Ric Flair, born Richard Morgan Fliehr, was born on February 25, 1949, in Edina, Minnesota. The son of an obstetrician/gynecologist and a marketing executive, Ric proved himself an able sportsman, no doubt a foreshadowing of greater things to lie ahead. A basketball player in high school, he also won the Wisconsin state high school championship in amateur wrestling. By the time he started college, he was also recognized as quite the accomplished football player, being selected as a two-time All-State lineman and going on as an offensive guard and defensive tackle at the University of Minnesota. Soon after completing his time at the University of Minnesota, Ric started his wrestling training under the watchful tutelage of the great Verne Gagne and Billy Robinson. Promptly joining the American Wrestling Association(AWA), his first opponent was the inimitable "Scrap Iron" Gadaski, whom he met on December 10, 1972. The match ending in a draw, Ric realized that his full potential would have to be realized at a different time in a different place.

Between May and June of 1974, Ric moved to North Carolina, wrestling in the National Wrestling Alliance(NWA) around the mid-Atlantic region. Here he quickly stablished himself as a proficient tag team wrestler; indeed, he was initially introduced as a partner of the great Rip Hawk, winning the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team title with him on July 4, 1974, against Paul Jones and Bob Bruggers in Greensboro, North Carolina. He also showed himself to be a competent singles competitor in defeating Paul Jones for the NWA Television title on June 3, 1975 (He reciprocated the favor to Paul exactly one week later). He also defeated Wahoo McDaniel in Hampton, Virginia, on September 20, for the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight title.

However, it would only be a short time later that Flair would experience one of the greatest tragedies of his life. On October 4, 1975, shortly before arrival in Wilmington, North Carolina, his private plane crashed due to a lack of fuel. Times truly looked dire for Ric, as his back was broken in three places. Besides Flair, two other occupants, John Valentine(The Boogoe Woogie Man) and Bob Bruggers, suffered permanent, life-altering injuries, while another two occupants, Tim Woods and David Crockett, emerged from the aircraft with relatively minor cuts and scratches; the pilot was killed. After the crash, the doctors informed him with the wrenching news that he would most likely never wrestle again and would need at least an entire year to recover fully.

Exceedingly even the most liberal estimates, Ric miraculously not only fully recovered in less than a year but also returned to the squared circle less than four months later on February 1st of the following year. In defeating Wahoo McDaniel again, the victory became not only a comeback for the ages but also the beginning of a scintillating rivalry between the two accomplished grapplers. On May 24, 1976, Flair defeated Wahoo McDaniel yet again for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight title, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the rest of 1976, Flair alternated between the Heavyweight title, exchanging it a few more times with McDaniel, and the Tag Team title, uniting with Greg Valentine to defeat future Four Horseman members Gene and Ole Anderson on Christmas Day in Greensboro, North Carolina. The rest of the 1970s bore witness to a burgeoning champion.

Beginning in 1977, Flair, still somewhat viewed as a tag team wrestler, captured the NWA World and Mid-Atlantic Tag Team titles (both with Greg Valentine), but also secured the NWA Television title and the United States Heavyweight title. The Television title was obtained via a victory over Rufus Jones, and Flair snatched the US title from the master of the coconut head butt, Bobo Brazil, in July. 1978 saw Ric obtain the US Heavyweight title again, this time from Mr. Wrestling #1. He also teamed with Big John Studd to win the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team titles over Paul Jones and Ricky Steamboat. The timeless feud with Steamboat started to reach a boiling point in 1979 with Ric reclaiming the US Heavyweight from him on April 1, 1979.

