Other than Ric Flair sounding like a Jive Soul Brother this little cartoon is pretty fantastic. Ric Flair may be a republican, but he would sure style and profile far better than ole’ Dubya

There are diehard wrestling fans, and then marks. Marks make me embarrassed to say I like wrestling. I couldn’t find a better example then Youtube superstar thejericode0136. I don’t even know how I stumbled on this clip, but this guy clearly takes wrestling a little too seriously. A prime example of the downside of Youtube…anyone can just ramble for 10 minutes and get 4,000 views. This dude speaks like I did when I was eight years old talking into my mirror, except instead of a mirror this guy has a digital camera. Ahh, tehcnology.

It’s no secret how much we here at DoubleAxHandle respect Ric Flair, but this kid takes it a bit too seriously. Plus, he’s wearing a John Cena hat, which I assume he paid for, or more likely, his parents paid for. I could make fun of this guy, but a bunch of Youtube users already beat me to the punch. Some excerpts:

hey fattie want another cream cake
hav u heard of exercise or is that noexistant in america

*coughs* nerd

Hes a moron for;

1. wearing a John Cena hat
2. making this video
3. being fat
4. thinking wrestling is actually real
5. having a monotone voice
6. Orgasm over terry funk
7. carrying this video on for a second short of ten minutes
8. coming as close to bumming ric flair as possible
9. insulting 3 greats, Hogan, trips and Hart
10. Your a fag.

That was too much for jerichocode and he just had to respond to these accusations:

1.cena’s rocks but only smart fans understand that
2.got 4 honors people are watching
3.6 3 220 not fat
4.i dont i have forgot more about wrestling than most people know
5.true i saound like a chipmunk
6.nope cant say i have
7.ya f youtube it should of been 20mins
8.its called respect
9.hogan was really bad=khail in ring,hhh great in ring a superstar and had super matches but his backstage bs and not putting people over isnt cool,hart he should of jobbed to hbk when asked
10 married with kids

When he says “married with kids” he really means he kindaps single mothers and their children.

You didn’t think just because Ric Flair has wrestled his last match that the Rewind would be over? To paraphrase, Diamonds are forever…and so is the Ric Flair Rewind, Woo!

Before we get to this, I’d just like to say that the match at WrestleMania not only lived up to my expectations of Natch, but possibly surpassed them. There was a moment when Abdullah the Blogger and I thought that maybe, just maaaybe this wouldn’t be Flair’s last match. And that is why Flair is so awesome! Here’s hoping that he comes back just once for a tag team match of the ages with him and his son Ried vs. Dusty and Cody Rhodes.

But, back to the Rewind. Lets go back a whopping 16 WrestleManias to WrestleMania VIII, where Flair and the Macho Man were feuding. Ric Flair and his partner in crime, Curt Hennig, were playing games with Savage suggesting that Elizabeth was having an affair with Natch, leading to this fantastic piece…

*COMEDIC PHOTOJOURNALISM INTEGRITY NOTE: Picture 9 flipped horizontally, because the joke doesn’t work so good from right to left. — Buff

WrestleMania has been called the Super Bowl of wrestling. And there are definitely similarities. For example, just like with WrestleMania, there is usually about a month’s worth of hype for the Super Bowl and, this year aside, compared to all the hype, the Super Bowl is usually a boring, anticlimactic mess just like WrestleMania. Also, in the Super Bowl, just like in WrestleMania, there are usually about 15 minutes of the event that wind up being worth watching. Another similarity is that the Super Bowl airs on broadcast television for free, much like WrestleMania airs for free on WWE television for the following several weeks after they have convinced several thousand suckers to pay $60 for it.

However the biggest difference between the two is that the degenerate fans of football will bet on anything from the final score of the Super Bowl, to the number of punts, to the coin toss. The degenerate fans of wrestling don’t have anything to bet on since the outcomes are predetermined. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could bet on all the dumb stuff that will happen? Here is the betting line for WrestleMania XXIV.

