– Ric Flair On The Rock: “I think he’ll admit that a lot of me was him”
During a recent appearance on NBC Sports Radio, “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair talked about influencing The Rock’s persona, who came up with the Four Horsemen idea & more. Below are the highlights:
On influencing The Rock’s persona:
“I think he’ll admit that a lot of me was him. I don’t know how many Rolex watches I’ve sold for Rolex from guys buying their first Rolex. I can remember Randy Orton got his first big check with Evolution. The first thing he bought was a new tricked out diamond encrusted Rolex, so I know that I’ve done some damage.
I think a lot of guys have become more wardrobe-conscious. Does that make sense? Looking the part all of the time as opposed to when you’re in the gym. Every time you walk into a door, you want everybody in the joint to look at you. That’s just what it is.”
Much Respect! pic.twitter.com/JqX2xE9Z4y
— Ric Flair® (@RicFlairNatrBoy) October 5, 2017
On cutting brilliant promos:
“That all came off the top of my head. We’d be out in Atlanta all night long, back at the hotel around 5 a.m., change clothes, and go to the studio and start taping at 9 o’clock. That’s just a lot of coffee and a lot of liking what I was doing for a living, being surrounded by guys like Dusty and Arn Anderson and guys that had so much influence on me.
And we went out there and we competed with each other. Does that make sense? If Dusty was out there first, I knew I had to follow that. If I was on first and Dusty had to follow me. It was very competitive.”
On who came up with the Four Horsemen idea:
“Actually, the idea for The Four Horsemen came from Arn, just something he said one day about The Four Horsemen. I can’t remember the terminology, but he put up the four hand gesture and Arn did it and we started doing it each week and within a month it caught on and it was bigger than ever. It was huge, so I give all that to Arn. He took the ball and he ran with it.”
– Bad News For Two Top SmackDown Live Stars
Tonight at TLC 2017, SmackDown Live Superstar “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles is going to face “The Demon King” Finn Balor in the co-main event of the show.
It should be noted that Balor is currently the favorite to win this match because he’s being built to face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship next year. This doesn’t bode well for Styles, who’s expected to challenge Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship after Survivor Series 2017.
But that’s not it. There’s bad news for Styles’ future opponent, Jinder Mahal, as well. Jinder is currently scheduled to face the Universal Champion Brock Lesnar in the main event of Survivor Series 2017 and is expected to lose.
Not only do these account for big losses, but it also makes the top SmackDown Live stars & the WWE Championship inferior to the top Raw stars & the Universal Championship.
– WWF Veteran Explains Why WWE Did The Right Thing By Not Bringing Samoa Joe Back On Raw
During a recent edition of “The Taz Show” podcast, WWF Taz discussed the return of Kane on this week’s episode of Raw, booking of Braun Strowman, why he’s glad Samoa Joe didn’t return & more.
Below is what he said (it should be noted that this podcast was released earlier this week, so it doesn’t take into account that Kurt Angle will be replacing Roman Reigns at TLC 2017):
“I want to start with the bottom. I want to start from the main event. I want to start with Roman Reigns v/s Braun Strowman in the cage. We saw a surprise return by Kane, who I love. I love Kane. Good dude, great guy to work with, true pro, true superstar and one of the quality guys you ever gonna meet in the industry. I mean that now, I was shocked to see Kane. I was happy to see Kane. I thought it was a cool touch.
I think people were expecting Samoa Joe. Everybody thought Samoa Joe would join that group with Miz to go against the Shield. Those are gonna be Miz, Cesaro, Sheamus, Braun Strowman and Kane. I liked the shock and all of it. I thought that part was cool. I liked that they had Kane come out from underneath the ring. That’s consistent with stuff we’ve seen him and The Undertaker do over the years. I think that was cool. It’s a good little effect.
I liked that it was not Samoa Joe. I don’t think Samoa Joe should be clustered in with four or five other stars. I really don’t. I’m glad WWE did not do that. I like that it’s Kane. I still don’t like Braun Strowman in this group. I think Braun Strowman should be completely on his own all the time.
I don’t think Braun Strowman should have a microphone in his hand at times and acting like a regular superstar. I don’t like him standing in the ring at the end of Raw with Kane. I think that Braun Strowman should always stand alone and be on his own. Big, bad, angry, violent son of a b***h that does not play with others. He should not be in there going back and forth on a microphone in the segments earlier talking with The Miz. It shouldn’t happen. It just makes him human. You are making Braun human and that’s a mistake. Big mistake. Don’t make him human.
The goal here what they’re doing…. it’s not about Braun Strowman. It’s not. The goal is not about Kane either. That’s not the goal. The goal is to do one thing and one thing only. The goal is to get The Shield over. They are five against three. That is the goal – let’s get The Shield over.
It’s not about Miz, not about Cesaro, not about Sheamus, not about Kane, not about Braun. It’s all about The Shield. They started the show off with The Shield coming through the audience which I thought was cool. The people growing crazy was awesome. And I have no problem with The Shield being together. I don’t but I’m just letting you people know that’s what this match is about. How you’ll have The Shield win this match, I’m looking forward to seeing. Because I don’t know how you’ll do it but for sure the Babyfaces are gonna win.
They’re putting a lot of elements and obstacles in the way of the Babyfaces here. I don’t know why you have to do five against three. I think that’s a little much. But I guess they want to have this epic crazy match because it’s Tables, Ladders and Chairs. And you know… they’ve had some great ones in the past so they want to try to top that. So the more elements and bodies they can have, the more physical storytelling they could tell and that’s probably what they’re trying to do right there.
The ending shot of Kane standing next to Braun, I didn’t like it because I said I like Braun alone. And I’m watching it till the very end and I’m waiting for Kane to turn. I don’t know why. Even when Kane came through the ring I thought for a second he’d be a Babyface. That’s what I thought, he was gonna turn on Braun and help Roman. That would be exciting you know like… different type of booking.
Not that what they did wasn’t good booking, this I think would have been a little better. If he would have came through the ring, everyone’s expecting him to go after Roman, and that’s what they did, but could you imagine if Kane acting like he’s gonna go get Roman and then he turns and goozles freaking Braun Strowman and Chokeslams him.
When he got in the ring, meaning Braun with all the guys in the ring – Cesaro, Sheamus, Miz…….. nobody put him over. When he got in a ring nobody backed up. Nobody went like you know…. backed up “Easy big boy we’re on the same team”. Nobody put him over, like “Oh my god, this guy is f***ing big and mean and nasty and when you’re next him in the ring, he’s unpredictable”. No one put him over. That’s a problem.”
