The Michael Jordan of Pro Wrestling

[CapeCrusader]

When you think of...
Basketball, you think Jordan
Hockey, Gretzky
Golf, Tiger
Pro Wrestling, Hulk Hogan

[76ers76ers]

When you think of...
Basketball, you think Jordan
Hockey, Gretzky
Golf, Tiger
Pro Wrestling, Hulk Hogan

Yup, if you asked a random stranger those questions in what players come to their mind in each of those sports. Those people you've mentioned above will most likely be answered.

[jeffhardyfan52]

That is very true but i think you may also hear the rock now a days it use to be goldbreg and stone cold as well, hogans name dose last the longest over time so he is the MJ of pro wrestling but he dosent have the distink distance between other wrestlers and MJ has over the vast majority of basketball players

[sh00n]

Flair doesn't even come close to Hogan in terms of sheer popularity, guys. Flair was better in the ring - which isn't saying much, because Flair wasn't even that great in the ring either. Cena is basically a modern day Flair: he cuts promos where he'll randomly start screaming and his matches are nearly all identical.

Flair was a dick, plain and simple. And most shoot interviews you see of guys who worked with Flair, they all hated him. While Hogan wasn't exactly everyone's best friend, you certainly hear a lot less guys talking about Hogan than you do Flair. You don't have to look any further than Jericho and Bret's books to see what kind of guy Ric was and is.

Hogan is wrestling's Jordan. Just like Jordan took the NBA and made it absolutely explode in popularity, Hogan did the same with wrestling and then some.

[Dunthreevy]

Flair doesn't even come close to Hogan in terms of sheer popularity, guys. Flair was better in the ring - which isn't saying much, because Flair wasn't even that great in the ring either. Cena is basically a modern day Flair: he cuts promos where he'll randomly start screaming and his matches are nearly all identical.

Flair was a dick, plain and simple. And most shoot interviews you see of guys who worked with Flair, they all hated him. While Hogan wasn't exactly everyone's best friend, you certainly hear a lot less guys talking about Hogan than you do Flair. You don't have to look any further than Jericho and Bret's books to see what kind of guy Ric was and is.

Hogan is wrestling's Jordan. Just like Jordan took the NBA and made it absolutely explode in popularity, Hogan did the same with wrestling and then some.

/thread

[sh00n]

justin liger is a amazing worker and has done alot for wrestling but he isent as world famous all these guys

Because Jushin was only huge in Japan. There's a lot of guys who were incredible workers that either never bothered to come to North America or did and Vince didn't give them a push whatsoever. Ditto for WCW.

You look at how much talent these guys had, and they did nothing notable here. Liger was in WCW and TNA, no notable pushes. Ditto for Muta; hell, he was another throw-in for nWo at one point. Then you have guys like Tenryu who were superstars over in Japan and jobbers in the WWF at that point in time.

They may have been Jordans in Japan, but Hogan was over just as much in Japan as her was in North America. The guy was just a global icon, plain and simple.

And he could do it as a heel and a face and he got the biggest reaction doing either. Let's see Flair do - especially in a tough crowd like Japan. And it was in Japan that Hogan actually showed he DID have wrestling talent. Why he never showed that to his main audience, I have no idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIuEcao2cCM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f-p0tkCuZg
(one of my all-time favourite Hogan entrances)

[Celtsfan1980]

Cena is basically a modern day Flair: he cuts promos where he'll randomly start screaming and his matches are nearly all identical.

I hate to bump up my own threads but that's funny. Do you really believe that? As much as I think Flair is overrated, I'd rather watch a Flair match 100 times before I'd watch a Cena match. Flair had a limited number of moves, but even he had more than Cena.

[jeffhardyfan52]

hearing cena being compaired to falir makes me sick, and im not a flair fan either,
cena will admit hes not the best "wrestler"

[sh00n]

Flair was a joke and is the most overrated wrestler of his time. His work style was phony and it took away the integrity of his matches. Having someone pound on you and then prance around before falling on your face looks stupid. Being thrown into a turnbuckle and taking a front flip bump into it looks stupid. Doing a dance before locking in your finisher looks stupid.

Flair's matches were all the same and they were all phony looking. He had insane conditioning but that's about it.

The way I grade a wrestler would be on three things: Look, In-ring ability, and Mic work.

If you were to take Hogan, you'd rate him as:
Look: 10
In-Ring: 5
Mic: 10
Total: 25

Bret:
Look: 8
In-Ring: 10
Mic: 9
Total: 27

Warrior:
Look: 10
In-Ring: 3
Mic: 3
Total: 16

Taker:
Look: 9
In-Ring: 8
Mic: 7
Total: 24

Flair:
Look: 6
In-Ring: 6
Mic: 9
Total: 21

Going by that system, Flair doesn't stack well. And it's a system that holds up pretty well when you rank all-time greats.

[Dunthreevy]

I've got to agree with sh00n. I've never been a fan of Flair's work and I honestly don't see why people hold him in such high regards, other than the fact that he's been around forever. I can say without question that there isn't a single Flair match that I ever got excited about. The man has always been boring to me and I can't stand him on the mic either.

[Tricky Ricky]

I've got to agree with sh00n. I've never been a fan of Flair's work and I honestly don't see why people hold him in such high regards, other than the fact that he's been around forever. I can say without question that there isn't a single Flair match that I ever got excited about. The man has always been boring to me and I can't stand him on the mic either.

I agree, I think you have to be like atleast 40 years old to really love Flair, he got sooooooooo much heat when he was with the four horsemen. I always found him boring also but he is a legend

[Moreyball]

The only people who think Ric Flair is the Michael Jordan of Pro Wrestling are Ric Flair and his fans. This is Pro Wrestling, not amateur wrestling, the primary objective is to draw and in that respect, Flair couldn't hold the jockstrap of Hogan, Austin or the Rock.

what about John Cena?

[sh00n]

I agree, I think you have to be like atleast 40 years old to really love Flair, he got sooooooooo much heat when he was with the four horsemen. I always found him boring also but he is a legend

I'll always considers the Horsemen one of, if not the best stable of all-time. But that's as a team. I wouldn't give them more or less recognition just because Ric Flair was in it. Cause when you look at it, there's been different versions of the Horsemen, and not all of them have had Flair in it. And they've all done well. They're not as iconic as Flair's Horsemen, but that's because he also had AA, Ole and Blanchard and they had epic feuds with Rhodes and the Road Warriors.

Overall there's been members in the stable who even rivaled Flair's popularity (Sting), and better workers (Benoit).

Honestly, as iconic as the original Horsemen were, my all-time favourite Horsemen stable was in the late 90's with Mongo, Flair and Benoit. Too bad nWo came around and they got turned into a generic babyface group.