suplexed into hell by Scott McGhee in Florida, and you’ll have a heck of a time trying to find any Flair matches that are quite like that one.

Then there’s a little thing called context. Context is the most most important ingredient in any wrestling match. What do you hope to gain from this match? What image or perception does one want to portray by having this match take place?

The goal in Flair’s matches, was essentially to make the baby face look like he’s good enough to be the world champion. Flair was so good at this, that its the reason he’s talked about as the best wrestler ever, and that’s largely because in a contextual sense, he was able to get the big picture over in the long run. You’ll be hard pressed to find wrestlers any more capable of Flair in doing this. You’ll find better mat workers, better high fliers, wrestlers with more offense, wrestlers which use more internal logic, writers who might be better and not as annoying on the sell, etc. But who else was able to pull together what they have together so well, in a way that they were able to produce consistently, in long matches against as broad a spectrum of opponents, settings and styles… as Ric Flair?

If one would like to make the argument that as he entered the 1990s, he failed to change up his style, I’d agree with that. When I make the case for Flair, its usually the 1980s version. I think when people make an argument against Flair by using his 90s or 00s stuff, they’re simply missing the boat on him, need to watch more Flair, haven’t watched him in the 80s, or are purposely using bad examples to make their point. 

One of the problems with focusing on how Flair looked out-dated in the 90s is that he was still better than pretty much everyone else around him for a chunk of time early on in the decade. There wasn’t anyone pushing him. He looked old for the first time at the June ‘93 Clash of Champions match, trying to chase a very young Steve Austin and Brian Pillman around the ring.

Going back to the 80s, I think Flair was booked to make him look a little stale-ish by the time the decade was winding down, large in part due to the fact that Crockett and Turner had OTHER guys in mind to step in and take Flair’s place. By the time they finally decided to really make the commitment to making him the centerpiece of the promotion in 1989, it might have been too late. However, in 1989 he needed fresh opponents in the worst way imaginable, got them, and in the process breathed new life into his career. Not only were they using Ric as their centerpiece, but they were actively seeking out opponents from the outside to come in and face him. They did it with Steamboat, then again with Terry Funk, which revitalized him as well. Perhaps had he been booked to have new rivalries consistently through the Crockett Era (Thanks, Dusty), we wouldn’t be having these conversations anymore.