For nearly 40 years, the standard-bearer of excellence throughout the entire wrestling industry was "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. In the last decade, we’ve come to learn more and more about the level of pop culture Naitch has had just by styling and profiling. During his time in the ring, Ric Flair was able to capture dozens of titles across several promotions.
But as far as being a world champion is concerned, The Dirtiest Player In The Game is recognized as the world champion 16 times over. That number puts Flair’s reigns spanning nearly two decades. He’s tied with John Cena, with Randy Orton and now his own daughter nipping at his heels. However, the business has changed so much since Slick Ric accomplished the fête that everyone knows Ric Flair will forever be the man.
10 First Win Was A House Show
During Ric Flair’s early days, wrestling was still nowhere near the global phenomenon it would become just a few short years after Naitch would win the Ten Pounds of Gold. Ric Flair would defeat one of his earliest rivals, Harley Race right in the former king’s backyard of St. Louis at a house show in 1981. The glitz of this match was that the second-ever NWA champion, Lou Thesz, served as the guest referee.
9 A Flair For The Gold
Over the years, Ric Flair has not spoken too highly of his first title reign. He wasn’t quite yet ready to be “The Man.” By the time his second shot at Harley Race came, he decided to give a name to his run at the title.
A Flair For The Gold was the tagline for the inaugural Starrcade event in 1983. This time around, he was able to topple Race (who defeated Ric Flair to get the belt back) inside a steel cage.
8 Introduced The Big Gold Belt After Beating Kerry Von Erich
As the traveling NWA champion, Ric Flair did indeed travel all over the globe and defended the gold in several territories. One of the most emotional would be when he dropped the title to Kerry Von Erich during the memorial show for David Von Erich. Shortly after dropping the title back to the Nature Boy, Flair would introduce the Big Gold Belt to the masses.
7 The Correct Count Is About 21
While the WWE recognizes Ric Flair as a 16-time champion, the actual count is way higher. When you see some of the names that he dropped the world title to that aren’t recognized, it’s easy to see why the count is only at 16. Other than Dusty (doing the Midnight Rider gimmick), Fujinami, and Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico, Naitch doing the honors to some questionable names would mean if you recognize those reigns you’d have to recognize who he lost the strap to as a champion as well.
6 First Reign Was Over 600 Days / 4 Unrecognized Changes
Flair’s first title reign is recognized by the WWE as over 600 days. But during that time span, is also the most amount of unaccounted losses. He lost it to Carlos Colon, but it wasn’t recognized by the NWA. He also lost it to Victor Jovica, but his feet were on the ropes, so the decision was reversed. Jack Veneno refused to travel and you kind of have to be willing to travel to be the traveling NWA champion. The only storyline angle part of these losses was when the masked man The Midnight Rider defeated Flair, but that went against NWA rules regarding masked men as champions, so he had to either unmask (revealing he was indeed then-fired Dusty Rhodes) or give back the title.
5 Last Recognized WCW/Crockett NWA Champion
For the better part of the '80s, not only was the Nature Boy the face of the NWA, but he was also proudly representing Jim Crockett Promotions. More and more, the NWA in its original governing body form was becoming obsolete. When Crockett was sold to Turner, Flair became the first WCW champion by default. Unsurprisingly, he was also the final champion under the NWA banner.
4 Only Won One Vacant Title
Despite the amount of vacancies he wound up having to deal with, only one was contested and recognized by the WWE. To date, Ric Flair’s performance at the 1992 Royal Rumble still holds up to this very day as one of the best matches in WWE history and certainly one of the best Rumbles of all time.
Ric Flair came into the match as the number three entrant and not just outlasted the field, he kept coming right at every opponent that came into the ring.
3 Vacancies Unrecognized
Some of Ric Flair’s most memorable matches were against Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. Aside from their trilogy of matches in 1989, five years later, they once again locked horns at the first-ever Spring Stampede in 1994. Both men wound up pinning one another and the title was vacated as a result. Flair resumed his reign by defeating the Dragon a week later on Saturday Night, but the break in the run isn’t recognized by WWE.
2 Beat Savage For Both WWE & WCW Titles
With 16 championships, it’s interesting to realize that one man equates to nearly a quarter of Flair’s title victories, across two companies. He would defeat Randy Savage three times - once shortly after SummerSlam 1992.
Several years later, both men were in WCW and reignited their rivalry. Flair on several more occasions was able to defeat Savage for that world title as well, including in a steel cage.
1 Took The NWA / WCW Title To WWE
After a heated battle with former pizza man turned WCW President Jim Herd, Ric Flair decided it was time to leave WCW. But he did so in the most grandiose of ways, with the WCW title! For several weeks, Bobby Heenan had come to WWE television with the NWA title, declaring “the real world champion” was coming to the WWE. Shortly after the announcement, WCW sued WWE and from that moment on, the “title” was blurred out with a blue dot, and it was actually a WWE tag title being used as the prop.