"Nature Boy" - A Model Christian

One of my very few vices in the past was a love for professional wrestling. I don't follow it too much anymore since I don't find it very entertaining.

I liked wrestling for what it is - a soap opera in a ring. While the current storylines last about 5 minutes, sorylines in the past were developed and played out over months. I have seen hundreds of live matches and thousands more on television. I have seen thousands of wrestlers. The best wrestler in my mind is Ric Flair.

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair attended my alma mater, the University of Minnesota. Yes, he was a member of the wrestling team. He was noticed by Verne Gagne, one of the most famous amateur and professional wrestlers of all-time and owner of the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association, a professional wrestling company.

Very early in his professional wrestling career, Ric Flair was critically injured in the crash of a small plane. Several other people in the plane died in the crash. Perhaps that incident helped Ric put some important things in perspective.

Ric Flair worked very hard to get back to professional wrestling. He was a pretty good athlete. However, he was an excellent entertainer that knew how to connect with fans. He could be an effective fan favorite or fan enemy. He knew how to "play" the fans. Eventually, the leaders of the wrestling promotions knew that they would make the most money by having Ric Flair as their champion.

So, where does Christianity fit in? Professional wrestling is a very selfish enterprise full of politics. Wrestlers will take steroids and other drugs, marry the boss' daughter, sleep with whomever, etc. in an effort to maintain their top position in the company. Ric Flair was different. At one point near the peak of his career, the company he wrestled for at the time wanted Ric to wrestle on the same day his son was in a championship amateur wrestling match. Ric chose to attend his son's match. As a result, Ric was stripped of his championship and effectively banished from the wrestling company.

Also, no other wrestler has given so many boosts to young wrestlers. Ric Flair is a master of ring tactics and fan psychology. Whenever a wrestling company had a young wrestler with a ton of potential that they wanted to push to the next level, they put that young wrester in a big match with the champion Ric Flair. Where other wrestling "superstars" would make sure that the young wrestler was forced to pay his dues, Ric Flair would go out of his way to make a nervous young wrestler look like a world beater in the ring. Ric Flair had a near magical way of making an unathletic and undynamic young man look like a true superstar in the wrestlign ring. Many of these young stars have gone on to huge careers thanks to Ric Flair's unselfishness.

Ric Flair is no longer the wrestler he once was - he is about 60 years old. He doesn't have the golden mane of hair or the fairly athletic body that he had in his peak during the 80s and early 90s. Still, he is the person that has had the biggest impact on professional wrestling in the past 30 years because of his willingness to share the spotlight with young stars with huge potential.