Griffin Kaye
The WWE proudly hails Ric Flair as a 16-time world champion. The most decorated champion in mainstream wrestling, this statement understates his claim to an unofficial 26 world title reigns between 1981 and 2000.
This is the full world title history of “The Nature Boy”, noting how he won and lost every world championship.
1. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (1)
Date: September 17th 1981 – February 9th 1982
WON: Ric Flair’s first world title win came away from TV screens when he pinned Dusty Rhodes. Having worked on the leg during the match, “The American Dream”’s leg gave way as he attempted a suplex. Flair landed on top of him as guest referee Lou Thesz counted the three.
LOST (unrecognised): Ric Flair loses the belt at a Florida house show to The Midnight Rider. After losing a loser leaves town match with Kevin Sullivan, Rhodes battled under a thinly veiled disguise, going on to beat Flair, reportedly via a bionic elbow.
2. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (2)
Date: February 9th 1982 – September 7th 1982
WON (unrecognised): The same night as he loses it, the belt is returned to Flair. NWA President Bob Geigel declares that either the mask is removed or the title belt be returned. Given that Rhodes would face permanent exile from the NWA if it was revealed to be him, he chose to surrender the title.
LOST (unrecognised): Ric Flair dropped the belt to hometown hero Jack Veneno in Santo Domingo. The match is said to have ended in a draw. Although it is commonly said to have ended mid-sleeper, video footage shows it was mid-pin after a piledriver. Either way, fearing a riot, Flair allowed Veneno to celebrate with the title.
3. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (3)
Date: September 7th 1982 – January 6th 1983
WON (unrecognised): The title is returned to Flair, with the kayfabe reason given in the Dominican Republic that Veneno did not want to leave his homeland to defend the belt as the NWA had no plans to make him the legitimate champion.
LOST (unrecognised): Again, Flair loses to a beloved wrestler in their nation when he is defeated by Carlos Colon in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Billed as a unifying match for the NWA and WWC belts, the ultra-popular Colon would emerge victorious after an allegedly clean victory.
4. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (4)
Date: January 10th 1983 – February 8th 1983
WON (unrecognised): The title was given back to Flair, with a fictitious match having taken place that meant Ric was champion again. According to Ring The Damn Bell!, Colon would save face by saying Flair was afraid of him and that he was the “true NWA world champion.”
LOST (unrecognised): The lesser-known Carribean promotor and Yugoslavania-born Puerto Rican Victor Jovica would defeat Ric Flair in Trinidad and Tobago. Perhaps Flair lost upon seeing the hostility of the crowd; in his autobiography, he recalls: “I saw taxicabs being tipped over in the street. Cops were riding around on horseback, trying to break up the crowd, and someone shot a horse.”
5. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (5)
Date: February 11th 1983 – June 10th 1983
WON (unrecognised): Three days after dropping the strap, the NWA returned it to Flair, explaining that Jovica had won with his feet on the ropes, leading to a u-turn on his title victory.
LOST: Back to reigns recognised by the NWA, Flair lost the belt after nearly two years. To end his 631-day reign, Harley Race beat Flair at a St. Louis, Missouri house show in a two out of three falls encounter when lifting his shoulder after a bridging German suplex by “Naitch”. The switch was partly done to build to Starrcade where Flair would seek redemption.
6. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (6)
Date: November 24th 1983 – March 20th 1984
WON: Ric Flair’s sixth reign (but only his officially-recognised second reign) started at professional wrestling’s first closed-circuit televisual event. In the main event of Starrcade, a returning Ric Flair—back from having his neck broken—defeated NWA champion Harley Race, winning with an uncharacteristic diving cross body block.
LOST (unrecognised): In an odd turn of events, Flair would drop the belt in March. During a tour of New Zealand, Race racked up an unprecedented eighth reign. According to Dick Bourne’s book Ten Pounds of Gold, the decision was made by promotor Steve Rickard to help improve business.
7. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (7)
Date: March 23rd 1984 – May 6th 1984
WON: Ric Flair promptly regained the belt from Harley Race in Singapore. There is some question as to whether Flair really won the belt back or if he was simply given the belt back in line with promotional material and defended it as if the events three days earlier never occurred. The NWA had reportedly never sanctioned the title change in the first place.
LOST: In Texas Stadium in front of 45,000 fans, Flair lost the belt to Kerry Von Erich. The match main evented a card in the memory of brother David. Winning via backslide in the main event match, the crowd went electric for the win before Von Erich symbolically held up the belt, a yellow rose, and the Texas state flag.
8. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (8)
Date: May 24th 1984 – July 26th 1986
WON: The miracle reign was not to last long for Kevin Von Erich. After no-showing events, the NWA decided they needed a reliable champion, which Ric certainly was. As such, just 18 days after winning it, Von Erich dropped the strap to Flair in Yokosuka City, Japan after being pinned with an O’Connor roll. The referee did not notice that KVE’s foot was on the bottom rope.
LOST: Flair would hold the belt for over two years uninterrupted. Whilst champion, he would introduce the famous $35,000 “Big Gold” title design, retiring the NWA design. Working primarily for Jim Crockett Promotions, he lost the belt in 1986 at the Greensboro Coliseum during the promotion’s Great American Bash tour. Facing Dusty Rhodes, he was beaten by “The Son Of A Plumber” when he countered a bodyslam into a sloppy-looking small package.
9. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (9)
Date: August 9th 1986 – September 25th 1987
WON: Soon enough, Flair ripped the prize back when he beat Dusty at a live event. The win can be chalked up to events that had happened two days earlier when champion Rhodes had his leg seriously injured by a well-placed chair shot from Four Horsemen member Tully Blanchard. Fixated on the bandaged leg, Flair eventually forced Rhodes unconscious from the pain of his figure-four leglock, his first known title win using the move.
LOST: One of the most profitable world champions of all time, Flair again reigned over the NWA like he had before he last dropped the belt, ruling the wrestling roost for over a year. Strangely, Flair would not drop the belt to a major star but rather career mid-carder Ronnie Garvin. “Hands of Stone” won the belt in a match televised on World Wide Wrestling, pinning Flair after a diving sunset flip.
10. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (10)
Date: November 26th 1987 – February 20th 1989
WON: Garvin—42 and never before a top star—was only ever a transitional champion so Flair could win the belt back at JCP’s biggest event Starrcade. As such, when the company’s flagship show came about, Flair regained the strap, throwing Garvin face-first into the steel cage before covering him for the victory.
LOST: Flair again held the strap for over a year, during which time Ted Turner purchased JCP and renamed it World Championship Wrestling. After being pinned by Ricky Steamboat in his NWA return, he lost his world title to “The Dragon” in the first of their epic clashes at Chi-Town Rumble when he countered the figure-four into an inside cradle.
11. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (11)
Date: May 7th 1989 – July 7th 1990
WON: In their second high-profile encounter of 1989, incumbent Steamboat prevailed, although a contentious ending with “The Dirtiest Player In The Game”’s foot under the bottom rope prompted calls for a rematch. At WrestleWar, the challenger became champion again as Flair countered a slam into an inside cradle, a callback to the famous finish of Steamboat’s WrestleMania III match against Randy Savage.
LOST: Yet again, Flair held the belt for well over 365 days. 1990’s Great American Bash Pay-Per-View was the culmination of a long-running feud between Sting and Ric Flair. Once allies, an overly paranoid Flair betrayed the young upstart, leading to a fiery rivalry. Sting overcame Flair, putting him away with an inside cradle when reversing an attempted figure-four.
12. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (12) / 13. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (1)
Date: January 11th 1991– March 21st 1991 / July 1st 1991
WON: This is where things start to get complex. With Sting being a poor draw as champion, Ric Flair won the belt back. At a January 11th house show in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Flair won the Big Gold Belt for a historic eighth reign, pinning Sting as the referee was out of position to see “The Icon”’s foot on the ropes. With the win, Flair was recognised as the NWA champion and the inaugural WCW champion, both titles represented by the same physical belt.
LOST (NWA): Flair lost the title belt at the WCW/NJPW supershow Starrcade in Tokyo Dome to Japanese star and IWGP titleholder Tatsumi Fujinami. In his book, Flair referred to the finish as a “Dusty finish…with a new twist.” Pinning Flair with an abdominal stretch manoeuvre, the NWA did recognise the title change in the US although WCW did not, citing Fujinami’s throwing of Flair over the ropes as cause for disqualification.
14. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (13)
Date: May 19th 1991 – September 8th 1991
WON: At SuperBrawl I in May, Flair won back his NWA title in a title-for-title encounter. Working as the de facto face in the match, “The Dirtiest Player in the Game” prevailed over his foreign foe by pinning him with a schoolboy whilst holding the tights. The match would notably be Flair’s final WCW PPV main event in this run, talking of which…
LOST: On July 1st, Flair was stripped of the WCW title on the same day he was fired. Flair had long clashed heads with WCW Executive Vice President Jim Herd, with Herd—feeling Flair was too old—wanting him to change his gimmick to a Roman gladiator, drop out of the main event scene, and slash his pay in half. One day before he turned up on WWF screens, he was stripped of the NWA belt on September 8th.
