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Michael Grimaldi Talks Ric Flair's Career

Posted: May 13th 2008 By: CMBurnham

I also wanted to just add a comment on Joe Babinsack's latest column, specifically on his view about Shawn Michaels and the whole Michaels ending Flair's career.

I often see people who's hatred of HHH's power because of his relationship with Stephanie and Vince and find it amusing that a guy who is on top and has power uses that power to help himself and his friends stay on top. This is wrestling. This has been done throughout the ages. We all now look back so fondly of the NWA, World Class, Mid-South and even AWA and I find it very much like people who "mis-remember" (thank you Roger Clemens) what people consider the "Golden Era" of other Pro Sports.

People forget over time things that surely make "putting yourself over" seem insignificant. To go to baseball as Mr. Babinsack did in his column later on; Was Baseball, as a game, more "pure" in the 20's? Well, I guess. But the heavy drinking and outright cruel behavior of a lot of those "great heroes" is forgotten. Let alone we realise that it wasn't till Jackie Robinson that a black player, let alone a Hispanic or Asian player could even touch a baseball diamond. But because there was no 24 TV news, people like to pretend stuff you hear about those days on the negative side of things were just mere blemishes on their heroic stature.

Getting to wrestling...I love Ric Flair and all he did and has meant to the business and do consider him, hands down the greatest of all time. But are we so quick to forget all the turmoil and bad blood he himself created when he had the book in WCW? Watch shoot interviews with guys from that era. Either people love Flair or they think he was, much like people consider HHH, a pompous ass who used him position and power in the company (and relationship with the Crockett family, though nowhere near what HHH has, since he is for all intents and purposes, a McMahon) to keep himself on top and other people down.

Again, in the late 80's early 90's, there were only the Observer and a few other sheets with only a few thousand people privy to this, but had the Internet been around then, would these same people not have as much of a one to pick with Ric Flair?

Which brings me to Shawn Michaels. There is no doubt that before 2002, Shawn Michaels was not a good human being. He'll tell you so. But in an era of faux-Christian wrestlers who simply converted to save their marriages, Shawn is the only guy I truly believe. I am totally against organized religion and as someone who grew up a Christian, I normally detest those who spout the wonders and the saving of their lives because they gave themselves up to Jesus Christ. Shawn Michaels is different. He does his job. He doesn't hold himself on such a higher plane than the other wrestlers. He's taken advice from guys like Jamie Noble to better his mat work in the ring and continues to go out and try and give fans their money's worth no matter how badly he is hurt.

Shawn Michaels is a success story in the long line of wrestlers who have been chewed up and spit out, and sometimes literally left for dead by this business. I think if people could truly separate their detest for HHH and put it into perspective, would be a lot better served than continuing to beat a dead horse. Sometimes people change. Shawn Michaels has changed and accept responsibility for his horrible character that he displayed between 1989 and 1998. And when it comes to HHH...all I have to say is...Fritz basically destroyed his family. Watts pissed people off and said plenty of worse things than Michael Hayes and that's not even going into what he and DiBiase did to Leroy McGuirk. Verne gave into nepotism and his own ego. Flair and Dusty stepped on plenty of feet when they were bookers. The Jarretts? Nuff said. This is the way wrestling is. Stop pretending that this didn't happen back in 1986.

Hating HHH, Michaels and Nash has merit if you truly believe that their actions have caused talent to not get their just due and shot at the big paydays and spots their have earned; and I don't deny that along the line they all have done that. However, to hold Ric Flair up as an iconic man who never "looked out for #1" and anyone who kissed the ass of "#1" is nothing more than revisionist history. Flair changed. As a man and as a professional later on in his career. He eventually was even the victim of those who had power who held it against it. Just because Michaels still has friends in high places, doesn't make his change or his contributions to the business and the millions of fans who could care less who he's friends with and who they're married to.

Did Ric Flair go out the way he might have dreamed he would have? Probably not. But how can you not respect his emotion and the emotion he felt toward Michaels before and after the match. And on the same end, based on everything we heard and read from Michaels and the people around him, I don't understand the cynicism and venom towards a guy that stressed for weeks not wanting to let Flair down in his final moment on the big stage.

Tags: Ric Flair, NWA, WCW, Leroy McGuirk