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VIP EXCLUSIVE - Early-release from PWTorch Newsletter #971)...
Mitchell's Memo
Headline: "Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen DVD Liner Notes: Pt. 5"
By Bruce Mitchell, Torch columnist
Originally Published: June 9, 2007
From Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #971
Continuing our endless look at the history and trivia surrounding WWE's DVD release Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen...
-Obviously the Horsemen's major rival above all else was "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, but his character wasn't quite the blue jeaned, blue collar opposite to the corporate villains portrayed on the disc. For one thing, he acted as his own corporate public relations department, constantly bragging inaccurately about how he "was the number one sports box office attraction in this country, bar none." After Hulkamania was up and running, he might say "bar none" twice. He often matched Flair sequined robe for sequined robe in their matches. If Flair came out with a Rolex on a segment, Rhodes would make sure he could match or surpass it in a later segment with some expensive trinket of his own to show off.
-Note how, as the story of the Horsemen unfolds, Rhodes gets bigger and angrier. The clip of him cutting a promo in a Bruce Springsteen shirt, complaining, "This is the way I make my living, day in, day out" is an example of his frustration at the time of his rejection by any fans in favor of the Horsemen.
-The Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes rivalry may not have had the longevity of the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox or Jim Ross's example of The Chicago Bears' George Halas vs. The Green Bay Packers' Vince Lombardi (I'm still trying figure out which taciturn, granite disciplinarian Ric Flair is supposed to be, much less Dusty Rhodes), but the Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes feud did last, in one form or another, from 1976 to 1988. In any era of professional wrestling, twelve years of successful headlining is a long time.
-So what was the win/loss record between the two? I'm guessing Rhodes outright won 40 percent of the matches and 59 percent of the matches Rhodes should have won outright except for some cheap technicality. The only win/loss statistic in the feud I'm confident in is that Flair never flat-out won a match against Rhodes clean. Rhodes didn't even get pinned by Flair the night Baby Doll turned on him.
-Speaking of the greatest sports rivalry of them all, Ric Flair used to wear Carolina blue from time to time (he was a UNC fan back then) while Arn Anderson once appeared on air in a Duke sweatshirt.
-One of Dusty Rhodes's best catch-phrases (and yes, WWE didn't invent catch-phrases for wrestlers, they have been in pro wrestling for decades) isn't on this disc, but Flair makes reference to it when he holds up his at-the-time brand new gold title belt, the same style that Edge wears today on WWE Smackdown. "This is the dealer!" Flair yells, answering Rhodes's "You got to deal with the dealer!" double-edged brag about being both the top babyface in the promotion and the booker.
-Dusty Rhodes asserting that "Ric Flair is living proof that most white people ain't got no rhythm" came in response to a surreal segment on the WTBS studio show where Flair...
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Bruce Mitchell has been a Torch columnist since September 1990. Visit www.PWTorch.com/members to access a four-hour in-depth audio review of the "Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen" DVD with Bruce Mitchell, hosted by Wade Keller. The special audio series features a ton of behind the scenes stories that were left off or glossed over on the DVD in covering the ten year span of the Four Horsemen. Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
