Ric Flair/Awesome

• Ric Flair survived a plane crash in 1975 that killed the pilot, paralyzed Johnny Valentine, shortened the career of "Mr. Wrestling" Tim Woods, and injured Bob Bruggers and promoter David Crockett; Flair, who broke his back in three places and was told by doctors that he would never wrestle again, returned to the ring six months later. A side effect of this was a change in Flair's in-ring style in order to accommodate his injuries, which he adapted to quickly and used to great effect. The most visible of these is his absolute refusal to take a flat back body drop; he always lands on one side (usually his right) and takes most of the impact on his shoulder and hip. Flair has said that this is actually a psychological block on his part. Because he was always so afraid of re-injuring his back, he has never been able to land flat since.
• Flair's early runs as NWA World Heavyweight Champion could be considered a lifetime-sized CMOA. As NWA Champ, Flair's job was going to the various territories under the NWA umbrella and having a string of matches with the resident champion. This matches would often hit the one-hour time limit for the first few matches before Flair would win the last match. Then. he'd go to the next territory and start it all over again with a new champion. Flair would MULTIPLE one hour matches in the span of a week, then move on to a new place and do it all over again. Can you imagine ANY wrestler today having that kind of workload? This is why Flair is the man.
• Flair's trilogy of matches with Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1989, which are all considered true classics (Dave Meltzer, who was at the Chi-Town Rumble match which started things off, gave all three matches a five-star rating in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter).
• Flair deciding that personal dignity was more important than company loyalty when he refused to cut his hair, change his gimmick, and take a lower spot on the card (despite being a top draw) in WCW in 1991; WCW's then-president Jim Herd fired him, which resulted in Flair showing up in the WWF with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt (which, thanks to WCW's refusal to pay him back his $25,000 security deposit, he legally owned).
• Flair entering the 1992 Royal Rumble at #3, lasting nearly an hour, and winning the Rumble (and, thus, the vacant WWF Championship); his post-match promo is pretty awesome in its own right.
  • Despite being "too old" for Jim Herd, when Ric Flair came back to WCW to fight Vader at Starrcade 1993, he won, and became WCW champion again. Vader was a behemoth of a man, an agile big man capable of off the top rope maneuvers like moonsaults, and a truly brutal powerbomb, yet Flair won in a higly emotional match. Nowadays, Vader vs. Flair is considered the greatest main event in Starrcade history.
• Flair's return to WCW in 1998 after he'd been fired by Eric Bischoff months earlier, where he reformed the Four Horsemen. His crazed promo at Bischoff's expense counts as well.

Ric Flair: "Fire me, I'm already fired!"

• Flair's promo on the final Nitro in 2001, and his final match with Sting on that same show.
• Flair's "Old Yeller" promo leading into his WrestleMania 24 match with Shawn Michaels.
• Flair stealing a lot of Hulk Hogan's thunder by debuting on TNA Impact the very same night Hogan did.
• The fact that he's still wrestling. Consider this; Wrestling IS Ric Flair's life. He's going to keep going until he dies in the ring. Nobody in the history of the industry can say they've been around as long as Flair has, or will be around as long as he is. He's never going to stop as long as he's breathing.
  • Quite honestly, my biggest Flair-related nightmare is that he would die in the ring.