“What a devastating sidewalk slam!” — Michael Cole

MISCELLANEOUS
Over/under on the percentage of successful attempts by Mike Adamle to pronounce the names of wrestlers he has never heard of until bell time: 18%
Over/under on the number of visible eyebags on Mike Adamle despite the best efforts of a highly paid WWE makeup staff: 3.5
Chances that the worst match (“BunnyMania” women’s tag match) will last longer than the best match (“Money in the Bank”): 50%
Chances that the WWE will produce some dumbass skit featuring 1980s wrestlers, identical to the 150 other skits they have produced in the past five years: 91%
Over/under on the percentage of moves Michael Cole incorrectly calls a sidewalk slam: 84.5%
Over/under on the total number of minutes of the show spent watching restholds: 47
Over under on the number of minutes taken up by replaying things we’ve already seen on television: 37 Chances that Aretha Franklin will sneak into the backstage area by claiming to be Big Daddy V, do a heel turn, attack John Legend, and take his place singing America the Beautiful: 1% (but we can hope)

Above: America the Not-So-Beautiful.

HALL OF FAME INDUCTION
Over/under on how many inappropriate chants happen during the Hall of Fame ceremony: 15
Chances that Mae Young will go topless while accepting her HOF induction: 89%
Chances that anyone will mention, during Peter Maivia and Rocky Johnson’s induction, how offensive their gimmicks were: 0.00000004%
Chances of someone saying “WWF” during the show: 63%

BUNNYMANIA
Over/under on the total number of wrestling moves executed correctly in the women’s match, by anyone other than Beth Phoenix: 1.5
Chances that the most entertaining thing about the women’s match is:

• Santino Marella getting on the mic: 75%
• Nipple slip or butt-crack exposure: 25%
• Anything wrestling-related: 0%

Above: Pin dropping (can be heard
during WWE women’s matches).

Chances that Snoop Dogg will say something in an interview that indicates he hasn’t watched any wrestling since WrestleMania IV: 83%
Chances of Snoop Dogg specifically saying “WWF”: 97.2%
Chances that the crowd reaction at any given time during the actual match is greater than the reaction during the women’s entrances: 8%
Chances of a fart being heard from the audience because they are so silent during this match: 47%
Chances of sudden torrential downpour in the open-air Orange Citrus Bowl improving this match: 97%

Fig. 1: Unstoppable force.

24-MAN BATTLE ROYALE
Over/under on the number of times that Snitsky, even though he is flabby, out of shape, only 2 inches or so taller than the average WWE wrestler, and has lost every televised match he has been involved in for 6 years, will be portrayed as an unstoppable monster: 14
Over/under on the length of time The Great Khali is in the ring before sustaining a continuous “BOO” becomes a vocal impossibility for the crowd: 4:27
Over/under on the length of time the Great Khali will remain in the match before awkwardly stepping over the top rope and pretending to be eliminated: 15:29 (11 minutes past the continuous booing threshhold)
Chances that Hacksaw Jim Duggan will get a better fan reaction than anyone else in the match: 81%

UMAGA vs. BATISTA
Over/under on the number of times that any of the announcers assert their balls in the “my brand is better than your brand” debate, even though all three brands appear on each other’s shows constantly: 19.5
Chances that Umaga stares at a piece of simple electronic equipment in wonderment and awe, as if it is a god that fell to earth, even though he wrestles in arenas full of electrical equipment 250 days a year: 57%
Chances that Umaga’s incoherent rambling in Samoan is more understandable than Batista’s pre-match promo: 92%
Over/under on the number of chair-shots or other vicious blows to the head which Umaga will no-sell because he is supposed to be a Samoan with a stereotypically rock hard head: 4
Over/under on the number of simple fists to the head Umaga will sell as legit, and stagger, even though he seemingly cannot be hurt in the head by a chair: 34
Over/under on the number of times the announcers refer to Umaga as “unstoppable” or a similar adjective, even though, like Snitsky, he never wins a match except against 150 lb. jobbers: 11
Over/under on the increase in popcorn sales during Batista’s offensive sequences: 35%

BELFAST BRAWL
Chances that JBL’s intro/ring entrance will last longer than the time elapsed in the match before he needs a resthold break: 74%
Chances of anyone expressing any interest in who Vince McMahon’s real bastard son is, now that Finley is Hornswoggle’s father: 4%