The 80's would witness Flair's metamorphosis into the wrestler we primarily know today, the singles wrestler. On August 8, 1979, just before the turn of the decade, Flair collaborated with Blackjack Mulligan to defeat Paul Jones and Baron von Raschke in Greensboro, North Carolina, for the NWA World Tag Team Title. Losing it a mere two weeks later, however, Flair was at a crossroad in his career. He soon made the decision to focus mainly on singles competition; four months into 1980, on April 20, Ric Flair defeated the legendary "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka to capture the NWA United States Heavyweight Title for the fourth time. Losing it to his former tag team partner, Greg "the Hammer" Valentine three months later in Charlotte, North Carolina, Flair, in his unwittingly steady march towards establishing a lasting wrestling legacy, reclaimed it on November 24, 1980, in Greenville, South Carolina, and fended off all competitors until Rowdy Roddy Piper wrested it from his waist on January 27 the following year in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On September 17, 1981, Ric Flair defeated The American Dream Dusty Rhodes in Kansas City, Kansas, to win his first world championship belt, the NWA World Heavyweight Title. This singular victory was the true measure of his unequivocal dominance in the 1980s is his unprecedented seven NWA/WCW World Heavyweight Championship reigns. The defeat of "The Bull of the Woods" Dusty Rhodes marked the beginning of the highly celebrated Flair/Rhodes feud. It is clear, though, that the feud was one-sided, as Flair completely mastered Rhodes in only losing the world title to him once, that defeat coming on July 26, 1986. The first title reign of Ric Flair lasted almost two years with defeat coming at the hands of then-Missouri champion The King Harley Race on June 10, 1983. The reign wasn't without its intrigues, though. On July 4, 1982, Ric Flair, the NWA World Champion, battled Bob Backlund, the WWF World Champion at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. With action highly intense and furious, they were eventually both disqualified after twenty minutes. After Race defeated him in June 1983, Flair entered a twenty-man tournament for the Missouri title which Race vacated after winning the world title; Flair subsequently defeated David Von Erich in the finals to capture the championship.

Four months after first defeating Flair, Harley Race again encountered Ric Flair at the inaugural Starrcade in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 24, 1983. A capacity crowd of 15,447 people, as well as approximately 30,000 fans throughout the mid-Atlantic area via closed-circuit television, witnessed Flair recapture the NWA World title. There were two additional battles for the title in the ensuing months: Harley Race won the title yet again from Flair in Wellington, New Zealand, on March 21, 1984, but two days later was handed his second defeat from Flair in Singapore.

After losing and regaining the world title to and from The Modern Day Warrior Kerry Von Erich in May 1984 in Irving, Texas, and Yokosuka, Japan, respectively, the NWA found its way back to the New York metropolitan area, stopping at the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey. There, Ric Flair defeated Ricky Steamboat in the epic main event.

After defeating Von Erich in 1984, Flair surpassed his earlier, seemingly impossible feat of maintaining title supremacy for close to two years, this time not losing the belt until July 26, 1986, to 285 pounds of sweet sweet soul, Dusty Rhodes. Shortly before facing defeat, however, Flair, Ole Anderson, Arn Anderson, and Tully Blanchard formed the first, unopposed wrestling group, The Four Horsemen. Appropriately named after the biblical harbingers of apocalyptic doom, they proceeded to wreak havoc and mayhem on all opposition and all opponents.

The Horsemen were formed by a complex convergence of different factions in the NWA roughly around May 1986. Ole Anderson, originally the tag team partner of Thunderbolt Patterson, abruptly dropped him and decided to join with another Anderson, Arn, to resurrect the legendary Minnesota Wrecking Crew; meanwhile, Flair was engaged in a monumental feud with Magnum TA for the United States Championship. This particular angle revolved especially around the claim that Flair or TA could beat the other wrestler in ten minutes or less. During one match of this feud, TA actually had Flair in a figure-four leglock at the ten-minute mark. The Andersons, at ringside providing color commentary, rushed in to interfere, establishing through a Minnesota connection that Flair was a "cousin." After this clumsy incident, members of the trio routinely appeared at the matches of the other members for support or, usually, interference. Tully Blanchard was approached by the Minnesotan trio after a incredibly intense encounter with Sam Houston, at the time a promising, young wrestler who had feuded briefly with Flair and the Andersons. After interfering in the match, the four proceeded to brutalize Houston. The quartet was finally galvanized into a bona fide group by JJ Dillon, Blanchard's manager.

