The Great Wrestling Champions: Ric Flair (1989-1990)

Welcome to a new Enuffa.com feature, The Great Wrestling Champions, where I examine a particularly noteworthy championship reign in the annals of wrestling history - one that made a difference in elevating said championship and the company it represents.

Today's entry is the 1989-90 reign of NWA World Champion Ric Flair.

Flair's sixth title run was in my estimation the greatest of his sixteen famed world championships, showcasing a bona fide in-ring artist and showman at the top of his arguably unparalleled career, and marking his final run as THE star of the NWA.  Flair had legitimately ruled the 80s as far as the NWA/WCW was concerned, enjoying a decade-long run as the promotion's undisputed top draw.  While he considered his first NWA Title reign as something of a tryout (In those days the NWA Board of Directors had to vote on whether to crown a new champion and Flair got a narrow 5-4 vote of confidence), by the end of 1983 he was clearly the man to whom the torch was passed, from former top NWA draws Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes.  His star power was so great that he'd travel around to the various NWA territories and feud with the local top star, in order to make that guy look like a bigger deal.  Flair would keep the title for a year or two, lose it to a babyface challenger to garner a big box office, and win it back shortly thereafter.  This was the pattern from his second reign on.  He briefly lost the title to Kerry Von Erich, Dusty Rhodes, Ronnie Garvin and finally, in a match that set the tone for the NWA's banner year 1989, Ricky Steamboat.

Flair's feud with Steamboat instantly became the stuff of legend, as the two perfectly paired adversaries traded wins over a three month period, scoring three staggering Match of the Year candidates and assembling one of the greatest wrestling feuds of all time.  Flair would win the title back at WrestleWar '89 and immediately follow up one stellar feud with another; the returning former champion Terry Funk attacked him post-match to set up six months of brutally contested enmity.  The inciting incident involved Funk piledriving Flair on a table and putting him out of action for two months due to a kayfabe neck injury.  This allowed the NWA to build to their first match at The Great American Bash, and marked Flair's first babyface turn since 1983.  The hotly anticipated Flair-Funk bout on July 23rd was a wild powderkeg of a match, spilling all over the ringside area and showing off Flair's brawling versatility after the graceful, scientific trilogy with Steamboat.

The Great Wrestling Champions: Kazuchika Okada (2016-2018)

Welcome to the second installment of The Great Champions, here at Enuffa.com, where I examine a wrestling championship reign that made a financial and artistic difference to the industry.  Today's entry is topical; we just saw the end of one of the greatest title reigns I've had the privilege to witness in my thirty-plus years as a wrestling fan.  It's the record-shattering fourth IWGP Championship run of "The Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada!

For those of you not familiar, Okada is New Japan's current Ace (what they call their top star), whose landmark rivalry with his predecessor Hiroshi Tanahashi served as a transition from one top dog to another (Tanahashi is unanimously credited with bringing NJPW out of its mid-2000s downturn and reinvigorating the product).  Their numerous main event matches together captured the imagination and raised the bar for in-ring storytelling, for some even eclipsing Misawa-Kobashi as Japan's greatest wrestling feud.

The 6'3" Okada came up through NJPW's dojo system, took an excursion overseas (as all dojo grads do), and returned with a new look, a new, charismatic heel persona, and a prodigious understanding of how to work a main event-level match.  Okada's ability to adjust to his opponent's style and thus make every big match different from the last, coupled with his painstaking attention to detail and arguably unparalleled expressiveness in the ring, have made him in the opinion of many the best wrestler alive today.

At WrestleKingdom VI, having won his first match back in the company, Okada challenged Tanahashi for the IWGP Championship, and defeated him only a month later, at the age of 24.  That the company put such stock in such a young man, and that Okada earned every raining dollar of it, is nothing short of staggering.  Okada lost the title back to Tanahashi in June of 2012 but won it back the following April, keeping it nearly a year this time.  Their multi-year rivalry helped raise the profile of the championship and New Japan as a whole, and by the time he'd won his third title (from AJ Styles), Okada was ready to assume Tanahashi's former mantle.  At WrestleKingdom 7 and 9 he'd failed to beat Tanahashi at the company's biggest event (actually leaving WK9 in tears), but at WK10 he finally achieved that elusive accomplishment, solidifying his status as NJPW's new It Guy.  His third IWGP Title run would come to an end a few months later at the hands of another new main eventer, Tetsuya Naito, but he'd regain the championship only two months after that.

Thus began what would become a truly legendary 720-day reign.  The sheer number and variety of scale-breaking classic matches, coupled with the commercial growth it brought the company, is astonishing.

Okada defeated Naito at Dominion 2016 in a very good 29-minute battle whose result shocked a lot of people.  Early 2016 seemed to be Naito's coronation, as he more or less stepped into Shinsuke Nakamura's former spot, the charismatic anti-hero.  He handily won the New Japan Cup and challenged Okada at Invasion Attack, and it felt like Naito and his Los Ingobernables stable would rule the roost for the time being.  But Okada put a quick end to Naito's first (and thus far only) IWGP Title run, which amazingly never hurt Naito's incredible drawing power (This would come up again 18 months later).