Ric Vs. Ricky

Part of the genius of Ric Flair was his ability to identify the next up-and-comer and to enter into a long, intense feud with the young lion.  Perhaps his greatest feud, and one of the hottest rivalries in pro wrestling history, was his war with Ricky Steamboat.

Flair faced off with Steamboat, by his own estimate, over 2,000 times from the late 70’s into the 1990’s, and all of their encounters were high-energy, punishing, dramatic works of performance art.  Many of their sweat-soaked matches went the full hour time-limit (I wish they could go for a second hour!) and these two men actually wrestled!

It was always a great day when they showed even the clips from a Flair-Steamboat match on TV.  Reading some of the comments out there in the Blogosphere praising these great matches reveals that I wasn’t the only wrestling fan on the edge of my seat, my eyes glued to the screen, breathless and marking out over every change of fortune and gut-wrenching hold.

Part of the appeal of their matches was their technical skills down on the mat, the array of featured holds: the Figure Four Leglock, the Abdominal Stretch, even the names of these holds were exciting, and they maintained each hold like a grace note rather than briskly moving on to something else.  Part of the appeal was the barely veiled sexual tension between Ric and Ricky — their hatred first blazed up, after all, when Steamboat tore Flair’s suit off his body and left him in the ring in just his underwear.

Another reason their matches are still considered some of the best of all time was the pure intensity and drama they poured into the fight — which is that “It” factor that only the greatest wrestlers know how to deliver.  These two men were violent, passionate, and physical, often wearing the crimson masks, coated in sweat, gasping for breath to forever raise the temperature even higher. You could tell these two hotties wanted to wrestle deliberately, they wanted to fight deep and suck out all the marrow of their matches. For example, Steamboat would be in so much pain from the Figure Four Leglock that he’d begin to rip the ref’s shirt off, not realizing what he was doing.  Now that is selling the pain of a hold!

All great wrestling matches tell a great story, and many use the contrast between the two opponents as a key element in the narrative.  Flair and Steamboat’s differences certainly added to the heat and interest in their feud.  Flair was rich and privileged, so they told us.  Steamboat was a regular guy, a minority, a hard worker like most of us in the audience.  “Ric” had streamlined his first name so it sounded cooler, even dropping the “K”, while “Ricky” sounds like a nickname for a cute fourth-grader — or a wrestling jobber.  Flair was billed as a womanizer, a cowboy, like ruthless Achilles, while Steamboat was a family man, like honorable Hector.  Flair was bleached-blond and beefy and brutal, Steamboat was handsome, hard-bodied, and honest.  All of this fueled our compassion for poor Ricky and our visceral hatred for Flair that only a cocky conqueror can inspire.