Richmond Coliseum.jpg (127904 bytes) 

Richmond Reflections

by David Chappell                      [ James De Medeiros looks at Flair 1991 - 2008 ]



 


Return to the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Return to Smoke Filled Rooms

Gateway Interview with Ric Flair

Ric Flair 1970s Photo Album

Read specific details of Flair's career in the Mid-Atlantic by logging on to the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Almanac

Ric Flair Audio Greeting to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Fans (MP3 file)

Ric Flair Mid-Atlantic Tribute on YouTube


 

 

Ric Flair Reaches The End of the Road?

Assuming that reports are true that Ric Flair’s in-ring wrestling career will reach its end on Sunday with a match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24, I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit nostalgic this week. I’ve been a fan of the Nature Boy since he entered Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling way back in May of 1974. Well, maybe a “Ric Flair Fanatic” would describe me better. One example, if you’re traveling through the Commonwealth of Virginia and see a car with a license plate RFLAIR, that would be me. Please honk if you see me on the road, but excuse me if I don’t acknowledge you immediately—as I may be listening to 1970s Ric Flair audio clips on my iPod that I have plugged into my car’s cigarette lighter. Okay, “Obsessed With Ric Flair” might describe me better yet!

 

So many years, so many Ric Flair memories. I must say, when Ric first came into Jim Crockett Promotions, I didn’t take him real seriously. He was young, pudgy and his jive talkin’ with a hint of a northern accent didn’t do a lot for me. However, teaming with my hero Rip Hawk, and becoming one half of the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champions in July of 1974, gave him some credibility. Even so, I still remember laughing with some of my buddies at the start of high school for me in September of 1974 about Ric taking on Paul Jones in a singles match at the Richmond Coliseum…no way did I think Ric could stand up to “Number One.” Well…think again.

 

Perhaps my favorite year in wrestling was 1975, and it was a monumental year for Ric. No longer using his familial ties with “uncle” Rip Hawk and “cousins” Gene and Ole Anderson as a springboard, Flair became a legitimate singles threat in the territory. He won the Mid-Atlantic TV Title in February, and held it through to August when he lost it to Paul Jones at the Richmond Arena. Just over a month later in the Hampton Coliseum, Flair did what I thought couldn’t be done…he beat Wahoo McDaniel for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship, and at the same time keeping his blond locks from being shaved off in that Hampton ring. It was at that moment that I knew Ric was the real deal.

 

A mere two weeks after his greatest wrestling triumph, Ric was stopped dead in his tracks---almost literally. The October 4, 1975 plane crash in Wilmington, NC had Mid-Atlantic fans holding their collective breaths as to whether the wrestlers in that catastrophic event would ever come back to the ring. Some didn’t. Not only did Ric come back, within two months he was on Mid-Atlantic television just as brash and cocky as ever! A few pounds lighter upon his return, but otherwise apparently none the worse for wear. Two months later, amazingly, he was back in the ring. I was astonished…not only had the Nature Boy conquered the legend Wahoo McDaniel, but he had stared down death, and was back in the ring doing his thing in a scant four months. This guy was now somebody truly special in my eyes!

 

The rest of the 1970s saw Ric in major feuds with the best the Mid Atlantic area had to offer. Flair battled Wahoo throughout the year of 1976 over the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Title. Battling Wahoo toe to toe for a whole year had to soften even the most fervent Ric Flair cynics! Even when Ric lost the Mid-Atlantic Title to Wahoo in the Richmond Coliseum in December of 1976, it didn’t take the luster off Ric’s performance in one of the hardest hitting programs in Mid-Atlantic history.

 

We in Richmond were fortunate to see Ric’s first United States Heavyweight Championship victory, a win over the aging veteran Bobo Brazil in July of 1977 at the Coliseum. Earlier that year, the long running feud between Ric and Ricky Steamboat began…what memorable battles those two had for many years!

 

Ric’s last full Mid-Atlantic year as a bad guy was 1978, and I’ll always remember the brawls between the Nature Boy and Blackjack Mulligan that year. Some of the crowds in Richmond for those matches were as crazy as I’d ever seen. And, for Richmond, that’s saying something!