ECW CHAMPIONSHIP
Chances that one of the two guys fighting over the ECW title will be from ECW: 12%
Chances that WWE will update their website to include “ECW Champion” under Chavo’s “list of career highlights” before he loses the belt: 2%

MAYWEATHER vs. BIG SHOW
Chances that Big Show just says “fuck it” and legitimately snaps Mayweather in half: 6%
Chances that Big Show plays it by the book, but still clumsily gives Mayweather a legitimate injury by accident: 64%
Over/under on the number of people watching who are hoping one of the above happens: 257,951
Chances that Mayweather gets through a complete sentence without mumbling, stuttering, or some other miscue in his pre-match promo: 0.004%
Chances of Mayweather saying “WWF”: 28%
Chances of the winner of the Money in the Bank match using his title shot to challenge Mayweather for his boxing title after he is laying in a mangled heap in the ring: 0% (and yet, way more entertaining than whatever really happens)

RIC FLAIR vs. SHAWN MICHAELS
Chances that Vince McMahon can restrain himself from appearing in the climax of this match, and imprinting himself on Ric Flair’s moment of glory into retirement: 1%

Above: More mobile than MVP.

MONEY IN THE BANK
Chances that MVP ever actually gets on the ladder: 40%
Chances that MVP takes a respectable bump involving the ladder: 21%
Chances that MVP tries to put the ladder in a chinlock: 91%
Chances that someone will use the money in the bank privileges to challenge for:

• The RAW title: 60%
• The Smackdown title: 31%
• The women’s championship: 5%
• One of the fake belts that are sold at WWE concession stands: 2%
  
• The belt holding Jerry Lawler’s pants up: 0.999995%
• The ECW title: .000005%

Who will be the lesser of three boredoms?

RANDY ORTON vs. JOHN CENA vs. HHH
Chances that JR or someone else will say that this match is “unprecedented” or “historic” — even though we have been seeing thousands of different boring permutations of these three guys fighting each other on RAW for what seems like about 3½ years now: 99.7%
Over/under on the number of people in the crowd and home audience rooting for the guy they dislike the least: 194,000
Chances that at some point HHH and Randy Orton will both have to bring the action to a screeching halt, lie still and pretend to be incapacitated for a ridiculously long amount of time, after a simple move like a side suplex, so that John Cena can perform a five knuckle shuffle: 83%
Chances that John Cena does a “military salute” with the wrong hand again: 50%
Chances that HHH will hit someone with a sledgehammer in a completely non-threatening way like running it into their gut, or use the less-damaging stick end of it: 71%
Chances that HHH will actually use a sledgehammer the way someone would use it if it was a real fight, by swinging it like a baseball bat: 0%
Chances that anyone will point out that using a sledgehammer isn’t as badass as it sounds, if you’re going to use it in the safest possible way for your opponent: 0%
Chances that there will be another massive wave of steroid suspensions in the WWE between now and bell time, and they will have to replace the main eventers with The Miz, Sho Funaki, and Jimmy Wang Yang: 9%

Got any hot tips to add to the betting line for WrestleMania? Stick ‘em in the comments and I will post any good ones. (Don’t worry if it’s after WrestleMania is over. This doesn’t have to make any sense, it’s about the WWE!!)

We’re less than 48 hours away from the biggest ripoff of the year, which will most likely feature the retirement of the greatest wrestler of all time, Ric Flair.

Now much like the the title of this post says, Flair was one cunning linguist. Some people would even argue that Flair is a poet. One of those people would most likely be an online Flair advocate who goes by the alias of Poodleface who has edited together two masterpieces showing off Flair’s (what the hip hoppers call) mad flow…

Since we have been looking back at the career of Ric Flair, it’s important to remember the valleys as well as the peaks. And what the horrible, disgusting people in charge of WCW did to piss all over his legacy, and ensure that he would become a legend in WWE — something unthinkable in 1990 — and remembered partly as a WWF/E icon.