15. WWF World Championship (1)
Date: January 19th 1992 – April 5th 1992
WON: When Ric Flair landed in the World Wrestling Federation in late 1991, he was immediately presented as a top star. In December 1991, the WWF belt was held up after contentious title changes, with the championship being awarded to the 1992 Royal Rumble winner. After entering at number three and lasting over an hour, Flair eliminated Sid Justice to emerge victorious. This made him only the second man to hold both the NWA and WWF World Heavyweight Championships, after fellow “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers. He famously opined afterwards: “With a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment in my life.”
LOST: At WrestleMania VIII, Flair was challenged by babyface favourite Randy Savage. After a heated feud over Savage’s valet Miss Elizabeth, the two faced off in one of two of the show’s main events. “The Macho Man” was able to dethrone Flair, using a schoolboy to roll up Ric.
16. WWF World Championship (2)
Date: September 1st 1992 – October 12th 1992
WON: Now divorced from on-screen companion Elizabeth, Savage’s backstage antics allegedly became increasingly irrational and unprofessional. The belt was thus returned to Flair either to serve as a transitional champion or at least as someone reliable until a suitable face of the company could be found. On a September edition of Prime Time Wrestling, Flair capitalised on a previous leg injury, locking the figure-four on Savage until he became unconscious and the three was counted as his shoulders lay on the mat.
LOST: A month later, Ric Flair, working injured, lost the belt at a TV taping in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Having consistently put on thrilling matches and growing in popularity, the company put the belt on Bret Hart. It also helped that he was not using performance-enhancement drugs amidst much talk about steroid use within the wrestling industry. Oddly, the match was not broadcast on television and not widely seen until the release of the Smack ‘Em Whack ‘Em home video, long after “The Hitman” had dropped the title.
17. NWA World Heavyweight Championship (14) / 18. WCW International World Heavyweight Championship (1)
Date: July 18th 1993 – September 15th 1993 / September 19th 1993
WON: In early 1993, Ric Flair left the WWE, unhappy with his position in the company. After waiting out his no-compete clause, he made a grand return to WCW, picking up the NWA title belt in his in-ring PPV return. In the event, he defeated former Four Horseman stablemate Barry Windham at Beach Blast. In a slightly awkward finish, Flair pinned Windham in the figure-four with Blackjack Mulligan’s son raising his shoulder immediately after three.
LOST: On September 1st, WCW withdrew from the NWA although the Alliance continued to recognise Flair as the champion. Two weeks later, the organisation sought a restraining order to prevent WCW using the NWA name for their belt. The same belt was now renamed the WCW International title, which Flair lost on September 19th to Rick Rude at the Fall Brawl PPV after “Ravishing” Rick knocked out Flair with a loaded fist.
19. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (2)
Date: December 27th 1993 – April 17th 1994
WON: The dependency on Flair was again shown at Starrcade 1993. After Sid Vicious, the original choice to challenge WCW champion Vader, was suspended for stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair of scissors, Flair was placed in the bout against “The Mastodon”. Advertised as a title versus career match, the show main-evented the ‘one match card’, with Flair chop blocking and then pinning Vader in a roll-up for the win.
LOST (unrecognised): Flair’s belt was vacated after a controversial finish at the Spring Stampede PPV. At that event, Steamboat performed a dragon suplex, pinning Flair’s shoulders to the mat. At the same time, his own shoulders were not lifted off the canvas. WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel thus ruled that the title was vacant and would be awarded to the winner of a title rematch.
20. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (3)
Date: April 21st 1994 – July 17th 1994
WON: In a rematch held on WCW Saturday Night, Flair defeated Steamboat to regain the belt. The closing sequence of the encounter saw a rebounding Flair collide with Steamboat’s mid-section, incapacitating “The Dragon” for the three count.
LOST: In a historic clash at 1994’s Bash At the Beach, Flair dropped the belt to WCW’s immense new signing: Hulk Hogan. Like so many before him, “Naitch” fell foul of a “Hulkster” big boot and Legdrop of Doom.
21. WCW International World Heavyweight Championship (2)
Date: June 23rd 1994 – June 23rd 1994
WON: At Clash of the Champions XXVII, WCW champion Ric Flair battled WCW International champion Sting in the main event to unify the straps. At one crucial point, an outside dive by Sting struck down Flair’s valet Sherri Martel. As Sting checked on “Sensational” Sherri, Flair rolled up “The Stinger”, grabbing the tights and dirtily winning both belts.
LOST: The reign lasted less than a day, with the International Belt being retired post-unification.
22. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (4)
Date: December 27th 1995 – January 22nd 1996
WON: After defeating both Lex Luger and Sting in a three-way dance affair, Flair earned the right to challenge WCW World Heavyweight Champion Randy Savage in the main event of flagship PPV Starrcade. In the main event, Flair was able to defeat the injured Savage after help from the reunited Four Horsemen, including Arn Anderson striking the champion with brass knuckles.
LOST: Savage won the belt back shortly after on the January 22nd edition of Nitro from Las Vegas, Nevada. Behind the referee’s back, Flair held Savage in place for a loaded fist by Arn but “Macho Man” ducked, meaning “The Enforcer” hit his own man. After a diving elbow drop, Savage covered for the win in the first WCW world title change in Nitro’s history.
23. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (5)
Date: February 11th 1996 – April 22nd 1996
WON: Less than a month after losing the title belt to Savage, Flair regained it in a steel cage. Taking place at SuperBrawl VI, Flair was able to vanquish the champion when long-time valet Elizabeth turned heel on the incumbent titleholder. “The First Lady of Wrestling” gifted Flair her heeled shoe, which Flair clocked Savage with, winning the belt.
LOST: On the 15th April Nitro, Flair and The Giant teamed to challenge Lex Luger and Sting for the tag belts but failed after Flair threw coffee in the future Big Show’s eyes. The next week, the two clashed in a match for Flair’s belt. After Flair knocked out the seven-footer with a loaded fist, he locked in the figure-four. The Giant then arose and grabbed Flair by the throat, choke-slamming him and winning his second world title.
24. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (6)
Date: March 14th 1999 – April 11th 1999
WON: After dropping it to The Giant, Flair had to wait almost three years to win the strap again. He did so from Hollywood Hogan at the Uncensored PPV event in an overbooked ‘First Blood’ steel cage match; had Flair won, he would be WCW President for life; had he lost, he would be forced to retire. Although Flair bled first, he used his status as WCW President to prevent the referee from ending the match. In typical WCW fashion, despite being ‘First Blood’ rules, Flair won by pinfall, with the referee fast-counting an unconscious Hogan, who was locked in the figure-four.
LOST: 15 days later at the Spring Stampede PPV, Flair was pinned by Diamond Dallas Page after a Diamond Cutter in a Four Corners match also involving Sting and Hogan. The assist should go to special guest referee Randy Savage, who hit Flair with a diving elbow drop. It was DDP’s first World Championship.
25. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (7)
Date: May 15th 2000 – May 22nd 2000
WON: The WCW championship belt switched hands a total of 26 times in the year 2000, so naturally Flair must have won it at some point! On the May 15th Nitro, Vince Russo and David Flair raided Ric Flair’s house before being ambushed by WCW champion Jeff Jarrett, setting up a match for later in the night. In the match, Jarrett threw Flair off the ropes and attempted a backdrop, countered by Ric into a small package that got the three count.
LOST: After Flair suffered what Russo called a brain aneurysm on WCW b-show Thunder, on-screen authority figure Vince Russo held a segment ‘commemorating’ the death of Flair’s career. During this, with the physical belt now in his possession, he bestowed the title back to “the chosen one” Jeff Jarrett.
26. WCW World Heavyweight Championship (8)
Date: May 29th 2000 – May 29th 2000
WON: Sadly for a man with several year-spanning title reigns, his last was not spectacular. A day after “The Nature Boy” was stripped of the belt, Kevin Nash won the belt on Thunder. On the next Nitro, Nash gave it back to Flair, explaining how he felt he should return it as Ric never lost it. He proclaimed: “As far as I’m concerned, ‘til you lose this belt “Nature Boy”, this belt is yours.”
LOST: Sadly for Flair, he would lose it to Jeff Jarrett in the main event. Chincannery was obviously involved, with Jarrett whacking Flair with his trustee guitar. As the Flair family watched on, Russo threw on a referee’s shirt and counted the pin. On this occasion, the 1-2-3 closed the book on a storied history of world title wins for an all-time icon.
Questions, Controversies, and Contentious Results
So there is how Ric Flair won and lost his 26 world titles. Yet, to claim that he is exactly a 26-title titleholder is certainly not a black-and-white matter.
Famously, the WWE claims he is a record 16-time champion.
By his own count, Flair is a 21-time world champion and has repeatedly claimed so. To get this figure we must include a WCW title reign the WWE does not acknowledge, his two WCW International reigns that are overlooked, plus his overseas losses to Harley Race and Tatsumi Fujinami, which totals 21.
Although 26 is often portrayed as being at the very high end of an estimate, there are also controversial title losses Flair had to the likes of Wahoo McDaniel, Mark Lewin, and Bruiser Brody.
Whether it is 16, 21, 26, or any other number, it is fair to say that few—if any—have a record that truly stands up compared to Ric Flair’s.