After defeating Dusty Rhodes decisively in St. Louis a mere two weeks after losing to him in Greensboro, Flair proceeded to retain the title for slightly over a year, uncontested until facing a formidable foe in "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin. On September 25, 1987, in front of a manic crowd in Detroit, Michigan, Garvin virtually stole the hearts of fans and the belt, dethroning the champion in a match marred by controversy. Flair would not stay vanquished for long, however; a disgraced Garvin only held the title for two months before painfully succumbing to pinfall after a particularly savage blow to the head in Chicago, Illinois, on November 26, 1987.

This sixth title reign would once again be marked by utter dominance, as this reign was not ended until February 20, 1989. Ricky Steamboat, a familiar and, more importantly, well-matched foe, ended the seemingly eternal sixth reign in Chicago, Illinois. Steamboat and Flair would again confront each other at the Clash of Champions in New Orleans, Louisiana, on April 2. Flair, proving himself to be a most able tactician, engaged Steamboat in a monumental battle of nearly one hour; the match, a virtual primer on the sport of wrestling, was two out of three falls. The match abruptly ended in Steamboat taking the third and decisive fall, despite the strategic and psychological edge Flair possessed and his fateful, unseen foot on the ropes. These two epic grapplers, resurrecting a feud existent since the late 1970s, engaged in this battle only surpassed by the match that followed it, the match on the fateful day of May 7, 1989, at Wrestle War.

The Nature Boy and The Champ

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so was the match that occurred on May 7, 1989, in the city of Nashville, Tennessee. To counter accusations of referee corruption and quell mounting suspicions of administrative negligence, National Wrestling Alliance officials ordered yet another rematch between Steamboat and Flair, this time at Wrestle War. A phenomenal bout, it featured spectacular moves and countermoves on the parts of both Flair and Steamboat. Flair's strategy throughout the struggle was to weaken the leg of Steamboat to prepare it for the dreaded figure-four leglock, a maneuver which had humbled countless opponents before. Conversely, Steamboat attempted to cripple the arm of Flair through a series of kneedrops, Irish whips, and armbars in order to end the match with the chicken-wing submission hold. It seemed as if Flair had achieved final vindication when he forced Steamboat into the figure-four hold; however, Steamboat managed to break the hold and stage a slight, if ultimately futile, comeback. The momentary change in the momentum was all for naught, though, when Steamboat picked Flair up for a bodyslam. Midway through the maneuver, Flair grabbed the leg of Steamboat and countered the bodyslam by executing a reverse inside cradle pin. After this grueling exhibition of wrestling purity, Flair regained the world title for the seventh time in the 1980s.

Terry Funk, appointed as the ringside judge and timekeeper, came into the ring supposedly to congratulate the new champion. Challenging Flair to a title match, Funk abruptly and savagely attacked Flair with vicious punches, foreign objects, and taunting. Funk ended this brutal display by piledriving the new champion through the timekeeper's table. It was clear that Flair, weakened by his just-finished match against Steamboat, was severely and debilitatingly injured.

Flair can still conjure up some of that magic inside the squared circle. His match with Shawn Michaels on Dec. 12 at Madison Square Garden, the first-ever meeting between the two at the world's most famous wrestling arena, tore the roof off the house, according to many in attendance. Like two old-school pros, Flair and Michaels had the crowd in the palm of their hands, bringing back for one night the emotion and passion that fans once had for the business.

Last Sunday night, December 2003, Flair, who has held the world title more times than any performer in wrestling history, teamed with Batista (Dave Bautista) to win the WWE tag-team belts. With the victory he became the first wrestler in history to have won the NWA world tag-team title, the WWE world tag-team title, the NWA world heavyweight title and the WWE world heavyweight title.

Ric's swan song in the WWE has been a series of retirement matches. He has beaten everyone to stay in the game. He asked Shawn Michaels to fight him on PPV. He said he wanted his best. Michaels beat him and Flair seems to be retired now but you never know!