 

I was shocked when Ric Flair turned into a good guy in the middle of 1979! To see Ric and Ricky Steamboat as tag team partners…unbelievable! I don’t think there was ever a bigger wrestling crowd at the Richmond Coliseum than for the first match where Flair and Steamboat teamed up, in July of 1979. For the next two years, Ric had memorable battles against bad guys such as Buddy Rogers, Jimmy Snuka, Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper. But I have to say, I liked Ric better as a bad guy!

 

I can remember how proud I was when Ric was announced as the NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion in September of 1981. It was like our hometown hero had made it to the very top of the professional wrestling mountain! His NWA Title victory over Dusty Rhodes came out of nowhere for me. But the more I thought about it, I was depressed that we wouldn’t be seeing as much of Ric in the Mid-Atlantic area anymore! We now had to share him with the rest of the wrestling world.

 

It was always great when Ric came back to the Mid-Atlantic area during his first NWA Title reign, always putting over our territory and making it clear he was always one of “us.” Whether Ric was a good guy, bad guy or “tweener,” he was cheered as the returning Champion coming back home, until his first reign ended in the middle of 1983.

 

Starrcade 1983 was then on the horizon, and really did usher in a new era in professional wrestling. Ric’s victory over Harley Race to regain the NWA World’s Title in Greensboro, NC that night was another source of pride for Mid-Atlantic fans…our guy had brought the belt back home! But the landscape of profession wrestling was about to change radically.

 

Ric’s second NWA Title reign took him through to a time period where the Mid-Atlantic area ceased to be a separate entity, and was eventually swallowed up as just a part of the National Wrestling Alliance. By later into 1985/early 1986, there really wasn’t a true “Mid-Atlantic area” in my mind anymore. While I continued to follow wrestling closely, it just was never quite the same to me. But I still watched Ric religiously! And Ric Flair undoubtedly had some of his finest moments in the mid and late 1980s. I was often there in the Richmond Coliseum when Jim Crockett Promotions still came to town, though their visits were scaled down as they attempted to go national.

 

When I think mid and late 1980s, I think Four Horsemen! I think back fondly to Ric’s battles with Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA, Nikita Koloff, the Road Warriors and Ronnie Garvin during that time frame. Those times were a boom period for Jim Crockett Promotions, but the boom very soon turned to bust later in the 1980s. When Jim Crockett sold out to Ted Turner, I remember the weekly TV shows giving way to the Clash of Champions on TBS, and Pay Per Views. And I remember a seemingly never-ending series of matches between Ric and Lex Luger at the Richmond Coliseum! But even in the midst of the turmoil of the changeover to Turner, Ric had a fabulous year in the ring in 1989. His matches that year with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk were historic on a number of levels.

 

While the primary focus of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway are the 1970s and 1980s, a couple of memories hit me from 1990 and 1991. Certainly a low point was when Ric was unmasked as the Black Scorpion in December of 1990. Definitely an angle to forget! And then to hear the rumors that Ric was leaving WCW in the middle of 1991…that was the lowest point! That possibility even possessed me to call the WCW Hotline for the only time, to get up to date news on the status of the Nature Boy. To learn that Ric had left WCW was devastating, and to see him several months later in the WWF, World Title belt in hand, was surreal! Leave it to the Nature Boy, the “dirtiest player in the game,” to pull the ultimate fast one!

 

In one of my many Ric Flair audio tapes from the 1970s, Ric said he wouldn’t retire until “the ripe old age of about 85.” For a while there, I thought the Nature Boy might be true to his word! But currently at age 59, Ric has more than put his time in within the confines of the squared circle. And if Sunday night does prove to be the end of the road for Ric Flair, what a road and wild ride it’s been!

 

I’ll be keeping my memories of Ric Flair in the ring alive as I hit the road, listening to Ric’s “blasts from the past” audio on the trusty iPod. Honk if you see RFLAIR on a road near you….and we’ll share a Woooooooooo and a Four Horsemen sign together!

 

Yep, some roads will never end.

 

David Chappell

March 2008

Photograph by Peggy Lathan


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