When Ric Flair’s career ends at WrestleMania, for months to come, we will undoubtedly be deluged with thousands of hours of Ric Flair footage from years past to celebrate his great career. Most likely, though, this match will not be among them, one of the events that eventually drove him out of WCW. Ric Flair was actually given one of the shittiest gimmicks of all time in WCW: The Black Scorpion.

Well, sort of.

At the time (1990), Sting had just beaten Ric Flair for the World Title. Since WCW sucked at booking, led by Ole Anderson at that time, they had no one ready to step into that top contender spot vacated by Ric Flair. So they decided to create a completely new masked character out of thin air to challenge Sting — The Black Scorpion.

The Black Scorpion was supposed to be somebody from Sting’s past. He performed low-rent magic tricks on TV, like turning a man into a tiger, supposedly to scare Sting. He was shown in vignettes (through camera tricks) to be about 7 feet tall. They even used the same speech distortion box for the Black Scorpion that they would later use for Le Shockmaster.

I will leave it to JHawk to explain the rest of the story:

There was only one problem. Ole had the Angel of Death in mind to play the part of the Black Scorpion, but he didn’t actually bother to sign the Angel prior to starting the angle. What followed was probably the biggest flop of an angle in wrestling history.

With Sting defending the NWA World Title against The Black Scorpion at a live Clash of the Champions, a series of vignettes had aired where Scorpion promised to unmask if he didn’t win the title. So of course, Sting wins the match, but not only doesn’t the Scorpion unmask, but the Scorpion Sting was wrestling was a fake! In fact, the real Scorpion, easily 3-6 inches taller than the one who just wrestled, was standing on the ramp looking at Sting after the match. Supposedly the Scorpion that wrestled that night was former World Class Champion Al Perez, who hadn’t been seen in a year and hasn’t been seen since.

The angle got progressively worse, with Scorpion conducting “black magic” to get into Sting’s head over the next few months. These bits were mind-numbingly stupid, particularly when they turned the one guy into a “tiger” that looked more like a leopard…and the trick was so mind-numbingly blown that members of the crowd were actually pointing to the plant to tell Sting where he disappeared to.

With no real blow off plan in place, they finally blew the angle off at Starrcade 1990, revealing the Scorpion to be Ric Flair playing mind games all along. Which might have worked had they not made it obvious by pulling Flair out of his scheduled tag team title match with Doom that had been scheduled to blow off that long-running feud.

Of course it is never explained why Ric Flair is 1 1/2 feet shorter than the Black Scorpion, or how Ric Flair can be “someone from Sting’s past” when they had just wrestled like the day before. But then again this was WCW in the 1990s, which made current WWE look like Upstairs, Downstairs in terms of coherent writing.

Funny enough, there is still some entertainment value in this match. The ending where 1,190 different Black Scorpions run into the ring and beat the shit out of Sting is pretty surreal, even by today’s standards.

Bonus feature 1: commentary by good old JR, and Paul Heyman in his Paul E. Dangerously days, pre-ECW (and pre-pre-shitty ECW).

Bonus feature 2: cameraman sitting on top of the cage and his sneakered feet dangling into the ring during the action. I guess hiring a magician to perform stupid magic tricks badly on WCW Saturday Night tapped out the budget, and they couldn’t stick a camera on a rafter somewhere.

Bonus feature 3: special referee Dick The Bruiser, dressed like he just woke up, got a surprise phone call to come and referee a match, and showed up without changing. Also, not being familiar with popular referee pin-counting conventions despite being an ex-wrestler.

Ric Flair has made it abundantly clear that Ricky Steamboat was his favorite opponent of all time. Watching the above clip, you can tell Flair loved working with Steamboat, and how much chemistry the two had, as Steamboat stripped Flair almost nude (NO HOMO!). Really, this was the beginning of a tradition of Flair stripping to his undies. This exchange is pure perfection. This angle occurred 30 years ago and it makes me want to watch their match right now. Both men played their roles perfectly.

See Also
The Ric Flair/Ricky Steamboat feud of 1978
Flair vs. Steamboat 2 out of 3 Falls – Clash of the Champions 6
Flair vs. Steamboat – WrestleWar ’89
Flair vs. Steamboat – Chi’ Town Rumble