Video of Jack Veneno beating Ric Flair for the NWA Title

[Shooting Star 0]

This deserves it's own thread since for many years people have been looking for footage of this match. You can see that the place was packed and when he won many fans went inside the ring to celebrate with him. The match still gets shown on tv every weekend here in Dominican Republic. It made him a national hero.

 

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Cool. So what's the backstory on this one?

[Darth Vader 0]

I guess Veneno was a really, really big deal in the Dominican Republic. So Flair had to drop the belt to him in order to avoid getting killed.

[Shooting Star 0]

Back in the day the NWA champion was supposed to go around every territory and make the most over guy in the territory look good but still keep the title and make the fans want to see him lose. That was what was supposed to happen here but Flair made such a good job talking trash in interviews before the match that the crowd would have rioted if Flair won.

 

Title change was never recognized outside of D.R though.

[Slayer 0]

What's the date on that

[Dobbs 3K 0]

So what happened after the match? Was there some technicality that made the title revert back to Flair, like the infamous "thrown over the top rope earlier in the match" type of thing?

[naiwf 0]

What's the date on that

 

"Sometime in '82" is the best I could find. Other places say January 15, 1983. I'm not sure though since none of the titles changes with Veneno, Colon or Jovica are recognized as "legit".

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, Great Hisa's Title History site doesn't mention any of them, either.

 

Looked up Jack Veneno on wikipedia. It's amusing. Sounds like he's an aspiring politician. Also notes that Dominicans consider Flair saying he lost only to avoid a riot a "poor loser phrase."

[The Amazing Rando 0]

Wikipedia also says "September, 1982" for Veneno's victory and "September 7th, 1982" for when Flair got the belt back. It makes a mention that certain title changes are not recognized, and there were quite a few during that time, mostly with Flair.

[Shooting Star 0]

Yeah, Great Hisa's Title History site doesn't mention any of them, either.

 

Looked up Jack Veneno on wikipedia. It's amusing. Sounds like he's an aspiring politician. Also notes that Dominicans consider Flair saying he lost only to avoid a riot a "poor loser phrase."

 

People here still see the match as completely real. If you tell them Ric Flair said that the loss was to avoid a riot they'll just laugh and say he's a sore loser.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I don't understand why Veneno, Colon and Jovica's reigns aren't recognized by people nowadays? Is it because the switcher were never ackowledged in kayfabe? Same thing with Inoki's WWF title reign. If a switch happed why can't we retroactively recognize it?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Well, if the NWA never approved the title change in the first place, they definitely wouldn't recognize it.

 

Also, Flair might've looked bad in the US if it came out he had lost the title to someone most US fans had never heard of.

[Jericholic82 0]

Flair talks about this in detail in his book, and in the rematch he lost again but Jack gave him the belt back backstage. The people pretty much thought it was all real so of course they would have rioted cool clips though thanx wish there was footage of the rematch cuz flair said he brought Piper with him and piper went in the ring with an american flag and sang the national anthem to piss off the crowd, if that did happen, Piper truly is nuts.

[Shooting Star 0]

The rematch was supposed to end in with a run-in by Piper but since the crowd was so into it and everyone thought it was completely real when Piper was running in the security all pointed their guns at him and threatened to shoot him if he ran in.