"They can't make up their mind what to call me"

World Championship Wrestling 5/18/85

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• NWA
• Ric
• Flair
• Wrestling

[passingpoor]

Top five promo guys with charisma, delivery and magic.

1.Nature

2.Boy

3.Ric

4.Flair

5.End of list

[iverar]

I will take the NWA any day over the WWE. This is what I grew up with and brings back a lot of memories. The good old days when these events were held in high school gyms and community centers!

[theright1allthetime]

RIC FLAIR 2012

[bublubhuyan]

@passingpoor True, not even the Rock is better when it comes to cutting promos.

[garethac81]

@dunnzo228

"your coherence point is more a matter of taste than anything else."

Garbling your words is a basic promo error. That's not a matter of taste, it's a fact. At his best (like in this promo) Flair was pretty coherent...but he cut A LOT of promos - especially later in his career - where the words came out of his mouth half-chewed and covered in spit. Some of his TNA mic work is so unintelligible its embarrassing.

[dunnzo228]

@garethac81 And listening to Jake Roberts tell a bedtime story didn't get boring? Many of Flair's most famous interviews involved him getting worked up, but many other times he was the picture of confidence, dressed in Armani. They put leather straps on guys who entertain and put butts in seats, whether it's on the mike, in the ring, or a little bit of both. Their records speak for themselves.

[garethac81]

@dunnzo228

I never said Flair's promos were boring...I said listening to him shout his head off BECAME boring. There wasn't enough variety in his delivery. There's only so many times you can see Flair pop a vein and turn red before you want him to take it down a notch. At his best - and this is definitely one of his finest promos - he was far from boring. As for Roberts, frankly he wipes the floor with Flair on the mic. A leather strap around the waist does not improve a promo.

[dunnzo228]

@garethac81 I think the man's record speaks for itself. You're one of the few people I've ever heard refer to Flair's promos as "boring." That there are dozens of them on Youtube, each with thousands of views, would suggest that you're fairly alone in your opinion. We *believed* everything Flair said, from partying all night long to beating up Dusty Rhodes. And not to put too fine a point on it, but how many times was Jake Roberts a world champ?

[dunnzo228]

@garethac81 I think what makes a pro wrestler a legend is when he can improvise his way out of something that's not going well. Flair didn't have a script, and he could play off the crowd better than anyone else, whether the crowd loved him or they hated him. I don't have any problems understanding anything Flair said, and your "coherence" point is more a matter of taste than anything else.

[garethac81]

@dunnzo228

Flair had plenty of originality and style, but his coherence let him down. He just shouted too damn much, which often meant slurring and fumbling his words. Plus, having the volume stuck on max gets boring quickly. Just listen to how montonous most Flair promos sound compared to Jake Roberts or Randy Savage, who were experts at varying the pitch and tone of their voice to keep an audience on the edge of their seats.

[garethac81]

@dunnzo228

I take your point - improvising is a difficult skill in any field. However, wrestlers don't get extra credit for making it up as they go along: a promo is either delivered with style, coherence and originality, or it isn't. Ultimately, whether it was pre-rehearsed or not makes no difference.

[dunnzo228]

@garethac81 The Rock might be in control of every word that comes out of his mouth, but that's because he's practiced every word of his promos multiple times. The thing that made Flair so good on the mike is that you never knew what was going to do. He might take a shot at David Crockett, he might bust open his own head, he might get real serious and talk about upcoming matches, he might flirt with the women in the audience. You just didn't know, and that's why Flair was the best.