Question about Flair

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I noticed he was gone after Souled Out and wouldn't come back until September. Something about legalities. Can somebody tell me the story? Thanks in advance.

[Guest ftwdevils2469]

Not sure if this is 100% true, but from what I've heard Flair skipped Thunder or Nitro, not sure which, to watch one of his sons wrestle, and was suspended as a result.

[Guest The Old Me]

This was one of his reasons for still having heat with Bischoff.

[TheOriginalOrangeGoblin 0]

From what I've heard Bischoff wanted Flair gone long before that and that was ifnally an excuse to get rid of Flair...but Flair doens't leave that easily as everyone knows by now.

[cawthon777 0]

I remember there was a good amount of talk that Flair might show up at the April 98 In Your House since it was held in Greensboro.

[Guest thrall585]

There is a lot of info on this on pwtorch.com going week by week on this with their 5 year newsletter flashbacks

[Guest Mad the Swine]

Off the top of my head:

 

In January, Flair and Bret Hart worked a good program and drew a 1.0 buyrate at Souled Out. Hogan and/or Bischoff supposedly is less than happy that the two drew that amount as the main event of the card.

 

The Flair-Hart program came to an abrupt end in February, but there appeared to be a build for Flair to be total babyface and team with Hart. They made saves for one another, but it did just short of teaming. In March, Flair made a single televised appearance, a DQ win against Curt Hennig. For the remainder of the month, he was backstage at every televised show and did wrestle house shows.

 

This wasn't known at the time, but Flair and Bischoff had come to an impasse on contract discussions. Flair signed a letter of intent to stay in November 1997. No formal contract was ever signed, though a draft was drawn up. Flair refused to sign as it was totally unlike what they had agreed upon in the letter of intent.

 

Flair's actual contract expired in February. The question that was never answered (as it never went to court) dealt with the letter of intent? Was is legally binding?

 

Back to the drama, Flair worked his last match on April 2.

 

After being off television for a month with scarcely a mention of his name, it was announced on Nitro in April that Flair would appear on Thunder in Tallahassee with a major announcement.

 

Knowing it a year in advance, Flair had been planning to take his youngest son, Reid, to a national amateur tournament. It just happened to coincide with Thunder. Flair had been to multiple tournaments before.

 

Bischoff always claimed that Flair didn't ask for the day off in advance. Flair says he did. And for the first time ever, Bob Ryder will be used as a source. He had his email 'Notes From Bob' list at the time. I recall that on the day after Nitro, Ryder mentioned that Flair might no-show because of this previous engagement. Methinks Flair requested it. Whether Bischoff had forgotten about it or seized the moment, I don't know.

 

The next week, Bischoff filed suit for breach of contract. He stated that Flair severely disturbed storylines (as was the exact terminology that appeared in the newspapers). Bischoff told the backstage crew that he would sue Flair into bankruptcy.

 

Several weeks later, Flair countersued. His suit was based on that he a) didn't have a contract and b) Bischoff treated him like crap. Speculation arose that Bischoff did very much want to force Flair into submission with the legal fees. Plus, if Flair continued to fight, Bisch could drag it out until 2000, the date of expiration agreed upon. Under the second scenario, Flair's career might have died as he would have been off TV for three years.

 

Shortly after the suit, the WWF did make reference to Flair at the PPV in Charlotte. Folks did wonder if Flair would "buy a ticket" and just happen to appear on the broadcast.

 

Fan protests began in May. People Online had a 'Most Beautiful Person' poll. Howard Stern told his fans to vote for Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, who won by a landslide. But the other campaign, strictly limited to the wrestling community, saw Flair place second, beating Leonardo DiCaprio.

 

Small gesture, but effective. The "we want Flair" chants started soon after.

 

The next speculation was that Flair would appear at the Atlanta Nitro in July (where Goldberg won the world title). In July, there were positive signs, as some references (but not directly by name) appeared on broadcasts.

 

I can't remember anything noteworthy until early September. The cat was let out of the bag, with Flair even saying the day before that he would appear in Greenville for Nitro.

 

Flair then magically appears, cries, and bites his tongue until it bled.

 

The suit was eventually dropped, but that occurred after October 1998.

 

Not that you asked, but the story resumed the next year.

 

There were rumors that David Flair was talked into wrestling by WCW as a means to control Flair. If Naitch complains, it hurts David's career. Though Flair didn't want his son getting into wrestling, he still didn't want to be responsible for that.

 

Flair disappeared for about a month off television again in mid-1999. He wanted out of his contract and was also injured.

 

That was the summer we got to enjoy Master P.

 

When Bischoff was fired, Flair appeared on the next Nitro. His first words were: "I'm free, I'm free".

 

A couple of years later, Flair also remarked that if Bischoff/Fusient bought WCW, he'd leave.

[Guest The Old Me]

And thus came the Flair/Bischoff fight from RAW this year.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

I remember there was a good amount of talk that Flair might show up at the April 98 In Your House since it was held in Greensboro.

An intresting aside to those rumors. I forget whom it was exactly, wheither it was an employee like Bischoff or a WCW suck-up like Ryder, but there was a quote put out in an interview that the rise in ratings for WWF programming during this time, and the end of WCW's streak was all because fans were watching WWF programming in the hopes that Flair or Scott Hall (who went AWOL for the usual reasons from WCW programming during most of the same period) would somehow pop up ala Syxx the night after Wrestlemania.

 

I wonder if thats where the former Iraqian Minister of Information got his fine positive propaganda drivel spinning from!

 

Steve

[Guest Boo_Bradley]

Ahhhh, tyson and mcMahon and Austin were the catalysts for the ratings...

 

but I don't want to go off on a rant here...

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

Ahhhh, tyson and mcMahon and Austin were the catalysts for the ratings...

 

but I don't want to go off on a rant here...

Err, I know, I was relaying a funny aside to the whole Flair mess in the spring-summer of 1998, that a WCW stooge would actually pin the rise in the WWF's popularity on fans tuning into WWF programing in the hopes that Flair and Hall would appear.

 

Steve